"Why's it always gotta be so goddamn hot in this place". I thought to myself, swiping a big blob of sweat from the end of my brow. Carrying all the materials for stringmaking to my favorite aunt. Although it might sound sarcastic, I do really like my aunt, maybe except for the fact that she always makes me do all the chores for her craft and it's not like I'm getting paid even enough to afford a cold pint of shrog. To put that into perspective a pint of shrog costs 1 small allayan crow. Even shit-cleaners and stable boys make that in a day's work. I haven't gotten even that for 13 years that my aunt has made me do all the work and she is getting paid quite a lot by all the Hros and Allayans for her bowstrings. Why would anyone pay so much for her strings anyway… Now that I think about it maybe I should've asked that or thought of how weird it is in all these years. Maybe, just maybe, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.
"Hey, boy! Quit slackin' and bring here those skins. I got an order to fill up by the end of the week and I'd prefer to get paid AND keep my limbs on me, I'm quite attached to them" - my aunt snorted. I rolled my eyes at her poor attempt at a joke. "Not like you were doing anything for the 3 weeks since you got an order from those pantysniffers anyway. Why'd you just start on it?" - I asked. "You think I wanted to put myself in this shitty situation? Hunters couldn't find any laboros runts anywhere around the village, I even paid them to go further down to the coast, but there were none. They finally got brought me some skins couple'a days ago. Took them a fuckin' while. Whatever, I need to start working on 'em, ain't got much time left." - she angrily explained - "You know what do to, ain't you, kid? I gotta prepare the skins now and you ain't much help, go run around the tree or somethin' or whatever you kids do nowadays. Come back tomorrow though, got work to do after all and extra hands are in dire need." I, once again, rolled my eyes. "Sure, I'll make sure to run around, maybe leave some poop on your porch too" - I fended.
It was true however, she had tried many times to teach me how to prepare skins. I just could never do it, don't know why, tools be slipping from my hands, I'd just randomly cut the skin right in the middle creating extra work or just downright making it unusable. "Why you standin' there spacin' out, kid? Go, go, shoo, go piss on trees and bushes." Again with the insults, do I look like a dog to her? All of our conversations either end in or contain a comparison of my mental capabilites to ones of a dog.
Why do I even listen to her... And while thinking that I heard a whimper, one of a sort you hear from a dog with a broken leg laying down in a ditch somewhere on a rainy day. I'm not much of a dog or overall a pet lover, not entirely sure why, but my aunt told me it's because I was bitten by a dog when I was still a newborn. Don't know if I believed it or not; I mean, I heard before that kids can get subsconscious fears due to painful memories in the early childhood. But a newborn, I'm not too sure. Either way, don't like pets or dogs or cats, or laboros. Especially laboros. Why? Because these dog-and-bear-with-horns looking monstrocities have a tendency to eat poisonous plants all around the island (and there's a lot of them growing around), parts of which then are left on their slighltly hollow on the inside fangs. Get bit by one of them? Well, let's just hope you have an omnipotent antidote, a panacea. Or else it turns into a guessing game with a very short fuse, which usually ends in an agonizing death, coughing out bits of your lungs or shitting ropes. And there's no such thing as an omnipotent antidote. Not that I know one, that is. Maybe somewhere on Allaya or Rodda there's some alchemists who do have it, but what's the point of some other island hundreds of miles away having it, when in 5 minutes after the bite you are very likely very dead anyway.
And, of course, the whimper was from a laboros. One look at these bull like horns coming out of a jet black ovegrown dog was enough to make me freeze. Always made me wonder what makes all the hunters on the island risk their lives just for skins of these guys. Before I could move my body a voice came out from behind, which I realized was my aunts' seconds later. "Oh yeah, forgot about this guy. Has lumpy skin dicease this one, can't use it for skins an' all, so hunters brought it to me, like I'm some old crazy tiger lady. Killin' 'im is a hassle and I ain't got enough time on my hands to look after him neither. Lettin' him go wild around these parts out of the question too, too many kids, too many poisons to snack on. So I just decided! You will take care of him, my favorite nephew."
Great, the only missing thing in my otherwise perfect life was always the venomous, poison-eating, jet-black overgrown murder dog, that just on a sidenote of an interesting joke from the God can also ram into you and pierce your lungs. "Whatever you say, my favorite auntie. Well, I gotta go now, see you tomorrow!" And just like that I ran away from the place, before she could stop me and give me ten, I don't doubt, very convincing reasons I should now adopt this cute cuddly laboros.