Isolation & Fear (Damned of the 2/19th Book Seven)

Because I'm Atlas

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Longnight, Second Wake Time

I set aside the piece of metal I had been working on. The goat, Ninny, butted her head against my leg and I smiled when I looked down at her. She baahed at me, butting at me with her little horns. I'd cut them away and filed them, and she was cute little brown, white, and black thing. She baaed again and danced, her little hooves making clacking noises on the stone floor of the workshop.

I laughed and rubbed her head. She made a funny noise and pushed her head against my hand, shivering slightly at the touch.

I grunted at her, moving over to one of the three legged stools I'd made. They were quick, easy to make, and I found their appearance pleasant to look at. Ninny hopped and danced over to me, her udder swinging heavily. I pulled over the metal bucket I'd made.

As I milked her, I thought of the last time I'd been foolish enough to venture out in the Longnight, just a sleep ago.

The Wild Hunt had caught me in the open, and the Master of the Hunt had given me the choice of riding or running. I'd ridden. Afterwards the Horned Master of the Hunt had shown me more iron that I had then pulled free of the rock. It was poisonous, lethal to him and his ilk, so he showed me where it was after I had rode with him to drive away the creatures of the dark from the soul of woman.

She had been so beautiful I had wept atop the horned stag I had been riding.

The Huntsman had reached down and lifted her up, settling her on the back of his great steed, and rode away from the darkness.

Unmen and worst had attempted to block us from taking her to safety.

They were unmen, I was a man.

They stood no chance.

She had wept, for her child who would grow up without a mother, but the Huntsman had strengthened her with whispers of the babe's weird, and she had shown brightly as we had ridden through the darkness to take her to the one who would take her where the living could not go.

The one waiting for her had looked like her, only younger. With fair hair, sparkling eyes, and the swells of a girl on the edge of womanhood. She had held out her hand and the soul we had delivered had slid from the Hunstman's great steed with a cry of joy.

I turned away when the two souls had embraced.

It was not for me to see.

For my service, for my bravery in fighting the unmen and the beasts of darkness and cold, the Huntsman had shown me another spot where the ice had cracked the rock to reveal red veins of iron, like the mountain's stone was bleeding.

I had finished milking Ninny. She baahd, licked my face, shivered when I petted her, and danced away to her basket of food. She sighed contentedly as she chewed on the contents of the basket, and I stood up, carrying the bucket into my food making cavern.

The Woman was lying on the bed. Asleep. Her wound was almost healed, and her eyes were no longer covered with a milky film. When I had changed the bandage on her eyes last time I had seem her pupils shrink.

She would be whole soon.

I stared at her sleeping face and wondered if she would find everything I had done pleasing.

If so, would she reward me with kind words and soft touches?

Or would she strike me, break my bones, and wound my soul, like the women who's visages gazed down at me from where I'd carved their faces into the rock?