Caught in Time

Chapter 4. A mother knows best

-Keegan­-

The girl slept soundly in his arms all the way back to Tranmere. It fascinated him that she could sleep so peacefully while they walked back to the village. Especially since Flynn and Jared didn't make any efforts in staying quiet.

As they walked out of the woods and the shelter of the trees, there was nothing shielding them from the rain. It stood down from the sky but the girl didn't wake up. Orla had in an act of kindness covered the girl's head with her own coat. For recently having been kicked in the jaw, it truly was kind. Especially for being Orla. Had it been anyone else or someone they knew, she would have let them freeze in the rain.

Half an hour later, Jared left the siblings as they passed his family's house. The siblings continued down the road that would take them to their home. A worrying feeling had rooted in Keegan's stomach, wondering what his parents would think of what he and the twins were bringing home instead of the usual game after a hunt. Would they be shocked and nothing more, or would they toss her out in the rain?

"You are unpleasantly quiet." Flynn remarked, continuously wiping his face from rain drops with the back of his hand as they kept walking. Keegan shot him a glance; the rain was pouring down the lad's face and dripped rapidly from the tip of his nose and his chin. 

Keegan, on the other hand, just had to accept the rainfall, blurring his vision and making his limbs stiff with cold. Not to mention how some of the thing streams running down his neck itched slightly. He wasn't the least able to ease any of his discomforts since he had his hands full.

"It's pouring down and I've been carrying her for almost an hour." Keegan breathed out and nodded meaningfully at the covered body in his arms. "What do you want from me?" Flynn smirked and looked ahead. "Do you want me to sing you a song?"

"I don't know. I am just used to you saying at least three words during a hunt." He answered. "I cannot believe she's still asleep!" He said afterwards, changing the subject. He nodded at the pile of coats in Keegan's arms.

"Me neither." Keegan sighed. "She must be exhausted... I can't imagine how anyone could sleep through this." He looked up at the sky. "The gods are not feeling very merciful today..." He murmured. His mother would most likely have a reason for why this rain, as she always had.

Something... or someone has angered the gods. He heard her voice in his head and smirked. 

Keegan's mother was a woman of faith. Not a fanatic though, like those who whips themselves as he'd heard some believers do. But his mother sure could put the fear of the gods in all of her children if she felt the need, without a whip. Keegan was however sure that his mother's sternness nothing to do with the gods and their will and everything to do with a mother's fearing for her children's well being. The sternness, he had learned as he'd gotten older, was just his mother's way of trying her hardest to keep the three of them away from trouble, or foul language for that matter. She despised it when they cursed. He wondered what she would say about what they were bringing back... or what she thought the gods would think of it. 

"They sure aren't." Flynn chuckled and looked up at the sky, dragging his older brother out of his thoughts. "Do you think they will be forgiving?" Flynn suddenly asked and pointed towards their home that was now visible down the road, referring to their parents. 

Keegan grimaced, drawing a chortle out of Flynn. He had no idea of how their parents would react. Would there even be room for another person underneath his father's roof? Their house had only one floor, but it had a room for each of them and that was more than others had. Father had built it his youth. Determined to give his future wife the home he thought she deserved. It had taken him quite some time to build it, but it was sturdy. Built from stone and was almost windproof. Mother loved telling the story of the day their father finished the house. He had, according to her, rushed over to her father as soon as he was done and asked for her hand in marriage. Grandfather hadn't been too impressed by the young and stubborn suitor. Knowing that the young man had no great riches, not even a smaller fortune, he asked what Keegan's father could possibly give his daughter... and Keegan's father had shown his future father-in-law the house he had built - solely for the old man's daughter. There were of course a lot more details to the story when Keegan's mother told it, but he had heard it so many times that he couldn't bother to recall them all. They were too many, and sometimes they changed, amusingly enough. That's how much mother loved telling the story... she would actually get lost in it herself.