"You can stay if you want to." Pinja said quietly.

Millie knew that was as close to a request as she would get. She nodded and set back down. "Then I'll stay."

Difyr really did not like that Jack's family had a midwife present before abusing Pinja. "What did she ask you and what did you tell her?"

"She asked me about how many men I'd been with... Accused me actually. She didn't believe me when I denied it, said she could tell just by looking at me." Pinja gave the wine bottle a longing look. "Then she asked me about my cycle, but the way she was asking it was like she knew all about it already."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:47, Mon 18 Jan 2016.

This was only adding to Difyr's suspicions.

"When did your last period begin?" Difyr asked.

"About two weeks ago." Pinja said. "The midwife was very happy when I told her that."

Difyr did her best to hide her anger.

"There's still a good chance you aren't." She said with a false lightness. "Drink your broth, it should be cool enough."

"I'm not really hungry." Pinja said, feeling sick. Again she looked at the wine bottle.

"You need to eat so you can build up your strength and heal," Millie pointed out.

Difyr took the wine bottle so Pinja couldn't get at it. "It's just thin broth, you should be able to handle it. Drink slowly."

"We all know not everything can just heal and go away." Pinja said, wishing Jack had killed her. "Especially not what happened to me."

"I know it won't go away. My cousin, Sileas, she was...if she were here, she would be good for you to speak with. She knows what you are going through."

"Sileas isn't cut up and scarred." Pinja said, and thought or carrying the child of a gang of rapists.

"She bears lots of scars from different abusers all her life. It's her emotional scars that are the worst."

Pinja lightly touched the scars on her face. "I've seen her. She doesn't have this."

"No, that's true. Her guardian made certain to put them in places not visible to the public, as he intended to sell her as a child bride. But her back is an unholy mess, and shackle scars on her ankles. And the one in her abdomen from where she was shot with an arrow to make certain she could never have children." Millie sighed softly. "The one thing Sileas had always wanted was a large family."

Pinja shivered. When she was younger she wanted to get married and have children, before Jack and his family had kidnapped her. Now the whole idea terrified her.

"I just thought I would mention it. I just thought you might like to speak to someone who truly understands what you are going through."

Pina shrugged, she didn't know. Sileas might relate better, but she hardly knew her. At least Pinja knew Difyr and Millie.

"Please try to drink the broth." Difyr said and walked over to Shawn. She was trying not to show how upset she was about what Pinja had told her.

Shawn had been berating himself for allowing this to happen. To his family, to Pinja, to the village. He ultimately had been the worst type of failure as a guard captain. "Is she going to be all right?"

"She's probably pregnant." Difyr whispered. "The herbs I'd usually give to a woman in her situation probably won't do any good because so much time will have passed by the time I get them. There are other herbs I can give her but they can kill her too.

"I don't think the timing was a coincidence any more than I think that the herbs that could help her being taken from my cottage could be a coincidence. They had a midwife. If Pinja had been married and trying to start a family the time they had her would be the best chance to conceive." Difyr's eyes flashed. Shawn and Brighid had tried for years to have children before miraculously having the triplets, two of which were murdered by the raiders, and Brighid had just lost a baby they didn't know she was carrying yet- because of what Jack and his family did to her. And then they probably impregnated Pinja the same day. It was twisted.

Shawn's expression was one of mixed anger, sadness and regret. "If Brie didn't need me right now, I would be out there hunting them down. And each of them would receive a slow, painful death." He clenched his jaw, a muscle twitched.

"I just don't get how they knew when to attack." Difyr said.

"I have giving Jack any credit, but they probably spent a few weeks, watching and knowing every one's patterns."