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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 55: Slade 269
Table of Contents
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Rudolph was glad for the wolf pelts, which within an hour he had stripped from the bodies using his stone tools. He said he would cook the meat, but that they still had plenty of pig that they needed to eat before it spoiled, and wolf was not really that good--good in desperate times, but tough and bitter. He cleaned the pelts and left them to dry; Shella used her platform spell to move the now stripped bodies away from the hut and deeper into the uninhabited region. They had considered fertilizer, but decided that it would perhaps be better to draw the predators away from the hut. Slade accompanied her, just to be safe.
As they returned, a grateful and amazed Rudolph greeted them eagerly. “How,” he said, “were you not afraid?” he asked. Shrugging, Slade answered.
“I’m not afraid of death. I’m not afraid of pain. I’m not even really afraid of losing Shella, because I know that will never really happen. I can’t think of anything I am afraid of. So I guess I’m kind of immune to fear.”
“Immune to fear,” Rudolph said, awe dripping from his words. “I wish I was.”
Slade puzzled on this for a moment, then asked, “So, why aren’t you?”
“What--what does that even mean? I’m afraid. Everyone is afraid. It’s not like there’s a reason?”
“Of course there is,” Slade said. “Or maybe not a reason, a cause, if you see the difference. Something causes you to be afraid. Shella was afraid out there, because she was facing vicious predators that wanted to kill her and weren’t going to be gentle about it. She’s not frightened in here--”
“Well, my lord, you’re in here,” Shella said.
“Yes, but I was out there, and you were scared of the wolves anyway.”
“There were so many, or so it appeared.”
“Right. But the fact is, Rudolph is afraid sitting in here. What are you afraid of? What is it that frightens you?”
“Everyone is afraid.”
“Not everyone. I’m not.”
“O.K., everyone but you.”
“Shella’s not.”
“Every peasant is afraid.”
“So the nobles are not afraid? Why not? What makes them different?”
Rudolph looked puzzled for a moment, and then seemed to make a connection.
“We must be afraid of the nobles.”
As to the old stories that have long been here:
