After Michael finished his talk with Vodra, he has been gaining quite a bit of insight on the Hay-yen, enough to make him wish to ponder on this information and figure out how to use it most effectively. Summized in his thoughts the whole thing made sense. 'So, due to their religion they are forced to sacrifice others or they have to meet an earlier end in life and if you can't contribute to the community as effectively as possible you are moke likely to be the next victim of this so called 'Devourer, that's what I started with. But what does this mean? Hmm... Guess if you were told that is your lot in life you would be living as hard as possible trying to keep alive and avoiding injury, that makes sense especially since these people seem to be specialized in stealth, ambush style attacks and pincer manuevers... if Vodra's insight is to be trusted. Perfect tactics to catch others off guard, minimalize own risks and even capture what you are targeting to sacrifice later on to a hungry God. Too perfect... although Gods and religious traditions get built around the culture as it develops... wonder though, what sick bastard thought this was a good idea for an Idol?'
"Ay y'ung lad. If yer arm is still hurtin' ya don't got to help with this." Spek said as his words snapped the young human out of his deep thinking.
Michael and Spek were rebuilding part of the outside holding cell together with Brekda, the husband of Runny, the tanner who also took care of the food supply. The human boy looked at his right forearm which has been partially healed by Urla and then wrapped up in a bandage with herbs. When the initial of the 'inspection' of the holding cell was being done and investigation of who did damage to it, Letra wasn't too keen on having her claws filed and when her turn came, she made the most of them while she still could by slashing Michael's forearm open. Still, with the human and Spek it was enough to get her subdued and have Zurra use a thick file to cut down on the sharpness and size of those claws.
"Y-yeah. I'm ok. I have just been thinking on a lot of things. I mentioned to Urla I will need to discuss with her about some new information I managed to come up on." Michael answered only now letting out an annoyed groan at the pain in his forearm, as if he just remembered he was hurt.
"You have been doing quite a bit around here, but aren't you a bit quick to talk so casually to our elder like you knew her since her early piglet years?" Brekda chimed in as he was working on some new wood for the cage.
Michael looked at him a bit speechless, not sure how to respond to that, he didn't think much of it before, but he was treating a tribe's head rather casually when interacting with them. 'I have been most respectful with her though... did I need to do more?' He was wondering quietly and when he was about to say something, Spek seemingly snorted annoyed towards the younger Tuskir. "Oi! I have seen 'em interact quite a bit, Brekda, and the y'ung lad been only curteous. Ay, he might not do t'ings like we do 'em, but for someone who helped about as much as three o' us do in a day, I do believe he is showin' proper respect. So, how about ye drop it? Ay?"
"Drop what? My concerns with having a random traveler among us for nearly a month's worth o' time and some o' us treating him nearly like we treat our leading elder? He eats o' our food, sleeps in our homes, beat one o' us near to death without blinkin' and decides for us how we should treat our prisoners?" Brekda answered back in a casual tone as he worked, but the underlying tension was starting to be easily seen in the stiff body language the Tuskir man had.
Before Spek could reply back, two piglets rushed up towards Brekda while oinking loudly. "Da! Da! Mom said to ask ya if we's able to have sum fish tonight!" One of them said loudly. "Ye! We wanted tha have some o' the fresh kind, not salted. It tastes much bettah!" The second one loudly pitched in their voice as well.
The younger Tuskir father, taken a bit by suprise, drops off his guard and looks back towards the two small piglets, as his eyes soften. "Ay, children. We'll have tha see what those that went out fishing will bring back, but most likely we'll be havin' some. So, hold on with some patience an' by evenin' we should have some. Alright?" Brekda said with a light snort.
Spek huffed and looked towards the two children. "Ya kno' tiny ones. This furless pink one 'ere invented those hooked rods with string on 'em. If not for that, it would be a real pain in the arse to catch 'em fishies in the water." The old Tuskir said looking at Brekda with a shine in his eyes, as if trying to spite the father.
