Agatha DeLacey was an intelligent young woman. She had grown up around her father, a scientist and her brother, a doctor, of course some of those smarts had passed on. She was curious too, sometimes too much for her own good. She had been born by Cesarean and her mother had died as a result. These were all facts, or at least opinions based off of facts. Her father’s work had always been kept a secret to her, so was the nature of her mother’s death shrouded in fog.
Her brother helped the local villagers, and was currently off to see a young Jewish-Arabian woman by the name of Safiya that had recently moved here with her father, who she knew her brother had affections for. Affections, what a stupid thing. Romance, sexual affectations, it was all pointless. Agatha was twenty three now, and still hadn’t married even once. She was fine with this, her father was not. Agatha sometimes wished she’d been born a man, with the mind of a woman though as women were definitely smarter than men even though it was men that seemed to run everything. Then, maybe she’d feel comfortable with marriage. Women were kinder about marriage than men were, they didn’t rush into proposals. Maybe if she were a man, she’d never have to propose.
Agatha was dressed in her brother’s clothes, and despite them being oversized they helped far more than any dress when she went out hunting for her family’s dinner. She had with her a rifle and a pistol, the pistol in case she found someone who wanted to give her trouble and the rifle for taking down deer and rabbits.
However, she froze when she saw, in the distance, a strange figure batting away something that appeared to be a swarm of… bees? Agatha was confused. Usually people were smart enough not to mess with a hive, much more often they’d just cultivate manmade beehives like her father and Felix did. It was easier to take care of bees that way, and they helped the gardens grow which Agatha knew was through some form of fertilization of the flowers.
The figure was certainly much larger than Agatha, she could tell that for sure. Yet curiosity and enthusiasm for discovery drove her forward. She followed, slowly and secretly, to where the figure had landed in the field. She drew up her pistol, but certainly she wouldn’t need it. Anyone stupid enough to mess with wild bees probably wouldn’t cause any harm.
She approached the side of the figure, realizing it was some sort of… human, yet also some strange thing unlike any human she’d ever seen. Taller than any man or woman combined, it must be at least eight feet tall. Matted dark hair and wild eyes, it looked like some giant or monster. Perhaps like the Nephilim Safiya always spoke of, back when there was more than just humans to worry about. Agatha scratched her head in puzzlement, wrapping a curl of hair around her finger in thought.
“Hallo, then. Do you need help getting up?” she asked, a slight quiver in her voice that indicated not quite fear of the monster itself, but anxiety for what this monster might do. She stared further, noticing scarring from what looked like stitches neater and more complete than anything Felix had the resources for. Like surgery had been performed, or like this thing had been stitched and molded together like one of Safiya’s golems, just made of flesh rather than clay. “I wouldn’t recommend going after any more hives. Never any fun.” she added, feeling awkward and stupid.
