Ruby Wilder's page

Marikel bends on one knee before Ruby. "Miss Wilder. You behave yourself and don't end up like Miss Dawnblade here. There's nothing wrong with settling down to a peaceful life." He grins and gives Ruby a wink.

The girl blushes a little and averts her eyes, embarrassed by the attention, but she runs over to throw her arms around Alicia. "You're coming back, aren't you?" she asks anxiously.

Ruby gives the priest something that might be a smile or a grimace, caught between reflected glory from the achievements of her guardians and adolescent mortification at not being just like everyone else.

"Y-yes, exciting," Ruby replies in what's meant to be a casual tone. "Better than sitting in school all day, that's for sure." She tosses her hair showily over her shoulder.

"Zola Sawyer wasn't in school today," Ruby informs the other inhabitants of Sanctuary one evening. They are eating a cold supper with their bags packed and ready by the door, in case the alarm sounds. "Some of the girls said her father paid someone to take her across the border to Lastwall before the orcs got here so she'd be safe."

Ruby's hand creeps into Alicia's, and she leans her head against the older girl's arm as they wait in the crowd.

"Miz Kelver let us out of class early," Ruby explains quickly, clearly not wanting the priest to think she is playing truant, "honest. Because of Kerst Grath jumping off the cliff."

The young blonde walks over toward the edge of Ruby's desk and sit-leans against it. "What'd she let you out early for?"

Ruby shrugs. "All the excitement, I think ... about Kerst Grath's suicide, I mean. She couldn't keep the kids from whispering about it. I think she was distracted herself. She kept looking out the windows and forgetting what she had been saying. So she just sent us home."

Ruby is half-heartedly doing homework. When she hears the door open, thinking it might be Tyari, she sits up straighter and stares at the pages of her book with more alacrity until she realizes that it's just Alicia. Relaxing, she slumps down in her chair and pushes the book away.

"Miz Kelver let us out of class early," she reports, "but she gave us extra homework to make up for it."

"Yes!" Ruby cries happily, seizing the knife. "I mean...," she tries to temper her reaction in relation to the dwarf's serious mood, "it's a new hopeknife. I guess it's mine. Who else has one? Zola Sawyer was the last to get hers, and that was a couple of months ago."

Banny, you'd remember Rodrick's theory was that his brother's hopeknife may have been lost in the dark when he was attacked and that the murderer replaced it later, knowing it would look suspicious if he was found without one. Of course, you're free to question his reasoning or come up with your own hypothesis.

Alicia shakes her head. "I don't know where it is; but I have a good idea of where to start looking," she says. She looks at the girl, the sheathed, pitted dagger still in hand. "Do you mind if I hang on to this for the moment?"

"No, keep it," the girl replies. "But you'll give me the scabbard back to put my hopeknife in, won't you? Who stole it? Where is it?"

"Stole it?" Ruby asks breathlessly. "Do you know where it is?" In response to Alicia's questions, she shakes her head. "I don't think I looked at it at all after we starting hiding from Tyari and Brantos. I was so focused on looking for them, and we were staying in the shadows where it was dark. Then when the alarm went off this morning, I just grabbed the scabbard and ran to go with you. It wasn't until they were talking about the hopeknife stuck in the Longhouse that it made me think of mine, and I looked at it, and--" She blinks back a few new tears at the distressing memory. "I didn't know what to do. I didn't want anyone to see me, and I certainly couldn't go to school and let all the others see, so I ran back here and told Tyari I wasn't feeling well and wanted to stay home today. I don't remember anyone looking at me strange last night, except when I was up on stage with the Chief Defender and everyone was staring."

Seeing Ruby in tears, Ali's "big sister" instinct comes to the fore and she move in to take a seat beside Ruby on her bed. Wrapping an arm around her reassuringly, she asks, "What's wrong?"

"Um, nothing," Ruby lies unconvincingly. "It's just so sad about Mr. Grath."

When pressed by Alicia, however, she bursts into a fresh flood of tears. "Look!" she wails, pulling a sheathed dagger out from under the bedsheets. "I lost my hopeknife! What will they do to me? What will the Chief Defender say?"

It's obvious just from looking at the plain and unadorned handle that the dagger in the sheath is no hopeknife. When Ali draws out the blade, it is rusty and pitted, the edges dull and chipped.

Alicia opens the door to her room to reveal Ruby, who by this time should be at school, huddled on the bed, with tears in her eyes. "Ali!" she stammers, startled and trying to regain her composure. "Um... I wasn't expecting you back here." She surreptitiously wipes her face with the edge of the blanket.

"I...," Ruby stammers at the mouthful of gnomish name, glancing to Alicia and Marikel for help. "Thank you."

Alicia groans and rolls out of bed at the sound of the watchtower's bell. Bleary-eyed, she looks to Ruby. "Wonder what that's all about," she says.

Ruby is bolt upright in bed, her eyes wide and terrified. "Is it orcs?" she squeaks. "Are they coming?" Her hand clutches at her new hopeknife, but she looks as if she wishes that, if the orcs were going to come, they had come yesterday when she could have taken shelter in the Longhouse with the young children.

Alicia blinks slowly at Ruby. "...That sounds so boring," she says. "Maybe we can go throw rocks at that Sawyer girl's house. What's she got against you, anyway?"

Ruby sits on a crate, draws her knees up to her chin, and shrugs gloomily. "I don't know. She doesn't like the mission. She says her parents say Sanctuary is a ... a foothold for Lastwall and that the Council shouldn't let outsiders in. She says it's a travesty that they hand out hopeknives to people who weren't even born here."

She blinks in confusion. "Homework?"

Ruby takes advantage of the distraction to slip away with Alicia, after dragging her finger through some stray apple syrup and licking it off. "What should we do now?" she asks happily.

Ruby managed to make it through her original two slices of butterscotch and apple, but quickly bogged down in the rhubarb. "Since the contest is over, do you think they'll mind if I don't finish it?" she whispers to Alicia, poking at it with her fork.

Ruby and Alicia find themselves in the path of the approaching moblet. Ruby's eyes widen as she looks down at her plate. "I already started," she mumbles around a mouthful of pie. "Do you think they'll let me play anyway?"

"You must be exhausted after leading us to that victory," she teases playfully. "I'm going to get a slice of pie. Do you want any?"

"Ooh, pie," she remarks, her eyes lighting up. "Can I come with you?"

"I do!" Ruby concludes firmly.

"I do," she says a bit more firmly this time.

Ruby nods and manages to stammer out, "I ... I do."