There have never been secrets between Iano and his twin brother, Miano. But that changes when his brother marries an heir of the most powerful fief of the village. With such power comes the right to see the face of the Goddess. Only, Iano's twin mus...
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The shot of a rifle cut through the silence of the forest, striking a large cryingbird a hundred meters away. The flock rounding clusters of shrubs scrambled in a cacophony of cows and cries, wide ashen wings flapling amid the wilderness.
The struck bird fell from the tree branch where it had been perched and thudded on the ground. Malin beamed. "You see what happens when you finally shut up?" he asked with a smile too large on his face.
"All I had been doing was making harmless suggestions. But congratulations," Kairou said. "Obviously, you can catch a bird, rich boy." He'd give that to Malin if he so wanted. But it wasn't his fault that he wasn't as great of a hunter as he believed. Admitting the truth was too daunting. So, he resorted to blaming his failures on Kairou.
Malin sucked his teeth. "So engaged in making suggestions that you scared away the only boar we came across and made me trip and fall when I could have gotten that saber antelope."
"Now it's my fault you fell?" Kairou scoffed. "By all means, I'll let you act in peace from now on." Kairou freed the way. Just in case Malin wasn't even able to find an animal already struck and was inclined to blame it on someone else.
Malin entered the thickness of shrubs. Several minutes later, he came out of it all wrinkled and scratched, with thorns stuck to his tunic but with the dead bird in a stronghold.
Noticing Kairou was having difficulty keeping his wits, he said, annoyed, "What? Laugh all you want. Be glad someone must do the difficult job." Kairou did let out what he had been holding inside and burst out laughing while Malin wrapped folds of wide leaves around the bird.
As Malin removed the thorns stuck to his clothes, his face contorted in a series of grimaces that first only fueled Kairou's cackles, but when he saw blood trickling down Malin's arms and contemplated the enormous number of thorns still to remove, Kairou felt bad for him. He approached Malin.
"I don't think your horse will be happy to be mounted like this," he said and started picking thorns off his tunic. "Since I'm extremely short, you need to make yourself shorter if you want me to do a proper job." He could perfectly reach Malin's back. But since he was feeling bad for the guy, he wanted a reaction from him.
