Chapter Five
Awestruck Lamb
Though it was clear at this point that Ilya could manage well enough on her own, and moreover, that she had accepted yet another harsh truth—that as a homunculus, even as one half-human, her life held no valuable purpose other than that of others' greed and desire, and the same was for that of her homunculi sisters, and that learning to tell them apart had become meaningless—in the time that came for her to be bound to the Servant she would need for the Fifth Holy Grail War, she was introduced to two homunculi who had been created and groomed to be her respective caretakers forthwith. She surveyed the two of them with icy indifference as she sat before them in a sofa in her newly furnished room, free of anything from her childhood after she'd had all such things burned.
The two of them may or not have been any of the ones she had examined up close in those cultivating tanks, and to her, it just didn't matter.
Meanwhile, for now, she'd told herself that burning all of those lovely presents from her childhood would have to do as far as getting her vengeance on Kiritsugu, who'd had the gall to die on her before she'd had the chance to find him and kill him herself. Her last hope was that she would at least be satisfied with a pound of flesh in the form of this boy he had abandoned her for, this…Shirou Emiya, as she'd been told he was called. And the fact that he carried her father's surname somehow made her all the more eager to take her killing anger out on him.
Such thoughts turned in her mind, which would have otherwise succumbed to ennui in the face of these pointless introductions to these two new homunculus maids before her.
"Well, get on with it, if you must," she sighed, when the more vocal of the two new maids initiated their curtsies, tapping her fingers impatiently on the ornate sofa arm.
"Very well," said the vocal one with annoying enthusiasm, already painfully reminding Ilya of Elke. Thank God she was rid of her. "I am Sella, and I will be your formal and primary educator from now on, particularly in areas of what preparations are needed for the coming Fifth Holy Grail War. And this is Leysritt, your primary guard, being excellently trained in combat with the halberd no less. The both of us will be tasked with looking after you from now until you fulfill your role as the Grail Vessel."
Ilya's eyes flicked like a snake in Leysritt's direction, further irked with this additional reminder of Elke, as she too had wielded a halberd.
What was worse though was that Leysritt, it seemed, still hadn't even fully grasped the art of oral communication, and spoke with the insufferable uncertainty of a nervous toddler.
"H-Hello, I-Ilya. Nice to…meet you." Then Leysritt gave a crooked, unpracticed smile.
Was there even any point trying to pass her off as a person? Ilya's tapping fingers curled into her palm.
Sella meanwhile gave a nervous laugh. "Ah-ha, well, you'll have to forgive her, for as you can see, the link Grandfather Acht created between you two is not quite—"
"It doesn't matter," Ilya cut her off sharply. "These introductions are meaningless. My only concern is what news you have for me concerning the Berserker-class Servant that was chosen."
Sella took only a moment to recover from Ilya's abruptness, inclining her head submissively, apologetically even. "Of course, my lady. The Summoning has in fact been performed successfully, and the Berserker-class Servant chosen for you is chained in the chambers below, awaiting your arrival to complete the Master-Servant link."
"Good." Ilya stood. "Let's take care of this, then."
Down in the chambers below, not far from the cultivating room where more of Ilya's "sisters" were awaiting birth within their tanks, Ilya met the muscular hulk of a Servant summoned in the Berserker Class, chained with the air of a sleeping dragon as he remained under some kind of spell of somnolence to keep him under control, presumably. The very air quivered in terror of his powerful presence. Were he to be awakened, with one blow he could easily crush Ilya with his fist.
But Ilya showed nothing of her fear. In fact, she reacted to him with cold frustration, and that was all she expressed, glaring at the one they had once called Hercules. More than that, but she felt no qualms expressing her pinched disgust of this…thing…this half-naked thing that wielded a sword that resembled more of a club than a blade, though undeniably sharp. Inspired with such strong feelings of aversion fueling her anger that flooded her like the opening of an old wound, Ilya approached her Berserker without a single tremor in her knees.
Sella meanwhile was speaking of Berserker's high potential for success based on his raw power alone with nothing short of awe. "Summoning the mighty hero Hercules in the Berserker Class could not have been more formidable for you, my lady! Such utter power, waiting to be harnessed! With this Berserker at your side, your victory in the coming Holy Grail War is more than certain!"
