| Once they get home they open their bag and spill out the little
boy "Jack" who they trapped in a snare.
Now, Fre' had had every intention on bringing their latest catch to
tonight's feast.
Despite some distant, vague disquiet within Fre' about something about
this, she'd shrugged it off with her hairy shoulders and just put it off
as just passing gas.
Now, when Elaine had ordered Belboz and Fred through the Transform Door,
he well knew that if (a most likely possibility) a transformation occured
when the duet came through the other side that little to nothing would
be left of the old memories of old lives for them. And if there were memories,
it probably be vague....distant....and extremely hard to recall. Little
chance of something triggering old memories and such, anyway.
But.....Elaine hardly knew Fred.
The old Fred had been a noble character indeed. Ready to leap forth
without thought of safety to aid those in need at a drop of a hat. Indeed,
sometimes Fred found himself acting without conscious thought....halfway
through an action before his mind caught up with him!
Thus, it's with great surprise that Fre' suddenly, upon seeing the whimpering
child that had been slated for dinner, grabs the child and gallops off
with him at top speed!
Why me doing this? Fre' asks herself, perplexed.
Because it is the right and noble thing to do! a stern voice
seems to answer within the thick skulled head of her's.
Fre' almost stumbles in shock as she recognizes the voice as her father....who'd
ever been so hard to please back when he (?!) had been a squire in training!
"I Fred?" she asks herself, stunned.
Well, whatever the case may be, even the still dim mind of Fre'
can figure out from the shouted curses behind her that her mates from the
hamlet of Ak' weren't thrilled with these antics of her's.....and that
unless she wanted to violate this odd but shiny new thing in her heart
called "honor" and "chivilary"......she had just better keep running and
keep the boy away from Ak'!
Jack, meanwhile, after figuring out that the big hairy orgress
means to save him instead of eat him, hugs her closely.
Fre', confused, feels a stiring within her heart.....like Jack is one
of her own cubs instead of something to eat, and gently hugs him back.
Next day, after leading a wild chase of dodge and hide, the somewhat
tired Fre' is gently cradling Jack in her long arms. Jack, tired, is softly
snoring and Fre' loathes to awaken the boy.
No tales have been exchanged between orgress and human boy child, and
the thought that perhaps something like that should have happened hasn't
occured to either, yet.
Jack is very young, and this is too "tuckered out" to think clearly
about such things.
Fre' the orgress, newly awakening sense of....something else or not....still
is too dull of mind as of right now to think of such niceties.
For now, the child needs rest and Fre' will let the child rest!
That simple.
Later, as Jack and Fre' are picking over some edible berries (Fre' would
rather have something like meat.....but this will do in a pinch and d**n
if she's going to eat Jack) when a loud explosion and a flash of light
startles them both.
"You stay. Hide." Fre' orders softly with a tone of voice that broached
no arguments from Jack.
She points at a low set of bushes, and Jack nods and climbs in, hiding.
"Back soon. Go see," she grunts softly, "Back soon."
Fre' softly and stealthfully (with much skill that belays her large
size) sneaks to a break in the trees and looks out.
She knows from her talks with her former village mates that there used
to be a human village nearby....but since the great Sickness that cleansed
this area of that blight nothing had been heard from it since. That is,
until now!
A whiff in the wind almost causes the orgress to lose her lunch.
It ‘tis the smell of human flesh burning....but of flesh that has been
in the half preserved, half putrid state that the Phage has left it in
for the last ten years. Such is the stench of it that not even the most
hungry of scavenger bird or other lowly animal will touch the rotting corpse
of those killed by the Phage. And as for Ogres....well, they have higher
standards than mere carrion eaters!
"Who burn?" Fre' begins to ask herself, only to have her train of thought
derailed at who she sees next staggering around several tents (who have
dazed looking Amazon warriors (?) piling out from them.
The fact that male battle cry is coming from a eerily glowing (and oddly
familiar) glowing portal hardly registers on the increasingly enraged Fre'.
The fact that the cry chokes off and changes from a deep male bass to a
high and pleasant (if that's possible) scream of terror and confusion doesn't
register!
The female centauress that staggers out of the glowing portal and faints
doesn't register!
-
 Enraged,
the maddened orgress tears a large bolder from the ground and hurls it
at the staggered Elaine. The oily and plump boy mage only feels a brief
sense of pain and agony and then nothing as the boulder crushes him from
behind!
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