V5 Chapter 18 Infant Care (Oh No! It's crying do something!)

Brilliant harsh sunlight, bore down upon huddled blankets of green branching trees, eating its rays with ease. Only allowing thin pattern streams to penetrate its branches, touching the ground in patterns like broken pieces of glass. Scattered shapes of light highlight a pathway, between the trees, its ground covered in brown crunchy leaves, that causes such a crisp sound with each step. Each step of these crunchy was the only sound in miles echoing through this peaceful forest. Well, that was the case, before a small little warp box of harsh sunlight, that weaseled its way through the trees, bore down upon a chubby sleeping face.

" Uuuuu Waaaaaaaaa!!!"

Little One screamed as he suddenly burst into tears and started to kick Amon's arm as he squirms. Amon immediately panics as he rocks Little One in his arms.

" Hey, hey what's wrong Little One?"

Amon questioned as he started bouncing the baby in his arms which would normally do the trick. Sadly Little One was having none of it.

" Look you can fly! You're a fly, fly super baby! Zoom zoom!"

Amon chimed as he held the baby high up and flew Little One in an S pattern. Little One quieted down for a moment, but it didn't stop the tears from rolling off his chubby cheeks, and as soon as Amon stopped flying him around, the shrieking resumed.

" Why are you suddenly so fussy? If I keep flying you around my arms will get tired."

" Maybe you need to change his nappy."

" Oh! Right!"

Amon squats down like a 5 if it was standing on its right tip, laying Little One flat on his lap and checking the nappy, immediately the infant resumes his shrieking.

" Nope, it's clean."

" When's the last time to feed him then?"

Philomel questions as she leans against a tree, looking down at Amon.

" Umm... Sometime this morning at the temple."

" Well it's afternoon, maybe he's hungry, again?"

" Good point!"

Amon nodded as he picked up the crying baby to stand up, he then pass the squirming unhappy Little One to Philomel. Philomel's bored expression flips to shock, and panic before deciding to stay on, utterly confused as she stared at Amon.

" Don't worry I won't look.'

Amon reassures her as he turns his back to her.

" What you doing, giving him to me for?"

Philomel blurted out as she rocks the baby in her arms. She could see Amon jolt at her question. His slightly hunched back, straightened as he looks at her over his shoulder with wide eyes. His maroon eyes swirl with panic, disbelief, awkwardness, and even shock. Philomel never knew Amon could have such emotion-filled eyes and she instantly found them confusing. Silently wondering why he was staring at her with so many emotions.

" Well... for you to use your female..."

Amon awkwardly squeaked as he rubs his chest.

" Nursing abilities and feed ... him."

Amon trailed off before finishing the sentence with an awkward cough.

" *Brain loading* "

Philomel's face from a pasty clay white turned into a vermilion red in a record time of 3 seconds. Amon could have sworn he saw a little steam coming out of her red face. From a blank red face, Philomel turned into an embarrassing red face with a huge mixture of shyness before becoming a very angry red face. Amon's feet shuffled at the sight of that angry face, every last of his male instincts screaming at him to get the heck out of there. Unfortunately for his instincts, Amon's body froze for a moment, wasting his only chance to run. Luckily for Amon, Philomel was so embarrassed and shy that Amon would even ask that of her, that her lips failed to convey her anger in a coherent way.

" Among! What ?!.. I'm! There's! Baby feeding?! I'm not a cow!!... Too young! What are you even saying?!"

Philomel struggle to say as she keeps gasping at her own dumb words while trying to convey her anger but her brain was having its own malfunction. Only able to tell her what she was feeling while bringing up a million reasons she could say to explain to Amon, why she couldn't feed Little One but then fails to settle on one reason. All that to this point was fine to Philomel but for her, the problem was she was just blurting a random word from every reason/thought. Making her even more frustrated on failing to string together the perfect sentence to explain to the idiot Amon.

Amon stayed silent, watching Philomel's brain malfunction unfold before him, wondering if she was having some sort of stroke and what to do if she were having a stroke. Philomel finally gives up, letting out a frustrated growl that was equivalent to an angry kitten who also failed to have control over its vocal cords to sound intimidating. But at least those angry kittens hissed after such a pathetic sound to let anyone nearby know that it was angry.

Amon on the other hand didn't get hissed at and thought that it was part of some sort of female ritual that they must perform before nursing a baby. Only when Philomel shoved the screeching baby back into his arm, did he finally understand, that she didn't have the ability to do such a thing.

Philomel grumbles to herself as she stomps around on the crunchy leaves, throwing her own tantrum at the side.

" You know, if you couldn't do it, you could have just said. I would have understood... not fully understood but to some degree."

Amon casually points out as he bounces Little One and stops the screeching. Philomel pouts as she bends down into a ball, hugging her knees, feeling so shy and embarrassed that she couldn't even look at that idiot.

