Amara sensed trouble was afoot when Mattias abruptly flew away without a single peep of forewarning. He’d been quiet for a little while before he took off, perched on a fence nearby while she worked to stir manure and kitchen leftovers together in the Stokes’s compost pit. It wasn’t until she heard voices approaching from the direction of the town square that she realized the trouble was people. Her heart began to sink once the voices drew close enough to become recognizable.
Caleb, Adin, and Eylon appeared around the corner of the Stokes’s house nearby, walking line abreast. Unlike Evander, they hadn’t changed their demeanor towards Amara since they were children—they’d just become more careful about getting caught. Instead of physically harming her they’d switched to trying whatever awful things they could think of short of violence to provoke her. That usually meant name calling, though they did sometimes try more creative methods.
Amara looked up from her work to stare at them as they approached, locking eyes with each in turn before returning to her task. She’d learned a long time ago that the best strategy to deal with them was to simply ignore them. If she didn’t engage with them at all they wouldn’t have anything to pounce on, and they’d eventually just get bored and leave. It worked most of the time, but today something in their expressions told her that they were more determined than usual.
Caleb let out an obnoxious whistle as they approached.
“It’s the bitch-bastard!”
“Stirring shit as usual, I see,” Eylon added.
“What a disgrace,” Adin spat out. “You’d think being the village whore would be more than enough shame for her.”
“Maybe Evan prefers her smelling like horseshit?” Caleb asked.
The other two laughed gaily. They trotted over and occupied the same fence Mattias had been perched on, leaning back against it. Amara did her absolute best to pretend they weren’t there, trying to focus entirely on the compost. It wasn’t something that required perfection—just getting it good enough would be completely fine—but to keep herself distracted she decided to try and perfect it. The compost in the pit around her ankles looked a bit too slimy and wet, so she shoveled in more sawdust from the nearby pile and began to stir it in, doing her best to spread it evenly.
“Just look at that!” Eylon exclaimed. “What an absolute fucking mess. Have you ever seen someone do such a shit job before?”
“How’s it even possible to fuck up compost,” Caleb laughed.
It’s more work than you’ve ever done, she thought angrily. Outwardly she made absolutely no acknowledgement that she’d even heard them.
“Maybe she’s distracted?” Adin offered with fake innocence. “Evan did seem pretty upset earlier.”
“That poor man,” Eylon said, smiling. “Being obsessed with a whore is a fate worse than death.”
They must’ve seen Evan and drew some conclusions, she thought. So what. Don’t give them anything.
“I wonder what it is she did that made him so upset?” Adin asked.
“Maybe she just gives really bad blowjobs?” Caleb wondered aloud.
Outrage caused Amara to freeze up for a moment despite herself, and the boys instantly began to howl with laughter.
Eylon slapped his knee, laughing. “Bang on, Caleb!”
“You can come and get some practice with me anytime you want,” Caleb crowed. “I don’t mind used goods!”
“Yeah, come suck our cocks, bitch-bastard!” Adin shouted.
They began to rail at her, making the worst threats and the most outrageous, horrible demands she’d ever heard leave their lips. At some point she realized she had stopped moving, and her knuckles were white from the fierce grip she had on the shovel.
Indecision paralyzed her. If she got up to leave the pit they’d just follow her, and even if she lost them they’d surely find her again later on. But to remain there any longer seemed unbearable. Her chest began to tighten with anxiety, and she wished she could simply transform into something that could melt away into the compost, where they’d never be able to bother her again.
A realization soon dawned on her as she endured their insults. Something terrible beyond the obvious had just happened. After years of enduring their harassment, she’d finally shown them something she was vulnerable to, and now they were sure to use it against her again at every opportunity. Black despair clutched at her heart, and she squeezed her eyes shut, suppressing the tears that were beginning to bubble up to the surface. Crying in front of them would be the absolute worst thing she could possibly do; it would create an even worse opportunity for them to exploit than the one she’d already given them.
“What the hell is going on here?!” someone shouted from nearby.
Amara turned with surprise towards the new voice. Evander stood beside the Stokes’s house, right at the same corner the boys had first appeared from. His hands were balled into fists, and he was staring at them with barely contained anger.
The insults and jeering came to a slow halt. Caleb stood up from his lean against the fence, taking a few steps towards Evander. The other boys stood up as well, flanking him on both sides. It appeared he'd become the new leader.
“Just making conversation with the village whore,” Caleb said casually.
