"Who are they?" Sandy asked the other family of squirrels her family had decided to share their meal with. Sandy locked eyes with a mostly black hedgehog. He was tall and muscular, likely a half dozen years her senior, and his red highlights on the quills of his head were just as blood red as his eyes. He seemed to slow down and take the extra time to glare at her while he passed by.
"Who? The Peace Keepers?" Asked the female squirrel, who couldn't be too much older than herself, as she tried to feed one of her young children. To the woman's annoyance the child kept trying to escape to run off and play, as his younger sibling sat happily in his father's lap watching the commotion due to the excitement of the new comers.
"They don't look so peaceful ta me." Sandy scoffed as she started to eat again, but kept a watch on the armed men walking amongst them.
"Travis, no!" The woman scolded her son causing him to behave just slightly better as he stopped wiggling so much and finally put a large bit of food in his mouth. The young female then turned her attention back to Sandy, and smiled brightly. "Hon, they are all bark and no bite, so long as ya follow the rules. I'm sure y'all ain't gonna have no issue with 'em."
The Cheeks family all happy nodded in agreement except Sandy who kept watching the men… That was until her mother nudged her. Sandy then sighed in defeat and nodded her agreement too. "We ain't looking fer trouble, just better pay."
"Oh heck! Ya will sure find good pay here. The Electros are well known for taking good care of their on-site workers. We all eat well, and after a decade they even offer ta let you pay fer yer own house down the way." The younger male squirrel smiled at the thought of having his own house as he looked down at his youngest boy and offered him more food.
"On their land?" Sandy questioned getting another angry nudge from her mother.
"Yeah, but that's why it's cheaper."
Sandy could feel her family glaring her down to shut up. It was sad how many people didn't realize they were pretty much setting themselves up for severing one master their whole life by giving into such an agreement. Her father always said her smarts offend ended up causing an excessive amount of problems, so maybe she should just keep her opinion of things within their family and not bring their new found friends down.
Sandy gave her best fake smile, that was very weak, but it seemed to be enough to lie to the young squirrel family they had just befriended. She felt dirty now, but still not enough to shack her unease about the private wondering army they were now being prayed on by.
After everyone ate a briefly met some higher up, manager types, came to talk to the heads of households. That meant Sandy and her mother were sent to unload more of the good they had brought up with them as they waited for the men to get the run down on how things were going to play out. Sandy had dealt with this many times, but it never got easier for her. The fact that just because she was born a female she had to sit aside and wait for a man, from her family, to come tell her what their orders were... She couldn't get over the fact that the orders couldn't go directly to her as she wasn't worth the energy, or time. She hated it. She hated the world. She was far better at her job than her brother, and almost on par with her father, even at her young age. It wasn't fair.
"Sandy?!" Her mother Donna now yelled causing the younger female to look at her mother in embarrassment as she now realized she had gotten lost in her inner rage, and her mother could tell it fair well. Donna's angry face now turned to sympathy as she rubbed her dirty hands off on her loose-fitting dress. "Let's head back ta our tent and let these strong young men finish up the last of da work." She gave Sandy a forgiving smile, but still, she couldn't hold back a bit of sadness.
Sandy now felt guilty. Her mother could read her far too well, and had even apologized to her on a few occasions that she wasn't born a boy. Donna blamed herself. She admitted she was thrilled to have such a wonderful daughter, but knew whole heartedly that had Sandy been born a male… She could have done anything, and likely even changed the whole world for the better. But she wasn't born a male. Sandy was just another woman, who had to wait for her father's orders before he picked a husband for her who would then take over giving her orders. She was thankful that the few men her father had found to try to woo her she scared off extremely fast. Those brief memories actually brought a smile to her face and helped bring her out of her sour mood as she entered the family tent behind her mother.