We were camping when we heard it. Like thunder, but not the same. Padfoot jerked to attention, staring in the direction of the sound. I didn't bother with it, thinking it was actual thunder, perhaps echoing off mountains or something else I couldn't see yet. But when he started growling I snapped to attention, pulling out my bow and knocking an arrow. The only times he's growled have been when he perceived a threat. Since he got bigger he became worried by less. Whatever this was, I had a feeling I wouldn't like it.

It got closer and more sound joined it, I was finally able to identify what it was. Horses. Lots of them, moving fast. There might be a road near here. Unless it was wild horses, but I doubt they'd hang around here, doesn't seem like the right environment. I threw my hoodie on once again, slinging my quiver and backpack over it. I tapped Padfoot and he followed behind me, still growling, while I put on the hood. It wasn't long before it got too close to be ignored. We were surrounded before I realized the slight evenness of the dirt probably was the road. I drank in the sight of other human being, examining them closely. Medieval. Leather clothing for all weather, swords in scabbards, scraggly long hair and beards.

The horses stopped, not going close to Padfoot. They looked at one another in silence before the one with the most white hair nudged his horse a few steps forward. His eyebrows were a bit on the bushy side, and they were raised at me. My muscles tensed, ready to draw and fire at a moment's notice. Then he opened his mouth.

"You are taking this cosplay stuff a little too far."

I dropped the bow. I'm not yet completely hardened by this sort of life. So I let the surprise rob me of my weapon. Well surprise and familiar words and accents.

"Cosplay?" Ohh, voice a bit scratchy, apparently I haven't been rambling at the dog enough. He looked at me like I was an idiot.

"Yeah, weren't you one of the ones who wandered off from the village a few miles away? We've been searching for the guys for a while, the van's coming soon to take 'em back to Juno."

...cosplay? Van? Juno? As in Alaska? But…

I kicked the arrow lying abandoned on the ground, swearing viciously, as I ripped the hood off.

"That bastard lied to me!"

The 'Truth', huh? Dirty rotten fucking liar…

The man's brow furrowed,

"Who lied to you? Are you alone here?"

I pointed to Padfoot, who hadn't stopped growling at the cosplayers.

"Just me and this guy."

The man rolled his eyes,

"Yeah, lovely guy ya got there. Anyway, I'm Kyle, this is Rick, Gordon is on the darker horse there on your left, with Juan to his right. And then of course there's Tommy boy, who stayed behind with the wagons a ways back. And you would be?"

I sagged a bit, beating myself up on the inside and pushing back furious tears. I stayed in the wilderness for a bit more than a year because a hallucination creature from an anime I hadn't seen in forever told me I was in another dimension and dropped me in some trees? Damnit I'm an idiot. I was too busy steaming to notice the one they called Gordon dismount his horse until he touched my shoulder. I immediately shied away from the contact, eyeing him warily. He was the youngest of the group, no grey hair at all, smile wide and bright, facial hair not nearly as bushy and overwhelming.

I took a step away from him, Padfoot getting between us.

"I'm Holly."

They didn't give a last name, so I wouldn't either.

Juan grinned,

"Ah, I get it. Holly berries are red, and so is your hair!"

I rolled my eyes,

"No. That...that isn't it. My grandmother was at Woodstock, if that tells you anything about her. She got to choose."

That got a laugh from Kyle and Gordon, but the other two just stared at me blankly. I let it go, shifting nervously on my feet.

"Um, if you could just point me in the direction of this camp I'd be much obliged…"

Gordon, the creeptastic fuck, was close to me again.

"Why don't we just take you there?"

I took yet another step back, foot brushing the edge of the river.

"No, no, I could find it myself. As it is you have those other guys to find so they won't miss their van."

My mistake was thinking Gordon was the threat. I should have watched Rick. A cloth was pressed to my nose and I resisted breathing in, swatting backwards with my hands, trying to reach an arrow so I could stab him or something. Padfoots growls had turned to full grown furious barks. I saw him lunge at Gordon just before it all went dark.

When I woke up it was to the sound of a dog's whining, coming from a slight distance. I opened my eyes with difficulty, they felt filled with sandpaper, just like my throat. I tried to rub them, only to realize my hands were tied quite effectively behind my back. What. The actual. Fuck.

Any last trace of drowsiness was gone, and I scanned the room, finding Padfoot was also trussed up, muzzled and tied to a board of some kind. We hit a bump and I realized that I wasn't dizzy, we were actually moving, then again, maybe it was both. That wagon they mentioned was real then. I wasn't alone. There were several other females in the place, none actually dressed like I was, in clothes reminiscent of modern day civilization. All were in the types of dresses one would expect from the middle ages, though some were more rumpled than others. I struggled up into a sitting position, core muscles protesting. All the other women were looking at me strangely, though somes eyes darted from me to the dog, fear prevalent.

I thumped my head against the side of the wagon in frustration, ruffling my hair in the process and not particularly caring if I looked a bit demonic at the moment. I turned to the girl to my immediate right, she was wearing a plain brown dress, her hair also brown and hanging down past her waist. Her face was pale, her skin tone frustrating clear. I freckle stupidly because of this damn red hair. I raised an eyebrow at her,

"Any idea where we're headed?"

Her eyes went wide and she shrank away from me, bumping into the person on her other side. Most of them were avoiding me, and I found it a bit ridiculous. If this was the cosplay people then they were taking it too seriously. Then again, did I really believe this was cosplay? It was kind of in their favor that they actually spoke English and even knew the word 'cosplay'.

But what were they cosplaying? Was this just a renaissance fair that was getting a bit out of hand?

