In Loki's Honor

I could swear I felt the fairy wink.

I sat on my haunches. Staying in were-jaguar form was the best, at least I had some fur to shelter me from the cold. Should I go back home? One, it was a week away by wagon. Two, I had no idea where it was. Three, I didn't have a fuck to give my siblings or my father.

Mother, on the other hand, needed me as much as I longed for her. I decided I was going to return to her. I knew Rosalinda would approve. I rummaged the wagon, breaking and ripping apart everything. I found a secret compartment where the merchant hid his coins. Small, tarnished, bent, and misshapen coins. Copper, bronze, a few silver, and two gold pieces. I took the bag and tied it to a leather strap so I could hang it on my neck.

I had my fill of food and water from the merchant's stockpile. I made a point of destroying everything and ravaging the corpse. With claw marks everywhere, people would think monsters did it. I broke one wheel off and cut the horses free. The beasts didn't need any incentive to get the hell away from me. I found another coin pouch and a bronze dagger hidden in the merchant's loin clothes It had only copper and bronze in it with a solitary silver coin. I put it back where it was. If people found coin on the body, they wouldn't suspect theft.

I shifted to a kitten and set on my journey back home. Back to mom.

The sun hadn't set when I saw a few travelers on horseback coming further down the road. I jumped and dug a hole in a pile of snow sitting in a gutter by the roadside. I waited. They stopped.

"Did ... see ... black ... jumped ... near ... ?" One of them spoke.

Damn. They saw me hide from afar. I started to dig down even if it made noise.

The men started to dig the snow. I was already under the soft, cold, and damp earth when they found my hole.

"Damn ... burrow ... rabbit ... !"

They started to dig my burrow. I dug deeper then banked up and sideways. The bastards buried the hole, cutting my supply of fresh air. I kept digging up and away until I found grassroots. Breaking through I saw faint sunlight filtering through a pile of snow.

"Give up ... deep ..."

"No ... new ... dirt ...."

".... go .... city ... night."

They left and I dug myself out of the snow. I looked the riders go away and to their luck, one of the free horses was coming this way. They found the horse and easily convinced the animal to follow them. After a conversation that was too far away for me to understand, they set at a gallop and vanished behind a hill.

I moved back to the road. Even though I was as exposed as a bleeding sore thumb in a shark swarm, it was impossible to move through the snow faster than a crawl. I could dig but that was troublesome in itself. I would move blindly. No. The road was the only way to go.

I did dig a hole to spend the night in. With my fur, my Skill to resist cold, and Nenandil's protection, I didn't suffer much. It wasn't comfortable either but I survived. I lived the Hakuna Matata dream. Bugs of all sorts sheltered underneath the earth and I had a full course set for me.

Travelers were a problem but I was too fast. Once I spotted someone on the road I would bolt and dig a hole to hide until they went away. It happened one or two times a day and it hurt my travel speed.

On the fifth day since I killed the merchant, I found a crossroads. A road coming from the west crossed with the one I was on and went to the east. I had no freaking idea where home was but I had a hunch.

You see, the farm seldomly received visitors. It meant the farm was out of the way. I checked the three choices and took the road less traveled. Literally and figuratively. And so went the deadliest feline under two kilograms in the world with a coin pouch jiggling on her neck.

That decision, however, took much longer in the real world than it took in my mind. My brain took longer to process information. And what it could grasp, what I could perceive and infer was fragmented. I was fortunate to have the knowledge and wisdom accrued in my past lives. That was all that kept my current existence from being a babbling imbecile.

While I walked, my mind wandered to the people that had to put up with this kind of disability. How strong they had to be only because the choice was taken from them by the genetic lottery or happenstance. It was so easy to sneer and ignore others. People evaluate others using themselves as a measure. That which you fear others might do onto you, that's what you would to do onto them.

Four days went by and I found not a single living soul on the road. I crested a hill and I saw the farmhouse. Beaten, ragged, partially hidden by the snow. I waited for the cloak of the night before I made my approach.

The familiar scents hit me. Yes, I was back home. Come what may, I made it back. After some inspection, I found a hole in the wall that allowed me to peek inside. They were sleeping on the furs. My crib was gone. Probably chopped to use as firewood. I saw my father stir and jumped away on instinct. The coins on my neck jiggled, awaking everyone. I had little time.

