Heterodox (BOOK 2)

Chapter 8 |1|

~Vesper~

Admit it Vesper, you're coming down with something.

"It's nothing," I reply ignoring my brain and the slight chills that have settled in. I'm getting a slight headache too which Talon seem have picked up on. Probably from seeing me silently wince from the sudden onslaught.

I shake my head trying to dispel the headache and look at the chaos in front of me.

Dust fly along with fists as they yell in rage, shoving each other and kicking sides.

Women stand on the side gibbering among each other in excitement and fear as men from both sides cheer their brothers on.

Bucluc, Giotto's small monkey, runs and rolls being chased by both Latte and Faerydae, who is holding a diaper looking tired.

Binx and his five cousins run in to the scene , heads up, laughing mischievously with mouths full of whipped cream with intact cherries on top.

It's utter chaos.

We were in the middle of The Three Little Goats Gruff when it began. We ran to the front of the tent, later joined by Talon and MB, their eyes never leaving the sight before them.

"How- how," Talon stutters confused, " did this happen?"

"A Roma and a Pavee mixing, that's what," Lady Demelza says waddling up beside me, cloaked in an old quilt with a strange pattern. It somehow looks familiar but I can't place if and where I've seen it before. "Always a fight breaks out on our work days between those dimwits and our men."

"Why this time?" LaLa asks.

"A Pavee carrying a pile of metal crashed into a Roma with baskets. Or vice versa based on whose telling the story." The old lady sighs and sits down on a folding chair near me. "And of course, people from both sides will jump in for some of the action too like some brainless clods!"

After a while of watching, I find myself asking with a slight rasp, "Do they get into fights all the time?"

"All the time. We don't like them. But we tolerate them." Lady Demelza replies looking at the gathered confusion tiredly. Then she chuckles. "But Giotto has a taser..."

At that same moment, Giotto appears, running straight into the crowd with the buzzing device in hand. Almost immediately, we hear trembling screams rip and men dropping on the floor as if they have fits. Women quickly grab their eager children out of the mix, not wanting them to get accidentally unconscious.

Suddenly and out of nowhere, a tall, burly man angrily tears through the crowd and heads straight for Giotto, launching a punch in his cheek; enough to instantly break a neck. Everybody freezes.

"Cabhan," I hear LaLa murmur.

"That's Cabhan?!"

LaLa nods, leaving me in shock. When Giotto said they didn't agree on everything I didn't think this was the way they settled their differences!

"STOP SHOCKING MY MEN! THEY ARE NOT ANIMALS!" the man who is supposedly Cabhan growls coarsely.

"WELL TELL THEM TO F******* ACT LIKE IT," Giotto snaps, his mouth bloody and his head still attached, "Maybe if they actually used the shred of common sense I doubt they own-" He spits in the ground and look at the red bearded man dead in the eye, no space between them, "I wouldn't have to bring lightning on their dumb a**es!"

Giotto is possibly a head below the man and slightly less built but it doesn't seem to bother him. He faces him squarely in silence. Where he finds the courage, I do not know. Cabhan looks like a viking chief ready to tear Giotto limb by limb with his teeth. He makes Lance look like a gnat like this. The fury in his red face is colossal.