Queen of the Castaway Isle

That was one way to put it. Sophie's too lazy to give the smirking doctor much of a response. At most, she kicks a bit as where he presses against her ankle, where her 'sprain' is. It was a natural reaction.     

"Are you victim blaming here Ryo? How unprofessional. A girl can wear whatever she likes without asking to be assaulted."     

"Of course, I suppose so yes, but you? You're not so dumb not to know the risks here in this situation. You don't seem to be the attention seeking type either. "     

"Are you saying I was asking for it?" Sophie mockingly sneered.     

"I wouldn't know. I do know, however, that there were three males lurking to follow you into the dark, and only one is back."     

"The jungle is a dangerous place, even during the day. How observant of you Ryo, have you been watching me?"     

"That it is. It would be wiser to ask who around here wasn't watching you tonight. The mysterious little girl, or is she, appears at night all on her own. Without the cute big brother? The one who was first bitten by a hoard of snakes, who hides away all the time yet returns with food and goods. Who somehow gets people from the flight crew to the entire shelter to follow her commands? Who besides the dead on this island isn't curious about you? Or your family?"     

"You sound like a stalker. I don't know if I should let you treat me any further."     

"Everyone's bored Miss. Sophie. Everyone's lost and bored."     

Ryo shrugged, not affected at all as he bound her obviously unhurt ankle. Something that a person of his caliber could tell with his eyes closed. It's not his game to play, not his problem. As long as it doesn't affect him.     

If another unpleasant soul disappears into the dark, then it really had nothing to do with him. So long as he doesn't have to deal with a rotting body. Not like there's anyone out here paying him to. People go missing on the daily, even in a connected world.     

If anything it was a bit entertaining. He had his own amusements, Sophie knew that well enough. But everyone else? Yes, boredom makes people a nosy bunch. The novelty of it all made them restless, the fear of it made them paranoid. It would only get worse over time.     

"It's a good thing your sprain doesn't seem to be anything, there's not even any swelling. Nice ribbons by the way." finished off Ryo.     

It was a waste of sport's tape and they both knew it. Knew that the other did too. It was a strange sort of game.     

"Thank you, these panties cost me quite a bit of money. Glad they didn't get damaged."     

"Very cute."     

If anyone had the misfortune of listening in, they might have thought these two were flirting. If they had walked in, where Sophie's 'hurt' leg was propped up to the observing doctor's eye, angeled in such provocative way, they would have definitely thought the worse and hastily slink away in shock and embarrassment.     

Which is exactly what this poor sob did.     

"Ouch-ack, I'm so so sorry. Sorry!" yelped the teen boy.     

Sophie and Ryo exchanged a lazy look at one another before the doctor went over the examine his new patient. The one that just bumped his head quite violently by accident on some low hanging items.     

Attempts and shelters were beginning to be made. They couldn't huddle under the shadow on the plane forever. Not only did Ryo like his peace but the airline and groups of people respected the man, thus he was among one of the ones given first priority. If one couldn't find the young doctor, they just needed to wait beside his 'office'.     

It was nothing but some well placed beams of wood with a tarp and another layer of a buffer, but it was sturdy enough. A few repurposed parts from the first plane here an there. The explosion was nowhere near as bad as Sophie had feared, as it had been the last time around. The dead form that totaled no more than a handful, from both the initial incident and those that wound succumb to their wounds. Dozens were saved...for now.     

While that aircraft was left a lot more whole, it was wiser to take the wreck apart. It was driveable technically but what better would that do? They were still working on that, taking the pieces and building something to shelter them. To last them through the elements.     

In a methodical fashion, Ryo had organized his space neatly and cleanly. Wooden benches with straw mats could act as examination tables and beds. The shelter of wooden walls still in the works but much more decent given how many hands he had at his beck and call. Even without building tools, they could use fire, pegs and ties. If anything, Ryo was sharp with his details. Even in a wreck that was a plane wreck, nothing was ever out of place for Ryota.     

Sophie didn't have time for envy. It was admiration once, useful now. They were useful to each other, much more than one side knew.     

"Nothing to be sorry for. Are you alright?" asked Ryo, calm as ever.     

He really was unaffected. A line of Vegas strippers could line up to him and Ryo wouldn't even blink. Sophie admits she still likes this part about the man. He saw things a bit too objectively, hard a time connecting it to himself or people. It was both annoying and insanely useful, depends on the situation.     

"Fi-fine! Oh I am so so sorry, so sorry. Just leaving now..."     

The blush on the boy's face spread from his ears down to his neck. From the way he was rubbing at his head, Ryo pulled the teen back, inspecting the swelling.     

