Woah, mom, that was kind of harsh… I looked around at the people next to us and saw that a few of whom were giving my mother dirty looks. Nobody dared to say anything though – maybe mom has a reputation? I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but before I could think on it more I was distracted by the hacking cries of the infant who had been partially suffocated. This was a huge relief, and also turned mom’s comment from Disney villain evil to merely vaguely mean.

Then again, maybe I had just miss-translated what she said, and it wasn’t as bad as I had originally thought.

Regardless, now that I thought about it, the entire group was eerily quiet as we made our way through the dark streets of the village. Except for a few terse commands, talking of any kind was kept to a minimum. I was suddenly VERY glad that I didn’t end up yelling in surprise (I probably gasped a few times, but apparently nobody heard me) during the attack.

Sleeping pallets and supplies were taken down from the shelves at the back of the room and distributed, with my mother doing more than her share of the work. Before long she turned to a group of men who were standing in a corner and ‘yelled them’ into helping stack supplies next to the people with children. It was both funny and scary at the same time.

Mom was definitely restless, constantly moving around and talking to people if they were working, yelling if they weren’t meeting her standards. I had a feeling that she was freaking out at the fact that dad wasn’t with us. I was starting to get pretty worried too – though, between his terrifying maw of death and his crazy oversized frame, I’d lay money on dad being able to take out a dozen of those wolves barehanded.

After another half an hour things got quieter outside, followed by a loud proclamation that I think translated to something like, ‘All clear!’ or maybe ‘All shut!’. The word for clear was a general negation word, which had many different connotations depending on the intonation used. So clear, shut, nothing, empty and closed were all variations of the same word. Things like this are why I was having such a hard time picking up this damn language.

I also learned my parents’ names as mother moved about talking to different people. They called themselves by terms that meant mother/wife and father/husband respectively when they were at home. Originally I thought those were their actual names, but they often came up in sentences such as ‘give your mother a hug’ or ‘don’t let your father hug you’, which lead me to believe they might not be actual names.

So dad’s name was Toly Firehand, and mom’s was Isa Firehand. Which, I suppose, made me Heller Firehand – kind of a badass name if you ask me. I wasn’t really keen on it at first, but it’s really started to grow on me. I don’t know if it means anything yet, but I could always ask once I get a bit older…. That is, assuming we survive this crazy wolf attack. What the hell kind of wolves attacked a village like this anyway? There must be nearly a thousand people living here, for god’s sake!

Then Isa (mom) started raising a ruckus at the doorway, with me still helplessly cradled in her left arm. I could crawl and move around pretty adeptly (heck, I could almost walk, but I was hiding that from my parents for obvious reasons) but I had nowhere near the strength required to free myself from her grasp. She was pounding on the door and demanding to know what happened to her husband, with the people around us mostly choosing to ignore her antics (a few were giving her frightened glances).

We didn’t get any kind of reply for quite some time, but then mother turned and started yelling at the young single men to come and unbar the door. WTF! My mom is a psycho! Sure I wanted to know if dad was alright, but not enough to risk death by shadow-wolf! I mean, yeah the guys is growing on me, but I’ve only known him for a few months. Plus he’s huge; I’d be more worried about the wolves!

That finally got some protests, but mom quickly proved that she was louder than anyone else in the room. It’s probably the loudest I’ve ever heard her scream, but luckily I was pretty used to it by now. She was basically saying that they all-clear was given, it’s perfectly safe, and they were a bunch of stupid cowards for stopping her from going to find her husband. I wasn’t convinced, but not many people seemed able to maintain her level of anger (or her volume) for long enough to stop her.

This finally seemed to get the attention of someone outside, and just as the browbeaten young men were making their way to the bar across the door we heard yelling from the OTHER side of the door.

“Madam, everyone involved in the fighting is located in a different section of the fort: There is absolutely no way to contact them until the siege ends! We shall endeavor to pass on what information we can to all those remain in their safe rooms.”

Ok, I have to admit that I didn’t actually catch all of what the voice was saying, so part of that is ad-lib (and I don’t even know the word for siege). But one thing did catch my attention – it sounded like we were going to have to remain here for some time. Did that mean the village was being taken over by those shadow wolf creatures? How is this even possible!

Mother stood silently facing the door for a moment, causing me to wonder what was going on and look up at her. I noticed a tear gently falling down her cheek, and I let out a small squeal of surprise. Mom looked down at me and smiled, revealing even more tears rolling down her face.

Without wiping them off or even seeming to acknowledge them, mother turned to face the crowd behind her. She took a moment to look at all of them individually in the eye (I assume), before performing an elegant curtsy and thanking the group of young men who had finally agreed (been forced) to help her raise the bar off of the door. We then moved over to our mat in the corner where she set me down for the night.