Chapter 5

The next morning, Violet suddenly woke up when she heard roosters crowing in the distance. As she opened her eyes, she blinked a few times, then rubbed her eyes. She almost didn’t remember how she got here at first. The proceedings of the last seventy-two hours were kind of one long blur of motion, though the fight, and her following Adam through the dark village, soon came back to her.

She slowly turned and focused her vision, and saw Adam’s sleeping face, not but six or so inches in front of her own. Even in the darkness, she could see that his face was massively bruised around his nose and eyes. The pattern kind of reminded her of a raccoon’s color pattern, and the thought brought a small smile to her face.

Both of the men fought to ‘own’ her, but Adam hadn’t ‘taken’ her last night, like she had thought he would. She was thankful, but still fearful that once he rested, he would be taking her, and doing with her as he pleased.

Now that she thought about it, maybe this new life of hers wouldn’t be so bad. She already liked Adam a lot more than her step father. Well, so far. She watched him sleeping. His mostly hairless bare chest, was rising and falling as he slowly breathed.

She tentatively reached up, to ever so gently brush his cheek with her fingertips. His skin was soft, with barely any stubble, not all leathery like she had imagined. He also smelled rather good. It was a subtle sandalwood smell mixed with his own manly aroma.

The gentle touch of her soft hand brought Adam out of sleep, but he didn’t open his eyes. His nose felt incredibly injured, like even the smallest breeze of air blowing on him hurt. Adam knew it was because of Phoenix’s headbutt from last night. He felt something else on his face, though, which is what woke him, and he focused on that, instead of the pain of his nose. It was Violet’s soft little hand, exploring her boundaries. He found that not only brave on her part, but also very adorable in his opinion.

Her fingertips slowly moved down to his lips and felt how chapped they were. Such things like chapstick might be somewhat of a luxury when you live on a remote island.

That thought led her to other questions like, ‘What are these people even doing on this island. How did they get here? And, maybe most importantly, why did they stay here?’

She filed them away for later. It was still quite early in the morning, and her eyelids were heavy. Her eyes forced themselves closed again, and she drifted off back to sleep.

Adam waited for a moment to see if she was going to do anything else, but hearing her breath return to it’s relaxed pace, he opened his eyes to gaze upon her once again. He couldn’t help but smile, which actually really hurt, and he opened his eyes wide to try and wake up. He had a lot to do today. Shifting forward slightly, he gently placed a kiss on the young girl’s forehead and rolled over to get out of bed.

Violet had only fallen back asleep mere seconds before Adam kissed her, so her eyes shot open to look at him, though she could only see his chin. She watched him roll away to get out of bed and stretch with his arms above his head, craning over behind his shoulder, then doing the same with the other one. She heard him yawn, which prompted her to yawn and, not feeling any threat from him, closed her eyes to go back to sleep.

Adam undressed, showered, and got ready for the day. He’d have to go see Maeble about taking care of this bruise. He beat Phoenix in the Torches. He had a reputation to uphold now, but it was hard to stand tall when your face is almost as black as Phoenix’s, when you’re actually a caucasian. He usually used his bed to sit on to equip his boots, but he didn’t want to wake up Violet, so he used one of the chairs in his kitchen instead. Tying them tightly, he exited his shack and made his way across camp back to Maeble’s.

Few people were out, but it was the usual small parade of folks. Jaila getting water for boiling, Kainin hanging a string of sausages ready for cooking, Taka collecting the morning eggs to prep for breakfast for the whole camp, and of course, Maeble collecting herbs from her garden. He figured she had to be about eighty years old. Perhaps he could get Violet to be her apprentis of sorts. Her knowledge of herbalism was pretty crucial to the village, and as far as he knew, unless she taught someone, it’d die with her.

Stepping up to Maeble’s garden, she stopped and looked up at him and made a face, “Ugh. Now that’s a face even a mother would regret making. Wait inside.”

Adam would have grinned if he didn’t know it’d cause him an incredible amount of pain, and stepped inside her hut to wait for the gnarled woman. He didn’t have to wait very long before the old woman walked in, setting her basket of leaves and grass and seeds on a counter.

“Sit there. Let me take a closer look.”

Adam sat on the cot which put his face about head level with Maeble. The old woman brought a lantern over and grimaced again now that she saw him in proper light.

“Heh, Phoenix really did a number on you. Hold still.”

She took his face in both of her hands, her thumbs just barely feeling the cartilage in his nose. She knew last night that his nose was broken, but he was young and didn’t know about ‘pain’ like she did ... so who better to teach them? Plus, it was funny.

Adam hissed and Maeble grinned, walking over to a cabinet, “Oh don’t be such a baby. You’re too cute for wrinkles.”

She picked out a couple gourds, and walked back to Adam, gently rubbing some manner of cream on his bruised face. After applying an even coat, she moved to wash her hands before coming back for the second gourd. It was some kind of oil that kept the ointment from coming off from sweat. Returning the medicines back to their proper place, she moved back to stand in front of Adam.

Adam, with eyes closed, endured the old woman touching the more tender parts of his face and then could feel her standing in front of him so he opened his eyes to look up at her. She was inspecting him closely with pursed lips, clearly considering something.

“ ... Don’t move.”

Quite swiftly, her hands came back up to cup his face and, with her thumbs again, pressed much harder on his nose. A rapid series of cracks popped out of his face and Adam leaned backwards in retreat with a loud shout, “AaaaAOOWW. FUCK, Maeble!”

He felt his nose and, though it was still sore, at least it didn’t throb anymore.