"Be quiet," Ilya cut her short again in a voice that was dangerously soft. "None of that means anything to me. I don't care anymore. If I had my way…I would stop these Grail Wars altogether…. But I guess my death is the only answer to that."
"Miss…Ilyasviel…."
"Anyway, this Servant is nothing but a tool. A tool I don't even want."
"But…Berserker…Ilya needs…Berserker," Leysritt suddenly piped up with her halting speech. "Berserker will…protect Ilya…."
"That's all nonsense," Ilya declared icily, glaring at the pathetically shackled Berserker, deep in growling slumber. "This thing knows nothing of loyalty or trust. It will only obey me because of the magical pact between Master and Servant. Without that pact, this beast would kill or abandon me without a second thought. I would seek to win this Holy Grail War all on my own were it not required of me to use a Servant, were Grandfather not to insist, insist on this one no less. I am the most powerful Master in the world…I don't need anyone else. I don't trust anyone else."
"Ilya," Leysritt chimed in, in a rather small, even sad voice.
"Very well then," said Sella with resignation. "Then please prepare to complete the link and seal the pact. If it hurts, my lady, please do not hesitate to stop."
"Just keep your mouths shut and watch." Ilya took a step on the small magic circle that was drawn out and linked to the larger one on which Berserker knelt, chained as he was. "I will handle this."
As soon as she said this, Ilya accessed the Magic Circuits that made up most of her small body, opening them up to the circle under her feet and reaching across the link to the one on which Berserker was standing. The jolt of power from her to the Servant created a jolt that awoke the beastly man from his slumber. His eyes snapped open, glowing red as hot coals, full of nothing but a dark, raw hunger for violence, and he let out a groan and a roar of instant pain and anger.
Even so, he would not bend to Ilya's will. He resisted her attempts to reign him in under her control, physically straining against his shackles, while his consciousness violently rejected her. But Ilya was tenacious and held fast, channeling a seething sense of frustration underneath her cold determination into reaching out with her Magic Circuits to wrangle the beast.
"You…you will obey me, Berserker," she spat as the two of them struggled, nearly equals in power despite her body being so tiny. "Now get up!"
Still, Berserker resisted, yanking away from her.
Fresh anger sparked in Ilya, like more of her deeply buried wounds were reopening, bleeding ire, filling her and causing something to snap.
"Hey!" she shouted, throwing an outright punch at the barrier between her and Berserker as Berserker continued to shut her out. "You listen to me! You useless, hulking beast! Get up!"
All that pent up anger, all of it bred from such terrible pain and grief, over everything that had been done to her…Grandfather tormenting her…her mother's death…her father….
Berserker met her glare with one of his own, but to an outsider it would have been hard to tell which one was really scarier. Sensing she was gaining the upper hand at last, Ilya's lips twitched into a bitter, mirthless half-smile, and she gave one final yank with her Circuits to get Berserker to submit.
But as she did, she received a violent whiplash effect from the enormous amount of feedback she was getting from the Servant as a result of the work that had been done on her all these years, the price for having the potential to be so much more tightly bound to her Servant than any Master in the coming War would. Terrible pain socked her in the stomach and flooded her, leaving her only able to hug herself, bent double, as she cried out before falling to her knees to wait for it all to subside, shaking with both agony and anger.
"My lady!" Sella exclaimed, as she and Leysritt hurried to her side. "Please, sever the link now, this is too much for you. We can try reconnecting when you've rested."
"This is nothing," Ilya hissed, glowering as Berserker as he hung limp and defeated in his shackles, snorting heavily as he caught his breath, as though he'd been running hard. "A trifle. The link has been established. I won't sever it over a little pain."
"But my lady…."
"Shut up!"
Sella blinked, dumbfounded, as Ilya shoved her away, and Leysritt could only repeat, "Ilya…" in that sad, inept voice of hers.
Even as pain still wracked Ilya's tiny body, she shakily regained her feet, fists clenched, staring down the conquered Berserker. "You…you are mine now," she growled, only for the last of her strength to fade against her will, and the corners of her vision to darken as she fell into a faint.
Though it was Leysritt who caught her, Ilya looked up and thought for one shining moment that her mother had come back to her, only to realize her mistake.
"No…Mama…" she croaked, overwhelmed with more anger and grief and passing out, falling into the darkness such as she hadn't done for a long time.
