The woman entered her house and went to sleep. The wound on her husband's side healed well, while the young man she kept in a hut behind her house still lay in a coma. The other women gossiped about her, making rude, fantastical stories about how she was the mistress of this young man. They speculated that he was a Baron's son that offended a great King.
Overall, they weren't far from the truth about the young man's situation, but they were truly wrong about the woman's situation.
She was pregnant, about to become a mother. The world was against her. She felt that way at the very least.
Darkness shrouded the little village. She tried to sleep, but her anxieties kept her awake. She decided to go talk to the young Black-cloth for a while to calm her heart down. She lit a lamp outside of the house, so she wouldn't wake up her husband, who was sound asleep, grasping at the blankets, where she last lay in their bed.
She walked to the hut and placed the lamp near his head, and right when she was about to pour her heart out for the second time that day, she heard screams.
The night erupted with screams. She heard one neighbor, one that gossiped the most distinctly. She recognized her voice, because she was the loudest gossip. She was also the loudest one to die that night.
The sounds of horses trampling the dirt caught her attention.
"Bandits!" she gasped.
She shut the door to the hut, and to her surprise, a large man with log sized arms and a silver gun at his side waist-eyed the woman. He saw that she hid in the small hut. He drew his gun from his holster. A grin plastered his face.
He walked up to the hut and said, "Come out now, or I'll come in. Your choice."
To his surprise, she walked out of her own volition. She seemed to have decided something from his perspective. She stared him right in the eyes and grasped her belly. A bulge could be seen at the front of her belly that dwarfed her bosom. The bandit sighed and put away his gun.
He said, "It's not to my taste to play with or kill pregnant women. How you survive is up to you."
The burly man had a large scar that ran down his neck. He scared the woman, but what scared her more was not surviving. If he were to kill her, she would rather try to save the young man at the very least. If he were to have his way with her, she hoped her belly would deter him. Both gambles payed off for both her and the young Black-cloth.
The burly man yelled, "Alright men! Tonight, we ride for August-burg. The women and rum is on me."
A wave of cheers erupted from the little village, as they hauled away what little food and money the villagers had. The bandit leader wanted to make it up to his men for such a poor haul, and he had the reserves to do so.
His lanky right hand man came up to him and said, "To think those nobles would pay us in genuine gold for killing that Black-cloth! It's still lasting us, ain't it Boss!?"
"Of course it is," the head bandit said, "Also, for the last time call me 'Fang'"
"Yes Sir, Fang Sir."
The burly bandit rubbed his head. He didn't know why he made that fool his right hand, except for his combat skills and height... Other than those two redeeming qualities. The Lanky man with a bow on his back drove him nuts.
The bandits left, while the woman saw her new home burst into flames.
She clutched her belly and went back to the shack. She lay down next to the black cloth and turned her face towards his on the straw grass.
She ran his hands through his hair and said, "Truly... The best men are the sleeping ones."
The clouds continued to roll, even in the dark of the night, not letting a single ray of moonlight through its canopy over chaos. Tragedy happened every minute in this world. For the pregnant woman, this was just another occurrence in a series called her life.
She fell asleep, and unbeknownst to her, the young man's eyes opened with the arrival of morning.