The roof was tilted when it was supposed to be straight, giving the whole building the illusion of sinking deep into the ground. The windows weren’t in line with where they were supposed to be, either. In fact, they looked like they’d been thrown at random and left wherever they would stick on the cobbled wall.
Are there even rooms inside, or was this designed right from me nightmares?
Worse, when he stared along the entrance path, there was no door! It seemed to wind around the house through a thick mud trail. He supposed the way in was directed towards the farm, but that seemed hideously out of the way for visitors.
Grimacing, he put one step in front of the other and began to move towards this ramshackle backward house that shouldn’t exist. He felt a squelch underfoot as his shoes slid in the mud and tried to hold in the shudder it caused to rip through him.
Keep goin’, Alexander. Remember, ye’re a Laird. Ye dinnae get scared off by a bit o’ mud.
This thought galvanized him somewhat, and he took another step forward…only to feel his leg sink deep into the ground as another puddle was considerably less shallow.
He pulled his leg out with a grump, the wet cold making him shudder and bringing bile to his throat as he tried not to look down at his ruined trews.
I’m nae even halfway along the path yet! Maybe it is nae too late to just go home…
But he heard Nathair behind him and knew he’d never live it down if he turned and ran, over a little mud and some strange architecture.
Trying not to think about it, he walked as quickly and carefully as he could along the dirt path and around the corner of the house. He picked his way around the mud and remaining puddles as much as he could.
As he walked along the trail, he could see more of the farm—and still, nobody. There were the stables, but no stablehands or stable master. There was a pigpen, but either all the pigs were sleeping inside, or the farmer had decided on a large ham dinner.
I’ve never heard a farm so…noiseless.
It made his skin crawl, almost as much as the mud had. What kind of strange place was this?
Finally, after what felt like ten years, the front door with its big brass knocker appeared at the end of the trail.
Front. Aye, more like a back door. Ridiculous.
But he’d made it, and without needing to stop. Nathair wasn’t even around the corner yet. Alexander released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding and lifted the knocker.
Just as the brass hit, he we
nt very still, because there was suddenly some commotion behind him and he was almost afraid to look. “Nathair?” he called.
“Aye, hold yer horses, I’m comin’,” Nathair answered, clearly not yet behind him.
Which meant something else was. And that something else was giggling and snorting wildly.
Very, very slowly, Alexander turned in place.
He barely had time to consider what he was looking at. A massive hog was tearing along the path toward him with surprising speed, squeaking, and snorting, and clinging to its back were two small children.
“What in the name o’—?!” Alexander started, but didn’t have time to finish the curse before the pig was almost on top of him. The wildly laughing children seemed to coax the creature into barrelling right into him!
He dived to the side, with no time to think, and felt the cold stickiness of the mud as it covered his clothes, his hair, his skin. He felt like he’d never be clean again, but at least he hadn’t been trampled to death by a wild pig and these two demonic children!
Furious, he scrambled to his feet, slipping and falling back into the mud thrice before he managed to pull it off entirely.
“Who in the name o’ God do ye think ye are?!” he snarled loudly, his voice echoing around the farm. “Do ye ken who I am?!”
He wasn’t even yelling at the children, just at nobody in particular, trying desperately to get some of his fury and embarrassment out.
I wish me voice would lower itself. I sound right silly.
“Do ye ken who I am?” the little girl mimicked him from underneath her messy, pitch-black hair. She and her brother both started laughing maniacally again atop the now-still hog.
“I am the Laird o’ this clan, and if I dinnae get to Farmer O’Donnel right now, ye’re all gonnae spend a few nights in me dungeons!” Alexander hollered, though his yelling was only making him feel more embarrassed.