"Nottingham, Section 9" by Camilla ´Motone´ Whitney

Section 9
I Come Not to Send Peace, but a Sword

When we got back to our camp Chea disappeared. She said that she had a very important idea and that we couldn't accomplish this mission without it. I remembered the stag and got Cooper and Ellison to bring it back to camp. It was still good, though we would need to eat it fast. Ellison took the liberty of readying it for cooking while I looked for anything to supplement. Cooper insisted on coming with me, to "protect me," he claimed, since Ellison was using my sword. As I walked through the forest carrying a bucket, Cooper was smashing apart bushes and trees.

"Did you see the size of that bush! Anyone could've hid in there! Even you!" he said, making a point to mention my anomalous skin and hair every chance he got.
I turned on him. "You're a git," I hissed, pushing testily against his chest, "and you're leaving a trail a mile wide. Even the most drunken Hood out there could track us with the forest in this state, and even if he was drunken blind he could follow the sound of your incessant babbling." Although he was at least four years younger than I, he was much taller.
He was swinging the staff idly between his fingers, nonplussed by my outburst. "I'm hungry." he said. "Are we looking for food or what?" I glared, then continued walking, soon coming across the apple tree.
"Pick those." I said. "Carry them in your cloak. Get a load."
"What about the bucket? Is it just for arm decoration? Or do you plan on whittling it down and making a hat?"
"Shut up," I said. At some point we had tapped into a maple tree, letting the sap run into a bucket, which we had to change periodically. Ellison sent me to do so, using the sap I had retrieved as a base for maple syrup, from which we would then make stew.
"You could've used your knife." I said to Ellison when we returned.
"Would've taken too long." he replied, looking up at us over the strips of meat he was roasting over the newly stoked fire. "Now pour about half of that sap into the Dutch oven, the big one, and add a couple bucketfuls of water. I think we still have some cinnamon..."
The idea of cooking was beyond me, but Ellison was a master. Far more than simply provide energy for our bodies, he had the ability to create from simple, forest-bound ingredients feasts that I'd have balked at during my life as a photosynthesist, but were utterly delicious.
I watched him do it, Cooper helping, and I tried to comprehend how someone could just make something up like that, and have the product be something that made life worth living. After making thin syrup from the sap, he added the chopped apples and let them boil as the meat finished roasting. He kept Cooper on an endless search for ingredients as he added them to the Dutch oven: cinnamon, rosemary, pine nuts, peppers. Cooper was first rummaging through the bags, then chopping up the meat, then searching the shelves; while Ellison reminded me of someone from a children's story, brewing something hideous in a big black cauldron. The aroma which soon arose testified that he was certainly not brewing something hideous.
"I'd never have guessed eating could have been this good." I said as we sat around the fire that night, eating out of wooden bowls with wooden spoons. I thought of Aunt Bonnie's vegetable stew. A flavorless mixture of vegetables boiled until completely limp and sodden. I shuddered at the sudden memory of life from before. "Were you ever a Greenie?" I asked collectively.
"I was." Ellison said. "Born and raised. But one day when I was a kid curiosity overcame me and I sneaked into one of those Pinky food joints. I began going more and more, telling my parents that my darkening skin was merely a tan. They were mortified when they found out the truth. They had my blood tested, found out I had too high an iron count to be photosynthesizing the entire time. They disowned me, and here I am now."
"A what?" said Cooper. I ignored him.
"What about you?" Ellison asked between bites. "What's your story?"
"Yeah," said Cooper pointedly, his previous question forgotten. "What is your story?"
I suddenly realized that they knew nothing of my past, and had politely refrained from asking until now. I also realized how odd I must have looked-a girl, completely white except for my dark eyes, who, though she lived in sunlight and ate meat nearly every day, never darkened or tanned, but remained perfectly white.
"I was a Greenie." I began. "A Purist. My parents-"
"Yes," said a voice from behind me. "Do tell us about them." Chea stepped into the firelight, helped herself to some stew and sat down.
"They're not important." I said.
"So you never even ate until you met us?" Ellison asked.
"No, I did. My aunt tried to force me vegetables, but I never took them. I began staying away at mealtimes so she couldn't accuse me of being an ingrate. That was how all this started."
"How?" asked Chea. I could tell she was dying to know, but had never thought it appropriate to ask until now.
"I was framed for murder." I said simply. "The Hoods knew it couldn't possibly be me, but they didn't care. It made a good story for a slow news day. They didn't care to think that it would make me feared and hated throughout respectable Greenie society. I suppose the radical anti-Pinkists could've taken me in, but there was never time to find out."
"Daemon told me about that." said Ellison quietly. "He said, while he was in a city, he saw a girl being threatened by a Hood. He sniped the Hood with his arrow."
I nodded.
"Daemon this, Hood that." said Cooper brusquely. "Stop interrupting and let her get to the point. So what did you do?"
"I went home to my aunt." I said. "She had my skin painted white & the color sucked from my hair follicles, locked me in my room, and fed me dog food. I will forever be branded for the crime that saved my life. But she made me unrecognizable, and that was a safeguard. I escaped, was picked up by Daemon, and brought here."
"Wait. If she just painted you white, couldn't you have just washed it off? Or," Cooper added with an air of disgust, "have you not had a shower since then?"
My jaw clenched as I glowered at him. "It was tattoo paint, you idiot." Cooper looked questioningly at Ellison.
"I do believe that's the most you've ever spoken all in one go." Chea said offside.
Ellison explained. "They used to give people tattoos by injecting ink into the skin. Finally, a less painful and dangerous method was invented. Tattoo paint. It will stain your skin and never wash off."
"Right." Cooper said.
"I remember that. Daemon warned us beforehand that you were...strange." Chea said. "He told us not to ask questions."
"Alright, Cooper," Ellison said briskly, "Your turn. What's your story?"
"What dya mean, story." Cooper said. "I was born in the forest 14 years ago and have been living here ever since. I've never been a Greenie or met a Hood, whatever those are."
We all stared at him, aghast. He looked rather frightened by our reaction.
"You were born," Chea said falteringly, "at the base camp, and you don't know who the Hoods are?" He shook his head. "It's true." Chea said. "We really are alone. No one else cares."
"Who are your parents?" Ellison asked quickly, cutting Chea off.
"My dad's Captain Thiele, and my mom..." He trailed off, again appalled by our reactions. Chea had paled, I could feel the blood draining from my face, and Ellison was looking at us, alarmed.
"We've kidnapped the leaders son." Chea said faintly. "We're going to get expelled."
"He can't go back now, he knows too much." Ellison added.
"Let's go to bed." Chea said suddenly. "We've had enough drama tonight. Cover up the stew so bugs don't get into it like last time. It's very good, by the way," she added to Ellison. "Tomorrow morning I'll show you what I got while I was gone. I think you'll all agree that it's an invaluable asset we should've thought of much sooner."
"Yeah, yeah." Ellison said, taking the stew off the fire and draping a cloak over it.
We all laid down next to the fire, and Chea whispered to me, "We can also figure out what to do about offspring over there."
Eating in the morning was leisure. We usually just ate fruit and nuts, Ellison never felt like a huge production so soon after waking.
"Good morning, everyone," Chea said pleasantly after emerging from the changing tent (which was more along the lines of curtains hanging from trees.) She was wearing a yellow tank top with a short plaid skirt that easily showed the dagger attached to her thigh. In her hand was a small bag, weighed with its contents.

