The Second Carpenter

LII

LII_I_More_Storm

The Shepherd's Daughter had been running all waking hours for a few days. As the sky darkened, she found herself lucky to happen across a seemingly abandoned cottage. She entered following a scent to find a cow's corpse. Out of severe hunger, she began to bite at the raw meat. Only a moment passed before she felt a heavy presence behind her. Her little heart beating violently, she turned back and screamed at the sight the golem-like beast. It gripped her with its strong hands and raised her, looking deep into her screaming eyes menacingly. Her arms were locked, but she kicked the monster as she screamed at it to let her go. An unwise approach. It would have been the end of her had Gloria Midwitch not appeared out of the dark to order the monster to "Put her down now!" The monster slowly followed the order and put the intruder down. Gloria approached the monster and hugged him. His roar turned into a sound resembling a dog's whining. "There, there, baby boy . . . No need to be upset . . . It's alright... Mommy's here, sweet Baelfire . . . Take some rest now . . . You know Mommy loves you, right? That's it . . . close your pretty eyes . . . Attaboy."

"Wow . . . it . . . it listens to you . . . what the hell is that thing? I thought I was done fo-"

The monster's mother suddenly charged toward her, punched her heavily in the mouth, causing her to drop down backwards, then grabbed her throat and growled wrathfully into her ear. "What the hell did you do to my baby, you bitch?! He never attacks when he's not hungry!"

"Gloria . . ." another woman who had just entered the room spoke. She had brown skin and, unlike Gloria who wa fully dressed in traditional full body garment with a fluffy a skirt, she was topless and had only wrapped a towel around her lower hips and genital, which revealed purple tattoos on her body and face, professionally done. "If you squeeze her throat like that, you'll end up choking the poor girl to death. Let's at hear her out. I'm sure there's been a misunderstanding."

"If you bother my baby one more time . . ." Gloria's enraged eyes were arguably more terrifying than those of the monster, "I will kill you with my own fucking hands . . . and then you'll wish my son had eaten you alive!" She punched her in the face three more times before letting her go. This time, she broke her nose, and two of her front teeth dropped onto her upper gullet.

"Gloria! For fuck's sake, that's enough!"

"Get this bitch the fuck out of my sight, Vitoria!"

"All right! Calm down!" She dragged the Shepherd's Daughter to another room and sat her up on an old straw bed. "Don't gulp . . . try to throw up."

She didn't have to try. The pain did the job. She threw up onto Victoria's hand two teeth along with green liquid. The Shepherd's Daughter knew that teeth did not grow back at her age. "My teeeeeeth!" she grimaced and sobbed pathetically.

Victoria, cleaning her hands and the teeth in a bowl of water, said "I know, girl. I'm sorry." She quickly put the teeth somewhere safe, returned and hugged her, "We'll fix your teeth. I promise. So don't worry about them. Say, what's your name, girl?"

"Hi . . . Historia . . ."

"Pretty name for a pretty girl! There, there," She wiped the blood off her face with a wet cloth. "What a brave girl . . . Tolerating it so well . . ." She hugged her and caressed her kindly, "It's alright, dear. Don't hold back. You can keep crying if you want. You can throw up again if you want."

"Will you really . . . fix my teeth?"

"Yep, my girl; you have Aunty Victoria's word . . . I know it hurts, but please forgive Gloria. She's a mother; she's just acting on her protective instincts."

"But I didn't do anything . . . It just attacked me . . . I was terrified . . . Isn't something like that dangerous?"

"He is potentially dangerous, yes, like men; but he was also triggered by the fact that you touched his food."