Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Tender as a Human ❯ Chapter 3

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

*I’m claiming this story. It is all mine. MINE!!! mwahahahaha!*
*And thebazzily’s…*

Tender as a Human




Seluna and Jeordin traveled quickly and peacefully to the next village, with no more interruptions by creatures known to waylay travelers. During the journey, Jeordin attempted to teach Seluna human customs, but it was trying work. Seluna had the worst difficulty grasping the simplest of rules.

Their first night out, for example, Jeordin brought back a skinned rabbit he had shot with his bow. He laid it down to start the fire, and when he looked up, Seluna was about to take a bite out of the raw meat. Jeordin tried desperately to get her to understand why meat had to be cooked, but still held doubts as to whether or not she actually grasped the concept.

Another concept Seluna had problems with was modesty. Jeordin had the feeling he would have to tell people they were married as opposed to siblings when they stopped in towns and villages along the way simply to keep an eye on her - and make sure that she didn’t give anyone a view of what he saw when he first met her. Jeordin imagined that Seluna must be from somewhere clothing was optional, because she didn’t recognize the need for it at all!

On the plus side, Seluna had managed to master the art of speaking so that people could at least understand her. Jeordin had managed to stop being amazed at what she knew about the language; the only knowledge that she seemed to be missing in the speaking arts was the actual speaking part. Her grammar was perfect, if peculiar. Though she needed a lot of improvement still, Jeordin had decided that she could probably pass in a town if she didn’t talk much and he told people she was shy; that excuse sure beat the other options: mute or crazy.

The first village they came to was bustling with unusual activity. He grabbed the arm of a man passing by quickly, and asked, “Excuse me, Sir, but can you tell me what’s happening here? This activity seems sort of strange to me…”

“The village headsman’s daughter has been kidnapped by bandits! She was betrothed to the local lord’s youngest son. The bandits are asking for four hundred gold crowns as her ransom, but it is right after taxes, and we barely have enough money to feed ourselves! Everyone is trying to bring what money we can spare together, but we barely have a hundred silver crowns - one gold crown!”

Jeordin felt an immense pity towards the man, and almost offered to help with the ransom money, but Seluna spoke first. “So all you’re doing is collecting money to retrieve a girl from bandits that are living illegally on lands that you have been on for ages?” She snorted, and Jeordin prayed that was all she had to say, but it was not to be.

“If all your village can think to do is try to pay off the bandits with your own money, then one cannot think of this village very highly. Why do you not ask her betrothed for help in gaining her back? Or, better yet, purge the land of the bandits, for that would indebt the local lord to you even more than he would be if a member of your village was part of his family, as bandits are a plague to all of the land.”

The man looked at Seluna, his face becoming angry. “The bandits have evaded the lord’s soldiers for months! If they cannot stand against the bandits, what chance could mere village peasants have?”

“Paying the bandits merely encourages them and others like them, to continue in their outlawish ways. What, sir, do you think villagers, who must do everything for themselves, from building houses to catching meat, could do better than soldiers, who have the peasants do their work for them?”

“You are daft, woman! There is no way for simple peasants to succeed where nobles and armsmen have failed! Payment is the only way to get Maria back.” His face was almost purple now from anger, and Jeordin thought that the amount of insulting that Seluna had exercised was enough to start a fight.

“I simply suggest that you hunt the bandits like you hunt deer - through stealth and stalking. It would take a while, I know, but you could pick of the bandits one by one. It is really a very simple thing to think of, you know.”

The man stared at her, and Jeordin thought for sure he was going to attack Seluna, because his face did not lighten and his mood did not ease, but the man did not make a move towards her.

“You know,” he said at last, “I think you’re right. That is a simple idea. The bandits have their base in the woods, and it is easy to see that they are not woodsmen, for their trails are all over the place. The only problem we might have in finding them is discerning their tracks from the soldiers! I think I’ll go tell the headsman about this idea.” The man hustled off in the direction he came, disappearing into one of the more prosperous looking households.

Jeordin looked at Seluna. “You know, you are lucky that he didn’t attack you for insulting him and his village.”

She just looked at her guide and smiled. “I am actually surprised he saw my point so quickly. He is probably a greedy man who would do anything to preserve his wealth. The credit to my idea will probably go to him, as well, because he will conveniently forget to tell the headsman that it was my idea.”

“And you are okay with that?”

“It does not matter how a thing is done, as long it is done satisfactorily and well. Besides, no female should be left in the hands of outlaws.”



“We must do what we can to rescue my daughter from the bandits!” the village headsman shouted from atop a wagon bed. “We have tried to get together enough money to ransom her from these outlaws, but I say that it is wrong to pay people when they kidnap an innocent girl like Maria! We are not the ones who should pay - they are!”

The crowd gathered around him mumbled in approval, but, while it was enthusiastic, it was not what he was looking for.

“If we pay these bandits, they will get bolder, and soon we will live our lives in fear of what they will take next. They could take your daughters, or your sisters, or your wives!”

“I’d like to see some one try to take my wife; she’d make them run home to their mothers!” one man shouted from the crowd.

“Excuse me, Herman? Are you saying you don’t want me around anymore?” an angry looking woman next to him asked.

“Oh, no, honey; I was just saying that you could probably keep those bandits away by yourself, because you are a very strong, brave, and independent woman that I just happen to love more than life itself?”

“Of course, and my mother was a goat. We’ll be talking about this later, Herman. We’ll be talking about this later.”

“Ahem. As I was saying, they could take anything they wanted to if we encourage them! We need to show them that we will not stand for them taking from us! That we will defend our homes, our families, and our livelihoods!” At this, there was a cheer from the townspeople, and the headsman spoke on, given courage by the response that he had gotten.

“We have lived under the threat of these bandits long enough! It was fine when they kept to the road and attacked fools who traveled alone with obvious money, but they have become too bold! We must purge ourselves of these rogues! We must dispel them from our lands, from our village! We will bring them to the justice that has been waiting for them! Who’s with me?!” he shouted.

A roar burst from the crowd gathered there. Jeordin didn’t know that such a small group of people could make that loud a sound, and he thought that the bandits had probably heard the noise and knew that the villagers were doing something other than what they had been told to do.

“But, how will we do it? The soldiers haven’t had any luck getting rid of the bandits!” A large man in the furs customary to a trapper spoke above the crowd’s noise.

“That, my dear man, is something that you will be able to help us with! We are going to hunt these thugs like the animals they are; we are going to use our knowledge of the land to hunt them down and pick them off, one by one! We will use our skills to regain my daughter, and the honor of our village!” the mayor said. His obviously rehearsed answer was hesitant at the beginning, but the lack of disapproval on the faces of the citizens of the village gave him courage.

“That still does not explain how we will beat the bandits when the soldiers couldn’t, David!” one woman shouted from the crowd.

“The soldiers were no woodsmen, dear woman. You could hear them crashing around in the woods louder than a battalion of three year olds would be. We will use our skills at hunting our own meat to stalk these men, and we will use our skill at hunting to purge them from our lands!”

Seluna, standing in the doorway to the village’s only inn, said loudly, “Take them from the shadows, and avoid a confrontation. Bandits are men who could not find honest work, and are therefore, by generalities, slovenly men who cannot do anything well. They have not the skills needed to be a tracker, or they would have been accepted into the army. They have not the mind to see a plot, or they would have a job as a spy, or clerk, or scholar, or even a merchant. You are more skilled than these men who attack you; the only things they have that you do not is immorality, brute strength, and numbers, all of which are inconsequential to an attack from the shadows.”

“She’s right!” a man shouted from the middle of the group. “Bandits are bandits because they could do nothing else! If they could not keep a job, then they didn’t have the skills to make it! We can defeat them!”

“Destroy the bandits!”

“Kill them!”

“Our lands!”

The shouts from the villagers were loud, and there was a morbid sense of rejoicing in the air as they shouted for blood. Seluna looked at the villagers, and sighed.

“They have potential, but if they keep on like this, they will not succeed. Jeordin, we must stay here and help them in the beginning of their fight. Just a few days, perhaps a week. I have a feeling that their emotions will get the better of them, and they will jump into a fight they have no chance of winning. They do not have the cunning it takes to destroy the bandits right now.”

“Seluna, we were doing something. We can’t just stop and help anyone along the way, you know. This is their problem; you have already told them how to solve it. You don’t need to show them how to do it.” Jeordin said as he packed his bundles.

“They probably won’t let us go, anyway. From what I heard, we would be prime targets for the bandits, and they will fear us giving their plans away if the bandits waylay us. We might as well do something useful.”

“Seluna, we cannot st…”

“Oh, sorry, my good sir. That was quite the little party we had out there, wasn’t it? Well, those bandits are a problem around here. You should probably stay for a while; they might attack you if you leave now. It’s not safe to travel on the road right now.” The village headsman had come in, and spoke to Jeordin.

“We have a pressing engagement elsewhere, and it is very important that is seen to immediately. I am sure we can manage to avoid the bandits.”

