Adira rises before the sun and makes her way to the kitchen. From the smell of the fresh gruel, she knows that Nara has beat her to the fields this morning. She pulls the empty pails from under the shelf and grabs the yoke propped in the corner. Hooking the pails on the dangling hooks on either side, she hoists it easily onto her shoulders and makes her way to the bosks in the field.
She arrives at the pen to see Nara gathering the grain and placing it in the feeders. The lumbering bosks slowly making their way to the trothes to eat, their huge jaws scooping up the grain and chewing it slowly. Good, she thought, will make milking so much easier if they are distracted with food. She pushes her way past the noisy and obnoxious tarsks that have become way too domesticated for Adira’s liking. They pushed at her with slimmy noses trying to get her attention for food and whatever she carried in the pails.
“Not for you, you foul beasts!” she hollers at them, brushing the slime and dirt that they left on her legs. “Ick! Nara, how can you stand these things?” she makes her way to the first female bosk. Touching her lightly on the haunches to let her know she is there and talking gently to her. “There you go girl. Nothing to be skidish about. ” She rubbed and patted as she sank to her knees and pulled one of the pails under the cows udders. She rubs her hands together to take the chill from them before grabbing the old girls teets. This she had learned that hard way when she was kicked by the first bosk she tried to milk. Gently wrapped her hands about the udders, she began to slowly pull and squeeze, having to do it a couple of times before the warm stream hit the bottom of the pail. With consistent and rhythmic motions, Adira drains the udders of the cow when humming a tune that her father used to sing to her. She gathers up the pail, giving the old bosk hug and a small larma before moving to the next one. Out of the three grown females one the two could be milked for Nara had the third on the ground, birthing the cows first brood.
After gathering all of the milk from the Bosks, hoists the yoke with the full pails on her shoulders and takes it back to the hall to pour the contents into the large vats in the cold storage. Rinsing the pails in the creek, she again takes the yoke about her shoulders and heads to the Verr at the base of the mountain taking the route that will take her the furthermost from the wild tarsk burrows. Cresting the hill where the herd was, Adira plopped the buckets on the hillside and begin her work. She loved the gentle Verr. For all they were wild, they were playful and gentle creatures and the young were like pets sometimes. She scratched behind their ears and ruffled the coats of the males who gave her a contemptuous look. She set about milking all of the females except for the couple that had recently birthed as she would have had to compete with the eager mouths of the babies. She noted that a few of the males coats were getting long enough to shear. She would send one of the others back up here to shear them. Gathering the over full pails again on her shoulders, she made her way painfully slowly so as not to spill the pails back to the Aett to store the milk.
The Bondmaids Heart 