"Perhaps a toad." Said Orddu to her sisters.
They nodded hungrily at the woman before her.
"No please!" The young woman said. She looked down. "Do what you want with me, it was my fault for stumbling in here. Please, please. My child." She put her hand on her stomache. "Let her go." Orche smacked her lips thoughtfully.
"Fine." She said quickly.
"Babies taste good though!" complained Orddu.
"Shut up." Orche hissed.
Sixteen years later.
I was a stupid child. I know that.
So many years alone will do that to a young one.
So I suppose it wasn't my fault, as much as it was. It was my mother's fault. For leaving me.
I watched the animals move along the valley floor and spotted the house.
I called who lived there my father. Though he was not.
He was Care Taker to all the animals in the valley.
He was the one that had saved all the animals in the time of the flood. He had put them on a huge boat, and sailed with his large family until the waters had been taken back.
But this story isn't about him. It's about me. His 'daughter', and the day I found a man in the woods.
A man deadly wounded and near death.
I was watching his shallow breath from the tree's for a time.
I had never seen another man besides father before.
He was tall, or at least I think he was. He had brownish silvering hair. But his face showed no age despite the silver.
He was wearing a cloak and tunic of fine material, or it had been fine before he had fought in them, for now they were bloodied and torn.
A large gash stood next to his hairline on his forehead.
And a stab in the shoulder, leg, and torso were also showing.
I figured he was dead. The first time that I saw him. Laying there in the middle of the woods.
But he wasn't.
He was alive.
I sank down from the tree and move slowly to him.
Surely he would soon die. I was keeping low to the ground as I went, half crawling have walking.
I crouched near his shoulder and gently pulled a strand of hair out of his face.
Suddenly brilliant green eyes shot open and a hand grabbed my wrist.
I screeched and jumped back, allowing him to sit with my wrist still in his grasp.
But as he stared, I realized that his stare was blank. Like the eyes of a dead animal, or, a dying one.
They flicked to me.
"Angel." He said, then his eyes rolled into his head and he fell back to the ground.
I crawled over to him again, this time more carefully, to see if he was still alive.
He was.
My luck.
I looked about the woods.
Maybe his friends would find him.
If they didn't think of him dead.
If he had friends.
I could take him to father. But something stopped me, I'm not sure what.
Slowly I dragged him to where I spent most of my nights-in a small cave near the valley's entrance.
There I put him on my bed role and tended him like a wounded animal.
I used my washed bandages and bandaged him up, then slowly fed him warm water and mint leaves.
It was days before he even stirred.
Me only leaving the cave for water and food from Father.
But when I returned he never had moved.
It was nearing a week and I was figuring his demise when he stirred his hand. At first, I thought I had imagined it in the candle light of my cave. So I went over and put my hand in his.
It was loose. Just like it always had been. I brushed his hair again from his eyes. And his hand tightened painfully around mine.
I will admit I screamed, it startled me more then hurt me.
His eyes shot open and he seemed to panic, rolling out of the mat and taking me with him. We tumbled to the floor and