44 Peoples Falsities

Noah was the first to be left panting like a dog barely a minute after the all-out sprint away from the village. Their stride slowed, came to a still and as he gripped his aching side, he turned his head down the path they'd just escaped down. The faint flicker of fire still visible but no villagers chasing after them.

One of his eyes was flickered shut to stop the small tide of blood he'd been trailing from blinding him. "Noah your head," in the calm that had taken their panting forms, Liora had been drawn to his forehead where a gash was dripping his life out drop by drop. "Caina can you-" she turned to the healer and asked but was stopped by Noah speaking up.

"No, she can do her magic back at the farm. I don't want to be out here. Not at night." He said as he wiped clear his eye leaving a stain of red across his cheek.

Liora looked about ready to retort but kept still, her head hanging as she began to blame herself for what happened to him. It wasn't supposed to happen, how was she to know they would blame her for the monster? For her not having a boy?

"At least let me cover the wound," Caina huffed and dug through her satchel, quickly pulling out a bundle of white cloth rags and waggled them about as if presenting them to him.

Noah glanced around, peering into the depths of the abyss bathed forests, searching between the trees for the signs of any monsters scurrying about ready to lunge and drag them off into its den for nefarious deeds. "Fine," he licked his lip and lowered himself onto one knee and allowed Caina to quickly wrap the rags around his forehead, quelling the surge of blood that had been escaping him.

As Caina tightened and knotted the rags, Noah turned a sidelong eye towards Liora to see her head hung and hand gripping into her scarred arm turning her fingers a pale tonation of white. Her nails just millimetres away from tearing through the still healing gash being held together by leather strappings and metal buckles.

"Liora, stop that," when Caina was finished he rose upright and scurried to her side, grabbed her hand, and pulled it away. She jerked almost instinctively away from him but her didn't relent and forced her to meet his eyes. "Don't blame yourself. They're scared and looking for anything they can latch onto to reason for their hardships. You can't blame yourself for their hysteria."

"But what if its true? What… what if it really is my fault? What if because I didn't have a boy everyone is now being punished-" she was growing increasingly erratic, her breath hastening on the verge of a panic attack.

"No, Liora. Just no. Correlation does not imply causation. Just because the events seem connected does not mean they are. They are naïve, presumptuous. There's no logic behind their actions, only panic. So don't you dare blame yourself."

"But-"

"Don't." His voice halted her to a squeaking stop, leaving little room for her to retort and argue. "Let's just get back to the ranch okay?" he lowered his volume, gazed into her watery brick red eyes with a soft smile on his face.

Her lip trembled then stilled, her head falling into a light bob though words seemed to be lacking.

Turning back to Caina she also cast him a nod, agreeing that they should leave the dangers of the forest behind before something less than safe for their humanity appeared. And soon the three began a quick, but not so quick that they ran out of breath, walk back to the ranch.

***

The journey back to the ranch had been thankfully silent, no sight of any nocturnal species of monster, not even a rustle of some birds in the trees fell upon their ears.

The fields were an entirely different thing at night. Whereas in the morning they were this regal pasture of golden stalks, at night the clashed with a soft sea like song as the wind dragged them against each other. In the distance, Serris' tree stood as a towering but lonesome pillar high above them all.

'I can deal with her later,' it was nearing the end of the week when Serris had asked him to answer her request of becoming her fruit bearer. He'd have to figure that out and soon. Before then he had to deal with Liora first.

A slosh of water not far away drew his attention to Caina who was washing her bloodied hands in the sink after removing his bandage and patched him up with a few ointments that halted the bleeding and helped accelerate the healing process. Nothing like the ignis balm she'd used to patch Liora's arm up. He at least wouldn't have to worry about any of the side effects Liora was dealing with.

"Thanks," he said. "For not going along with those asshats in the village."

Caina simply huffed and responded, "unlike them, I'm not an idiot. I at least know that demons wouldn't attack a village first. They'd go for the ones who broke their deal."

'Charmingly put,' Noah rolled his eyes and sighed as he came to seated himself by the dinning room table and wiped down his face. The faint wetness from the water he'd used to wash away the blood was still there are draining him of warmth. "Why do people have to be so antsy all the time?" back on his homeworld, people would get up in arms because planes left trails of condensation in their wake or when told there's dihydrogen monoxide in their water.

He knew it all came from a place of naivete, of lacking understanding in things. They didn't know of demons, they didn't know the dihydrogen monoxide was just waters chemical name and still they made mountains of molehills.