Michael was kind of staring into empty space, still processing Brekda's words. 'Man... I knew Urla didn't kid when she said some of them really don't like me too much... I can't blame them though. I am not exactly a normal person around here...' He thought to himself with a mental shrug, but that entirely got interrupted as the human young man now noticed two Tuskir piglets looking at him wide eyed. One was a bit taller and seemed to have bits of her fur pulled into braids around the sides of the face and top of her head, the shorter one had way shorter fur and was still showing quite a bit of skin inbetween patches. 'Was it really ya that made dem rods?" The taller one asked as they began snorting the air in Michael's direction. "Ye! Was it ya? How'd ya fhink 'em up?" The shorter one said while inserting one large finger casually into their flat snout and picking a pearl of a bugger out.
Michael couldn't help but hold back a small chuckle at the small ones, that were inquisivitely looking him over. He groaned as he got up and dusted himself, picking up a waterskin from next to him to have a drink. "Nah. Where I'm from they were invented for a long time and not by me. I just thought to share the idea."
"Hmm. Do ya know any other fings?" The one with braided fur asked squinting their tiny eyes.
"I would like to think that I know... hmm... a decent amount of things?" Michael said after a few seconds of thinking while tapping his chin.
"Prove it! Show us som'fing!" The smaller one with furless patches added with an excited squeal.
Michael's brow wrinkled as he hummed, not quite certain what he could showcase to two children that might be interesting. Spek and Brekda who were previously working on the cage, were now stopping for a moment, staring at the situation, with a bit of hidden curiosity. "Hmm... uhm... I could show you a game from back home? We call it Hopscotch."
At the mention of playing the one boarlings snorted excitedly and started gathering closer to Michael. "Ya dinne say you kno' games too! Tho'ght ya only knew grown up borin' stuff." The one with braids added this time more cheerful. "Well, what we's waitin' for? Show us!" The tiny Tuskir then grabbed Michael's hand and began dragging him to a more open space away from the work space, followed by the tinier one furred in patches hopping excitedly right behind them.
"Whoa! Hah. Alright- uhm..." Michael looked back towards Spek and laughed awkwardly. "Looks like I'll be taking that small break after all, Spek. I'll be back as soon as I can."
"No worries, just don' let dem lil' one run ya ragged." Spek said with a light chuckle as Michael was being dragged away, he then stared towards Brekda, who was still watching his progeny and the furless man that went not too far away from them, as he began explaining something while drawing squares in the mud with a stick. Even Woh, the Death's Lover Amphoran hopped on to join Michael and the piglets, in her full body suit that made her safe to touch. "Still think he's that bad?" The old boar huffed as he got back to working the wood.
Brekda's gaze broke back to him from staring at his children. "My worries stand all the same, for any beast can wear a mask of innocence if it means its survival. You say he is a person, but for all we know he could do this only for his benefit an' we're givin' him exactly what he wants."
Time passed along lazily, the cage got finished, Letra got put back in, Vodra and Nushii have been fully and properly accomodated in the shack Michael previously slept in, which has been reinforced at the windows and doors to make escape hard and loud to do, although the two Hay-yen were really content with their situation although the manicure and pedicure each of the three got, wasn't exactly exciting for them either.
Still, Michael kept on with work after playing a bit with Brekda's children, under a very tight supervision from the father. When the cage was finished and the shack reinforced, he got back to working in the forge with Zurra, sweating his ass in the heat of the furnace. As he was practicing sharpening on a grindstone, he felt a hand on his shoulder that almost made the young man jolt. His attention was solely focused before on the music from his phone which he blasted in his ears through an old pair of earbuds and the half decently sharpened axe that was in his hands. Looking back, he realised Runhar was gazing over him, letting out a snort he couldn't hear.
"Y-yeah, something wrong, Runhar?" The human asked a bit confused as he rubbed his eyes, needing a moment for them to readjust, as staring at a grindstone in low light made his vision a bit screwy.
