Granny Thayer, Demon Slayer || Collab with SophieKestrel

Chapter 6: Too old for this shit

Of course, even communicating a simple decision was never easy.

King Fazir had laughed in her face and told her to sleep on it. He even went so far as to highly suggest she stay in the palace until she reconsidered. For her own safety, he'd said.

That condescending pile of steaming manure! Even now, a few hours later, her blood still boiled with indignation. She wished she had given the miserable man a piece of her mind. But, as had often happened with Dole, she hadn't quite managed to speak the words that flashed through her head.

Now, she gritted her teeth as she faced down a much different opponent: the four-poster bed.

Jiggles already nestled in the lavish quilts, his chest rumbling with a solicitous purr. Join me, he told Violet.

Her wry smile said: I'll try.

She lined up the mattress... and paused. Her joints prickled and her vision blurred, but the voice in her head proved even more constricting than the limitations of her body. She could practically hear the King's laugh in her head as she eyed the four-poster, willing herself to leap.

'You struggle to even get up from your rocking chair.'

'Yet I do,' Violet argued back against the voice. 'Every day, no matter what.'

'You couldn't even save your own daughter and son-in-law.'

'But I'll save their son,' Violet promised. 'No matter what it takes, I will save Arty.'

Her eyes fixed on the four-poster once more, and she jogged in place to ready her limbs. The rumbling purr from Jiggles cheered her on. She darted forward—leaped...

And face-planted in the quilts, her legs dangling.

Turning her head to suck in air, she kicked and pushed, slowly wriggling herself onto the mattress. She relaxed onto the quilts with a victorious giggle. Jiggles purred louder, stretching both paws over her swollen ankles.

Arty had massaged those ankles sometimes, after a hard day's work back at the farm. Granny, relax, he'd tell her, as she hobbled back up, worried about the tasks she'd left undone due to her joint pains. You're working too hard. I'll finish the sweeping tonight.

Her throat swelled, trapping the giggle. Even Jiggles stopped purring.

"Jiggles," she murmured, "What if I can't save Arty?"

He nestled his head onto her calves, his yellow gaze fixed on her face.

With only Jiggles as her witness, she admitted the thought that had needled her for the last hour, ever since she read that gods-awful contract. "Signing away my rights is nothing compared to a day of Arthur suffering."

She wished she had actual powers. If only the strength of her desire to save Arthur translated into some kind of ability! But in truth...

Jiggles nuzzled her, his nose soft and wet against her ankle.

"Jiggles, what if..." Her eyes flicked to the ceiling overhead, framed by silk-draped bed posts. "What if there's some mistake? What if I'm not strong enough? What if the Oracle is wrong, and everyone else is right?"

But Jiggles didn't respond. He had fallen asleep.

~*~

The next morning, Violet awoke to a stampede.

Directly under her bed.

In her fright, she somehow found herself standing on the floor beside the bed without any recall of dismounting. Only a faint tingling in her joints attested to the effort she must have just undergone. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she sank to a crouch and peered under the bed, searching for the source of the terrible racket.