The Tribes of K'haren - Completed

Chapter 23.1

'We found them out in the woods, she had already passed out and they were all crying.' A female Faun explained as some other Fauns laid a Phraio woman on the improvised bed Tarlequin had been forced to stay in for days before. A group of six children were holding hands, looking terrified and trying to stay by the adult Phraio's side but not daring to get close to any other creature. The oldest of them was a girl that had already grown quite tall but not yet fully reached puberty.

'Is this your mother?' Kran asked the children. Some of them nodded, the others were too terrified. 'It's alright, we're going to help her.'

'I'll go find somebody who knows more about this...' Nume said, but the female Faun who had spoken before interrupted her.

'You don't need to, I can help her, I already have, actually. There's that plant we found in the depths of the forest, we made a potion of it for her, she'll be out for a while, but once she wakes up again, she'll be feeling much better.'

'Great, what's your name?' Nume inquired.

'I'm Pmerla.'

'Nice to meet you, P... Pmerla.' Nume said, struggling to pronounce the name. The Faun replied with a shy smile. 'If you all could now just follow me to the other tent, I think she'll need some rest.' She added, looking over her shoulder at the bruised woman laying on the bed. Then she turned to the children. 'What about you, will you come with us? You can see her again right afterwards, just give her a moment so we can talk and she can sleep...'

'She won't wake up anyway, will she?' the eldest girl asked.

'Not as long as you're not letting her rest.' Kran said, then he added: 'You can stay with me and we can talk here, but we'll all have to be really quiet and whisper, is that alright?'

The girl just looked at him with huge eyes, terror was written all over her face.

'Or maybe,' Nume said. 'I'll stay and talk to you and Kran will talk with our friends, the Fauns?' As soon as she heard that, the girl nodded eagerly and seemed to relax a little. 'And if you could ask Mersha to find Tarlequin and send him here, that would be great.'

Once Kran and the Fauns were gone, the children all hurried to the bedside and eyed the woman up worriedly. Nume wished there were a way for them not to see the bruises all over her body and even her face, but there was really no way to hide them and they'd probably seen them already, worse even, they might have seen what had caused them. Back in her tribe, Nume knew of at least a few women who had been beaten by their husbands, fathers, brothers or even mothers, though nobody ever spoke about it. She herself had been lucky enough to be born into a peaceful family and she could tell by Kran's reaction that he, too, had never experienced anything like it.

'So, what's your mother's name?' Nume asked, trying to distract the children from the rather sad scene.

'Orlisuna.' The girl replied without looking up. She gently stroke her mother's hair.

'That's a lovely name. And what do you all call yourselves?'

The girl introduced herself and her younger siblings before shyly asking for some food. She said they hadn't eaten in days and the Fauns had only just found them a few hours ago and not even thought about offering them anything.

'Yes, of course, you can come with me... or, you know what, I'll just get some for all of us, alright? Stay here with your mother, you'll be fine, don't worry, nobody's going to hurt you.' Nume said before leaving the tent. Outside, she nearly ran into Tarlequin and Mersha. 'Oh, hello there, I need you, both of you, can you come with me and get some food, there's a bunch of children in there who look starving.' She said, careful not to speak too loudly.