"Oh dear," Petty exclaimed softly.
"It looks like ye have a rash, again, Daru'El. I kin nay figure out how ye always get 'im. A farmer's get should be used to the hard soaps and
dyes. But ye've got the delicacy of some sort of nobility!"
Petty tucked a clean napkin around her son's bottom, frowning as she tightened the strong cords at each side.
Daru'El began to squirm.
"Stay still, or yer gonna fall flat on your face!"
Leaving one hand on the infant's round belly, Petty turned away to drop the dirty napkin into a pile of others near her foot. She would
have more laundry to do today. Where was that bloody Lorna? Petty had other things she wished to do than spend all the morning elbow-deep in dirty naps.
Daru'El squirmed more, making a sour face that Petty could not see.
"No more squirming, else I be letting ye fall right off the table top! Stay still!"
From a darker and quieter corner of the large hearth room, there came a scream.
Petty shrieked in surprise.
It was her daughter, Maru'El, Daru's twin, screaming like a banshee from the cradle she had been put to sleep in.
The infant girl screamed and screamed. Petty blinked, breathless just listening to the ceaseless wails. She peered into t
he cradle as best she could from where she was, but there was nothing amiss. Just Maru's chubby fists flailing frantically in the air.
"What on earth…" Petty said, unable to hear herself over Maru's cries.
Finally, she turned back to her son on the large wooden table.
"Daru??"
His small round face was scrunched up tightly, his eyes squeezed shut in obvious pain.
Petty picked him up, turning him this way and that.
"What, child, what? Why do you look so vexed? What's wrong?"
Finding nothing, Petty lay her son back down on the table top, and began to undress him. Off came his long tunic. And off came his nap.
And then she saw what she had not seen earlier.
In her frustration over his rash and his habit of going through so many naps every day, Petty had tightened his cords too much.
His small flaccid member was twisted between his thighs, almost blue from lack of circulation. Quickly, the farmer's wife released the other cord,
removed nap, and adjusted her son.
"Oh gods, child. I'm so sorry!"
She stroked it tenderly, his limpness, cooing to him apologetically.
Daru blinked his infant eyes up at her, so dark and penetrating. Petty jumped back.
Had his member jumped in her hand?
She looked down, but saw nothing wrong there.
Frowning, she wrapped him back up in his nap, being careful this time to place him properly.
"No fault of mine that ye have the member of a small goat!"
Petty bit her lip at how that thought had popped into her head, and how it had sent an icicle of terror down her spine. She pushed it away, and
plucked her son up into her arms.
Daru cooed and kicked his feet happily as Petty pulled down the loose top of her shiftless dress and pulled out one pendulous breast. Excited,
Daru smashed a hungry fist into her skin and began making suck faces until she put the large dark nipple into his mouth. He pulled it hard and
opened wide again, taking all of the areola in on his own.
Sighing, she sat down in the rocking chair near Maru's spot in the cradle and began to rock, slowly, letting all her thoughts drift away.
Daru's cooing ceased, but where he left off, Maru seemed to pick up, cooing rhythmically to the woman as she rocked slowly, back and forth, back and forth.
Time passed, she knew not how much. It was as if she was in a dream, walking amongst a fog of numbness. She felt almost nothing.
Just a gentle tugging on her breast. A sound outside the open door roused her.
Blinking, Petty looked down at where her son lay in her arms.
His fists, both of them clenched, were tightly pressed around her breast. But he was not suckling. As Petty watched, her son looked up into her
eyes as he continued to slowly move his tongue around her nipple.
Her mouth dropped open, watching him. His eyes, so dark, like midnight.
And his tongue, long, pink and wet, moving over her suddenly hot skin.
Lorna came in just then, and Petty leaped from the chair, almost tossing Daru'El into her eldest daughter's arms.
"Gah, take this! I've done with feeding for today! I'm off!"
Stomping, Petty left the house, leaving Lorna to play milknurse to her brother and sister.
Startled, Lorna looked after her mother, then at Daru'El who sucked on his fist and smiled.
From the depths of the cradle, Lorna swore she heard Maru'El giggle.
She frowned, and shooed her own two summers old daughter off her leg and out the door, pulling one small round and milk-filled breast out for Daru's eager lips.
Lorna liked to feed her brother and sister. There was always an odd peace when she held them.
Especially Daru'El.
Maru'El giggled again, kicking her feet in the cradle and smiling.
The afternoon sun shone down bright and blinding on the farmyard. Daru'El and Maru'El splashed and splashed in the
short tub of water that was their bath. Nearby, their young cousin Tikki sucked her fingers dumbly and stared around with wide too-pale-blue eyes.
