Bonecrusher Queens

She looked down again at their frightened faces, small hands clutched to her skirts. They were awake for this. The crowd around them, the women, had insisted. Hircine’s blessing may come suddenly or without warning to others, but when the choice was presented, it would be made willingly. 

Karda had no illusions of surviving this encounter should they not drink, however.

“You’re letting it go cold.” Their leader, the woman named Coffi, spoke up. There was a titter that rippled through the crowd. “You can’t go back, Karda.”

The Nord woman looked at Saoirse. Could she ever see that face, that muzzle with those teeth, as anything less than terrifying?

Yes. Of course she could. She was a Nord. That man who had called himself her husband had done something to her spine, but she’d gotten it back the moment her knife hit his heart. She could do this.

But...

“The children?” She asked, again.

“I know, I know. You got a good head, lookin’ out for your whelps. But, thing is,” Coffi smiled, not unkindly, at the two little ones, “they’re gonna have an easier time than you, when they get to grow up with it. I was turned when I was about his age.” She nodded to the five year old boy. His sister, only two years above him, tried to press him behind her. “And she’s got a good sense of things. Nah, Karda, one who is gonna have the hardest time here, that’s you.”

Then that was fine. Saoirse had promised to look out for her. She trusted her friend, at least in this. She would understand the rest in time.