The moment Delly Curtie started toward her death, leaving the child in Cottie's grasp, the far from mended woman felt a patch start to form on her heart. As soon as the child looked to the new woman, recognition covering her face (as Cottie had often rocked her to sleep at night), she felt a warmth fill her that was once gone. This warmth had died with her husband, had died with her children, and had died fast and quick as it had been formed.
Restored. She felt herself restored; found that this child was why she was alive. She was alive to take this child from Delly Curtie, she was sure of it. The woman had said nothing but had given the child over.
Cottie rocked the child endlessly, trying to calm her. The journey to Nesme` was a long and perilous one, especially with the colds of winter approaching fast. Wagons bounced, sending jolts of shock through the bodies that sat in such, and only making the journey with the child that much harder.
The wheat-haired girl squirmed in the grasp as the broken woman tried to cease the crying. It was to be a long day already.
"Cottie, will ye stop the girl from wailing so oft'" the man, named Torle, bade her. "It's as if she never stops."
"I try." Cottie cried, hopelessly. She shushed the baby, pulling her close and stroking her messy, unclean hair. "It's not easy to stop a child so scared as she." She pat Colson's back with a pain in her heart now. The same pain she felt each time her children ever cried. She understood, what seemed so small to an adult seemed so huge for a child. And even in adult years, such a shift as was in the baby's world, was bound to make the weak wail.
Separation. Separation is a cruel thing, Cottie knew all to well. The child was experiencing loss though there was not true loss to experience. Her parents were alive, were (hopefully) well, but all the child knew was her mother and father were not close when she wanted them to be. All there was, was a strange woman, this Cottie considered and knew well.
Night fell and the child had fallen silent as they entered the gates of Silverymoon and lead to where they would rest. It was a beautiful town and Cottie took note, glancing back to the child with a weak smile on her face. If she could, she would stay in this place and take it as her own. She felt she deserved as much, to raise the child in the greatest and most gloriously beautiful place in the land.
Unfortunately, and to Cottie's dismay, it was close to Mithril Hall, too close. If she went to Nesme` she at least had a chance to keep the child under the rule of Galen Firth. Surely, she though, the king would not draw the child away from a broken woman, ripped of her life and her family, full to burst with the need to love and care for someone, something even.
The babe slept quietly and Cottie sat up, rocking her. Her sunken eyes stared down at the child, feeling the weight of exhaustion befall her eyelids. She did not want to sleep, though. She never wanted to, for in sleep came dreams. Horrible dreams.
Her husband being torn apart by the Trolls. Children being severed before the woman who chose to hid in the house as a coward. She had held her mouth, tears streaming her face at that time, feeling the patter of blood against the checkered curtain that separated her from life and death.
She felt the bile turn in her stomach and, for once, she did not feel it rise to her throat. She stared at the child and felt a sense of comfort, a sense of being. It was a great feeling in her soul, one she never wanted to let go.
One she would never let go.
The barbarian would not touch Colson; she would not take away the sense of security that was brought to this woman. No, Cottie realized, she was stronger than to let the prince of Mithril Hall push her around and reclaim the child as his own once more.
Ha! It was not so much his child as it was Cottie's! Adopted was she, the broken woman knew all too well. She had as much right to keep the child as the Barbarian.
But what of the woman who gave her the child. Cottie thought of the pain she felt when her children were taken, not so much taken as ripped, from her. How would the woman feel? How would she respond if the woman stood with Wulfgar, begging for the child?
Regret. Cottie felt a great sense of regret in her, for Delly had done nothing to her. She would have to return the child if Delly was with the man.
Cottie lasted two ten-days with the child in her midst. She would smile when the toddler ambled about the room, reaching for things that were not to be played with, taking them caringly only to get the reply of either a whine or a grunt that bade for the return of the "toy". Cottie, the mending woman, would carry the girl on her hip happily as she visited neighbors. They watched her with a smile on her face, knowing she was healing. The child brought a sense of healing to the woman. She would also send the child into the air, only to catch the giggling little girl.
When fed, Colson would often smear her face with the small amount of food, never leaving a spot clear. She would moan and whine when having her face wiped off. The girl was adorable, pricelessly cute and filled a hole within Cottie that she had looked to mend for a long time. A piece of her had returned with the child.
There were some things that Cottie could not stand though. Occasionally she would let out the cry of "Ma" or "Da", making Cottie wince. She did not like this child to call out for her parents, for it reminded her all to well that she was not hers in the first place. She would think of her children, how they would let out similar cries as children, for children often cry for their parents in times of need. Colson never learned to cry for Cottie as Ma.
She was scared, too, that the child would never get a chance to learn that she was her Mother. She feared the child being taken from her before she even got a chance to show she was a fitting mother for the babe. She didn't want this child to be taken from her as her others had been, though it would not quite be the same in literal terms.
Fear. Fear ran through her to the highest degree, and she would often cry herself to sleep on such fear.
"Take her!" someone said "Hide her, they cannot take the child!"
Cottie's heart raced. It raced faster than it had in a long time, and as fast as it had the day she witnessed the death of her children. She breathed heavy, holding the children close. The child babbled, confused at what was going on.
"Da?" she questioned, the only intelligible thing in her vocabulary. Cottie, again, winced at the words. Her "Da" was there, he was entering the town. All she could do was hope that the king would protect her.
And so his words were both tearing and comforting. He would not tell of Cottie and the child before he heard Wulfgar's argument. She feared that he would have a convincing one though, knew that the Barbarian had reason to want the child. It was not simply for himself.
He heard a woman, not Delly but Cattie-Brie and knew that she would feel no remorse if she took the child now and ran. She knew that she would not care if she left after seeing the eyes of Wulfgar. She did not care for Cattie-Brie Battlehammer much anyways, so her gaze would no more mar her decision as Wulfgars would.
Delly Curtie was dead, she heard. Then a loud noise sounded, much like a house crumbling, wood falling atop stone. At that Cottie backed up and started for a way out. She knew that if she came face to face with the powerful barbarian she would not be successful in her efforts to keep Colson on her person. The woman, the mending woman, was almost successful before the guards took her by her arms.
Fear, Fear ran through the woman, knowing that the child would not be hers anymore. Regret, the greatest regret she had ever felt, filled her, telling her she should have left Nesme`, found a better place than this where nobody could ever find her. The thought of separation, separating from the child she had come to love now.
Cottie couldn't help but start to thrash and sob with the child close to her. She felt her insides collapsing. She felt as if a great pressure would make her chest burst. Then her eyes found Wulfgar and then those words.
"Da!" Colson cried, trying hard to escape the firm grasp of the desperate woman. But she could not escape. Colson, still, reached her arms happily, trying for her father who started forward and returned the claiming reach.
He took the child.
Cottie more than crumbled before Wulfgar as the babe was taken. She sobbed and wailed at the feeling. She felt as if she were being ripped in two, as if everything in her life was crumbling again. She saw her children being ripped apart before her, heard their cries.
"Colson has a mother who loves her as much as you loved your own children." the stupid, monstrous being said to her in a calming voice. Everything swirled around her and she felt hopeless.
"I can take care o' her!" Cottie cried, in vain she knew. She cried out, knowing that even her herself doubted the words. She could barley care for her children, barley keep them alive, did not offer her life for theirs. How could she care for this child?
Still, she cried, sobbed even, as the two left the room. Her heart was broken, again.
The only thing that seemed to be restored within her was pain, agony, emptiness.
Ok, ok so it's kind of morbid but I got to thinking, what could Cottie have been feeling? It must have been terrible to have a child once again after your own were killed only to have it taken away again!
R&R if you would