Deranged Writer's Afterword

I silently curse Georna and distract myself from the pain I felt.

Georna prattled on about the history of Lupus village and how she hated all of its residents.

To summarize, Georna was a cranky old granny who wanted her granddaughter to be happy.

Lydia had wanted to partake in this little \'experiment\' but Georna had driven her away saying that she wasn\'t ready for something like this, her exact words were,

\' You\'re still only just an apprentice.\'

I was surprised to learn that Lydia was a Shaman apprentice since the art of mystical healing wasn\'t exactly an easy path to walk. Shamans always had to pay a price in exchange for the powers they gained.

" Is it done ?"

I ask the elder as the feeling of pain had slightly faded.

" Mhmm...be silent.", Georna commanded as she closed her eyes and opened them again but they were glowing now.

I watch silently as Georna turned her head around frantically as if she was watching something absurd. After about a minute or so the glow in her eyes fade and she came back from her weird trance.

Georna looked at me with mild surprise and says,

" Well...I\'ll be damned, you\'re \'energies\' are being fused."

" My \'energies\' ?", I ask confused.

" Yes...but we\'ll get into that later, I need some rest now.", Georna said walking away.

Now that I looked a little closer, it looked like she had once again overexerted herself.

I stare at the ceiling blankly with a single thought running through my mind,

\' Who\'s gonna remove all these needles ?\'

....

~~~~

" Geez....grandma can sure be forgetful...", Lydia says smiling nervously as she gently removed the needles on my body.

" I don\'t think she forgot..."

.....

" Anyways...what did she say ?", Lydia asked after helping me up after removing all the needles in my body.

" She said something about my energies...I didn\'t understand, I was hoping that you would know something about it ?"

" Hmmmmmmmm", Lydia thought deeply before responding to my question, "No clue."

" You wanna get some lunch ?", Lydia asked as we walked out of the shabby house.

" Oh.....sure, I guess."

I wasn\'t looking forward to this.

~~~~

" We\'re looking to pass.", Lydia says smiling at the two gatekeepers in front of us.

We were going out to hunt for food, food could be bought from the market but Lydia insisted that we go out to the forest nearby and \'hunt\' because it was a \'once in a lifetime experience.\', she could have just said that she was dirt poor.

I\'m not one to judge.

Both the guards glowered at us as they stopped blocking our path and moved out of our way, I\'m glad they\'re not insulting us directly...I can\'t afford to cause a scene here.

Lydia looked a little down as we crossed over to the outside of the village, noticing that I was looking at her, she forced a smile and says,

" Let\'s go hunt !"

-and hunt we did.

~~~~

Within a mere hour, we had caught two rabbits and a frog.

I didn\'t particularly do anything except watch Lydia do her magic.

Considering her lineage, it isn\'t that much of a surprise that she was a natural when it came to hunting.

" Let\'s pray.", Lydia says holding her hands together and solemnly praying.

After that, we start skinning the animals, the whole process was a little too gruesome for me, I\'m not that good with blood.

After thoroughly skinning the animals, Lydia led me to a stream, where we proceeded to wash the meat that we had acquired with much effort.

After that, Lydia and I settled down under the shade of a tree.

" Huuuuu...I\'m beat.", Lydia exclaimed accepting the soft embrace of the grass.

We lie there for some time until Lydia suddenly jumped up with newfound energy and says,

" Let\'s eat !"

" What about Ms. Georna ?", I ask already opening up the meat which we had packed up.

I\'m not that concerned about Georna.....I hope she starves....hehe.

" Grandma usually eats alone....so we can just eat now when the meat is still fresh."

I freeze up hearing her,

\'That\'s right...I forgot.\'

I had forgotten because of all the hunting and skinning but beastpeople eat their meat in a rather unique way.....scratch that, it\'s a much simpler way,

They eat it raw.

Cooking meat made them lose some of their proteins, so beastpeople who aspired to be the strongest race out there only allowed the consumption of raw meat.

Of course, eating a cooked meal wasn\'t forbidden, but it was frowned upon.

Just as I was preparing myself to eat raw meat for the first time, I noticed that Lydia was behaving quite strangely. She was taking out firewood and-

\'Whoosh\'

Lydia had started a fire.

Seeing the confusion on my face, Lydia smiles as she says,

" I figured you wouldn\'t want to eat your food raw."

...

" Are you a goddess ?", I ask seeing a halo above Lydia\'s head.

Lydia chuckled as she took out our food.

~~~~

Lydia silently watched as I cooked my meat.

I had offered to cook some of my meat for her, but she refused but now that the aroma of cooked meat was floating around us, I could see the hunger in her eyes,

Lydia was hungry for my meat.

...

I\'m not doing that purposefully.

\'Gulp\'

I heard her \'gulping\' as I chewed on the blandly cooked meat, it had no real taste because we didn\'t have any spices on us.

" Do you want one?", I ask tearing a piece of my meat.

Lydia stared at the piece of meat, dazed.

She quickly looked around us, to make sure that we were alone and then took the piece from me.

Lydia\'s calm blue eyes widen in shock as she took her first bite.

" This is so much better.", she says her mouth filled with the meat.

I couldn\'t help but smile seeing Lydia devouring the meat with so much glee.

~~~~~