Heart of Darkness

-o-o-o-o-o-

Chapter 7: Forest Discoveries

-o-o-o-o-o-

Gloyd parked the Kernel, retrieved the pink tarp from between the rocks, and covered up his kart. He'd started concealing it more thoroughly. Someone walking right past would notice something, but anyone at a distance or in the air wouldn't see it at all. Then he went into the forest, walking the tiny trail he was beginning to wear in the direction of the shelter. Perhaps that was another thing he should avoid. Quickly he jumped off the trail and walked a different route.

But before he even saw them, he heard the screams of Minky and Impy. Immediately he grabbed up a candy cane branch that had fallen at the edge of the meadow, adrenaline surging into his bloodstream.

Suddenly Minky and Impy burst out of the trees on the far side of the meadow, the two candy girls running hard to escape their pursuer. "The Glitch!" Gloyd gasped.

There she was, the unwanted black-haired waif, chasing them across the meadow and gaining quickly. When they'd first come to the forest he'd wondered if the girls would have any trouble from her. And he had been right to worry, for now here she was harassing them.

Gloyd ran an intercept course, and coming between the pursuer and the pursued he skidded to a halt and raised the branch, brandishing it aggressively. "Leave them alone!" he yelled. "Don't you dare touch them!"

The Glitch skittered to a stop and faced him. "Hey! I wasn't hurting them. We were just playing." Her body suddenly blurred with a burst of static and pixels and then shifted back into her normal appearance just as quickly.

Gloyd winced. It was uncomfortable watching her glitch. "Playing?"

"We were just playing," explained Impy, she and her sister coming up behind Gloyd. All three girls were panting for breath.

"We met Vanellope yesterday."

"She's an outcast like us," said Impy, patting Gloyd's hip. The girls then ran over to Vanellope and each took one of her arms. "See. She's our friend."

Gloyd realized he was still holding up the branch to strike and he lowered it. "But she's the Glitch. We're supposed to stay away from her. King Candy says," he told them.

"King Candy says a lot of things," retorted Vanellope acidly. "He also says the Evolved are criminals and executes them."

"That's right!" Minky hugged Vanellope tightly.

"She's like us," Impy restated.

The girls had a point. There really wasn't much difference between the Glitch and the lollipop pair. The three were sister outlaws.

Gloyd tossed aside the branch. "Then why were you chasing them?"

"We really were just playing," explained Impy. "It was just a game."

"Gloyd! Vanellope showed us something out here. We have to show you!" Minky said, quickly changing the subject.

"What is it?"

"It's a bit of a walk from here, but its a house. Somewhere we can live."

Gloyd raised an eyebrow. "There aren't any houses out here. All the houses are close to town."

"There is one."

He narrowed his eyes at Vanellope. "Is this one of your jokes?"

"Is this one of your jokes?" she mimicked him.

"Fine," he huffed.

"Fine."

Gloyd gave her a dirty look. And then he walked toward where the twins were beckoning.

"This way Gloyd!" they called cheerfully to him.

And so they rambled along through the forest, Gloyd walking hand in hand with his girls, the Glitch following along. Her presence made him somewhat nervous. But Minky and Impy were right. She was one of them, an outcast of the kingdom.

"Hey, these girls said you're their boyfriend," Vanellope said with a bit of a questioning, teasing tone.

"They're candy-citizens. You know that candy-citizens and racers don't mix."

"Then why are you holding hands with them?"

"Um...so I don't get lost." Gloyd suddenly felt bad. He'd just denied the thing most important to the girls when there was really no reason to conceal the relationship from the Glitch. He stopped and scooped them in close in a big hug. "They are my girlfriends, and I don't care if it's wrong or weird." He held them tight and the pair kissed his cheeks.

"Thank you, Gloyd," they giggled.

"So you really are their boyfriend," grinned the Glitch.

"Yeah. Shame you don't have a boyfriend," he retorted.

She pouted. "Maybe I don't want one." The left half of her body blurred for a moment into digital streaks.

"You'll find one someday," Impy assured her, looking back over her shoulder at Vanellope. "Someone like Gloyd who doesn't mind that you're different."

