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Date Posted: 01:11:50 05/28/05 Sat
Author: Tathan
Subject: Great suffering Zarquon!
In reply to: Nerilki(Avianyth) Hythe(Ith) Shah 's message, "Holy Tiledo!" on 15:11:33 05/27/05 Fri

At the introductions Tath smiled nervously at Hythe, nodding in respect and looking curiously at Shah. He lowered his eyes quickly when Nerilki mentioned the death of this new greenrider’s husband, but didn’t say anything – not that there was any room in the conversation for him to do such a thing. But wait…this woman had two other children as well? She looked a bit young for that! But, the boy reminded himself, she could have adopted them. He’d done that once.

The baby’s mother had died in childbirth – at 14 years old – and it was a normal situation: nobody knew who the child’s real father was, and another woman was expected to care for the child. But no other mothers were nursing children at the time the little girl was born, and so the men gave up on her. Some of the women had a try at looking after her – hoping in vain that she would take something other than a mother’s milk and live – but to no avail. And since he was considered young, useless, and too shy to be of any use in the current venture of trapping felines, the burden of trying to make the baby feed fell on Tathan’s shoulders. He’d tried everything, eventually convincing her to have some of the herdbeast’s milk, if he put flour and honey in it to make it thicker.

But then one of the men had drowned her, because he said she was a drain on their food. The truth was that he didn’t want Tath to get any ideas that might involve leaving the troop, and Tana (the girl – Tathan had named her for her mother and himself, even though he wasn’t one of the men who could be her father) might convince him to seek help at a Hold. So Tathan looked at Shah with a small smile. Won’t let anyone try and drown you, you know. Your mam loves you too much.

“I’ve seen your kids in the kitchens, miss. The cook likes ‘em.”

((He has indeed.
Have you seen the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy?))

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