Story for the Day: Mureadh's Sisters

Mureadh Farhayden has thirteen sisters. I don't know how he manages just one.

Once the carriage was settled, the horses were put by to rest, and the porter was sent to the inn to convey their luggage, the remainder of the large Farhayden family came to join their brother and indulge his every wish of a complete family gathering. Mureadh stood from his place, pretended not to be crying, though his glimmering eyes and red nose told a different story, and collected all of his sisters into his immense reach, giving them fond kisses and oscillating them about until they could no longer bear his crushing affection. He received wry simpers and conscious smirks from his older sisters, but a few of the younger girls shared his sentiments. “You’ve all grown,” said Mureadh with sullen inflection, happy to see his younger sisters mature and sad that he should not have been present to witness it. He patted their heads and remarked each one of them: the two youngest had grown the most since he had last seen them; their features had changed, had become strikingly like those of his father, and in seeing the legacy of his fond parents revived in their children, every tear was returning. He leaned forward, cultivated at least four sisters for each arm, and lifted them in the air, twirling them about in high revel until their giggling voices begged to be let down.

                His two eldest sisters accepted their brother’s crushing welcome with due cordiality, but the remark of “You look very well in your armour, Mureadh” was his chief delight. To be their proclaimed protector was one thing, but to appear the office was entirely another. He could not wait to be parading about the capital with a bouquet of sisters who looked up to him, and though there must be some fear as to their hurrying on without him or being lost under the bustling crowds of the capital upon such a day, he felt indomitable now that his place as head of the Farhayden family was reestablished.