"Hold on a minute. You're here for the burns, right? Again nothing to be sorry for, you have every right to be seen."     

Caleb was still obviously nervous, the heat in his face not dissipating. Not with Ryo's nonchalance or Sophie's bare legs right there.     

How laughable. The thought of her and Ryo like that again. It brought a chuckle to her lips as she hopped down the 'bed', careful of her fake injury.     

"Silly Ryo, I think he's gotten the idea that you were doing an entirely different kind of doctor-patient play."     

Ryo doesn't even look her way and he tugs his latest victim, patient, same thing.     

"I'm afraid there's no insurance that covers that Miss. Sophie. Don't mind her now, she's a strange one, try not to get too fooled by her either- tougher than she looks. Now let's get a wet rag for that bumps and see your back."     

"Slander. I should sue you for malpractice and harassment."     

"You're welcome to try. Now stay quiet or off with you, you're disturbing the real patient.     

"Oh? Caleb, you don't mind me here do you? Thank you again for saving me~" Sophie leans forward, looking both childish and cute. A grown woman playing little girl. It was disgusting as much as it was attractive.     

Watching the further, almost familiar, interaction between those two, Caleb calms down to a reasonable amount, though an undercurrent of embarrassment still ran under his thin skin.     

"It's fine, it was Keshia that found you and Chris who carried you back. So you're alright now Sophie?-Shit- stupid question- I mean, um...your foot. You're not hurt in any other way or-" he fumbled.     

He didn't want to be insensitive. Of course, no girl would be okay after getting chased in the dark by strange men. It must have been a terrifying time for her in between the time she wandered off and by the time the three of them had found her again.     

They felt something was off with the way a small but suspicious group converged and stalked off into the jungle this late into the night. More it was Keshia who pointed it out, that these fellows were watching not just them but Sophie earlier. Call it her training as a professional guard, call it a woman's senses. She noticed and it was off enough to subtly speak up, waiting for Aubrey to again retire for the night. They left their biggest and strongest, Hamel, to watch over the heiress before investigating themselves.     

Flashlights were few but Chirs and Caleb were creative and camping experienced enough to make a fire torch.     

Something was definitely wrong when they heard screaming.     

Caleb was left feeling guilty.     

Maybe this wouldn't have happened if he didn't ask Sophie for a picture? Or at least not so run off the way they did. It had seemed harmless and even a lot fun earlier in the evening. The short girl was easy going and was pleasant to talk to as much as she was to look at. She asked all sorts of questions about his camera and equipment, playfully making him promise to show her later. It was extremely fun talking with someone interested in his stuff and how it works behind the picture.     

Catching one of the suspicious persons that night was easy. The one called Wilson got himself lost, wandering in circles supposedly. He was so glad there was even other people to get him out of there. Claimed that he had followed the other two when he felt something bad might happen to the girl they scoped out, the girl that much have been Sophie.     

Something about the greasy character made his story hard to believe. Chris had no problems with roughhouse tackling his down and tying him up.     

Keshia? The woman was focused on looking for Sophie. Soft pretty little thing, not the sort of girl you leave alone in a dangerous place. That's just asking for trouble. Maybe Keshia could, tall and strong, looked like she could punch your teeth out.     

They had found Sophie, limping along with her clothes and hair rumpled. She looked like she had just come back from a tough run, tired flushed and panting. All in one peace though. They got to her in time, that was what mattered. That danger didn't catch her, that she hid and got away.     

So did the other two fuckers.     

It's fine. Where could they go on this island? They had to come out of the jungle eventually. Once they came back they would be marked, the whole airline and most the survivors would know by morning, if not in a few days' time. Entertainment and news were lacking on the island.     

Sophie was safe, relatively unharmed, that's all the mattered, but Caleb still felt guilty.     

That wasn't why he came in though.     

"Ah there was someone looking for you Sophie." he exclaimed, remembering the exact reason why he stepped into the office shelter. It wasn't just his healing back.     

"Hmm?" Sophie half played dumb, at this point it could be anyone.     

Hopefully not Mattie or June, she didn't like them climbing around other people in the dark. Not without her to watch out for them. But it shouldn't be them, not when she last checked the group chat, confirming them to be safe back at camp.     

"A kid. Maybe 10? He won't come any closer but Keshia found him by the edge of the woods. Won't talk much but he said your name. Is hey maybe your brother or something?"     

"Skinny? Black hair, clothes too big and looks like a cat that won't let you pet him?"     

"Yeah?"     

"Yeah....yeah that's my cousin."     

