Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 42861 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42861 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
“What are they doing? Why…”
“You can help them out,” Gruff says. “Gently.”
I do help, gently, which only seems to annoy the baby goat who was very confidently suckling on Strumpet’s elbow. The little girl doe lets me help her first, and so she is the first to feed, followed eventually by her brothers. Within an hour or so of her birth process beginning, Strumpet’s babies are cleaned, fed, and curled up with each other in which I can only describe as a very smug looking pile of baby goats.
“They’re amazing,” I declare, getting up and going over to Gruff, thoroughly convinced that these are absolutely the best goats to ever have been born on any planet anywhere. “Look how perfect they are.”
I am covered in straw, goo, and unmentionable material, but that doesn’t matter. Gruff hugs me close. “Congratulations,” he says. “Your first kidding is over, and it was a success.”
Strumpet looks so happy. More than happy. She looks content, and settled. She looks like a goat who is exactly where she is supposed to be. I feel her contentment infecting me, getting into my bloodstream, making me feel a hormonally kind of settled.
I used to think of myself as separate from everything around me. I was a Jem, and a Jem did not need anybody. A Jem could go anywhere and it didn’t matter, because Jem was a self-contained unit. I don’t feel like that anymore. I feel like I’m a Jem-shaped vessel. The world flows in and out of me, and the people and the creatures I love don’t just influence my mood, they become part of me in ebbs and flows.
“They're perfect,” I breathe, looking up at Gruff with shining eyes. “This is perfect.”
“Yes,” Gruff agrees with much the same expression. “Yes, it is.”
“They’re mine,” I say. “And I’m yours.”
Gruff’s grin broadens. “I have waited a very long time to hear you say that,” he says, holding me close. “Though it has been true from the moment I first laid eyes on you.”
“Oh, that long?” I smile up at him, and receive his rough, fanged kiss.
“That long,” he says. “An eternity.”