“Watch your fucking mouth,” Evander barked.
“Or what, Evan?” Caleb smirked, taking a few more steps towards him. “What are you going to do if I don’t?”
Evander crossed the remaining distance between them and stood in close to Caleb. Adin and Eylon closed ranks with him, glaring at Evander. He was significantly taller than all three of them, but his height obviously wouldn’t help much if he tried to fight them all on his own.
“You watch your mouth,” Evander growled, “or you’ll be eating all your meals through a straw for the rest of your miserable life.”
“Evan,” Amara said, pleading. She absolutely did not want him to start a fight.
“I’ll say anything I want to her,” Caleb sneered. “Bitch.”
In a flash, Evander raised his fist and smashed it against Caleb’s face. Caleb let out a surprised grunt as he fell to the ground, and after the initial shock wore off Adin and Eylon tackled Evander together. They all landed in a dusty heap, shouting with rage and effort. Evander managed to land a few hits on them before they pinned his arms to the ground, and soon the only fists that were flying were Adin and Eylon’s, aimed at Evander’s head and chest. Evander tried to struggle out of their holds even as they rained blows upon him with their free hands, doing his best to bring his legs up to bear against his assailants. A few feet away from them Caleb began to regain his feet, rubbing his cheek where Evander had hit him. There was blood on his face.
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“Stop!!!” Amara screamed. “Stop it!!!”
She might as well have been invisible for how little attention they paid to her. They continued to pummel Evander, and Caleb staggered over towards them. Once in range he shoved Adin and Eylon aside, and crouched over Evander to level a savage punch at his head. An alarming amount of blood escaped from Evander’s eyebrow, and after taking a moment to recover he bared bloody teeth up at Caleb.
Amara threw down the shovel in her hands and climbed out of the pit, stopping only to scoop up a handful of slimy compost. She sprinted towards them at full speed, crossing the space between them in what felt like an instant, and threw herself into a flying tackle at Caleb. The force of her tackle caused Caleb to collide with Adin, who was kneeling beside him, and all three of them landed in a dusty heap beside Evander, with Amara ending up on top.
She raised up the hand holding the compost and then jammed it into Caleb’s face with the full force of a punch, pushing it into his mouth, nose and eyes. He screamed with disgust and pain as she spread the compost forcefully all across his face. She realized that she was screaming too, though hers was one of effort. The logical part of her brain which was somehow impartial to the events going on wondered at why she, too, was screaming, which seemed like an incredibly bizarre thing to think about at that moment.
Hands grabbed Amara from behind, pulling her off of Caleb. By the time she raised her own to resist, Evander was already back on his feet, tackling Eylon to the ground. The air left Eylon’s lungs in a strained gasp, and Evander gave him no chance to recover, raining brutal, savage blows upon his face and chest.
Amara turned back to Caleb and saw he was raising his arms. Adin was squirming to get out from beneath them both. Without thinking she raised her fist again, and this time threw the most powerful punch she could muster at Caleb’s face. It connected dead on with his nose, and blood exploded from it like a red shower, speckling his lips and chin with red droplets. A short scream of agony erupted from him, and he raised his hands to cover his face.
“Stop!!!” he howled. “Get off of me!!!”
Panting heavily, Amara decided to relent. She lifted herself back to her feet and took a few steps backwards, her hands still curled into tight fists. She realized that there was pain in her knuckles, and when she looked down they were covered in blood.
Evander leveled a few more punches at Eylon’s head—who was by then mewling for mercy—before standing up as well. He turned to stare at Amara, also panting. Blood from the wound in his eyebrow was running down his face and dripping off his chin.
A mournful groan left Caleb as Adin tried to pull him to his feet.
“You broke my nose,” Caleb moaned.
Evander crossed to Caleb and began to send low kicks at his shins, causing new howls of pain to escape from him.
“Get the—fuck out of here before you get something else broken!”
Adin looked mostly unhurt as he supported Caleb in their retreat towards the far side of the Stokes’s house. Eylon lifted himself up to his feet unsteadily, and Evander menaced him with another punch before he staggered off after his friends as quickly as he could. A thick coat of dust covered their disheveled hair and clothing, and out of the three of them only Adin appeared to have escaped without injury.
“That’ll teach ‘em,” Evander said, and spat on the ground. His spit was entirely red with blood.
“Why the hell did you come here, Evan?!” Amara demanded.
He let out a pained, exhausted sigh, and wiped at the blood on his face before responding.