"Caina," he spoke with a whining tone catching her attention, "do you think they'll come here? hunt us down?" the prospect was fearsome, he knew how witches were treated in his world, crushed, hung, dipped in a lake and frozen to death. He couldn't imagine that happening here, he didn't want to imagine people hunting Liora down because of a misunderstanding.

Caina's hands halted in the water dyed red in the sink and frowned. "I… wouldn't put it against them. But do I think they will? No. They're all too piss scared of the demon to risk leaving the village. I doubt even the mercenaries will try anything. They're in this forest for their own gain, dealing with a demon is likely far more dangerous than anything they could be rewarded with."

"That's good to know," he just hoped it was correct.

As silence took the two, he lifted his head and looked to the hall leading upstairs where Liora had climber up to move towards her bedroom after a bit of prodding by Noah. A nervous tick in his heart urged him to raise up from his seat and begin striding after her, "I'm going to make sure Liora's all right then I'm going to bed."

"Mmm, good night," Caina murmured, her voice left behind as Noah hastened up the stairs and power walked to Liora's room. His knuckles coming to hastily rap against the wood with a 'ratta-tat-tat.'

"Liora, you okay? Can I come in?" he asked pressing his ear closer to the door in the efforts of hearing something.

"C-come in," a sniffling whimper came muffled through the door.

He clutched the handle, twisted it and pushed the door inwards to see Liora sat on the edge of her bed fiddling with her night gown, fiddling with its strings in an effort to tie it tight but failing from how shaky her hands were. Her eyes bloodshot and tears having stained both her cheeks and her lap a shade darker.

He paused, mouth half open as he found himself entranced by her full proportions barely hidden by the near sheer gown she was wearing. It was far from ornate, instead being a simple long sleeved gow that ran down to her ankles and wrapped comfortably around her body. At the breasts, a window like structure that gazed over curvaceous crevice where her bosom was pressed together. Peaking just barely through at the precipice of each breast were her nipples and her large areolae that were just a shade darker. Further down, her crotch was covered by a taunting darkness.

Noah shook himself sane and halted the twinge of arousal he was feeling and stepped towards the misty eyed woman who was growing increasingly frustrated that she couldn't feel a loop through another loop.

Lowering onto one knee before her, he reached out, laid his hands over hers and gently pried the strings from her fingers and nimbly went about tying them together. Her hands fell onto her lap, her eyes stroked to the red scabbed cut on his head. She lifted a hand, brought it to his head and pulled back his hair to see the full extent of the wound.

It wasn't large, not by any means, but it was still there and all because the people blamed her for something she couldn't control.

"No need, it's just a small cut. I've had worse." he took her hand from his head and lowered it down, gently stroking the back of her hands in as calming a manner he could. "One time I was playing in the fields near my grandpas house and tried getting through an old fence. It had this rusted nail sticking out and I just cut a line straight through my thigh and down to my knee. I was bleeding like a fountain," he chuckled, head shaking at the olden memory of another world.

"Still…" she sniffled, "if… if I'd given birth to a boy maybe that wouldn't have happened."

"Liora. That's a what if. So, what if you gave birth to a boy? Then what? When the demon came around wouldn't you still be blamed? I mean, there's rumours that your husbands family made deals with demons. They'd find someway to blame you either way. That's just what humans are. They don't care about logic, they don't care about fact. If they see something and they think of another, they'll connect them by the thinnest granule of falsities they can just to reason and comprehend it."

Liora's lips parted, eyes widened, she couldn't find the words to respond as she stared into his vibrant, caring eyes. Her heart flickered a beat faster as she began to realize his chiselled features and heart achingly soft smile that drew her cheeks to a faint reddish flush.

She sniffled once more and went to wipe her nose of her snivelling feeling just a bit calmer than before. "What did I do to deserve you?" she questioned.

His head shook in response, his smile widening. "Nothing Liora. You did nothing to deserve me. And that's exactly why you do." he laid his hands against her knees and lifted himself up with a creak to his knees. "Come on, lie down, you should get some rest." his voice now a whisper as he pressed his hands against her shoulders, guiding her down onto the bed. Her legs kicking up as he pulled her blanket over her and tucked her in.

"Don't let peoples rhetoric hurt you Liora. They don't know anything. Now, good night." after sweeping a fringe of hair over her ear, Noah turned around and made light steps to the door, pausing in it to cast her another over the shoulders look before shutting it behind himself.

In just a second of his parting, Liora clasped her hands against her chest feeling her heart beating like a marching army with the sound of banging wardrums so loud she could almost hear it reverberating through the room.

</svg></div>

Next chapter