The next morning Astrid set out tojuicing a pile of pomegranates that some neighbors dropped off. Sheheld each over a jar and crushed the tough fruit in her grip untilthe juice dribbled out and tossing the squished rind into a barrelfor livestock feed. Early on she ate most of the seeds that slippedout the sides but she gradually got tired of working the delicateseeds.
She watched a group of kids running around until they tooknotice of her and eventually worked their way over. A couple startedtrying to use their hands to squeeze some pomegranates to no effect.One started hitting theirs against a rock and took several attemptsbefore a dent started to appear in the rind.
"How do you do that?" one askedpointing at her juicing work.
"I got really strong, mostly byworking metal," she grinned at the kids, "bending and beatingsteel scraps into useful shapes isn't easy."
"Who's the juice for?"
"Can wehave the seeds that slip out?"
The last boy was quiet, from the intentway he'd look at her she guessed she was becoming the object of aprecocious little crush. Wouldn't be the first or last time, she wassure, but she really needed someone at least twice his age to takesome interest in her. Swatting down kids into the 'babysat childzone' wasn't exactly hard but she wanted to spend her effortselsewhere.
"What cut up the backs of yourhands?" a girl asked.
"Fighting," Astrid answered. Shewas a little surprised that the girl noticed, her hardened body meantshe hadn't taken any serious damage to her fists and the healers onhand had patched up most of the damage. On top of that she hadstained most of her hands with the juice. Little one wasobservant.
"Fighting what?"
"Five female boxers, a dozen goblins,and finally a string of five male boxers," she inflated thenumbers. It was only a little untrue.
"Really?"
She dropped her work and leaned back toflex her arms, causing some seriously boggled eyes, "You thinkthese wouldn't crush a goblin or twelves?"
"Did you fight them with your barehands miss? That's crazy."
"Well I had to do something to givethem some kind of a chance, didn't I?"
She grabbed a fruit in each hand andsqueezed as hard as she could to crush each and make a point. It hurta bit and she couldn't keep her face from scrunching up in thatsituation, but she felt she probably made the point.
"The dozen came at me all at once,surrounded on all sides, but I killed them with a single blow exceptthat one of the little buggers got lucky and managed to scratch up myarm a bit," she held out one of her arms and pointed out the faintwhite lines that were all that remained of the injuries it inflictedon her the previous night.
"What happened then?"
"Got myfingers in his mouth and just tore the top of his head off."
"NO WAY!"
"Was it bloody?"
"CRAZYbloody! Just squirting out all over the place!" she proclaimed,finding the kids' reactions to be fun. Kids always liked herexaggerated stories best which helped her like them more. She wasn'tentirely sure on her feelings of actually becoming a mom at somepoint, but she'd like to think she made a good babysitter.
She went on telling them greatlyembellished tales of her fight night, inventing opponents andinflating the ones she did fight all while making it sound like shehad an easier time than she had. She did win everything prettydecisively overall, but to an adult audience she'd temper thingsdown. Kids liked the idea of an invulnerable hero to root for, so shetried to make herself that hero.
