The Red King and the Witch

The Wedding pt 1.

Women were worse than battle!

No.

They were worse than a fooking war!

They were made to drive men mad and want for what they could not have.

It didn't matter if you waited on them hand and foot to reach their hearts a woman still wouldn't bloody speak to them, let alone look a man's way, if they even noticed the poor bastard at all.

A woman aged a man more in one day than four years fought in the trenches, but waiting on a woman was worse than waiting for a bloody whistle to blow, it was a million time worse than having to dig your way up through mud, shit, and bodies something in which he new first hand was pure fucking torture, but waiting on a woman was a different kind of torment.

Most times men had to wait for them to make up their bloody minds only to change it a second later. They had to wait for them to bathe, to dress, to cook, to clean, to bloody shop.

Shopping was the longest they took to anything, but it wasn't worse than it was to wait and listen to them scream while birthing a babe.

That was a poetic purgatory of the worst kind.

Women were creatures of a different breed and contradictory world, one that brought disruption and fookin death, yet strangely enough it was women who brought life and business together, as they were the only ones who could make a fair deal and get the trade properly settled with or without bloodshed.

At least women with the last name Shelby could.

It was Esme who took charge, raving her limbs about as she commanded their men, but whatever it was she demanded Tommy couldn't remember because of the white noise that had gone off in his head as he could only recall bits and pieces of the journey home.

It took John, Finn, and three of their men to drag him home, while the others rushed about the mud filled cobblestone, two to three garding every street corner as the rest of the city woke up.

Flashes of women scrubbing down doors and windows, their faces red as they shout at packs of wild children wandering about the cold streets of Watery Lane.

He recalled trying to break from the pile of hands but then he blinked and was sitting in his old office.

He couldn't hear a thing nor did he understand why Jeremiah was taking an empty bottle away.

Tommy knew he drank the damn thing, he just couldn't recall exactly when.

He brought his chin up and turned his eyes forward; he could see Harry, Scudboat, and Lovelock standing at attention while Esme raged at them like some mad woman.

He tried to focus and listen to what she was saying but Jeremiah put another bottle in his hand but it was John who forced the damn thing to his lips.

Slowly but surely the noise began to dim.

He could hear his little brother whispering to him like he was a fookin' horse in the old tongue.

It came in waves, just like it used to during the war.

He would go below, set the bombs, then he'd have to dig his way up. Sometimes it was simple, it was just another job, but other times it caused him to snap and then he'd be fooked just like this.

Tommy could hear his brother but he sounded far away and he couldn't focus on his words.

He could hardly focus on thinking straight, let alone listening to fooking words!