Petra's Proposal
It
was cold and wet. The air smelled partially decayed and green at the same time.
The slight musky tang of swamp drifted from some unnamed direction and stung
the nostrils of everyone in the tiny collection of hovels that made up Stony
Hollow. Petra took a deep breath and smiled. It was a good day. It was one of
the few times that this new landlocked location actually felt like home. She
had been born and raised in the swamps, so seeing too much grass or sun made
her feel uncomfortable. With the gray sky and the slight stink, it felt better.
As
she sat on a boulder and watched, children laughed and played. Her own brothers
and sisters had made friends with George’s children. Now, they made a small
gang of snot nosed terrors. The adults banded together out of self preservation
to give the children chores, but they simply worked together to complete the tasks
quickly and get back to what they were doing before – being children. Petra did
not begrudge them being children – it was a state that did not last long. She
was barely an adult in the eyes of the law, but she had been an adult for a
very long time. Lately she had felt more than adult. She felt old, warn,
battered.
It
began with the tower. She was not the smart like some of the others, but she
had valuable instincts. The tower was wrong, against the nature she spent her
entire life with. Seeing her little brother Elric, dead inside the tower, was
more than she could take. It instilled a fear within her that she had not been
able to remove from her heart. Though she enjoyed traveling with Wilhelm,
Maxwell, and even Bartleby, she had departed for her simple home, far away from
the Hollow. There, she spent time trying to protect her siblings with her body
and earning a small living, but she knew that it was not enough. Finally, while
she was getting supplies one day, she had come across Max at the trading
outpost in her village, on his way to Altdorf. He told her about Stony Hollow
and she packed up, leaving here everything she and her family had known for
generations to get away from the horror of the tower.
But
getting away from the horrors of the road had not been so easy. On a simple
supply run with Wilhelm, Bartleby, and the new dwarf Milgrom, they ended up far
from home. Biitten by a werewolf, she slipped into a deep and tortured dream.
She remembered some of it – sensations of running, the way the moon shone of
the soft bed of pine needles around her, the smells of prey, dirt, and grass.
It called to her in a way that was horrifying and appealing all at once. Then,
she awoke, far from home and with nothing. She adventured for a share of the
money, but while the others had gained bars of silver, she had every single brass
bit stolen, and the horse she had just paid a gold for. With nothing more than
the clothes on her back she watched while the others got new clothing, shaves,
and fancied up for a party that she almost wasn’t invited to. Wilhelm had stood
up for her, and only his act of kindness had kept her from having to work for
whoever would give her a few coppers for her protection of their wagons as they
traveled. She owed him, and she wouldn’t forget. But she also would not forget
that Milgrom and Bartleby casually spent their silver without giving her a brass.
If she hadn’t attacked and killed the first werewolf they might not been alive
to spend that money.
Fortunately,
she had more money now than she thought she would see in a dozen lifetimes,
thanks to the Elector Count’s gifts. They were a much needed surprise when she
was destitute and desperate. Most of that money would be saved. Her family
would not go hungry, and she could afford to build them a proper house. She
could even move them into a city if she wanted, but she didn’t want to. Seeing
the children play with their new friends was powerful incentive to stay at the
Hollow.
Seeing
George cross the field toward Belle’s house stabbed Petra with a certain
nervousness she rarely possessed. Straitening up, she smoothed down her short
black hair and wondered if she had any dirt on her face. She rubbed her hands
over her face, took a deep breath and walked quickly enough to catch up with him.
“George,” she greeted. Suddenly, her mouth was dry.
“Petra.”
The name was both greeting and question.
He stopped
walking. They were not alone, but no one was close, either. If she was going to
do what she considered, now was as good a time as any. “George, I have a
proposal for you.”
He nodded, and
wore the sage look he bore at times. He was neither handsome nor ugly, and the
years had worn on him out in his place with its vampires, wolves, and zombies.
The death of his wife still haunted his eyes, yet he still managed to maintain
an air of dignity and kindness. “What would you like to propose?”
She could tell he
still had no idea. If she wanted to back out, she could now. Instead, she
plowed forward. “I want to marry you. I have money, I can build us a place. I
won’t lay with you in a way that will get me pregnant, but I will in any other
way you want. That way, if you die, I’ll watch your kids because they will be
mine and if I die, you do the same for me.”
He looked a little
started. She was a full decade younger than he was, with a bridge of freckles
across her nose and dark brown eyes that were at once curious and hard. Her
lips were thin, and she did not use them to smile often, but when she did, she
was pretty. He looked past her shoulder at their collective families playing
together and back at her. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yep,” she
answered with a nod of her head. “Been thinkin’ about it. They’re practically
family anyway and this way, should the worst happen, I know they’re in good
hands. Besides, been watching you. You’re a good man, and I could do worse.”
“You could do
better,” he answered with a wistful smile.
“Not around here,
and not like I am.” There was no criticism or harshness in her words, only
truth. “You interested?”
“Yes, I will marry
you,” he replied with a soft smile. He took her hand and kissed it. She nodded,
before turning and going back to sit on her boulder in the cold mist, to watch
her family, and try not to think of the tower…
No comments:
Post a Comment