Vivian
He wasn’t dead. He did not die because of me.
The thought repeated in my mind as I stared down at the hulk of a man sleeping on the hard dirt of the ground. Tears welled in my eyes with gratitude as I watched his chest rise and fall with heavy breaths. The breaths of a living person. I didn’t want to look away.
It took him stirring for me to realize what I was doing was incredibly fucking creepy and snap out of my fixation on his vitals. I blinked away the wetness in my eyes. I needed to stop fixating on what could have happened to him. It didn’t. We were even now. Everyone was alive.
Thinking he was squirming because he was uncomfortable, I gently lay my blanket over him. The square barely covered his upper body, but was hopefully a little comfier. Small things made a world of difference when scrounging to get by.
The rising daytime stars had started to illuminate my field, chasing away the navy shadows of the nocturnal forest. The slight turquoise glow that was visible through the trees every night dimmed.
I’d been woken up by the undead creatures howling in the distance some time ago, but my guest seemed undisturbed by the noises.
He must’ve been exhausted. How long had he been traveling?
And with a sprained ankle. I struggled to wrap my head around why he cared what happened to me.
His offers felt too good to be true, but I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Ghoulish night critters aside, I hadn’t slept well. There was a lot to think about.
I understood now why Ida acted strangely about me venturing into town—I’d stand out.
Did she know anything about the energy situation?
At the very least, she knew everything about me was strange.
Different. How I looked. The fact that I told her my mommy in heaven had zapped me into the woods.
My healing powers. Maybe, like Theo, she didn’t want me drawing attention to myself and oversharing.
I was a valuable resource. A rare product. A prize to hunt. And based on what Theo had told me, the hunt was always on.
That wasn’t the worst part.
Not only was I in danger, but my fucking field was.
I couldn’t lose another home, especially not to some dumb corporate shit like an energy factory.
It might as well have been New York all over again!
There was no Adverse Possession case to plea over this land, but it was mine.
It was ingrained in my fucking DNA. They can rip it from my cold, dead hands. My fists tightened at the thought.
The rain began to let up, the smell of wet earth was pleasant in the morning mist. Nurghle prowled around the dewy field, occasionally having bouts of energy that sent his dark form bolting in a blur through the clover-like grass. I smiled. He’d adjusted so well to living here.
My only regret about bringing him along was taking away the savory taste of cat food from him.
Theo had offered him plenty of meat scraps while we ate—maybe too many for his own good.
If cats could smile, Nurghle did. The generosity paid off.
By the end of the evening Nurghle was purring and rubbing on Theo’s thick outer thigh.
Apparently, they no longer saw each other as a threat to my safety.
I stood in front of the cool waterfall running down the column of my little alcove, my feet in the warm ground stream.
A slight fog surrounded my ankles where the temperatures mixed.
I needed to do this quickly, before Theo woke up and saw me butt-ass naked.
It was a risk, but I wasn’t about to ruin my dresses with this little experiment.
I had mashed up blackberries with the stone mortar and pestle Ida gifted me. They made a dark paste with a hint of a deep, cool-toned red. I added a little warm spring water into the mix and scooped it onto my pale blonde head, quickly getting to work scrubbing it through the home-razored layers.
I held a strand in front of my face, pleasantly surprised the “dye” seemed to be taking. My locks were tinted a muted wine-red. I rubbed what was left on my fingers into my brows. I’d always wanted fun-colored hair, but it was well out of my budget.
I dunked my head into the waterfall and wrung my locks in my fists until they dripped clear. The tint remained. Problem solved.
Ida should’ve told me she was concerned about me looking different from everyone else, and I would’ve addressed that right away.
“Mreeeowww!”
My head turned towards the sound echoing within the cavern. Nurghle was trying to get into Theo’s bag, protesting loudly at the difficulty posed by its buckles.
“Nurghle!” I hissed. My eyes darted to Theo, who stirred ever so slightly.
Please stay asleep. Please stay asleep. Please stay asleep.
I hurried to the bag and began fumbling with its straps, hoping to quiet the noisy little guy.
His cries of woe turned into eager chirps.
Better. Not great. But better. Thankfully the jerky satchel from the night before was on top.
I didn’t want to dig through the assortment of heavy tools this man had brought.