"Alright, what've you got in the bag." Ellison got straight to the point. Chea meandered about it for a while.
"Oh, just a little something." she said casually, examining her nails.
"We haven't got all day. Remember the note."
"Right," Chea said. She opened the bag and pulled out several pads of green powder and sift-bristled brushes.
"What is that?" Cooper asked.
"Green makeup." she said. "Greenie women use it if they think they're getting too tan and don't want to be mistaken for a Pinky."
"Chea, it's brilliant." Ellison said, shaking her hand ceremoniously.
Cooper pounded his cudgel into the ground angrily. "What are you bloody talking about? What is all this jumbo about Greenies and Pinkies and Hoods? You've been avoiding my questions for days! Now out with it! I didn't come here for a riddle, I came for an adventure, and if you don't answer my questions I'm going back to camp and reporting you!"
"You couldn't find base camp if you tried." I said sharply, shaking the hair out of my face impatiently.
"Settle down, Cooper." Chea said. "I'll tell you what Greenies are. See, out in the real world there are two kinds of people: Greenies and Pinkies, otherwise known as photosynthesists and meat-eaters. All of us here are Pinkies because we eat meat. The Greenies, on the other hand, inject this stuff called ChloroFill into their system whenever they need energy. Then they go out into the sun and the sunlight processes the ChloroFill into energy, just like with trees and plants. This process causes your skin to turn slightly green."
"So. What's the big deal?"
"Just a bit of a social rift." Ellison said. "The Greenies are considered of higher class because ChloroFill is more expensive than food. They consider Pinkies to be barbaric because we kill animals to eat. The Purists find the very process of eating and digesting to be crude and disgusting. They'll usually only consume water. Right?" he added to me. Burning throughout my face as I blushed horribly, though it didn't show, and nodded. "And the Pinkies hate the Greenies for being haughty and elitist."
"Er, right. Sounds pretty lame." Cooper said. "Great story, guys." He turned as if to walk away, but Chea grabbed his shirt and pulled him close. He towered over her.
"Listen, you slimy little twit. Daemon had been captured by the Hoods. We're going to get him, and you're coming with us. You'll see plenty of Greenies where we're going, and Hoods too. So shut up with your cocky cheek."
"Yes, ma'am." he said insolently, and sat down.