Before my father could get dressed to come out and check, I removed the coin pouch from my neck and shifted back to human form. It was cold, below freezing even but I endured with Nenantil's help. I held the strap in my hand and cleaned any fur that might be stuck to the pouch with the pseudopods.

Not two minutes after that my father came out with the firewood hatchet in his hand. He walked around, searching for intruders. My eldest brother came out too and I gasped when I saw his right hand completely wrapped. Maybe the wound had festered. Following him came my eldest sister and my mother.

"Find ... see .... look!" Father ordered.

"Nothing ... you ... noise ... ?" My eldest brother asked, earning a glare from my father.

I stayed quiet in my hiding spot. When I saw my mother come closer, I jiggled the coin pouch and squealed. She froze for a moment before bursting into a desperate search. I squealed more and jiggled the coins. She found me next to the firewood stack. Mother screamed in joy and quickly wrapped me with her shawl. She covered me in kisses and rubbed my skin to warm me up. I raised a hand with the coin pouch and confusion drew a veil over her eyes. She took the brown pouch and looked inside.

By then, my whole family was watching the scene. My father lit up a torch - a luxury item for this family's standards - and when he saw it, he snatched the pouch from my mother. He looked inside and shouted a cheer. He spared me not a single glance. I looked around and met my eldest sister's eyes. She was frowning hard. When she saw she had my attention, she scoffed and stormed back in the house.

Everyone went back inside and I found our father counting the coins on the table. My siblings were all around him, staring at the coins. Especially the yellow and not-tarnished one. It might be the first time they've ever seen a gold coin.

My mother ignored everything. Her full attention was on me. She laid me on a chair and knelt on the ground next to me. She examined every part of my body and found nothing wrong. The wound the merchant caused was already healed thanks to my were-jaguar regeneration. It left a scar on my soul but that I could bear.

She hugged me and brought me to the furs. There I fell asleep hearing to her nursery rhymes. To someone with a single set of vocal cords, she sang like an angel.

But the inevitable question overwhelmed the family the next day. How does a baby that went away with a merchant more than two weeks ago return with a coin pouch? Nobody knew. They even tried to talk to me but I both didn't understand what they were saying and couldn't speak yet and wouldn't answer even if the previous two conditions were cleared.

Mid-afternoon a decision was made. From what I grasped, our father was going to town the next morning to buy some things the family desperately needed. My siblings begged for things they wanted and our father gave them no more than a half-ear. Our mother set her foot down and told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to buy medicine for our eldest brother's hand or he would lose the appendage. The wound didn't heal properly and was infected.

The next morning, before the sun rose, our father put on his city clothes. He mounted on our mule and rode away. He went away with the windfall of money and the hopes and dreams of the whole family. A visit to town was a two-day-one-night trip. We went on with our day and when father was scheduled to return, he didn't.

Our eldest brother woke up screaming one night. I wished to keep my secrets and he hadn't been kind to me, but I wasn't made of stone even if I could feed on it. I crawled next to him and climbed his body, using my power. He pushed me but I was stuck to him. I crawled down his arm and hugged the wraps around his hand. Mother shouted to everyone so they stopped and they watched.

I sent my pseudopods through the gaps in the fabric and into his wound. There I devoured all the dead tissue, pus, and the bacteria causing the infection. I put my [Nurse] Skills from two lives ago to work. Eldest brother sighed in relief. He caressed my head and whispered words of gratitude. I also cleaned the bandages. When the pseudopods withdrew, I pretended to have fainted. If they knew I could do this wily-nily, there would be more trouble down the road.

With the emergency dealt with, we waited. We waited for one week. One week until doom arrived at our doorstep.

A fancy carriage with armored riders approached. They were wearing a bronze breastplate that somehow reminded me of ancient greek armor. From the carriage, a fat man appeared and our mother went pale immediately.

He was the city's tax collector. The greasy man entered with his guards and sat at the table. He went to great lengths to explain that we owed the King tax. Father splurged in town and drew a lot of attention. The money, the tax collector decided, was prevenient from undeclared wealth the family was hoarding. Mother tried to deny but then our eldest brother didn't resist the pressure and told the truth.

That I had been sold to a merchant and came back with the coin pouch.

Now, anyone that detached themselves from the situation and repeated the story without context would think the worst. And that was exactly what the tax collector thought. That our family had murdered and robbed the merchant. He accused us of murder and the guards drew their sharp metal implements of pain against us. He didn't withdraw the tax evasion charges either.