When Ilya awoke hours later in her bed, she was a little confused at first, not to mention febrile. And again, for a brief moment, she was under the fleeting, illusory impression that it was her mother keeping vigil beside her bed, rather than Leysritt.
When she realized her error just as quickly, she felt herself sink further into the pillows of her bed with a huff.
"Miss…Il…y…a," said Leysritt slowly, and then she jerkily reached for a washcloth soaked in water to sponge Ilya's feverish face.
At first Ilya resisted her efforts, but then Leysritt actually managed to chastise her over it.
"Now, now…Ilya must look…nice…for Grandfather," she admonished, though with a placid grin on her face.
Ilya frowned, relaxing and letting Leysritt perform her ministrations as she asked, "Is Grandfather angry?" Something in her sensed that he was because she had passed out after establishing a link with her Servant. Something like that wasn't supposed to happen after all, if the Servant-Master link was strong enough…or rather, if she was strong enough to handle the link.
"Sella is…speaking to him…now," said Leysritt, withdrawing the damp washcloth and dipping it back in the bowl full of water. Her eyes however darted up to the ceiling, a result of her inept grasp of human social skills in making eye contact while speaking.
Ilya looked away herself and chewed absently on a thumbnail, steadily rebuilding her wall around her heart, that wall that briefly crumbled with whirling thoughts and memories of her mother, old longings bursting to break free. She had to suppress them all, otherwise she would fail to win this War before it even begun.
Then decisively she sat up, drawing the back of her hand across her clammy brow. "What's the state of the Servant?" she asked, suddenly realizing with a bit of panic that she sensed nothing that felt like the monstrosity that was Berserker within her Circuits. Not a wit.
"Still in chains," Leysritt replied, and rather coherently. Sadly, even.
"So…the strength of my control…isn't sufficient." Ilya considered her hands, still so small. Yet they didn't tremble. She could only be further determined to prove to her grandfather that she was worthy to carry out her tasks for the coming Fifth War…to go to Fuyuki….
There was a knock at the door, and Sella arrived, and wearing a grim expression at that.
"My lady, Grandfather would like to see you once you feel well enough to dress," she announced.
"Very good." Ilya shoved the blankets aside and swung her small legs over the edge of the bed. "There's no point in delaying. I'm well enough now."
Below in the Alchemy Chamber, Ilya, once again prim and pressed in her violet blouse and white skirt (an alteration of the one that her father had bought for her before he'd left for Fuyuki based on what little growth her body had experienced since then), presented herself with a curtsy before Jubstacheit von Einzbern.
Acht peered at her with his usual icy sharpness down his wrinkled old nose, stroking that frozen waterfall of a beard of his. Even so, Ilya had learned to meet that gaze boldly with an icy one of her own, crimson eyes narrowed in perpetual, glaring focus. In spite of all the shining things she had abandoned in herself, there was a tiny flame of pride within her that she had managed to come this far as a person before her grandfather, a commendable feat from the tiny girl she had once been, who would cling to Irisviel's skirts in fear of this man…once upon a time…while Kiritsugu….
But that time was gone away, cast into the air like passing dust floating in the light, and Ilya could think of it with nary a tremor.
"You are well then?" Acht inquired of her with his usual clinical calculation.
"Well enough, Grandfather."
"However, it would seem the first attempt to complete the pact linking Master and Servant has gone awry. Perhaps we should take a look at your Circuits and see if they require adjustments?"
"If that is what you think must be done, sir."
"Very well then. I shall have Sella prepare the examination table."
It was all very much the same as before. The gown she was forced to put on so Grandfather could better slice her open with the scalpel and generally examine her body to his satisfaction, while Sella and Leysritt assisted just as Elke, Nele, and Mieke once did. The names were rotated, but for minus one maid, it was all the same as before. Calling Sella and Leysritt by the names Sella and Leysritt was no different than calling them Nele and Mieke…or Elke…or Irisviel….
Ilya blinked rapidly as Grandfather went about his work, but no tears came. They had long since dried up. She had nothing left except a calm acceptance, and muted anticipation of always receiving further orders, further instructions. When Grandfather completed his examination and found nothing to be amiss, he concluded that perhaps it was something within her own heart, and that it was her mettle that must be tested before they could proceed forward with her linking to the Servant Berserker.
"Your heart…is half-human, after all," he pointed out with a mixture of awe and disdain—awe for the fact that his ingenuity had contributed to achieving such a thing, disdain for the identity of the human that had contributed his genes to the process of making Ilya half-human.
