"Luisa, the donkeys got out again!"
"On it!"
Right after she finishes with this cart full of... whatever was in the barrels.
It would only be Luisa's fifth time dealing with the donkeys today alone. Sometimes it feels like they do it on purpose just to annoy her - she's started to be able to tell them apart by face. The one with the extra-floppy ear is Idiota, the one with the spot over the eye is Carbona, the one with the most annoying bray is Don Quixote. And so on. Honestly, 'Donkey Mistress' should be among one of her titles. Granted, it's not as grand as the other ones the people like to call her - 'Hercules del Encanto', 'One Woman of Ten Strengths', 'Two-Armed Goddess' (that last one actually confused her quite a bit) - but it would probably be the most accurate.
Hmm. Donkey Lifter.
Donkey Queen.
"Gatherer of Donkeys."
Luisa is still working on titles when she finishes transporting the cart and encounters her first donkey.
"Hey, little guy."
The little guy takes one look at her, wide-eyed and searching, before kicking back and sprinting away full force. Luisa curses loudly and slumps. And winces when a passing mother gives her a dirty look, covering her son's ears.
"Sorry, Señora!"
Her shoulders ache when she leans back against the wall, so much that she forces herself to stand upright again.
So it's going to be that kind of day.
Fantastic.
Out of the corner of her eye, Luisa can make out the flurry of pink and purple that accompanies Isabela wherever she goes, and launches off in a hurry. The last thing she needs to be doing is slack off so that any of her family has to pick up more work, and she knows how much her older sister tires herself out smiling and keeping up the perfection all day, even if she'd rather die than admit it. She doesn't need Luisa getting in the way too.
Luisa doesn't know why she's feeling like this today. Like there's not enough air in the world, like there's too much to do and not enough time, just not enough of anything, and her gaping inadequacy is on the brink of being bared for the world to see. Like everything is wrong, just off, which just isn't fair because there are people depending on her that she can't let down. All she has to do is her job. Just her one job.
"Donkey Whisperer." She mutters distractedly as she approaches the grassy slope where she can faintly hear Don Quixote's braying.
Soon enough she reaches the pasture where the donkeys are grazing happily. They look up timidly at her, and then glare accusingly at Don Quixote, who snaps his mouth shut, stares for about five seconds and then speeds off up the hill.
Luisa sighs, decides to just get him later, and begins to pick up the other hoofed prisoners. She has a complicated love-hate relationship with all the donkeys, but she hates that one in particular. She could swear he has a malicious glint in his beady little eyes.
"Señorita Donkey-Whisperer." She tries out while she works. She winces as one of them flails, and a hoof hits her in the small of the back. Pain laces up her spine, making her hunch over and catch her breath.
Honestly, she should know better than to heft the donkeys too roughly. She knows they tend to panic, has rows of bruises to prove it from them, and yet she still messed up today.
She blames it entirely on her off-kilter feeling.
Eventually, she manages to dump them all in their pen (and sends a silent prayer that Don Fernando will invest in a better fence so this stops being a problem), and sets off back up the hill to find possibly the most annoying creature in the history of annoying creatures.