“...I just wanted to apologize to you.”
Frustration began to build up rapidly inside her. All she ever wanted was to be left in peace, but nobody ever seemed to give a single shit about her feelings. Between Evander pestering her and starting a fight on her behalf, and Caleb and the rest harassing her, she’d completely had enough.
“Why can’t you just leave me alone?!” she shouted at him, then screamed at the top of her lungs, “Just leave me the fuck alone!!!”
Evander gave her a pained grimace, showing a flash of bloody teeth, and sat down right where he was with another sigh. Amara then took off running, and before long was sprinting through the golden wheat surrounding town, heading for the only place she knew nobody would find her.
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She vaguely recalled washing blood off of herself in the forest’s stream once before, though couldn’t quite place when it’d happened. Most of it wasn’t her own, but nevertheless stinging pain was in her knuckles as she let the cool water flow over them.
It was the first real fight she’d been in, or at least the first one where she'd actively decided to fight back. She was sore in random places, and quite a bit of skin was missing from the knuckles on her right hand. The pain was an unwelcome reminder of her situation, one she definitely didn’t want or need.
Once she felt clean, she retreated from the stream's edge, finding a decent tree nearby to sit back against cross-legged. The burbling of the stream was soothing, and she tried unsuccessfully to focus on it and the peaceful sensations of the forest around her.
I’m gonna leave Shiloh, she told herself. As soon as possible. I’ll ask mom to come with me, but if she won’t I’ll leave on my own. I can’t take this anymore.
The idea felt good at first, but before long it caused a terrible feeling of guilt to take hold of her. She knew implicitly that her mother would never agree to leave, and the idea of abandoning her to face the village all on her own was unbearable. Beyond that, there was the fact that Amara simply had no idea where to go. She’d lived in Shiloh her whole life, and had no real skills that would be useful in the outside world.
Mattias suddenly swooped out of the sky, diving between the trees and landing gracefully on the ground close by. His appearance barely made Amara flinch. She’d grown used to his abrupt exits and entrances long ago. He was half wild after all, and had something like a flair for the dramatic, for a bird.
He took a few cautious steps towards her, then hopped up onto her knee, peering at her in silence. She said nothing, staring back at him, and eventually he made a few throaty clucking sounds.
“Fat lot of help you were,” she told him.
He seemed to decide that no danger was present, and his posture began to relax. He sat back on his haunches, adopting her knee as his perch, and began to gaze about at the forest as though he'd always belonged there.
“Why's it always like this,” she said, not bothering to hide the exhaustion she felt in her voice. “Everything’s so miserable for no good reason.”
Mattias blinked, but otherwise didn’t react to her statement.
“I don’t understand people. It’s not enough for them to keep their misery to themselves, they have to spread it…far and wide.” She paused. “Maybe some people just naturally suck. Including me, I guess. But mom doesn’t suck one bit. She’s good down to her core. None of this would’ve happened to me if she hadn’t ended up alone.”
She’d never felt anything but hatred for her father, whoever he was. Her mother obviously didn’t like to talk about him, and Amara refused to hurt her feelings by prying. Between her nameless father and all the awfulness inflicted on her by Caleb, Evander and the rest, she had more than enough excuses to hate the entire human race.
And yet, every time she felt ready to condemn the entire world and resign it all to evil, something good would happen to remind her that not all was lost. Her mother would do one of her daily kindnesses, or Evander would say something to make her laugh. Even Mattias would occasionally do something funny or cute to help her feel like the world wasn’t completely pointless.
I don’t do anything for them in return, she thought. All I do is make their lives worse just by existing. Mom’s life would be so much better if I weren’t here, and Evan wouldn’t be sad or been beaten up.
A sudden choked sob left her, and tears sprung from her eyes, leaving wet trails on her cheeks before she could try to stop them. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force it to stay inside. Crying never made anything better.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Sorry for being here.”
Mattias let out a happy-sounding croak, and hopped up her leg in order to inspect her face. Amara opened her eyes, and reached out to give his beak a gentle rub. He accepted her affection, making a small buzzing noise that sounded almost like a purring kitten.
After spending a little while giving him pets, Amara let out a heavy sigh and offered him her arm.
“Let’s go home.”
Mattias hopped on and clambered up her arm until he reached her shoulder, and held on tightly to her blouse to steady himself as she stood back up. He was quiet while riding on her shoulder this time, and Amara was grateful for his silence, for once.