Ilya eased herself up into a sitting position, dismissing Sella's and Leysritt's attempts to assist her. "What test would you set for me, Grandfather?" she asked, but she stared off at an empty beaker instead of looking at him.
"I will give you a test that has proved effective in the past, similar to one I used on your mother, in fact," he added, as an afterthought.
At this, Ilya couldn't help but prick up her ears and look up at him, almost like a startled bird, but Acht said nothing further and took Sella aside to explain things.
Shortly though, it became clear to Ilya what was to happen to her in order to test her ability to truly be able to make use of Berserker. And thereafter she found herself in nothing but her nightshirt, wandering around in the cold, snowy forest, deep and far away from the castle, tasked with returning in one piece.
Just like her mother had been, from what she'd been told. Though that story had always been told to her before as a kind of fairy tale. Irisviel had been cast out into the storming, snowing cold, beset by wolves, and Kiritsugu had braved the cold to rescue her from it, whereupon the two of them had fallen in love shortly afterward.
A regular knight-and-princess love story.
And here, in these same snowy woods, she would walk beside her father and mother, each of them holding her by the hand and smiling down at her…either that or it was just her and her mother, playing a little hide-and-seek amongst the trees…or her and her father, and their walnut game….
But no one would come to rescue her as Kiritsugu had done for her mother. No one was coming for her, for anyone who would have done so long ago had since died and left her behind. She would have to rescue herself. That was why she up and left Berserker. He was frightening, and she'd felt nothing but the impulse to run away from him when the two of them had been deposited in the deep woods. She'd given him one hateful glare before turning tail and darting off into the trees, and though he'd followed her, the beast, she'd managed to dodge him and give him the slip, until she'd wandered far off into a clearing and collapsed from exhaustion, only to wake up in the snow a little while later and remember everything.
Pleased to see that Berserker hadn't managed to catch up with her, Ilya regained her feet and started on the next step of finding her own way back to the castle.
"I'll see if Grandfather can arrange for a different Servant," she thought to herself aloud, and sniffed, just a little, as she trudged through the thick snow in her small bare feet. "One that isn't so scary…and doesn't hurt me when I try to connect with it…."
She blinked up at the bare, snow-laced trees, and those memories kept trying to overpower her, the nostalgia of these woods daring to play tricks on her mind, lull her into lowering her guard, as familiarity gave way to false impressions that she might look up and there Kiritsugu would be, just on the rise of that snowy declivity, his hands deep in the pockets of his long black coat, looking up at the gray sky, and then turning to smile at her approach….
"Ilya…! Here I am…! I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long, princess…."
Yes, you did. You've kept me waiting all this time. I'm still waiting.
Ilya clenched and unclenched her tiny fists and kept walking, stamping out those feelings of longing, that ache, with every step she took. As she did so, she lost herself in the simple exercise and rhythm of the act of walking itself, of the pumping of her heart and her breathing, how invigorating the cold air was in her little lungs.
But then something in the air changed as the wind picked up, colder and harsher. Then it carried the howls of wolves, while shadows darted in amongst the trees.
Ilya's heart skipped a little faster, finding it harder to breathe as fear crept in. Wringing her hands, she stopped and stepped back, uncertain, only realizing too late that she was already surrounded, as she looked behind her to find thin wolves creeping out of the trees into the clearing she'd wandered into, bearing their sharp teeth, dark eyes nothing but voids of hunger.
Even so, fight or flight instinct took hold. Even so, she would not give up. She had to survive. Her father might be dead, but she still had a reason to get to Fuyuki…there was that son, Shirou…she had to live if only to find him, kill him, make him suffer…such a quest to spill blood was all she had left….
She ran.
Made for the first opening she could see and ran.
Even as her legs felt as heavy as they did in any nightmare, even as she began to lose hope as she stumbled through the trees and out into an open field, only to trip and tumble down another snowy hill, where the wolves closed in on her at the bottom. Before she could even attempt to get back to her feet, they were upon her, with their hot breath and their snarling, quivering jaws ready to devour and tear her apart.