“Oh, no, sir. I must insist - for your own safety, of course.” Two large men stepped up behind the headsman. They looked to be blacksmiths, though one was probably an apprentice. “In fact, I think that the whole village would insist.”

Seluna shot Jeordin a gloating look that said, quite clear as day, “I told you so”. Jeordin just ignored the look, and said, “Well, if that’s the way you want it to be, I suppose there are worse places to be than this cozy little inn. I guess we could stay for a while.”

“And while we do stay,” Seluna added quickly, “I think that we would be happy to help you out with the planning to get rid of the bandits. It would be to our advantage to help you neutralize them, sense we obviously should not leave until it is safe to do so. As outsiders, we would be able to point out things that your villagers might not think of.”

“And how could you do that, my lady? We are not simpletons, I think.”

“We know about as much about your village as the bandits, I’d suppose. We could help you by telling you if the bandits would believe things you tell them when their numbers start falling, and we give you ideas to adapt and use.”

“We would be most grateful for your help, my lady. And your man’s help, of course. Where were you two headed, anyway? It is unusual for a lady of your obvious upbringing to travel alone with only a servant for protection.”

Jeordin looked at the man with wide eyes, unable to say a word, but Seluna caught the drift immediately. “This man is a loyal servant of my household. My family has been… highly inconvenienced… by people who wish us harm. I travel in secret to somewhere we might gain aid, and he has come along to protect me.”

“I was also charged with keeping her from getting into or causing any trouble, but I have obviously failed in that mission.” Jeordin said wryly. “But it is well that you have waylaid us; her safety is of the utmost importance, and I suppose the bandits would do more than rob us if they came upon us while traveling. Her disguise has failed horribly, apparently.”



Jeordin and Seluna proved themselves invaluable at the outset of the venture. The villagers, while they had plenty of enthusiasm, could think of nothing better to do than sneak up behind the bandits and start shooting arrows at them. Their visitors quickly disabused them of that notion, instead suggesting ways to quietly knock the numbers of the bandits down. To Jeordin’s amazement, it was Seluna who thought of the trap to set for the bandits. Trappers would build a pit on a path used by the bandits a lot; large animals were usually caught this way by commoners; nobles had enough people to go chasing after boars and bears, but the normal people did not, and resorted to boar-pits.

These large holes were dug about a man-size deep and had spikes placed in the bottom of them, and then covered to prevent the animals from seeing it. Because the boar were cautious (when not angry), the traps had to be fairly well hidden. The theory was that one -maybe even two - bandits would step on top of the boar-pit, and then be impaled on the sharp stakes at the bottom. The villagers were very surprised to hear this bloodthirsty idea come from the lips of such a beautiful woman, but they all agreed that it had merit.

The next idea came from Jeordin. He would not tell the villagers where his inspiration come from, but he suggested that the villagers pretend that there was a vengeful spirit that inhabited the woods at that time of year, and set out charms and such. This would spook the bandits, and make them more susceptible to suggestions, and the nonexisant spirit could take the blame for any mishaps that would happen to the bandits. It was suggested by some of the younger men - barely past boyhood and remembering pranks they had pulled - that they could even send some people out a bit to pretend to be a ghost and scare the bandits even more.

Another great idea came from a source that surprised the two travelers, but was met with laughter and jokes from the rest of the village. Herman, who had spoken up in the village meeting, had the meeting at his house lthe third night of the resistance, as the villagers were starting to call it. His wife, who had come into the room when the men were trying to put a third idea together, contributed a very useful suggestion to follow the one about a local ghost.

“After those bandits are good and scared, follow them to their hideout and poison their dinner one night. They will blame it on the ghost, it will get rid of some of them for at least a little, and it might make them decide to get up and move. At the very least, it will be amusing to watch them try to defend against a ghost that doesn’t exist.”

Jeordin was amazed that such a thought came from such a lovely woman, but the rest of the village men just told him stories about poor Herman and his frightening wife, who would make the Prince Regent wipe his feet and clean behind his ears before allowing him inside her house. From what he was told, Herman’s wife would bae able to single-handedly account for at least five of the bandits by herself, and still have pie made for dessert after dinner.

The villagers decided to put the boar-pits and vengeful spirit plans into action simultaneously, and even when so far as to fetch a upper member of the priesthod from a nearby town. They men who went for the priest were actually escorts for the two travelers; the village felt bad for keeping them from their urgent business for so long. They parted ways in the next town, which housed a monastery, and Jeordin and Seluna gave their heartfelt “good lucks” to the men and continued on their way, while the villagers went in search of a priest who would aid in their farce.