Authors Note: Sorry for the break between chapters. I started back up at school which through my schedule off a bit. I will hopefully have another chapter next week.
Disclaimer: I obviously don't own Skins because, if I did, it would have been six seasons of Naomily.
She loved being in the trees. The smell of the leaves. The gentle breeze flowing through the branches. And the quiet. Oh, the quiet. She swore that, if she climbed high enough, it was like nothing existed but her and the wind. Emily smiled slightly at that thought. Having a twin meant that things were never just her and having a twin like Katie meant that things were never quiet.
Emily supposed it wasn't all that surprising considering the circumstances of their birth.
Their mother had been the daughter of the village leader and their father, the it's greatest hunter. The marriage of Jenna and Rob was heralded by all the town as the perfect union and, when Jenna found herself to be pregnant just six months later, all the townspeople celebrated the coming of a new member to the Fitch legacy.
On the night Jenna went into labor the whole town gathered round, waiting anxiously. Katie arrived in spectacular fashion, screaming her head off and demanding everyone's attention. The midwife cleaned her up and handed her to Rob, who barely had time to see his daughter before she was swept into the arms of Jenna's father and brought before the people of the village. Upon seeing the tiny girl, the villagers let out a great cheer, laughing as Katie joined her voice to the mix. Caught up in their festivities, not one of them noticed that Jenna was not yet done.
Just six minutes later though another tiny girl arrived. Although they shared a face, this girl was as different as could be from her brash older sister. Little Emily did not cry, but rather lay calmly in her father's arms, quiet and content.
After being passed from person to person, attention lavished upon her by the whole town, Katie was brought back into her family's home, her faced scrunched up and red, and her lungs pouring out her displeasure. Rob cooed softly to Katie as he laid the girls side by side in their crib. Katie's cries lessened slightly at his gentle tone, but it wasn't until Emily's tiny fingers brushed her own that she calmed completely. Sending up a prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of these two precious lives, Rob looked down at his little girls and vowed that he would never let any harm come to them.
Emily's eyes welled as she remembered how often he would tell Katie and her of that promise. He kept it too, she thought, until the very end. She could feel that familiar sense of melancholy starting to hit her and she shook her head, as if to physically throw off her sadness.
She glanced at the sky briefly. There wasn't too much time before the rest of her little band would be awake. Better make the most of it, she thought to herself. She stood up on the branch on which she had been lounging. Time to find some breakfast.
With all the ease and skill of an acrobat, Emily climbed swiftly down the tree until she was about halfway to the ground. She assessed the surrounding trees quickly, picking out her target. Without looking back she launched herself toward her chosen branch. She landed lightly, barely pausing before leaping again. She continued to run from branch to branch, tree to tree, her teeth flashing as she grinned.
Finally she paused when she reached a tree that seemed suitable. She looked down searchingly. There. She smiled widely as she saw the jackrabbit emerging from a hole at the base of the tree. Another followed quickly behind it. Silently she pulled two long, thin arrows from the quiver on her back. She took the shots quickly feeling pleased with herself as she saw each of them hit their marks.
She jumped down from the tree, eager to claim her prize. The rabbits were big - over two feet long - and Emily's mouth watered at the thought of stew with actual meat. She quickly trussed up the animals, making sure to wrap them so she wouldn't leave a blood trail that would invite animals - or other predators - to follow.
It didn't take Emily long to get back to where they were camped. Katie often questioned how she was able to move through the trees and then come right back to where she started. Emily could never fully explain it. She had always had an impeccable sense of direction, but it was more than that. It was like she could feel the energy left in a place and so she was always able to find her way back to where she wanted to be. Even now she could sense that she was close to her sister and her friends, like invisible ties where pulling her towards them.
Emily made her way into the little clearing, smiling at the blonde girl tending the fire. "Alright, Panda?"
The other girl looked up suddenly and grinned back. "Yeah, whizzer, Ems. How was the flying?"
Emily laughed and rolled her eyes, "You know I can't really fly. It's just a lot of jumping."
"If you say so, Ems. All I know is when I tried it, I did more falling." Panda was absentmindedly stirring a pot of what looked like the start of a vegetable stew all the while sneaking glances toward where the rest of the group was sleeping. Occasionally she would sigh and smile dreamily.
Emily's lips twitched slightly. It wasn't exactly a secret that Panda fancied Thomas. Everyone knew. Everyone except Thomas. Emily couldn't really blame her - he was a lovely boy after all - she just hoped that Panda wasn't going to get her heart broken. Deciding a distraction was in order, she held up her rabbits. "Care to add a bit of something to that stew?"