One of them caught hold of her nightgown's sleeve, another her soft silver hair. More of them nosed their way towards her, starving and panting to bite flesh. The one that had her by the hair yanked as if to tear her head off. And unlike Irisviel, Ilya still had a long way to go as far as training in the arts of alchemy to fight them off. A grim and unfortunate oversight on Acht's part, but perhaps this was just more his ruthless cruelty…prove to me you can survive without power like that before I give you the right to learn such things….
Ilya let out a wail of pain, and cried out as she hadn't done in so very long, not since the early days of Acht experimenting on her. That scream came from the very depths of her heart, where that little girl she used to be was locked up with her tears. That scream said everything that she had tried to banish from herself, an echo of the screams she used to make when waking from her nightmares about Lord Justeaze, crying:
"MOMMY! DADDY! HELP ME! PLEASE!"
Such a raw expression of such things brought on a wave of despairing sobs as she went on screaming for her life.
And then, a great THUD sent all of the wolves running, leaving Ilya lying curled up and shaking in the snow, tears streaming down her face. She dared to look up as a shadow fell across her…and there was Berserker, snorting hotly as usual, more beast than man, his hair as wild and savage as the rest of him.
Yet his eyes…no longer held the empty, pure instinct of a beast. He blinked, as though he were actually a child awakening from a dream, understanding something new, and embracing it. Kiritsugu had looked at her with eyes like that…the day he'd rescued her from falling in the ice, wrapping her up in his coat before placing her in her mother's arms….
Even as her father would one day betray her, she could not forget, not in the deepest part of herself, how the way he would always look at her had made her feel…like she was the most precious thing in the world, a girl to be cherished and protected, and made to feel so very wonderfully happy and loved, regardless that it had all been a lie….
Meanwhile, Ilya could see up higher that the wolves must have come back, for there were two within her sights, perched and clawing on his shoulder, gnawing on his muscular back with all the grit and ferocity they could muster. Yet Berserker didn't even appear to feel such things, remaining stock-still, unflinching, as if the wolves were biting on stone, not flesh. It was as if the wolves were nothing but flies to him. Not even that, maybe.
"Berserker…" she whispered, her voice trembling against her will. "Why…why don't you get away...? Why are you doing this…? I told you to go and leave me…. So why…?"
But Berserker continued to look at her with those eyes, those eyes she realized asked, in their own, simple way: "Are you all right?"
It had been so long since she had received anything that felt like someone caring about her wellbeing…whether it had been sincere or not…back then…it had been…her entire world….
Could he…?
"You don't…want anything…to happen to me…do you…?" Ilya squeaked, and realized that she was quite in awe of Berserker's power. It wasn't even so much scary now, as it was…something to be marveled and appreciated…a power that he chose to use…to protect her, even when she'd sent him away.
"I see." Slowly, Ilya sat up, blinking her tears away as she looked up at her Berserker. Without any effort, and without any pain, she accessed her Magic Circuits and reached out to the Servant shielding her. "Then, Berserker, I order you: destroy them all…NOW!"
Berserker's eyes glowed hotter as he leaned back and let out a mighty roar, unleashing a flash of raw energy that burst forth, destroying only the wolves in its path, safeguarding Ilya as he did so.
When the light dissipated and Ilya could lift up her head to look, those vile wolves were nothing but smears of blood and entrails and fur staining the snow. Some of the blood even smattered on her, but seeing such horrible things was nothing to her anymore. She had felt and seen too many horrible things for it to matter that she was surrounded by gore and death.
She only had eyes for Berserker, as he helped her to her feet. Still in awe of him, and flooded with such warm gratitude she nearly started crying again, she tentatively reached out and touched the back of Berserker's hand. That hand was the size of her head, and her hand comparatively was so very tiny. But she knew then that she had nothing to fear from that hand, or any part of this Servant. The way he looked down at her with those same eyes, focused in their devotion, straightforward in their gentility toward her now the heat of battle had gone from them again, despite his size, he would always treat her with the utmost delicacy and care.
"You protected me, Berserker," she said, feeling the mass of his strength in her very fingertips. "You protected me of your own free will, didn't you?"
The frown in Berserker's brow relaxed, and that was all he gave in response. But it was enough for Ilya to know it meant: "Yes, I did, little one."
