The Ballads of The Skeleton Crew

The Ballad of The Gone Girl (3|2)

(№3.2)

The man would often be gone to drown his sorrow in alcohol, herding shenanigans with the ruthless, entrapped tradesman in intricate business, leaving his daughter completely to her own infant devices who wasn't attracting any expended luck either, for being a girl and the only thinkable heir of his money, ironically again, everything he'd owned since his family long died decades ago before settling in this very village.

Women were tolerated and somewhat respected, in the good hands of their husbands, still daughters were not wished upon any family.

In her first seven years, roaming this wedge of the globe, he reluctantly would give in to the need, the social christian construct pressuring of caring for her, feeding her and teaching her how to read and write, deeds unthinkable to not be able to procreate as a physician of the calibre he served, before realising it wasn't any use, life was nothing but a constant abysm threatening to take what he wanted and ultimately giving up on her, abandoning her. He never loved her though, he couldn't. Every scrutinising gaze pierced deeply his heart, his insides rubbed raw, bleeding still after a bare decade, the girl in front of him resembling the women he worshipped once and animated him to depthless deeds of utter ridicule, like stealing the moon from the night time sky, whisking stars away to fashion her a necklace, only though she remained, his daughter, an infant, rosy-hued, soft, warm, useless, staring at him back with a kind smile and eyes, eyes that were hers. Eyes he wanted to rip out and trample to release this devouring agony. He befriended distance and ignorance, separation a finer way to copy and better drowning haunting sentiments flooding in freshly from the past, smarting and blowing wicked tears to his buds.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the case either to be there a well-meaning woman who would want to take her in, considering the apparent lack of them then. The old too bristling, too nearly waiting for the verge of death and peaceful void touted by death, the young girls too giddy and childish, spared to live long before they rendered capable of caring for a child.

As a widower and during a few treatments the healer, once in a while and simply to not see the conniving face of his daughter every second of the day, would talk to deferential men ushering him to as soon as possible claim a new woman that would bear him strong heirs, sons worthy of gaining his wealthy legacy and fair daughters attracting fine husbands, unlike that demon's bundle thriving in his shack.

He thought about it constantly, rejecting yet the just thought of betraying his faithfulness he had promised by his vows. Given, he could hardly delve and assume them now, but deceivement sounded just as impossible. Regularly though, a scouting team of men would venture out for weeks through the labyrinth of similarly looking trees and fused, ancient pathways to infiltrate other towns and steal away the most gorgeous women there was to claim their own, ensuring a strong heritage and excellent genes to keep their race endured. That was only the crime of stooping-down knaves and tricksters, inhumanely pilfering ladies and women from their family, just akin to how the cursed Crew had taken their women from them. The only other alternative subsisted in leaving the town behind like a deserter and attempting snatching luck elsewhere, detecting someone else willingly to marry him. He clenched his fist at possessive threads like this. His wife was born here and died here. He might better intend to follow her in this philosophy. Quitting equaled cowardice, merely abdicating because it was slower and steeper becoming tougher to bite through.

No, thank you very much, he would not follow this beseeching path of cowardice and temptation, unlike so many others forgetting their heritage.

After all, he was one of the sparsely surviving Dacien bloodlines and those people didn't just quit when it became difficult; they stayed and fought 'till the end, until their last heartbeat pumped warm blood though their muscled, proficient bodies, charted for war and battle.