i ate six seeds

The night air cut like a knife through his layered clothes when he stepped outside to make his way back into the castle. The walls loomed high and black above him, the crenelations of the towers looked like teeth biting the sky. She was what they'd called a beast back in his fighting days--huge and deadly and nearly impossible to break unless you found a weakness in her underbelly. Made life hell from the outside but, inside, you could get soft yourself. Tender.

That was how he felt now: tender. His gut was still flat, his chest hard, but he felt exposed nonetheless. There was nothing to protect a man from an attack from within. The cold braced him, the wind gave him something to fight as he walked the storm-scoured stones of the castle approach. He was a wary old thing now, peering into the night past the golden halo of the mage torches illuminating the road to the gates.

They burned the buggan, it made a terrible smell as the greasy grey smoke spiraled up toward the stars. Mam wrapped Una in her big shawl and let her stay up to watch it burn and she felt a little better for it. Something about the way the fire ate it down to bone and then to ash made the thing seem less horrifying and more mortal, like any other beast that could be hunted and slaughtered.

"You're a good girl," Mam said, when Pa was off getting more wood for the pyre. She kissed the top of Una's head and hugged her a little, and maybe that was the most surprising thing about that night. "And brave."

After Pa tucked her in, it took forever for Una to fall asleep. It wasn't just the buggan, it was Mam and Pa, the way Pa held his spear as well as he held his hammer, the way Mam had the wicked dagger somewhere she could reach it and yet Una had never seen it before. When she finally drifted off, her mind was telling tales about how, perhaps, long before Una was born, they rode horses and wore armour and fought men or beasts -- Pa with his spear and Mam with her blade.