Tools to build me a cabin. I didn’t know how to process that level of generosity.
The blade of a hefty axe scraped my wrist as I withdrew my hand from the bag. I startled at the sharpness and quickly inspected the damage. Just a tiny scratch. Barely bleeding, really. Thank god I’d been the one to brush it, instead of Nurghle.
I tossed a strip of meat to my demanding and noisy companion.
Grateful Theo didn’t wake, I slipped into my dress for the day. My bodice was a little damp still, but not bad.
I couldn’t resist staring at the sleeping giant as I fumbled with the laces of my leather bodice. Ida had given me the run-down of Trebianna’s seven humanoid species, but she was the only person I’d actually seen up until now. The other six options might as well have been fiction.
Theo was massive. So massive that I might’ve been distracted from the extra set of limbs at first, had they not been carrying me.
The lower set of arms that branched out from his back hugged around his waist, while the others formed a pillow under his head.
Two small, dark horns sat above his eyebrows.
Was this his “feral” form? Ida said black markings were a staple of that for Quadmos, but otherwise everything seemed “normal”.
Could this man get even more monstrous?
Quadmos qualities aside, Theo’s body told a story.
A rough one. His tattoos masked a collection of scars.
Thin white lines. Thick pink gashes. Burns.
A raised pale slice above his ear where his buzzed brown hair no longer grew.
The body art was a distraction, and the closer I looked, the more injuries showed themselves.
Was this a normal amount of scarring for someone who took on the wilderness?
I’d spent most of my life in a city, so I wouldn’t know…
but it seemed like a lot for the average hiker.
I didn’t realize how hard I was squinting—focusing on every detail of his body to unravel the mystery—until Nurghle’s antics started back up. I heard rustling and turned my head to find his furry butt hanging out of Theo’s bag.
“Shit.” He was going to cut himself on one of the many blades I’d dodged.
I hurried over, grabbing him by the haunches and yanking him from the bag. Please don’t be hurt. He hissed in protest, eager to retrieve more treats. In the struggle, the bag toppled over and thick metal tools clanked to the rocky dirt ground.
Theo startled awake, jolting upright. I apologetically held a frustrated Nurghle and grimaced, my eyes darting to the spilled bag contents.
“It wasn’t me!” I cringed. “It was Nurghle.”
He rubbed his head, eyes blinking groggily.
“He wanted more of that jerky you fed him last night.”
Four hefty arms stretched in different directions, large joints popped loudly. Without a word, he got to his feet, eyeing the extra blanket I’d laid over him when it hit the ground. He bent at the waist to pick it up and tossed it back onto the fur that I used as bedding.
“If it’s hungry it can eat as much as it needs to.” Theo’s gravelly morning voice was a low rumble as he grabbed the satchel and pulled out another scrap. Nurghle wiggled in my arms and I let him down to feast.
“You didn’t pack much food,” I reflected, doubtful this man wanted to survive on only berries if he gave into Nurghle’s consistent demands.
The fruit got tiresome, even if they were adequately nutritious according to my special book “The Demigoddess Bible: Self-Destructing Edition”.
Or whatever it was called. I couldn’t read the language on the cover.
“I’ll get more soon.” He grabbed the handle of the axe and pulled it from the bag, hoisting it over his shoulder.
I followed as he stepped out into the field. The morning mist was starting to clear, but it was still so early. Way too early to be toting a fucking axe around. He sounded groggy, the base of his voice so deep I felt it in my bones.
“What are you doing?” I asked, trotting after him.
“Firewood,” he yawned.
Oh… well that kind of makes me feel bad. He just woke up! He’d have plenty of time to be productive without getting straight to work. Trebianna days weren’t short; they were forty fucking hours long.
“You really don’t have to start right away,” I objected.
I’d never had a guest before. However, I knew my dad’s guests—drug dealers, politicians, gang leaders, and human traffickers—still had coffee and muffins in the morning before business was handled.
I shuddered as I remembered the smell of waffles paired with my father yelling, “No, no, no, he specifically requested they be under sixteen!” I couldn't have worse manners than that bastard.
He ignored me, continuing towards the tree line.
Without thinking, I grabbed the head of the axe to stop him, my palm barely kissing the sharp edge. It was hard to keep up with his long, tree trunk legs and I felt guilty.