No Good Golem

"Family first"

The Gil kid was weird, which appeared to be his weird badge of honour. The whole village should have painted him as strange and outside, but his father was a Voice. Which just increased her need for Gil to be dishonoured. If things didn't improve. She might have that boy in her bed.

She scowled.

"Susanna, what is happening?" Asked Solveig, her pitch-black braids pushed aside as her hands returned to their cozy pockets.

"It is nothing." Grunted Susanna, then she grunted again, without words, the scowl deepened and grew like a flame being fed by her mind.

It was so bad, her Golem, which had just been a rolling boulder, chipped and bled rock and soil into the shape of a hairy bear, the fur life like in its detail, then its stone mouth opened, but no sound came. Solveig's own Golem followed, mimicking hers completely. Except Solveig's bear produced the sound of whimpering. But the sound didn't come from flesh but rather hollow rock, like a flute.

"Okay, I am annoyed from the kid."

"He not be some new pup. He close to our age." Solveig said.

She eyed her braids, the tips having lost their blackness as a consequence of her Golem.

"And, when you were thirteen, did you lead girls to a hole in the ground?"

Solveig pulled a sly face.

"No boy wanted you somewhere dark and silent? I did not know you were so plain looking."

Susanna's scowl froze and melted away, but the smile Solvie had hoped for struggled slowly to form.

"Shut up." Said Susanna said biting down the smile.

It was enough to get Susanna moving again. They were headed to a massive bonfire closer to the beach road leading into the village where hundreds of people were gathered and dancing. They could hear music from multiple musicians, one of the instruments breaking from the others and getting closer. The girls stopped upon seeing a lanky blonde with white streaks.

"Halt!" Solveig called. "Who goes there?"

"A friend my dear ladies. My name is Jerome, and I come in peace."

He stepped into their path and did a jig and a courtesy. He held a colourful lute. A man that had to be in his early twenties, with a faded beard that was all white stubble. He was likely dark of skin despite most of his being a pale literal white, skin more pale than theirs in areas, the white was broken by a deep tan, like the chipped paint of an old galley. He was, for the moment, a pale rogue. Solveig and Susanna gave each other a look and they looked back at him.

Then he winked, it was as though he'd eavesdropped on their silence and agreed with what was said.

"But I come, with gifts." He said.

"He be workin' hard, don't he?" Solveig said.

He grinned at Solveig and offered a wink. Susanna was on the backfoot which was alarming. Why did she need to catch up? And to who?

"The name is Susanna, she being Solveig. Who is the Gift for?"

"Anyone willing to share it back with me."

His every damn word was deep, throaty and sensual as though devouring the most wonderous succulent meal to ever be eaten.

He grinned, enjoying the moment, his eyes properly lingering around her eyes before an ever so slight dip to her cleavage, which Susanna had worked hard on. It was an invitation to see, to admire and to speak of the perfection of her body.

The only thing missing was an axe on her back that would sweep away the riff raff. Instead, there was only Solvie's axe. Which might have been why Solvie had been looked at first. Not that Jerome was necessarily riff raff.

Jerome was a foreigner, from beyond the coasts and islands but... not a wealthy one.

All pale white, including the streaks of white in his hair suggested that his Golem had been worked hard. Spending time with the foreigner wouldn't save her from Gil and the Ba'Zini family. Gil, the strange boy, would accept her and raise the foreign child instead of killing it. But, more important, she'd rather die than have her father so much as frown at her, let alone shun her. But at the same time… Solveig was there.

That opened up Susanna's chest, made her forget the reasons to push away the unique, tall, sharp featured, dark eyed, soft lipped, nameless Stranger, Jerome. Susanna put a heavy arm around Solveig and rested on her and, being the bigger girl, smothered her like a blanket.

"We're more than willing to share." Susanna said.

Jerome grinned and produced a rather large leather satchel of wine.