Maru looked at Daru, who smiled at her. Then both twins began to splash Tikki.
Crying, the four year old flew into the house and into her mother's arms.
Daru nodded at Maru, as if to say yes, it had been a fun idea after all.
"Listen, you two!"
Petty came storming out of the hearthroom, glaring, drying her hands on her dirty apron.
"Ye've got to stop terrorizing her!"
She shook a finger at her son and daughter, then stood with her hands on her hips to watch them.
"Now wash yerselves up, then! Ye been in there too long and yer gonna look like dried roots!"
Maru giggled, tossing her curly head of black hair and splashing her brother. He squealed and grabbed her by the neck,
shoving her head under the water while she splashed in protest.
"Daru! Let her go! This instant!"
Petty shook her finger again. But she did not come closer.
Daru let his twin go and smiled, wiping the water from his sister's nose and cheeks, babbling to her in infant talk.
Uneasy, Petty watched them from a distance.
Over the few years of their lives, an uneasy routine had developed regarding the twins. All agreed it was best to have as little to do
with them as possible, physically.
At only two summers old and a bit more, the twins dwarfed four-year-old Tikki easily. And almost dwarfed the large yard dog. They
had quick fists and teeth, and even though they only hit or bit when provoked,one could never tell what one might be doing to provoke them.
They didn't look like anyone else in the family, either, something Breadar reminded Petty often of, in the dark hours of the night when he
thought no one else would hear.
"Demon get!" he would whisper to her harshly, thrusting and grinding into her.
His love-making hadn't been love-making since Maru's hair began to come in, thick, shining large curls that stood out amongst the gaggle
of tow-headed or chestnut-headed children that lived here. Tikki was an alarmingly identical copy of her mother, for all her dumbness.
Next to the twins, she was a dull and bland example of their unique looks.
Breadar would suffer them, he said, because he believed his wife's pleading cries.
"I don't remember, I swear to ye! I don't know where they came from!"
Petty really didn't remember. And she wasn't sure, most times, that she wanted to.
Maru splashed extra hard and some water accidentally landed on Petty's face, shaking her from her dazed reverie. When she looked at the
two giggling children, dark heads pressed together as they waited for her reaction, she wasn't so sure about the "accidental" part.
"Yer wasting water! Get out now, by gods! Get out of there and let the sun dry ye off!"
Petty snarled, trying to look like an angry mother should, and not like a frightened one.
Suddenly, from around the corner of the house, a large goat came bleating and tearing through the yard. One of the small herd of grazing animals
Breadar kept, it lept over the nearby fence. Close on its heels came the yard dog, barking ferociously.
Petty watched the bleating goat disappear towards the open meadow. She hoped the dog would bring it back before Breadar came in from
the fields tonight. Else she would never hear the end of yet another of her mistakes. He would find some way to blame her for this, she could be sure of that.
An odd noise came from the tub, and Petty turned to see if Daru had finally drowned his sister.
The twins were leaning against the edge of the tub, looking at Petty.
They were bleating.
Perfect replicas of the goat that had just passed by.
Petty blinked her eyes at her two strange children, who simply stared at her, and kept on bleating.
Goat-like.
Clutching her chest, her heart palpitating and burning suddenly, Petty heard another goat, a larger goat, one she had not heard for three years.
Her thighs suddenly ached where she bore the scars of fangs and claws. Her belly churned as vomit boiled inside.
Bleating, the children continued to stare their mother down, their faces tilted chin-down, serious, their mouths opening and closing around the goat
sounds they were emulating.
"Ahhhh!"
Screaming, Petty fled into the house and the darkness of her bedroom.
"Maru!" Daru giggled, smiling at his sister where she stood naked infront of him, fingering her deep bellybutton.
She blinked at him, smiling.
"Goat!" she squealed, cupping a handful of water and tossing it into her brother's face.
Daru plopped backward onto his behind out of the tub, landing hard on his bottom on the packed earth.
His bottom lip came out, fat and pouty, and he looked up at his sister, not moving from where he sat.
"Daru."
Maru'El climbed out of the tub, one fat leg at a time, and waddled over to her brother. Carefully, mother-like, she
took his head against her chest, hugging it to her.
She bent her mouth and kissed his black hair gently, rocking her brother. Daru leaned against her. Then, after a few
more moments of tenderness, he teasingly bit her in the belly, and she pulled him until he stood, then dumped him back into the tub, only to climb in afterwards.
Bleating, brother and sister played in the tub all day long.
