Fine, Ailova exclaimed. Fine; she was just fine. The young seamstress' attention lingered on her unsteady friend before she distracted herself with feeding Caliir. The blind beast -- perhaps not even a horse, but something altogether less graceful, somewhere between livestock and lode-creature -- eagerly sought out Ailova's hand, the black tongue a probing coil as it licked the pre-chewed apples from her palm. The blast of breath Caliir issued forth was almost grateful.
"I don't know how old he is," Gloria said. "A friend gave him to me. He might not seem like much to anyone else -- He's neither proud or proper -- but he's mine, and I think he's beautiful. We're complicit in our ugliness. Peas in a pod, as they say," she said, gazing fondly upon the ragged creature. "He saved my life once; I'll chew up a thousand fruits for him if I have to."
With apple-stickied fingers, the girl softly clapped her hand against Caliir's mountainous neck.
"I ride him only when I must. Otherwise, I aim to keep him comfortable."
The brigand's final two statements, however, were met with silence. Gloria busied her fingers like the teeth of a comb, scraping them through the beast's bristling fur. She dislodged balls of mud and fearlessly disengaged clumps of lesser repute; she lost her eyes in the tangles of his hair and visibly stiffened at the final question. Ailova looked at her. The seamstress, however, did not look back. "She's -- she's going to stay with me. I'm her mother, and as such, I'm the most fit to care for her." A pause. The words had sharp edges, chiseled perfectly out of recitation and experience, a practiced diatribe. "I might not be the smartest or most clever person ever born, but I wouldn't hurt my own daughter. I'm a maggot, I'm a cow, but -- but I'm not a monster."
A long stretch of silence. She slashed her sleeve underneath her nose. It wasn't her place to inquire; it wasn't her place to know. But...
"Have you ever been responsible for someone's death?"