I struggled with the ropes for a bit, twisting and checking the tightness on the knot. Tight. Very much so. My circulatory system wasn't liking it. The twisting around was already starting to burn, and skin was most likely broken even this early on in the struggle. I sighed, hitting my head against the side of the wagon again, this time with less force, attempting to clear my mind a bit. There was a rustle and Padfoots tail thumped. I looked over at him and saw sad brown eyes. Shit, guilt trip. There was nothing I could do for him, but it still ached that I was sitting here without even trying.

I thought about kicking up a fuss, but drawing attention to myself was probably not wise at this point. We moved for what seemed like hours. There was no stopping until the sun had almost completely disappeared, but I'd woken at around noon so who knows how long we'd actually been moving. I could have been out for days, or only minutes, and it wasn't like these girls were going to give me details. Rick appeared when we stopped, dragging us out and guiding us toward the camp. I glared at Rick.

"What the hell is going on?"

There were more men around, not just the ones who had captured me. The new ones were the only ones who stiffened like the women had when I spoke. Perhaps that was against the rule or something.

I sneered at a familiar one,
"This 'game' of yours has gone too far."

He grinned cheerfully,

"Oh, but it hasn't. There is no game."

I frowned at him, wondering for his sanity.

"What the hell are you talking about?"
Gordon swanned up from beside the fire, spreading his arms to motion around us.

"We aren't cosplayers. It was a brilliant scheme to get you newbies to cooperate, but show's over now."

I scowled at him,

"What the fuck do you mean 'not cosplayers', you're camping in the woods and carrying swords."
He smiled at me, eyes cold and never leaving mine when he spoke next. It was a random string of rough syllables that made no sense whatsoever. It would have solidified my thoughts about their sanity if one of the new men from by the fire hadn't answered in the same sort of pattern of speech.

My mind was already putting it together when Kyle approached. He unbuckled his sword from his belt, a great bejeweled thing that looked too heavy to be useful, and threw it down on a nearby patch of grass.

"Holly, we normally wouldn't do the cliche of explaining this all to you but it would be so much easier for us if you just gave in and accepted the truth."

He motioned at the four that had found me,

"We, are all that is left of those who fell through the worlds. All that fanfiction you probably read in all your teenage girliness, sometimes shit like that happens. You see, we fell into this world and found familiar geography, and terms, and races, like what we'd only read in books, or in most of our cases, saw in the movies or the games. But people kept falling through, less and less as time went on. But oh, they were ripe for the picking. Lost, naive, looking for any explanation for suddenly being somewhere else for no reason. But they all fall in the same stretch of forest at the same time of year, and they're oh so happy to accept anything we say, right up until they're sold for a profit."

What. The. Fuck.

"They're all so soft, and pampered, and pretty compared to the people of this world because of the easy lives they lived back home. They fetch such a nice price. But they've tapered off over the years. We figured it was done for good and we'd have to settle for the normal slave trade, but lookie you, the golden goose coming along, our last off worlder. And such exotic coloring, too, and so petite, my we got lucky. The dog of yours is also going to be a lovely cash cow as well, exotic breeding, just like you. Perfect to sire a litter with whatever purebreds are popular these days."

I stayed silent for five full seconds, trying to comprehend everything. They were tricking others who fell through, killing them and selling them…

"It's funny actually."

He was laughing, laughing.

"The dog will probably last longer than you will. The softies have never survived more than a few months. Always trying to escape and have their adventure, or committing suicide because they just can't take it here. But who knows, I'm told redheads have quite the temper…"

The other people who knew English were giggling along with him, and any hope I had about finding others from home died. But that 'temper' didn't fail me.

"YOU ABSOLUTE CUNT WAGONS! TRAITORS! HOW DARE YOU CALL YOURSELVES CIVILIZED HUMANS! HOW DARE YOU DO THESE THINGS TO OTHER LIVING BEINGS! YOU FILTHY-"

I was cut off with a sharp slap to the face, snapping my head viciously to the right. The other women shrank away from us, and the men scowled at him, probably for marking up the 'merchandise' those bastards. It was going to bruise, I could feel it, already throbbing.

"Now now, don't be that way, Holly dear."

I snarled viciously, doing a pretty decent impression of Padfoot in my opinion.

"You don't deserve for my behavior to be cordial you slimy bastards."

He tried to put his hand near me again so I spat on his shoes.

He grimaced, taking a step back from me, looking disgusted.

"Just try to get your beauty rest. If you attract a rich enough buyer then your last few weeks will be spent in relative comfort."

The men laughed around the fire, eating and drinking while the sun sank lower into the sky. I thought about protesting loudly and kicking up a fuss, but then I would end up getting hit again, and no one could even tell what I was saying. I couldn't bargain with any of the other men, and the ones that brought me in were too far gone to really consider. They had been selling out their countrymen for years for crying out fucking loud.

I worked at the ropes constantly, scooting surreptitiously closer to Padfoot. I worked my fingers through his fur, attempting to loosen his knots as well. If I could get that damned muzzle off then perhaps he could be convinced to chew through my ropes, yeah, that wouldn't fucking happen. He might drool though, and perhaps I could slip them off...Yeah, that wasn't happening either. Too tight, even with barrels and barrels of drool.

I groaned, burying my face into his fur. This is entirely too ridiculous of a situation to be in. I should have stayed put. Or moved sooner, or at any other time but when I did. Because my timing was absolute shit. I was moping, so I almost missed it. But Padfoot didn't. He'd quieted down when I got close to him. But now the growling was back. There, movement in the trees, the smoke from the campfire was heading straight up into the sky...so there was no wind. Something was here.

~TimeLordOfPie