As the laughter from Žudrė and her mother starts to fade out, White smashes his plate on the table and says, "Finish! Seconds please!"
Red says, "Go get it yourself; no one is your slave in this house."
Yellow says, "If we let White serve his own portions, he will eat it all!"
Their mother, standing up, says, "Then let me get it for him."
As she reaches for the blow, Žudrė quickly grabs it and starts to run, saying, "Too slow hag!"
Her mother stretches her hand across the table to grab Žudrė, but she easily sidesteps her mother and runs back over to the pot of stew she cooked to serve out seconds.
"Hey, didn't I tell you to stop helping?"
"Ever since your pilgrimage to Deno, you've been limping. So no more walking than necessary! If you get up and walk, I will never forgive you. And I will cry until all of the water leaves my body and I become a shrivelled up prune."
Sitting down, she says, "Stop being so dramatic. I wonder where you get this from."
Green, eating his stew, says, "Look in the mirror."
Looking at Green, their mother says, "Huh!?"
Pink walks up beside her, hands his mother a sandal, and his mother says, "Good boy." Before striking Green right in the middle of his head.
Everyone across the table laughs a bit as Green holds his head. Žudrė hums away as she places more stew in the bowl, and returning to the table, she says, "You won't be getting any more White until everyone else has had their share as well."
"Not fair, it's not my fault these guys are slow eaters."
Looking at him, Žudrė says, "Everyone goes at their own pace. You're all special in different ways and behave accordingly; just because you like to eat fast doesn't mean everyone else doesn't like eating in different ways that are just as enjoyable to them. We all must respect each other and work together."
White angry says, "Then why are we not allowed to go into town?"
His mother clams up, and Žudrė says, "Don't talk about that."
"No, but it isn't fair. You say we have to respect each other, while you two don't respect my wanting to play with all the humans down there. Every time I ask you always say something to distract us for a while, right before saying no altogether. It gets really, really boring having to play here, and sometimes you make us go even deeper into the forest to play."
Žudrė says, "Because it's not safe for you."
"WHY?"
His mother whacks him on the head with a slipper with a lazy swing, then with a calm smile she says, "It's because I say so."
"But that isn't fair for us," White says with tears forming in his eyes.
"You're right, it isn't fair to keep you all locked up like this. So I petitioned for entrance into Blestemate."
All of the kids sit up in shock, and Blue excitedly says, "Isn't that the land of the nightmares like us. The place where the most nightmares are gathered in the world, also known as one of the three great sanctuaries of the nightmares."
She nods her head and says, "A couple of decades ago, they used to be able to just walk in and get citizenship if you were a nightmare, though recent events made it so I had to apply through one of the twin cities of Cordum or Deno. I was also able to request some adventurers to be our protectors when trying to cross the border. You won't believe how long it took to get them vetted, so they won't kidnap us."
Yellow says, "Kidnap us? Why?"
Grabbing Yellow and squishing her face against his, she says, "Because you're all so that if anyone ever saw you, they'd mistake you for a giant gemstone."
Yellow giggles, and Žudrė slams her bowl on the table and says, "What do you mean?"
Confused, their mother says, "Is something wrong, Žudrė? If anything, this will allow you to do a lot of cool things like go to school, and eat more than just what the forest provides."
"I don't want to go, this is my home, I have spent the entirety of my life here, I don't want to leave!"
"Žudrė, don't you think you're being kind of ridiculous? The only future in this land is to stay here for the rest of your life. How would you accomplish any dreams? Are there any passions to do here? Is there anyone outside your family for you to meet? I love your big heart, but I do not wish for you to one day be forty years old and still taking care of all of us like you are."
"I am fine with this life, and I don't want to leave. I hear the stories, mother, of how the monsters within Blestemate hunted and terrorised the people of this land. How they dominated all of us and used us for nothing more than slaves."
Žudrė quickly covers her mouth, and her mother says, "I have told you no such stories. Where did you hear those things?"
Žudrė keeps her mouth closed, and, fueled by anger, her mother shouts, "ŽUDRĖ, ANSWER ME!"
As tears fall down her face, Žudrė turns and runs out of the room right into her own chambers. With her mother putting her hands against her face before saying, "Please, boys."
Each of the boys quickly rammed their food into their mouths before running off the table and over towards Žudrė's room, where they clumped around her crying body, hugging her with all of their arms.
-Break-
While the night falls over the entire area, Žudrė lies restrained as the six boys who once hugged her now rest sprawled out over her entire bedside. Looking at their small chunky bodies, she squeezes against their cheeks, then sits up and walks out of her room.
