"Just try," said the woman. Her time-wrinkled hand gripped the fingers of the girl sitting before her. A solitary candle sat on the table and cast its weak light over their faces.
The girl's lips tightened and squeezed against each other. Eyes that were the color of a sun-washed summer sky were lowered. Raven-black tresses adorned her cheeks and neck, and swayed a tiny bit when she shook her head.
The old woman exhaled irritably, causing her breath to hiss through her thin nostrils. She leaned closer to her younger companion. "Do you know what they do to people like this? Hmm?" Her bony fingers tightened around the girl's hand like a vise. "You know what will happen to you? I do!"
The young woman glanced up then and met the old woman's stare. She held it steadily. Defiantly. Her forehead tensed, and her jaw clenched. She jerked her arm, trying to extract it from the old woman's grasp.
"Try, Threshe!" Thin, cracked lips spit the words angrily, and her grip did not relent.
Threshe slammed her hand down on the table. Her chest heaved with livid, agitated breaths. The old woman gave a start at the sudden movement and noise. Her bloodshot eyes widened and she loosened her hold. Threshe immediately yanked her hand away, pulling the old woman slightly forward in the process.
"Life's dealt you a cruel hand, child." Yellowed nails roughly pushed a wisp of frizzy, grey hair from the woman's eyes. "Fate doesn't apologize for the things it does to us, and you feeling sorry for yourself won't do a lick of good."
Threshe's hand shot out and seized the candle by its stand. In the same motion, she stood up and hurled it against the wall. The flame sputtered out as it smashed to pieces, and in the last flicker of its light, Threshe saw the old woman gaping in surprise. And then the room was plunged into darkness.
Somewhere outside the walls of the room, a dog barked. The sound of the young girl's heavy breathing filled the air. A chair scraped over the floor.
"And how does this make anything better?" muttered the old woman. "Your stubbornness and your temper will be your death, my girl. Bad enough that you refuse to take my advice and wind up hanging one millstone round your neck. Now you want to add two more." She collided with something in the darkness as she searched for a fresh candle to light.
A low grunt sounded from Threshe's throat. Hard steps stomped over the floor and a door flew open. With a toss of her hair, she vanished into the gloom.