Mother implored. Begged. She even offered herself to him. I got the context from their body language. Our pleas fell in death ears. We were charged with tax evasion and murder. The whole family was put in chains and tied to the end of the carriage. The tax collector confiscated the farm. Mother had one free arm so she could carry me. I had half the mind to murder these bastards and release my family but I knew they would cast me away. I had to bid my time.

My siblings and mother didn't have the stamina to make the trip to town on foot. On more than one occasion one of my younger sisters or brothers would trip and fall, getting dragged on the dirt road and getting nasty scratches and bruises. And that was because the carriage was going slow. We got no help. Only some water from a soldier when the carriage made a stop so the tax collector could take a piss.

But we survived this ordeal. I felt a stroke of guilty like nothing else. By coming back home, I was responsible for ruining our livelihood. The venomous glances my eldest sister stole at me told me that much. They were worse than a bush of deathberry.

Our family entered through the gates and we received the warm welcome of the villagers. They offered us cakes of snow, mud, soot, and feces. Their favored method of delivery was like a business pitch, minus the business part. Children laughed and jeered cruelly as they tormented us. My mother sheltered me from harm and even whispered soothing words.

We were brought before the constable. There we received the grim news that our father was dead. He was mugged, murdered, and robbed. The body was found frozen in a narrow alley. Mother and my siblings were heartbroken. I was sad but from what I heard, he and I, we could split the guilt for our family's predicament fifty-fifty.

After a cursory judgment, the constable judged us guilty of tax evasion and murder. Our farm now belonged to the King and we were going to be sold as slaves to pay the debts. After gaining a gaudy bronze necklace we couldn't remove, we were taken to the slave market.

The family was kept together and I was thankful for that little reprieve. After they locked us in a cage, Mother gathered the siblings and gave us instructions. She cried, my sisters cried. I didn't cry because nobody liked a baby crying and I didn't want to draw undue attention to us.

The slave-dealer came and examined us. We were forced to strip naked and he did a cursory physical examination on our bodies. He was especially careful and gross examining the women. Something clicked in my mind and I knew I now had a self-assigned {Death Contract} on him, the constable, and the tax collector too.

We were given clean tunics that did little to cover our bodies. Our former belongings were taken away, including our shoes. We slept huddled like a litter of kittens on the wooden floor of our cage.

The next day we were fed a porridge that was nothing more than dirt water and taken to another cage before sunrise. When the slave market opened, some well-dressed people came and examined us. They wore togas and tunics with fine dyed colors. Jewelry. The first to be sold was our eldest brother. {Appraisal} told me he was level eleven. Our mother begged but the slave merchant whipped her into silence. My eldest brother said his goodbyes and vanished past the rows of cages with slaves.

Greasy old men came and bought my younger twin brothers. My second older sister was bought to work as a maid to some wealthy merchant. We were only four women now in the cage. A woman with a dress that revealed much but hid the essential came and showed interest in us. She negotiated with the slave merchant and both my mother and eldest sister were appalled. But we were chained and taken with the sultry woman.

I wasn't dumbfounded when I noticed we were going to a brothel as merchandise. I was dumbfounded by how I didn't notice that right away. We were shown a damp and cold room in the basement where we would rest when we weren't whoring ourselves on the main floor. Or my family women were, my body was too young for that. My mother said nothing. When she spoke, was to give the Gods her thanks because one of our sisters wasn't becoming a whore.

They weren't sent to the main saloon right away. We were told to rest and eat to get some fat. Men liked boobs, not ribs, the matron joked. We got blankets and relatively new clothes. A month went by before our mother and eldest sister were taken upstairs to earn their keep with their bodies. I stayed behind under the care of my youngest sister that was too young to whore herself too.

Such was our routine. Two hours before nightfall, mother and eldest sister would go to get themselves ready. From what I grasped, they washed, dressed their whore costumes, put on some makeup, and went to the taproom - the brothel doubled as a tavern - before the customers arrived. There they would go with any men that paid the price and sometimes help clean something. Like vomit or ale that spilled. They came back to our room early morning, sometimes even after the sunset. Exhausted and sore, they slept through most of the day.

It was gruesome but aside being forced into prostitution, we were treated better than most slaves. My youngest sister and I, for example, wouldn't be bought and brought here normally. We were being fed because of the "kindness" of the mistress.

But I knew that one day our time would come. We would be forced to work in the taproom too. I hated it.