Suddenly Gloyd felt humbled. The innocence and acceptance of the two girls had undone him once more. He'd thought of himself as their teacher. But now he realized he had so much to learn from them.

-o-o-o-o-o-

After an hour of walking they came to the place the girls had spoken of. Deep in the pine locum forest, on the back side of a ridge from one of the tracks, was a large gingerbread cabin in much disrepair. The door hung off of its hinges. Some of the windowpanes were broken and quite a few shingles littered the ground. But the structure was sturdy and more sheltering than the rock outcropping. "We could live here, couldn't we?" Impy chirped.

"I suppose." And then he looked at Vanellope. "This isn't where you live, is it?"

"Nope. I have my little hidey-hole a good ways from here."

Minky led him in and they looked around. There was a large room joined by a kitchen and a bathroom on the main floor. And from there a stairway led up to a loft furnished with a bed and a dresser. All the furniture seemed to be in good repair, if dusty.

"See! We'd have a house of our own," giggled Impy. "We can fix the door and the holes in the roof, right?"

"I suppose we could. Are you sure you girls really want to live here?"

"We do!" squealed Minky. "Would we have shown you if we didn't want to?"

"You'll be my neighbors," grinned Vanellope. "We can hang out and hate King Candy together."

"I'd rather spend my time doing something positive," Minky replied.

"Oh yes," joined in Impy. "I've got so much more to learn."

"Me too! I need to work on my drawing, and there's a big table here to work on," Minky said, going to it.

"Yes, and I can play my harp here where only you all will hear me."

Gloyd smirked. "All right. We can live here," he agreed.

-o-o-o-o-o-

They walked back to the overhang, gathered their things, and then carried them back to the cabin. Then the four of them set about dusting and sweeping and cleaning the interior of the place. Vanellope's thorny resistance had faded, and Gloyd found that she could actually be quite helpful and pleasant. She and the girls really had become fast friends, and she worked just as hard as they did to get the cabin into reasonable shape.

And over the next few nights they continued the work of making the cabin a more liveable place. While Gloyd one of them could do much repair work, having neither the right tools or the know-how, they did manage to get the door back on its hinges. They covered the hole in the roof over the loft area with a tarp, deciding that when it snowed or rained they could deal with the dripping water that formed puddles on the floor. As for the broken windows, Gloyd brought in some replacement candy-glass as well as frosting for caulk.

The girls loved playing house once more, and the days spent there were the best days of their lives. Gloyd spent every other night with them, and Vanellope became a regular guest. The girls loved her dearly and treated her like a princess. In fact they made her a crown out of gold foil candy wrappers and insisted that she wear it while around the cabin. Gloyd eventually got used to her glitching, and while it took a while for them to trust each other, they became friends as well. She first had to realize that he wasn't about to torment her or try to capture her like the other racers sometimes did. And he had to realize that she wasn't some broken criminal that lived a troglodyte's life in the forest.

The girls became accustomed to living out in the wilderness, and they worked to make their primitive home more comfortable. Parking well out of sight of the road, Gloyd visited regularly, always eager to see the two lollipop girls. They were always full of stories and surprises for him. Impy's harp was replaced in time with a real one purchased from another game, and she was beginning to compose songs and little ditties on it. Minky's skill with pen and ink was also growing, and her sketchbooks were filling up with artwork and poems and journal entries. Gloyd brought her new ones as the old ones filled, and even managed to find her a dictionary.

And overall, they were happy and at peace.

-o-o-o-o-o-

It would have been a typical Friday evening at the races, had not something seemed off.

"49... 50... 51... 52... Only fifty-two?" Taffyta Muttonfudge asked herself. Had she made some error? Her fans were constantly wiggling around.

She counted again, but on coming up with only fifty-two as before, she crossed her arms and stood angrily. How dare some of them decide not to show up to cheer for her.

And worse yet, this was the third time this week she had counted her fans to find at least two missing.

-o-o-o-o-o-

"Heart of Darkness" continues in Chapter 8: "Strange Behavior"

-o-o-o-o-o-

Wreck-It Ralph and all related concepts, characters, worlds, and events are property of Walt Disney Pictures. Original characters and story elements are property of E. Potter, writing under the pen name of Miratete.