Brietta

The frail 5'5 body of the latest shapeshifter lies limply and awkwardly in front of the high fire.

Her head and the beginning of a iron restraint clasped ankle are all that poke out from the thick fur wrapping you have her swaddled in. The high cheeks of her foreign looking face flush red beneath the matted dampness of her truly black colored hair.

Her eyes are closed as they have been for a quarter day since you tagged her and she was forcibly returned to her human state.

You have seen the things others can only speak about, ordinary folk uncontrollably turning into predators and goring their family and village, to be put down or run off. Or those in control, using their curse to disadvantage those around them. Spies, thieves, assassins, killers, rapers and worse.

Having killed and captured a number of these things before you're used to a level of detachment and coldness you like to think as professionalism. Though being honest it spans more than your professional life now.

But this has an unforeseen complication. That has you up at night pondering. Having killed and captured a number of these things before you're used to being assured by your experience but for all your years you've never had or even thought of preparing for this. Leaving you with a low sense of worry, that you'd not experienced for the longest time.

You've seen women endure pregnancy, but never have you seen one in a state like this. The alarmingly large size suggest nearness.. no, readiness, beyond readiness for labour.

Being unskilled, the chance of her is unacceptably high. Is it possible to delay? even that? You require something short of a week to return to civilization and that would be breaking an expressed condition of the contract.

You can tell from just a glance that her occupant is subnormal and no doubt some form of word would spread even with bribes or a killing on your part. But the original plan, to skirt around occupied areas and descend through the mountains, some 8 weeks journey now seems a long shot.

Her pained moaning earlier suggests that even a week is a week too long. There is no other place you know of between here and the next village.

You let out a sigh of exasperation.