" Shut up, I tried. How can you even ask me of such a shameless thing with such a straight face?"

" A baby is hungry, should I have let my shyness of asking to stop me and ignore a crying hungry baby instead?"

Amon huffed. Philomel groans in her throat, slightly annoyed that he was still able to speak, and convey his thoughts perfectly fine, even though, he asked such a shameless thing. Her mind soon started to wonder if it was because he asked such, a thing of those nuns at the temple, just earlier today.

"Maybe that's why, he wasn't so shameful about asking it a second time, because he has done it before, and got the baby fed... "

Philomel's mind finally clicks.

" If you got the baby fed at that temple why didn't they give you any milk?"

Philomel questions as she turns around, finally looking at Amon. Amon glances up at her for a moment as he bounces the baby and digs through his sack, searching for something.

" Because it takes a while for her to fill the bottle and I was worried about you. Trying to rush back, hoping that I would be in time to save you. "

" Take a while? You mean it doesn't take a moment?"

Philomel questioned not really realizing it takes longer than 3 hours for that particular nun and was thinking of a cow in terms of giving milk.

" She told me it would take her a couple of hours to fill a whole bottle."

" Then why didn't you tell me? We could have stopped by the temple before beginning our journey to the village."

" Because I knew that if we go back to that temple, you would convince those nuns that I was unfit to take care of Little One and have them take the baby away from me."

" *Gasp* How could you think such a thing?!"

" Don't you dare say that it's low of me, you just tried to kill him last night."

Amon warned as he pointed an accusing finger at her.

" No, I was thinking more along the lines of just giving the baby to those nuns and dragging you off, saves more time."

Philomel smugly says as she flips her hair over her shoulder while looking extremely pleased with herself. Amon just glared at her as he pulled out an empty baby bottle from his sack.

" Oh! Come on! Living in an orphanage isn't the worst thing in the world! Who knows! Maybe he might be adopted moments after. He's... how old is he again?"

" Uhhhh... Baby old?"

Amon guessed with a shrug.

" Right! Baby old!"

Philomel agreed, no longer seeing the point in an exact age since Little One is a baby.

" Which elf family looking to adopt wouldn't want a chubby baby?"

Philomel chimed as she gestured toward Little One like he was the best thing in the whole universe.

" Apparently a family with a female that is incapable of providing milk."

Amon comments as his eyes glued accusingly at Philomel since she kept trying to get rid of Little One, at any chance she could get.

" Shut the hell up. I'm too young and on a death sentence of a mission, just like you! So excuse me for not wanting to bring him along."

Philomel pulled her words in a provoking way.

" Yeah, yeah. Just come on and help me find something suitable to feed him."

Amon waves her off with a bottle in hand before gesturing for her to come closer. Philomel closed the distance between them and squats down in front of him.

" Do you mind if I do an inventory check?"

" Go ahead, but do it quick. My arm is getting tired from bouncing him."

Amon nodded. Philomel opened Amon's sack bigger as she started going through his things.

" Empty baby bottle, couple of nappy, bread, cheese, butter knife, berries, leather water bottle, bandages, and a bottle of salve."

Philomel then pulled off her sack from her back and started going through it as well.

" Tomatoes, potatoes, a bag of raisins, a bag of acorns, a bag of blueberries, carrots, onion leaves, onion, cream puff."

Amon interrupted.

" Cream puff?!"

" What? Can't I scavenge what I like?"

" Again, the word you're looking for is steal but please do continue. "

" Lemon raspberry bread, a couple of apples, and a watermelon."

" Water?! Watermelon? When did you have time to steal that?!"

" When the vendor wasn't looking, of course. I could have scavenged some more but half my sack is full of wool."

" Thank goodness for that or all those vendors would be out of business before they even opened."

" Oh, stop, you're making me blush."

" It was more of a fact rather than a complement but whatever. "

Amon waved it off.

" Why did they give you, two empty baby bottles?"

Philomel questioned as she held up the second bottle.

" A backup, just in case I break the first one."

" Ah, I see. Hey, where's that lump of clay you confiscated from Little One?"

" In my pocket, why?"

" Might want to get that check out and purchase some more or else we would lose our privileges of being a fake light elf."

" Ah, good point. You know I kinda like being a Light elf. Everyone is so nice and helpful. "

" Just like home, huh?"

" Hmm... Not really. I mean it was like that when I was younger but after I became an entrance guard. Not so much."

" That's because you don't have an assisted job. My scavenger job is rank 3, so I get tons of privileges."

" Ah, so maybe people ignore me because I don't have a job rank."

" Well duh, even I could have told you that."

" Then why did you talk to me?"

" Daddy told me not to care about rank and so I don't. So what you're going to feed the baby? Not water I hope."

Philomel stated as she shook the leather water bottle in front of Amon. Amon couldn't help but frown as he realized, water was definitely, something that wouldn't fill a baby's belly but that's the only liquid thing they have.

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