Compos Mentis [Rávamë's Bane: Book 2]

Part I : Chapter 13 ~ The Untamed Ones

A/N: I won't lie, I'm pretty proud of myself for getting this chapter done so quickly considering how damn busy and exhausted I've been over the past couple of weeks. But more than anything — after the hell of the last chapter — I'm really glad I could get this slightly more hopeful one to you all before Christmas rolls around.

In my usual bumbling fashion, all the "thank you's" to everyone for the literal mountain of joy in the comments (over 50 on one chapter, my God guys). They've been especially wonderful to read these past few weeks while I've been settling into my pretty scary new job. Speaking of, I want to shout out an especially big thank you to my Beta and The-Dramatic-Muffin on Tumblr for listening to my woes following my first kinda hellish week of work (don't worry, it's slightly less hellish now, thank God). The collective support has meant so much, you have no idea. :D

Hope you all enjoy the start of Part II. The next chapter is almost finished and with any luck at all will be up before Christmas Eve. :) x

~ ♛ ~

Grass, sun, horse shite, and casual misogyny. That's the simplest way I can describe the walk from Edoras.

I'll let you take a guess at which one was currently irritating me the most.

"You'd think oestrogen was contagious," I muttered irritably, glaring at the long line of migrating people ahead of us. A line that, coincidentally, seemed to have divided itself into exclusively male and female sections — with the occasional exception of families and elderly relatives mingling between the two.

It hadn't happened immediately, but the further the population of Edoras walked, the more they seemed to naturally separate like oil and water, and with it, the more my silent frustration at the sight grew. It was no bloody wonder that soldier hadn't realised what he was doing was wrong until I was raking my nails down his face, if this was truly the unconscious mentality of the population.

It was funny though; in spite of everything that had happened earlier, and the hole I could still feel left in my chest because of it, I was almost glad for the anger and silent raging of my inner feminist.

If I was angry, I didn't have room to be sad.

And if I let myself be sad, I thought of...

Beside me, Sarra just chuckled, having adapted unusually quickly to my comparatively bizarre speech pattern and word choices. If anything, she seemed to enjoy the way I talked, and had taken to laughing frequently and loudly as we hiked side-by-side across the hills together. And her laugh — painfully familiar as it was — was wonderfully contagious.

"You can't blame them," she smiled wickedly at me from the corner of her eye, the shadow of Katie's wit dancing across her features. "They're such delicate creatures, menfolk. We wouldn't want to get too close and scare them so with our talk."

"Oh, aye," I grinned right back at her. "All this talk of babies, birthing, and post-natal preparations, they might start blushing. Some might even swoon."

One of the older women a little way ahead of us tisked loudly, throwing a disapproving glance over her shoulder right at Sarra. She ignored it with all the poise of a queen, raising her chin and walking tall and proud as a mountain — which was no small achievement seeing as we'd been walking for several hours already, and Sarra was carrying a passenger of at least eight pounds in her belly already.

I, on the other hand, didn't ignore it with poise. In fact, I didn't ignore it at all.

I death-glared the back of the woman's head until she felt it, turned, and caught my eye. I had the brief satisfaction of seeing her blink in surprise before turning quickly to face ahead again, ears a bit paler than a moment before.