"Michael, don' mind me too much, but... ya ate anything at all today?" The guard captain asked in a friendly tone, if not a bit concerned.
"Uh... no. I have been drinking a lot of water, and with so much to do, I kind of forgot to feel hungry." Michael responded honestly as he only now became concious of how his stomach felt like a groaning pit in his lower body.
"Ya've been workin' yourself ragged. Tis alright to take it easy, you have been helpin' a lot, honestly some of us have been takin' it easier because of the effort you've been putting in. Not having to bother with having as many watches on the prisoners, the work you did on the wires and setting up traps with me and Rok about, helping Zurra with maintaing tools and weapons." Runhar said with calmly, but Michael's expression looked as if someone was listing down his sins in front of him. The guard captain then let out a short squealed chuckle. "The ol' sow's been boastin' about ya when you're not around, nobody stuck to Smithin' as much as you have lately."
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Michael listened nodding and smiled weakly back. "I guess I could use a break and some food."
He then stood up and his gut let out a loud enough snarl that Runhar laughed and squealed heartly and nodded to where a cooking pot was already steaming over a now diminished fire, several Tuskir already taking bowls of food out of it with a ladle, by the smell, some sort vegetable soup and fish on sticks roasted by the sides over the fire. The young man grabbed a wooden bowl for himself which Runhar filled up and then handed him a fish on a stick. "Here ya go. If ya need seconds, ask, alright?"
"Don't worry, I will." Michael replied as he began quietly digging into his food. The soup and fish were fine, but the taste was quite different when it came to food here, as the Tuskir didn't use salt in cooking, but instead used certain herbs they could find by smell. 'Whoa, they put some of that Huffroot, bloody thing nearly sparks on the tongue like Horseradish.' He thought as he felt his tongue tingle.
Halfway through his meal, he noticed in the corner of his eye a slight movement in the shadows around the fire, but before he could properly process the tiny movements, he got assaulted by four clingy limbs in a surprise silent assault. "Haha! Gotcha!" Woh said loudly with a giggle, staring at Michael with two big shiney eyes and a wide smiling mouth. "Scared ya, did I?" She giggled as her throat then slightly inflated as she croaked, almost like the Amphoran equivalent of a snorted laugh.
The young man smiled back as he set aside his food and he reached with his other hand to gently massage Woh's back who was clinging onto his left upper arm. "Honestly? A bit. Although dying by tiny assassin hands doesn't sound half bad. Comical really." He said letting out his own light laugh.
"Pfft- *ribbit* As if! The only weapon I got you're immune against... mostly, but I appreciate the words." The purple and pink amphoran said as she then hopped onto Michael's left leg and sat herself there, looking down proudly at her black body suit made of Michael's old waterproof gloves. "Thanks again." She replied once more as she stared back at him, to which the young man simply smiled and nodded downwards in acknowledgement.
He then silently grabbed his wooden bowl and began sipping from it some of the contents, silently and calmly, as Woh watched him, who almost seemed to strain herself from how quiet she kept. "So... ya sick or somethin'?" She asked in an innocent, yet inquisitive tone, which almost made Michael choke on his food, needing to cough a bit to clear his throat.
"Gha... Haagh! Ahem- Where's that comin' from?" He asked as he wiped his mouth and nose out of which a bit of soup shot from previously, grimacing from the pain the Huffroot's spicines caused on the inside of his nostrils.
"Well, we haven't been playin' as much as we used tha and ye been doin' borin' stuff like a lot, even heard others say that it was even a bit more than yer fair share. I was wonderin' why, so I kept an eye on ya." Woh replied as she did a wink and croak, which only made her already big eye pop up bigger slightly in a comical manner with a goofy smile on. "And ye look like... you lost your shine. You lookin' whiter rather than pink, your got those weird shadows under your eyes and usually your eyes been shiney and all, but lately, you been lookin' like the fish before they cooked it." Woh said as he tone got from goofy to genuinely worried and quite a bit saddened. "You sure, you are feeling well? And don' lie, cause I will get mad and croak in yer ears all night, got it?!" She said in a mad tone, puffing her cheeks with another croak as she seemed unsure whether to show more worry and sadness or anger, which came as a mix of all of them.
'God, I am getting puppied eyed by a tiny frog... and she's damn good at it too...' Michael said as he sucked on his teeth and after looking slightly annoyed, not necessarily at Woh, he sighed and nodded silently as she showed her a weak smile. "You could say I haven't been exactly great lately... I..." He hesitated, seemingly sucking on his own lip, as if he was trying to stop himself from continuing that sentence.
"You..." Woh said as she kept on the big wide eyed gaze and nodded upwards as if indirectly saying *'Continue...'*, but she was only met with silence for a few moments.
"That time we fought the Hay-yens by river side... the fighting, the dead ones... how I got stabbed and almost bled out..." He said his words trailing off into mumbling.
Woh nodded listening and seemingly croaked a funny little annoyed noise as Michael stopped. "Yeah? What of it? Ya had the right to defend yourself and you did, also you helped Azhul and ye covered for my tiny self. Don' think I didn't notice, ribbit!" She said with a smile as big as before.
That remark just made Michael huff through his nose a silent chuckle as he smiled lightly again. "Y-yeah, no, you are right..." He said as his expression then turned pained as he simply stared into air now. "It's just... Woh... where I am from killing to protect yourself is something that happens so rarely that... a lot of my kind... when it happens to us... it marks us... if it is beast, maybe not as much for some, or it makes them scared of encountering that beast in the future, but... When it comes to killing people or being near death from fighting them... it... haunts some of us. Some manage to shake it off easy, others are eaten by very bad feelings that make them feel scared even if there is no actual danger around them..."
Woh kept on listening and her focused gazed, a rare occurance for her usually, showed how determined on understanding the situation, she was. "S-so... you are feeling bad?" She asked slightly confused.
"Yeah... I... have fought before with my bare hands, injured people with the intent to make them pay for doing something to me and I had felt killing intent before, but I... never acted on it entirely, I always had to pull back when it wasn't necessary to fight anymore... but this time, it was different... I hit, clawed, punched and hurt with intent fully to kill eventually, I-... without knowing it I realized I couldn't not fight, because the sheer fear of things ending there just... overwhelmed me... before them when I fought Runhar and he bit me... that is when I realized it felt differently, because I realized where I was... a fight was only that a fight except for a few situations where being in danger of dying was more obvious, but I usually steered clear of situations that got that bad. But... here... there's nothing like that... maybe if I sparred with someone, it would of course b-be implied that we won't kill one another, but otherwise... if someone attacks me... I could truly easily die a-and... that terrifies me." Michael said his breath running out and his voice choking with a knot in his throat.
Woh was lost for words for a bit, before she shook her head and let out a light croak, her own eyes looking a bit more wattery as she wrapped her tiny arms around Michael... well... as well as she could, due to her size. "You're not a bad person because you killed, Michael. If you wouldn'ave I coulda died, or Azhul or ya as well."
The young man nodded as he wiped his own eyes and sniffed, wiping his nose with the collar of his T-shirt. "I-... I know. I know, Woh, but... I am afraid. When I was younger I used to not know how to fight at all and I was afraid of pain... heh... silly... I still kinda am, but I never fully feel it when in the heat of it... a-anyways... I used to be so scared of fighting it made me an easy target to other... less nice people. So... eventually my parents forced me to train under someone... to learn how to defend myself and I did... I learned how to fight, I understood pain and I stopped being afraid of it... with each fight I got in and defended myself, with each punch taken and landed I started not feeling that fear anymore."
"Well, that is good, right?" The pink Amphoran replied in an encouraging tone as she wiped her own face.
