Interlude 29.5

The sharp striking of a heavy rainfall against the leaking wood of the damp manor proved to be insufficiently loud to block out the horrors taking place outside a young lady's door. Two humans, a butler and a maid, sat wearily at a scant wooden table just before midnight, sharing their paltry first meal of the day. The child with her tall, furry ears lay uneasily in the bed behind them. She still could not learn to drift off until the screaming died down.

The shrieking grew into a bloodcurdling cry after midnight, as it always did. Unfortunately, tonight it was growing closer. The closer it got, the more sounds accompanied the chorus. Footfalls, heavy and uneven, stopped only to give way for the walls to be slammed against in some fit of desperation. God willing, tonight it too would pass by their door without incident.

God was not willing.

"...Flense... Flense it all! All of you! Rip your very flesh from bones! I would rip your very teeth out, so help me God!" Of course, no god, especially not the Third, would help her at this point. The delirious mistress was a pitiable shivering mess. Her pallid skin was pulled taut so that it was so thin one could see all her veins at a glance. Her lips and jaw were glistening with a rabid drooling. She continued to scream, advancing on the servants. The butler lifted a rod as a makeshift shield.

"...The young mistress needs her rest. Please allow her at least that much," he calmly explained, positioning himself between the child and her.

"...My girl.... My poor, poor girl... Can she rest? Truly?" It did not snap her out of her daze so much as it welcomed her into a new, less violent one. "Do your veins truly not cry out this night...?"

"No, Mama... They hurt me too, even now. But I'll get better soon! Promise! And... and you will too, won't you, Mama?"

Unlike the child's own, the mistress's ears and tail drooped to a depressive slump.

"Aah... Aaaaaaahhh... That even she can't be spared of our sins... aaaaah...!" The short woman groaned in despair, burying her head in an unsteady hand as she made her exit. The walls of the manor once again echoed her miseries as she stumbled in an aimless stupor, this time mercifully away from the servants and their young charge.

"I wish I didn't have to see Mama in such pain," the child admitted, pulling the blankets around her shoulders. "Will she ever get better?"

Nothing answered her aside from the pitter-patter far above.

"...Will I ever get better?" she asked, more pitifully.

"...Of course you will, young miss," the butler answered her with a reassuring smile only children were deserving of.

"Ehehe... Then I'm sure Mama will too. Thank you." She curled up in bed once again, with her smile covering up her twitches and whimpers of pain until she finally dozed off.