Panda shrieked her approval, practically leaping over the fire to snatch the animals. She did a little dance of excitement as she brought the rabbits over to her makeshift table to clean them.
"Nice work, Emilio man!"
Emily turned around to see her best friend emerging from the shelter he had set up. "'Bout time you got your lazy arse out of bed, Cook." Emily shot at him without any real malice.
"It's important to have beauty sleep, innit?" He said with a cocky grin.
"Especially when you're as ugly as you." She grinned back as he held a hand to his heart and stumbled back as though wounded.
He made his way over to her and slung an arm around her shoulder, guiding her attention to where Thomas had emerged and was now helping Panda clean the rabbits. "Reckon that's a goer?" He asked softly.
Emily shrugged. "Hard to tell. Can't get a read on Thomas."
Thomas was new to their little group. They had stumbled across him in the woods six months back where he was surviving off the land. A nasty run-in with a pack of wolves had recently left him with a badly infected leg. Panda's medicines took care of his infection quickly enough and, once his leg was healed up, he had proved to be a valuable member of their ragtag little band. His knowledge of edible plants and ability to lay snares and traps had on more than one occasion kept them from going hungry. Yet in all that time, Emily still hadn't been able to learn much about him. He was quiet almost to the point of being secretive. Strangely enough it was Katie who had bonded with him. She was as loud as he was quiet but, after discovering that they both spoke French, the two of them would sit for hours chatting softly in the melodic language. At first Emily had worried that Katie's bond with Thomas and Panda's clear infatuation with him would create a problem, but Katie seemed to see Thomas as the older brother she'd never had.
Emily watched now as his white teeth gleamed in contrast with his dark skin when he smiled. His eyes sparkled as he looked down at Panda and he chuckled softly at whatever she had said to him. Perhaps there was a chance for her, Emily thought. She was pulled back to the conversation as she heard the end of Cook's sentence.
"-after all, Cookie's always happy to lend little Cookie to help out a bird in need." He waggled his tongue at Emily. "Oi!" He shouted as she cuffed him on the back of the head. "Alright, alright. I know. Birds in the family are off limits, but, I tell ya, Red. Cookie needs some action something fierce."
"I know, Cook." Emily sighed. "We'll be stopping over at the next village and you can find a girl there. You know the rules though-"
"Yeah, yeah. Only single girls." Cook looked at her with a face-splitting grin. "It's just so hard to turn 'em all away!"
Emily rolled her eyes and turned toward where she knew her sister was sleeping. She prodded at Katie's sleeping form with the toe of her boot. Katie barely stirred, causing Emily to push harder.
"Piss off, bitch." The grumbled words came from under the blanket.
"Fine. More rabbit stew for me then."
Katie shot upright, her deep brown eyes locking with Emily's identical pair. "Meat? There's actual meat?" At Emily's nod she jumped up, blinking the last remnants of sleep from her eyes. She looked critically at her little sister. "What are you so happy about?"
Emily shrugged. "I don't know. I just have a feeling something important is going to happen soon. I think things are going to finally start coming together."
Katie frowned slightly. "I hope so." She looked around the clearing taking in their friends. Her shoulders slumped a little. "I don't know how much longer we can do this, Ems. We can't outrun them forever; we need answers."
Emily squeezed her shoulder. "I know. We'll find them soon enough."
The five of them spent longer than normal on breakfast, enjoying the feeling of being full for the first time in weeks. Emily stared into the fire into the fire pensively following the journey of the sparks as they travelled out of the flames and up toward the sky finally disappearing as they as the hit the cool air of the morning. She knew that they should be packing up and moving on. They were camped just outside a village where they could get some desperately needed supplies. They all knew that they needed to go into town, but it was hard to be motivated when they had been run out of so many already. Maybe they would get lucky this time and word wouldn't have travelled this far.
She sighed internally; time to rally the troops. "Alright, gang, to work." Her tone was forcedly cheerful.
"What's the plan then, Emsy?" Panda asked.
Emily paused for a moment as she mentally ran through the strategy she'd come up with early that morning as she scouted the village. "We split up. If word has spread this far, they're less likely to recognize us individually. Katie, you'll take the eastern and northern sections of town; Cook, the south and west. Thomas and Panda, you gather the supplies we need. I will take the center of the village. We meet at the edge of the western forest in two hours. Any questions?" She looked around making eye contact with each of them and receiving a nod in return. "Good. Let's hope our luck has changed."
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