Ryo raised an eyebrow to that, it was impossible to not overhear. Now, this was new. He didn't know the mysterious Sophie had another in her party. A kid at that?     

Sophie could see where people could mistake the resemblance. Leon was shades tanner than herself, but his dark brown eyes were large, sharp and elongated. Hawaiian boy, Polynesian mixed with something somewhere along the way that could pass him far enough as the same kind of Asian. Foreigners couldn't tell. Enough to be labeled something 'exotic' by people who didn't know any better, which was honestly the majority of this downed flight.     

Her excuse would hold. The boy was young, still a minor, and now that he willingly came out of hiding, she needed to keep his safe somewhere. Guess that was with her. Ryo wouldn't buy it but what did he care?     

Everyone else was too preoccupied, or too ignorant to know the difference.     

"Is Keshia with him now? Is he ok? Which way?"     

"Could we do this at a later time doc? It's over there that way but I'll walk you."     

"How about you two stay a little more still." warned Ryo, his hands worked on Caleb's back but his curious glance was at Sophie.     

It was interesting to see her restless. Despite her kind caring face, he could see it in how her body trembled at the news. A young cousin now was it? Surely he would have noticed a brat with her.     

Sophie wanted to turn him down and confirm if it was really Leon, as if it could be anyone else, but she held herself back. There was a part to play. A shaken and delicate girl, vulnerable to the world but for the strong protectors around her. Leon was just going to have to play nice for a few more minutes and so would she.     

That didn't stop her thoughts from racing though. It's been a little over an hour or so since she was 'rescued' and brought back to the main group. What was Leon up to? What did he do with the body? Did something go wrong? Was he caught?     

"I'm sorry, I'm just worried. He's....shy. Really shy, doesn't do well with strangers." Sophie trembled, not bothering to hide the reaction.     

It made her act all the more convincing. If Ryo didn't see right through her from the start, he may have even fallen for it himself.     

"He didn't look hurt or anything. Maybe shaken, was he out there with you?" followed up Caleb, sincerely concerned, as any sympathetic person would be.     

"I....I told him to wait for me...but....but then....I'm sorry."     

"Ack don't be sorry!"     

An innocent girl looked like she was going to cry in front of him. Normally a boy wouldn't know what to do with that. Men were weak in so many ways, but especially to a woman's tears. As lost as he was on the situation Caleb fumbled to comfort the cute girl in front of him.     

Sophie could taste again just how damn easy it was to string men along. If she had any room feelings, she might almost felt bad about playing a naive youngster like this. Just too easy. Well, it's not like she was going to slit his throat and drain his blood upside down, this much was fine.     

"It's fine...I just need to see him and it will be fine. I'm sure he was feeling scared."     

"Right! He must have been worried about you too. Don't worry, Keshia and Chris are with him. He's safe with them."     

"...Thank you."     

When she smiled like that, soft and shy, it made people's heart skip a couple of beats. Men and women couldn't deny the attractiveness of a pretty person's bashful smile, the upturn of wet eyes, the pink glow of a blush.     

Ryo, however, found the blush on his now shirtless patient to be much more interesting. It went down to the back of his neck and continued. Well, that's interesting.     

Women were pretty fearsome creatures the doctor thought to himself. Definitely a wolf in sheep's clothing that one, he thought to himself. She didn't ask for it so much as she lured her prey into her plans and schemes. All people were dangerous but women kind even more so.     

Well, not his problem. If you were dumb enough to get lured in, then maybe you're meant to get caught in their traps.     

With a slap to the fresh bandages to the young man's back, he gives the ok to let Caleb go. The pain of his palms against healing skin stopped all shyness and made Caleb jump with a yelp.     

"Right, thanks for all your help Dr. Kaze?"     

"Kazehaya."     

"Right! Kazehaya, thank you. Um, Sophie, you're good to walk on your own?"     

"Mmm, yes I'm fine. Bye for now Ryo, see you again soon."     

"Hmm."     

He doesn't know if he likes the sound of that. The doctor waves them off with a thorough wash of his hands.     

Well, at least he wasn't bored this evening. Something told him he never would be if Sophie wasn't involved.     

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He had considered it.     

For a brief moment, he thought about it. Following them. Not join them oh now, that was far below him. But just to see, just to watch them fail.     

There is either rest or action. There is do or don't. These fools here won't.     

The little girl walked with all the grace of dancing seafoam, a deceptive depth and pull in the shallow waves. Something in him tingled with warning that it wasn't time. Tonight wasn't the night. A quick little nymph like that wouldn't get caught so easily. Wouldn't be eaten like some common snack by dirty rodents.     