The tiny pads of Ilya's tiny fingers trembled to feel such power, and she considered Berserker's hulking massiveness with a kind of soft reverence. "Wow…Berserker…you're so…strong," she mused admiringly. "And for all of that…you just care…about what happens to me." She blinked up at the Servant again, feeling in her very blood and Magic Circuits the bond singing between them so harmoniously and serenely. Knowing such tranquility, as she hadn't in so long, made those tears well up again in her eyes after all, but this time, she couldn't have cared less about holding them back, or whether anyone might see or notice later.
Berserker looked off into the distance, and then gestured with a nod of his head in a specific direction.
"Do you know where the castle is?" Ilya asked.
At Berserker nodding, his eyes brightened to such intelligent clarity as Ilya had not noticed before, Ilya found herself smiling, letting him take her tiny hand in his giant one.
"Then let's go," she said. "Let's go home."
Berserker nodded again, agreeing.
As the two of them walked quietly together through the snowy trees back to the castle, Ilya looked up at him now and then, as he looked straight ahead, never breaking focus. Indeed, no longer did he seem at all frightening to her. Not at all. His strength, in fact, was such a beautiful and magnificent thing. Ilya couldn't help but be humbled and heartened by it.
Then she wondered what he might be thinking, for now she realized that this beastly man did in fact have very human thoughts, even if he was lost in the madness that defined the Berserker Class. No, he wasn't even mad so much, as he had somehow taken that kind of power by the reigns and wrestled it into submission, as well as he'd done in slaying the great Ne Mean Lion, as told in the myths and legends of the hero they called Hercules.
Well, even if he won't outright tell me what he's thinking, this is enough for me, Ilya thought after a bit of walking beside him, and with some contentment, actually. Perhaps it was because she now experienced a nostalgic recall of what she would always feel when she'd been littler, walking beside her parents this way…
…her mother, swinging her arm playfully…
…her father, smiling down at her as he walked beside her much in the way Berserker was doing now, with such strength…strength with which she had once believed he would always keep her, his little girl, safe….
Here was Berserker, taking up that mantle, in a way.
Except….
"Berserker," she piped up.
Berserker made a low grunt of acknowledgement, but it was gentle in its nature.
Ilya gave Berserker's hand a small squeeze of encouragement, supplication. "Can you…would you…pick me up and carry me…? Maybe on your shoulders…?"
And there was that terrible ache again, before she could defend herself against it, a fleeting recollection of so many days, traipsing through the snow with Kiritsugu like this, when suddenly—
"Look out, Ilya, I've…got you!" Kiritsugu exclaimed quite suddenly, and before Ilya knew it, he was scooping her up into his arms from behind, lifting her high, sending Ilya into squealing giggles, as she kicked her legs and made mock protests before insisting that he perch her on his shoulders, whereupon he would happily oblige her.
"Now giddy up, horsey!" she called. "Off we go, Kerry, to defeat the Wizard of Sorrow!"
"As you wish, your highness!" Kiritsugu exclaimed, beaming and then ducking into the trees, capering like the horse he was pretending to be, sharing in Ilya's laughter….
But Berserker only glanced at her sidelong before pressing onward. Yet something about the way he didn't scoop her up like she wanted didn't feel like rejection to Ilya, so much as though he were…refraining out of some kind of respect…like he knew…who she really wanted to lift her up and carry her…and it wasn't him.
Still, Ilya squeezed Berserker's hand again, and she could feel that he could tell without her having to speak aloud that that gesture said: "It's okay. I understand. This is fine. I'm happy, just like this."
And that sense of contentment settled between the two of them again, as they ambled on through the snow. It didn't matter that all of this was calling back to Ilya's mind things she'd rather forget since now they only caused her pain. Having Berserker at her side this way, with how it was suddenly so comforting, so reassuring, that was a remedy unto itself. Ilya felt that bond between them grow stronger with every step they took back to the castle, and it made her feel that, just for now, when it was just the two of them, she could afford to indulge herself in pretending, just for a little, that she could be that small, happy girl again, loved and protected.
That, and hope, as she had not dared to let herself feel in so very long either.
She looked up at Berserker again, and it didn't hurt so much to let her mouth quirk into a grin, just a little, and so gently.
Yes…with Berserker by her side like this…no matter what happened, despite the grim fate that awaited her…she would claim victory in this Fifth Grail War…punish Kiritsugu by making the son he had abandoned her for suffer…and maybe…just maybe…she might actually be able to reach the end of her tiny, emptied life with a genuine smile on her lips.
From now on, the lamb once again had a shepherd she could trust.
