A Day Like Any Other II
The sunlight baths the barn in a soft warm light from the farthest windows as he approaches the 7th stall and knocks on the wooden half door, before calling out, "Lor, you up yet? I've got to go harvest some herbs in the forest if you're up an about."
"Grrr… Up... Now... Gord…" A deep, guttural growl responds to Gord's question, its voice slow and measured taking its time to fully sound out its pronunciations. The creaking of wood echoes throughout the barn as a behemoth of muscle, fur, and braided dreadlocks, steps up to the half door separating the stables from the main barn space. The 9-and-a-half-foot tall creature was covered in a thick and shaggy fur across its whole body, the only thing separating the uniformity of its pelt was several massive scars across its body, the most notable of which is three large claw strikes along his back. His head was similar to that of a watermelon or pumpkin, with a thick and rotund skull, with wide and protruding facial features, and a bulbous nose. Behind his head was a thick bundle of 27 finely braided dreadlocks, with an intricate pattern distinguishing each, forming a peculiar dichotomy for the creature, a sense of civility amidst the savagery perhaps? A pair of burlap pants cover his lower half, the pants appear to be of decent quality despite being covered in hay.
"Good, if you're ready come on over and I'll strap on the harness." Gord tells Lor, motioning towards the corner of the barn were a peculiar set of leather straps and a seat rest.
"Got... It..." Lor growled before shifting to all fours and approaching the harness rack. Moving beside him, Gord begins strapping the harness to Lor. Tying the harvest satchels to the harness, Lor then lowers himself to help Gord atop his back.
"Thanks, you comfortable Lor, straps not too tight, are they?" Gord says, loosely gripping the reigns that attach to his shoulders to allow Lor to speak.
"Yes… You?" Lor asks, before shifting his weight and begins to heading to the large barn door.
"Eh, I'll be fine. Let's head out, to the usual spots for nettle-root and sickle-bane." Gord says, tapping Lor's side with his palm.
"Mmm…" Lor says, nodding as he rears up and pushes open the large barn door before heading out of the village.
Once outside of the village gates, Gord takes the meat from the satchel and hands it to Lor, "Here you go, figured you'd prefer some meat over those rotting vegetables they give you."
"Thank… You... Kind." Lor growls in appreciation, taking the meat and chewing it in his mouth as they travel deeper into the forest, only pausing to pick the herbs Gord needed. After several hours of foraging together, they stop in a clearing to rest and enjoy the shade offered by a giant pine tree.
"Come on Lor, this looks to be a good spot to res-" Gord begins to say as he starts to dismount from Lor's harness only to have Lor's big hand quickly resecure him to his back.
"Lor what's goi-" Gord begins to whisper quietly, only to see Lor rise a single finger to silence him.
Lor, turning his head slowly from left to right, finally says in a low voice, his speech interrupted with large sniffs, "Child... Human... Weak... Breath... River... Near... Help?" Slowly shifting his body in the direction of the river.
"Why ask?! Let's go!" Gord says, pulling his body low against Lor's back, preparing for Lor to run.
Pulling back, Lor stands atop his hind legs and enters a runners stance saying, "Hold... Tight..." Before breaking into a full sprint towards the direction of the river.
After a few minutes of Lor traveling at full speed, the two reached the river, where they were greeted by one of the most pitiful sights they had seen in years; a small, deathly thin young boy with countless cuts, bruises, and foliage adorning his body. The strange, shredded rags that once made-up clothes left in complete disarray. Laying curled in a ball by the river his breathing was ragged, labored, and wheezing, appearing to be afflicted with weak lung, he mumbled an incoherent or perhaps unknown tongue, barely conscious.
Gord quickly dismounts Lor taking his waterskin and some of the freshly gathered neetle-root, rushing to the boy's side he quickly grinds the neetle-root with some nearby rivergale leaves to alleviate the child's pain and to steady his breathing. After the boy's condition stabilized and his breathing returned to normal, Gord sighed a breath of relief as he placed one of his satchels beneath the boy's head as he rests.
"Huff, the kid was lucky to have made it this far in the Frontier alone... I wonder where his village is? He doesn't look all that familiar to me, how about you Lor?" Gord asks, taking a moment to rest after the excitement, sipping from what was left of the water skin.
"Hmmm... Smells... Different... Not… Near... But... Far... Very... Far." Lor says crouching down to sniff the boy, before lumbering over to take a drink from the river, quenching his parched throat.
"That so? Well, by the state of his clothes he's been lost out here for a couple days, if not weeks even by the state of his body... It's hard to imagine anyone'd let their kid get to such a state willingly." A hint of melancholy in Gord's voice as he brushes the kid's long and unruly hair from his sleeping face. Revealing hollow, sunken features, with a deep, old scar, stretching from the top of his right brow, cutting all the way down to his chin without stopping. Splitting the boy's brow and eye down the middle.
A feeling of unbridled rage filling his heart, as anger forced his fists to clinch together so tightly that his nails burst his palm letting crimson blood drip through his fingers, "What bastard would do something like this?! If I find the one who di-" Gord begins to shout before a series of deafening screeches cuts him off.