"This is so stupid," she says as she walks through the corridor. Stopping in front of her mom's door, already cracked open, she takes a few steps forward and looks inside, where she sees her mom sprawled across a desk at the side of her bed.
Moving up to her, she says, "What a sleepy head. This is why I said I want to help."
She grabs a blanket from her mother's bed and quickly brings it over towards her mother, and after covers her. She says, "I should stack these away."
Moving towards the sheets, he picks them up and sorts through them, yet her eyes quickly fall onto one of the letters, and open up wide as the world moves through her mind.
In front of her, she stares at a letter, and says, "You're daughter has been here?"
Her mother shifts a bit, and she quickly grabs the letter and exits the room into the hallway, where she reads through the letter.
"To Clifford.
I know it's been a long time, and you probably don't remember me, but it's Jeanne. I know it must be rather jarring to get a letter from me after almost a decade, but I want to let you know you have seven kids. A girl, and a herd of male sextuples. You might not know this, but you're daughter has been here along with your sons on the mountain over your little village.
We've been living here the majority of our lives, yet by the time you see this letter, we will all be long gone to Blestemate. Over the last few years, I have wanted to see you, but I have been scared for obvious reasons, so I have decided to stay up here with the kids.
I was a fool to be certain, though, because so many horrible things had a chance to befall us. But in my mind I wanted to see you again, I wanted to spend time with you again like in our youth, I have this delusion of us all being together just like they days we travelled when we were young.
I held onto this hope until I noticed how damaging it is to our children. If anything, I have abused our kids far more than anyone has ever had the ability to. But I can't keep doing that, I can't stay stuck in the past waiting for you to be the man you once were, so this is goodbye, Maro, and all I ask is that you offer any one of the prayers these people have to your god for the protection of our kids.
Goodbye forever
From Sandra."
A series of thoughts explodes through the head of Žudrė, but more than that, she feels a tight grip in her heart, and says with a smile, "My father is in the village?"
She quickly gets up and runs right back to her room and grabs a cloak. Then, on her two feet, she excitedly heads out of their home and creates a giant iron mask, which she slides down the hill on.
-Break-
ΦSeeing a large series of people in front of my eyes all walking around drunk and peachy red, I say, "Isn't it the dead of night? Why are they all still drinking? Won't they struggle to sleep at night?"
From behind the building where I stand, I heard water splashing against the ground, and I turned where I turned to see a large hulking man pissing against a stone on the ground, and as he started turning his head, I quickly moved to the side of the house.
Walking forward, I say, "No, no, no, no, no. What even is that? Mom would beat us black and blue if we tried to do something like that so close to the house."
Feeling a thud against my head, I fall backwards, and looking up in front of me, I see a man with peachy red cheeks and tight, hairy arms staring down at me, and I say, "Oh no."
I quickly try to run, but I am grabbed by the head, thrown into the air, the placed under the man's armpit as he says, "All the kids are supposed to be asleep by now? What are you doing up?"
Pulling my cloak down further over my head, I say, "Sleep is boring."
I tilt my head to look at the face of the man in front of me, and as I lock eyes with his, I feel my soul tremble as the very sight of his beastlike eyes makes me fear for my life.
But soon a giant goofy smile appears on his face, and he says, "I know, right. Then you can come hang out with us, but don't tell anybody."
With a chaotic stamp from his left to his right foot, he moves forward towards a giant gathering of men as he sloppily swings from side to side, and holding my hands together in prayer, I say, "I am so scared!"
-Break-
Sitting against the man's shoulder, I let out a yell and shout, "LET'S PARTY!"
And as my voice reaches everyone in the tavern around me, they all let out a resounding roar in response to my words, and the energy within the room reaches new heights.
I look around at all of the people within the room drinking, chatting, and dancing their nights away, and I hold my hands right into the sky and enjoy the feelings all across the room.
"This stuff is so fun, I have no idea why Mother was being so uptight about this."
The man beneath me says, "Tell me about it. Mother can never relax, it's like having kids fry their brains."
"I know, right. Hanging out with you is really fun. I wish I could come here again."
"Then come all you want, and if you're mother has an issue with it, I will take to her."
"You can say that, but when she bashes you with her giant face, Jeanne is deadlier than any other."
Stopping his dancing, he says, "Did you just say, Jeanne?"
"Yes?"
He quickly grabs me off his shoulder, and brings off my hood, and then with broken eyes he stares directly into my own, and there I see beautiful gold eyes, fill his rosy red face. Yet the colour radiating from them feels familiar because I have seen something like it for the vast majority of my life, whenever I stare at the boys.
"Are you Clifford?"