When the three youngsters, all fit and strong, followed suit after the rats into the dark, he knew he made the right choice.     

He hasn't lived this long, uncaught, by making wrong ones.     

But it was tempting, oh so tempting.     

They say girls are most beautiful when they don't know it. But that was a mixed bag of stupidity and nonsense. That was something that didn't apply to the young. Never did- it goes against definition and nature.     

It wasn't time. The stars weren't in their favor yet.     

There wasn't much time left for her, for them. Not at her age. He didn't know how old she was or how much longer she had left. Girls always grew up so quickly compared to boys. White dirtied faster than black, a purity so easily tainted and ruined.     

Yet the crown rested on her on pretty little head. The power was still in her hands. An angel was still an angel, even when she was about to fall from the heavens to reign in hell.     

She would wither and age, as did they all, but not yet. In the moment she was divine.     

Few held that power even once in their lives and here she was with many moments more left to bear.     

So he watched. He watched as the meddling band of hot blooded do-gooders returned, triumphant. A scoundrel tied in their grasps and a princess carried in the other. He watched from afar how she delicately limped, not from pain but a sort of carefulness. It was not the pain of a taken, and he knew her still to be pure.     

If a nymph could be pure that is.     

A girl like that isn't dumb the way that adolescents become. Isn't blind to their own beauty, not yet lost to that futile thing called insecurity. A girl like that knew just what she did to grown men. Instead of turning her repulsive, it only gave her regacy. A direction, for her to play and steer the immense power that flows and follows after young girls. If a flower could open and close itself, choosing where and when to emit its fragrance. Of which insects it allows to drink the sweet sweet nectar.     

He watched as she opened and closed, teased and shivered.     

A scent too powerful. Every shake of her thin frame made him tremble along with triple the intensity. He was a puppet, a mere dog tied to her string. All she had to do was give it a tug, a pull.     

A disciplined self trained dog. It's how he made it this far without getting caught.     

So he watched, playing his cards, timing his pacings.     

He wasn't like those rats, losts and impatient to every provocation and risk. For one he wasn't a foresaken virgin. Didn't reek of the desperation, the loniness. To rats, any dark hole would do. She was too beautiful for them, too good.     

He watched with a strained worry as the youngsters, strong and conventionally attractive to any typical young maiden gently carried her to medical attention. Fretted when a not as young but surely comely black haired doctor took her in his space.     

Night hair, moonlight smooth skin, they suited one another. In his generation, they would be called a perfect match. If he has met that young doctor 20 or so years earlier, as a still sweet school boy, he would be beside himself smitten.     

But all good things must come to an end. Surely that boy's time had ended long ago, even as traces of an enduring youthful charm remained on that alabaster skin, in the fullness at the eyes and cheeks. As would the charming little nymph, one day.     

But not today, not anytime too soon.     

So he watched. Watched as she was escorted out by yet another youth. Too old for him of course, by but a mere wasteful handful of years. Missed the mark there by less than the digits on his hand. But there was too something about the splash of dark copper curls and a sweet splattering of freckles that would have been delectable. Must have been, once.     

Time was a terribly cruel thing. To make beauty and force it to grow old.     

He watched as the once beautiful, too old now, youth take her by the hand, offering a shoulder should she so wished. Like a whisp, like a gentle whisper in the night, she takes it, whisked not off her feet but might be as well given how small, how light she looks. A delicate moonbeam, gently shining down on mere mortal men.     

He watches from afar, perhaps follows, all for a mere glance more.     

He watches as they come across the others. The handsome muscular log of a man and the long, too long, and dark though not unelegant creature of a female. If he squints and tries, if he were bored enough to do so, he could imagine the children they would have been, once.     

He watches as the nymph dances, sprints and embraces a tiny figure shrouded in blankets, features undefined in a too-large hood.     

Watches as she fusses and flutters, a pixie floating about. He watches as they speak unheard, shielded by distance and the sounds of nature in the night.     

He watches as they pull and shrug along, coming back yet closer, all together.     

He watches and blankets and hood falls, dirty rags made the finest velvet curtain when unveiling what lied underneath.     

He can't breathe.     

He watches and he can't breathe.     

For as long as the night is long he can't breathe, can't speak, can't even think a coherent thought.     

Then, just as sudden as it came, it is no longer night. No longer is there night, no longer is there any dark. Even the mystifying glow of the moon must surrender to the break of day.     

Call him a fool, call him Icarus incarnate. For there is the sun, dazzling all in bright glory and flames. There is the sun and the sun is but still a boy.     

A boy.     

Perfection. As the gods intended.