Chapter 11 Meeting of a Supernatural Kind of the Coed Persuasion during a Journey with a Story thrown in for the Bargain
When Nuala, closely followed by the others, finds herself outside the club at the taxi stop by the club entrance, it does not surprise her anymore that a cab has just stopped to take them all in.
As she enters, as is her want, by the street side backdoor, it is also without surprise that she notices that the shotgun seat is taken.
And by now she should have been expecting who the passenger this time was, though it still left her shaken.
"Mother-of-Kine!"
The woman thus addressed is wearing a practically shapeless smock-frock of indeterminate color that does not quite conceal the slightly bulging midsection nor the slightly swollen breasts. Her hair is as black as a raven's wing, as black as the plumage of the raven that is perched on her shoulder. Her face is quite ageless, you can not quite tell whether she is a wizened pre-pubescent or an extremely well kept ancient past child bearing age or something in between.
Nuala just knows she is Eve.
"Dear child" She rejoins Nuala'a greeting.
"I am not your child!" retorts Nuala.
"I consider all my husband's progeny my children, even if by his other wives." Counters the woman.
Nuala sinks upon herself.
"Let's hear the story, then, shall we?"
She mumbles between clenched teeth.
The woman nods accent towards the taxi driver.
"It concerns basically two brothers and a god who might be deemed to be their grandfather, since he created both their father and their wives. In later versions of the story the middle mother was almost completely forgotten, and the first mother was demonized, so that in the version most widely known only the last wife is reckoned as the only wife of their father, the mother of the two brothers."
"The elder brother was a farmer; the younger brother was a shepherd."
"The story goes that their god asked of the brothers a sacrifice to honor him."
"Each brother sacrificed of what he produced, the elder brother vegetable produce, the younger brother meat (and arguably blood) from a carcass of one of his beasts."
"It does not quite clarify why the god preferred the sacrifice of the younger brother over that of the elder brother, but that it did."
"What is more unclear is why the elder brother reacted to this as he did."
"What is known is, the elder brother murdered the younger brother."
"What follows next is also unclear, the motives that moved the god to punish this action as he did, what was really done to the elder brother as punishment."
"What is clear is that the elder brother found himself banished into exile, wandering away from the fertile lands where he had lived, cursed for all eternity and branded with a mark that conceded him unassailable protection."
"The story goes on to say how he was visited by supernatural creatures that offered him a chance to return under certain conditions, and upon his refusal imputed upon him further courses."
"And later on her found his mother, that first wife who had been demonized, who taught him the path of blood."
"And how a long while later he would become the progenitor of all kindred."
Nuala had been squirming and fidgeting in her seat for sometime now.
Finally she can restrain herself no longer.
"Yes, but how is that relevant to me now? I mean, everybody has been foreshadowing a conflict in which I will be involved proximally…"
"Precisely…"
"You were cursed! You were banished, cursed, marked, you were…"
"That's not the point!"
Muttering to himself:
"The little bugger's flock did eat from my farm!"
"And this is the point! You are entitled to self righteous anger! You are entitled to always defend, always fight for, your own, no matter the consequences, no matter what others might think or judged of your actions and what consequences might be visited upon you on that account!"
Taken aback but such vehemence, at first Nuala makes herself very small.
But, as the journey progresses, Nuala starts pondering the concluding words of the taxi driver, and she has just about worked herself up into a battle frenzy when the taxi comes to a halt.