[u][b]Ferronian Outpost[/b][/u]
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The retainer of the slave wagon is a mercenary from a tribe beyond the mountains. She is thick and short and wears the fur of several animals over her stout body. Resting across her lap is an ax dotted with rust. The retainer’s bottom lip protrudes out and over the upper one. Fearsome and humorous at once, she became the next target of the game “what-creature-are-they” played between mother and son.

Fennick tugs at a loose string on his mother’s torn sleeve as he sits on her lap and contemplates the task set to him. As any four year old, he takes his time considering the important task of assigning a person their creature. 

“A Rougarou,” he says, his eyes the color of a storm cloud’s shadow. 

“A Rougarou? Truly?” Elisa whispers. She feigns a shiver and clutches her son closer. “Best keep a watch on her.”

Fennick smiles, his lips thinning out across his face. They are blue. “But maybe she’s a Dobhar-chu!” His breath steams out of his mouth. Elisa is grateful to be stuck in the middle of the wagon as rain water drips through the oiled linen. The body’s of slaves mashed together, elbows grinding against another, adds some warmth. She did not try to strike up conversation with her neighbors as Fennick was prone to. He cries when they shout at him to shut up, but he still tries to talk to them—like now. “Do you think she’s a Rougarou or a Dobhar-chu?”

The man beside them is naked, but his belly sags over his lap creating an illusion of decency. Elisa keeps her eyes on the top of her son’s head, stroking the hair at the base of his neck and twirling it between her fingers. 

“Don’t care that much as long as she just stays over there and not bothers me,” the man says. He speaks with a sailor’s lisp and nostalgia settles in her throat. Elisa coughs to clear it away. She has no room for such thoughts of salty air and lightning storms over the ocean.

Fennick nods at the sailor as if understanding before twisting in his mother’s lap to press his hand against her stomach. “What do you think, not-born?” he asks. Elisa holds his legs down to keep from him pitching backwards and on to the wagon floor as the caravan lumbers through the water-swollen road. He sighs and rests his ear where his hand was, as if trying to hear what the baby is saying. A woman across from them shuffles and crouches between the two parallel benches to relieve herself on the wagon floor. The slavers have already made it clear they would not be stopped for one person to piss. A man with a bloody scalp in the last wagon testifies to that. (Though, Elisa supposes with the rain, most of the blood would have washed away by now.)

“Mother,” Fennick grabs onto her damp, curling hair as the wagon lurches to a stop. “Not-born says he never heard the story of the Rougarou, and he’d asked I tell it, but I told him you tell it best and I said I’d ask if you’d tell it to him.” He looks up at her. Elisa’s not sure if he took after Gillian or her yet, but those eyes are Blackwater eyes. 

“I do think a story is overd—”

“Alright, come on now,” shouts a soldier. He frowns into the wagon as the slaves stare out from shadows the same color as the bruises around their ankles from the shackles. “Welcome to Ferros, you sorry lot of bark-slugs.” 

Fennick gasps and whispers, “They have bark-slugs here, too?” 

But Elisa doesn’t answer; she pushes her son behind her in line to exit the wagon. He grabs onto the back of her threadbare dress, falling into the routine his mother taught him. Unlike the other slaves, he is not shackled, but he still wears the same bronze collar as every slave. Elisa did not have an explanation for it and has distracted him with other stories (like the dragons of the Mountains and the demon bear of Mor’du). She knows the ignorance will not last. 

The soldier glares at her bulging stomach and commands the Gorgon sailor to help Elisa down. The torch in the soldier’s hand hisses. 

“Come now, Fennick, best you ride on my back, now,” she says, stepping closer to the edge of the wagon. Mud swirls between her bare feet. Her son grins and clambers on, pressing his heels into his mother’s stomach. She grunts, but keeps moving to avoid possible retribution for holding up the line. For Fennick, it is all a grand adventure. Elisa looks to the fifth wagon. None of the slaves were being unloaded from that one. She thinks of the man with the bloodied head. Perhaps, she’ll make a story about him? After all, he blocked the blow from the slavers that was meant for Fennick when he cried about not being able to piss in front of the other slaves. The chain on Elisa’s ankle tugs her forward. She does not look back. She focuses on the grays and browns of the outpost before her as to distract from the whiteness of the Gorgon sailor’s ass.