"That is what I thought, too, but realizing I could fight back... it made me let out all my bottled up feelings... before I knew it, I loved fighting, beating back someone who wronged me. I realized their punches felt dull as they hit me, eventually... all I felt was the thrill of it... It began feeling good... my hands throbbing with dull satisfying pain, my skin numb and red where I would get hit and seeing the other person look worse for wear than I did... It felt great, to just see that and see their frustration on their faces when they realized they couldn't do anything to me. Some even looked at me in fear for a few brief moments, when I would get so carried away, that I would end up beating them more than even they intended to do to me. Heh... at some points I would reply to pointed words with even worse ones just to rile up my own abusers, to make them hit me first... to have an excuse to beat them up. What's worse... I felt entitled to it, because of years of having to deal with them. After I became conscious of these facts running through my head and realized how and why I felt the way I did... I was disgusted with myself, I felt like I was worse than them. I started avoding fights just because I didn't want to feel that satisfaction again and... that was hard... I felt myself yearning for it each time someone tried to start one, I choked on my drool as it was building up in my mouth as if I was a starven man looking at a feast in front of my eyes. Now... I realize I am on the edge of the same thing... I am terrified Woh..." Michael then paused and he looked with tears flowing down his face and cheeks and dripping off of his chin, some droplets landing on Woh herself. "I am terrified I will get to a point I will enjoy the fights... the feeling of being near death and cheating it... a-and the feeling of killing... of snuffing out a life like a small light and then wonder when can I do it next and not be held accountable for it, because I was in the right to do so. I d-don't want to become a monster, again..." He said as his whole expression grimaced and contorted in pain as if he was stabbed in the chest, letting out muffled cries and choked yelps.
Woh stood up and hopped back on Michael's arm and then climbed herself on his shoulder, hugging half of his head shushing him as he cried and moaned half silently in a sorrow like someone just died in front of him. "Shhh- M-Michael... I don' understand the whol' thing, but you aren't a bad person. I don' think a bad person would think half da stuff ya did about what they did. When ya fought ye say it was to defend yourself, which is not bad. When you killed it was for the same t'ing. Even better, it was tha protect friends! I like to protect my friends! Although... I didn'ave many." She said as she choked herself as well sniffling and croaking in a squeaky sad manner, like a deflating toy. "B-but now I do and you's one of 'em. A-and I think bad people are yucky, but I don' think you're yucky, Michael. S-so, you ain't bad, alright?" Woh said as she whispered in Michael ear.
The young man covered his face as he wiped it and nodded lightly to Woh's words.
"Can I hear ya agree? You ain't bad, right? Cause I don' like yucky bad people, but you ain't yucky Michael." She repeated herself with a light croakey giggle as she began calming down and properly wiping her eyes.
Hearing the light tone of Woh in his ear, Michael began laughing weakly as well between sniffles as he nodded and revealed half his face, only wiping away at one still teary eye. "Y-yeah... *sigh*... you're right. H-hah... I guess I ain't s-so yucky... if you say so."
"G-great. *sniffle*... now stop cryin', yer makin' my whole face leaky! Hehe heh." The little amphoran continued as she took Michael's collar into her tiny hands to wipe her face as well, to which Michael nodded in agreement as he took now the bottom of it to wipe at his eye.
Things began to calm down proper and after the two had some water from Michael's waterskin, the young man could finish his meal proper, with a new ease in his expression and form. "Woh?" He said with a truly relaxed tone while looking towards the Amphoran who was now laid back on his left leg.
"Yeah?" She said back while staring back up at Michael with her two big eyes that were now puffed up from crying, but with her usual big wide smile on her face.
"Thanks, again." Michael said almost imitaing how she spoke before, trying to hold back a chuckle, Woh, trying to hold back a laugh as she nodded wordlessly back towards him.
This moment of serenity, calm, sheer relief and joy, didn't last too long though, as the sound of a horn began ringing out with an echo in the cool night air, which made the two jump startled. The sound rang out three times, before Rok's voice from up in a wooden tower echoed, as well. "HAY-YEN SMELL ON THE WIND! THEY ARE CLOSE! PREPARE FER AN ATTACK!"