Wine Woods

24. Hunters Get Hurt

"What did we learn from this, dear?" Alfred asked,  petting York's hair. The boy groaned, and Columbia giggled from behind him. Samuel continued working around them. A large gash laid across York's chest, and it was bleeding profusely with dark black blood.

"Don't run up to a stags head," York muttered. He coughed, and more blood spirted up from his mouth. Jersey sat beside his head, looking at him unamused before she pushed more with her  cloth, attracting more blood to the surface. Samuel walked over and started stitching, just as York's breathing started to get heavy.

"Only a little more," Alfred cooed, petting the boys black hair, "don't push so hard Jersey, you're making it hard for him to breath."

"He'll be okay," Samuel clarified. The biggest slash was almost stitched, and the smaller ones were being left alone. York whimpered, and Alfred continued to pet his hair as a way to provide just some form of comfort. 

York passed out just after the last stitch was completed and Jersey rolled her eyes. Lukas brought in a basin of water, and a few clothes hanging over the side of it, and they cleaned up the mess that had been made.

Alfred picked up his son and brought him to his bed, letting him sleep. Jersey followed him around, the edges of her denim jeans dragging on the floor, and Alfred tilted his head at her.

"What's wrong?"

"Can I go out and get the deer myself?"

"What?" he exclaimed, "No. You are too young."

"I have a dragon!" she replied, loudly, and York shuffled in his sleep. Alfred shook his head.

"You can't do anything alone, darling. When York tried to do something alone-"

"I'm not York."

"I know you aren't, but hear me out," he paused for a moment to collect his words together into a sentence, "If we weren't there to bring him back, he would have bled out on the forest floor. I don't want you to have that happen to you. You are too young, and you don't have the same strength as adults. One day, I'll let you, but not now, okay?"

"Fine..." she mumbled, looking around the room. York's room was a mess, like it normally was, items laying around, and she walked out of it. Alfred sighed, throwing a blanket over his son before leaving the room. Columbia was standing by the door, and he started following beside his mother. He'd been doing it recently, so Alfred left him to do it.

Alfred yawned and looked out the window. It was getting closer to noon, although it seemed as though it was almost sundown, just from the chaos. He sighed and continued walking around. Florida was with a human, much bigger than she had been, and he took her up in his hands and nuzzled into her face. She gave the smallest of baby giggles, and reached up to his ears to pull on his earrings. 

"No," he said, laughing and pulling her hands away from his face. He placed her in the sash wrapped around his body, and pet her hair, and walked into the kitchen. Food was already being prepared, and Valtio stood in the middle of it, barking out orders. Alfred was taken aback by it, and shook his head.

"Hey little brother," Alfred smiled, and Valtio looked over, a snobbish smirk on his face. It caused a twisting sensation in his gut, but still, Valtio gave the slightest of bows, and backed off.

"You take it, I'm getting bored," Valtio said, "I won't be around for lunch, by the way."

And he was out the door. Alfred looked back on him for a moment, before continuing where he left off. It was strange that he was just walking away like that, normally he told him where he was going and how long he'd be gone, but Alfred left it be, pushing it to the back of his mind.

"Carolina, North!" he called after the food was prepared and everyone had sat down besides the two, and the two answered, running. Carolina had a large gash on the side of her cheek, and Alfred bent down to look at it.

"Where did you get that?" he asked, reaching out to touch it. Carolina flinched away and he pulled back his hand.

"Uncle Valtio was teaching us to use a real bayonet and North cut me," she shrugged, "it's okay, Uncle Valtio said it won't hurt for long."

Alfred narrowed his eyes, before reaching out and brushing her cheek. She didn't flinch this time, but her body was stiff as if she wanted too.  North was standing there, stiff as a brick as well. They were both wearing heavy clothes for the summer, and covered in dark mud. The ends of their pants were wet.

"Well then, make sure you don't do it next time. I don't want to see you using real weapons against each other. I don't care what Valtio says, you aren't allowed to do it."

"But mom-"

"Don't 'but' me, you know my rules. No real weapons. If you want, you can use fake ones, alright?"

"But Uncle Valtio says we don't get as much experience with fake-"

"No," Alfred hissed, "my younger brother is very wrong about that. He's trying to turn you into callous killers before you're even ready for something like that. You two haven't even been hunting and yet you use real weapons against each other? You don't even know what they do."

He felt as thought he was taking out his frustrations with Valtio out on the children, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"Lunch, let's go."

They walked on behind him, looking like they'd been beaten, and Alfred sat down at the head of the table. Everyone did their own thing, deciding to ignore what had taken them so long to join the meal. Alfred breathed out something that must have counted as some form snort, mildly annoyed at his brother. West walked up to him then, wrapping his little five-year-old arms around his waist. 

"Mama," the little boy said, "Virginia won't play with me anymore."

"Why?"

"She says I'm not strong enough, that I don't have enough strength and that I'll always stick at the bottom like a drunkard or a... I don't want to say it because you said it was really mean."

"Does it start with an n and end with an r?"

"Yes."

"Are Africans called it?"

"Yes."

"I'll talk with her later," he said, his voice hardly above a mumble. He felt a feeling brewing up in his belly- who had taught his daughter that? 

Wait.

His eyes glowed for a fraction of a second before he settled them, and went back to eating.

He almost felt the urge to murder him.