Your Mother VS Andross

The wooden slats creaked under a weight that had no business resting atop them. Your Mother, a great grey mound of wrinkled flesh, lay sprawled across the deck of the abandoned cargo hold, one massive claw stretched out like a noblewoman awaiting a hand-kiss. The air was thick with sea-salt and rot.

"Ohhh, is it dinnertime already?" she wheezed, not opening her eyes. "Bring me the fish. The good ones. Not the sad little ones."

The footsteps that answered were not her children's. They were measured, heavy, and wrong—boots striking the deck with the deliberate rhythm of a soldier approaching a pyre.

Your Mother cracked one tiny eye open. A figure stood at the far end of the hold, robed in rust-orange, face hidden behind a smooth white mask. A greatsword gleamed on his back. A straight blade hung ready in his gloved hand.

"Ah," she sighed, as if greeting a distant relative. "Another one. Let me guess—you've come about the neighbors. I told them the cat was dead before I hung it up. That's not a crime. That's art."

The masked man did not move. "I am Andross. I hunt the corrupt. You reek of sweetness and rot both."

Your Mother let out a long, rattling breath through her snout. "I reek of *effort*, which is the strongest perfume a lazy woman can wear. Now run along. I've got a nap scheduled, and it won't schedule itself."

Andross lowered into a stance, blade angled forward. There was no warning, no flourish—just the sudden, brutal fact of motion. He closed the distance in three strides, the straight blade cutting a clean arc toward her throat.

Your Mother did not dodge. She could not dodge. Instead, she lifted a single enormous claw and batted the blade aside with a groan, the metal ringing against her thick grey hide. The force of the deflection sent her rolling off the slats with a great, wet *thump* onto the deck.

"Unhandsome," she muttered, pushing herself upright with visible reluctance. "Very unhandsome of you. Striking a mother. A *mother*, young man. What would your own mother say? Probably 'good riddance,' knowing that desert you call a heart." She tapped her chest. "But still. Manners."

Andross did not pause to consider the insult. He came again, low this time, the blade sweeping for her knees.

Your Mother heaved a colossal sigh and, in a motion that was all dead weight and inertia, simply fell forward. Two hundred pounds of rotund flesh crashed down onto the deck, and the impact sent a tremor through the planks that staggered Andross mid-swing. His blade missed her entirely, skittering across the wood as he scrambled for balance.

She lay there, face-first, unmoving. For a long moment, the only sound was her labored breathing.

"...Are you done?" Andross asked, monotone.

"Mm. Just catching my breath. Give me a moment." Her claw reached out lazily and snagged a coil of mooring rope from a nearby stack. "You know, this hold used to be full of my children's chores. They'd haul crates, scrub decks, fetch snacks." She began, very slowly, to work the rope between her claws. "But they never appreciated me. Never once said 'thank you, Mother, for letting you be huge and horrible in our presence.'"

Andross advanced, blade raised for a decisive strike.

Your Mother's claw flicked. The coil of rope whipped across the deck, wrapping around Andross's ankles. He stumbled—not far, not enough to fell him, but enough to buy her a precious second.

She rolled onto her back with a wet, squelching contentment. "See? That's the thing about being this big and this lazy. I don't have to *try*. I just have to be *here*, in the way."

Andross cut the rope with a single flick of his blade and resumed his advance, faster now, no longer probing. He was done testing. This was the kill.

But Your Mother had noticed something—a hastily-tied stack of crates behind him, stacked high and precarious, and above it, a cargo net draped over a winch hook. She measured it with a single, squinting eye, the way a woman measures a bargain.

"Ahh," she breathed. "Demons. Undead. Corrupt magic. You know what all those have in common, young man?"

Andross lunged.

Your Mother heaved herself sideways in a slow, ponderous arc—and the weight of her fall, dampened by a loose plank, sent the entire stack of crates cascading down in a thunderous avalanche. They crashed into Andross mid-lunge, burying him in splintered wood and rusted iron bands.

The masked warrior went down hard, his blade clattering away. He struggled, shoving aside a crate, but your Mother was already moving—not fast, but inexorably, a landslide of grey flesh.

She planted a massive claw on the crate pinning his sword arm and leaned her full, terrible weight onto it. The wood groaned. Andross's breath left him in a ragged hiss.

"Now," she wheezed, staring down at him through satisfied slitted eyes, "here's the thing about dead gods. They never taught you manners, did they? All that training, all that 'sacred duty'—and nobody ever told you not to strike a mother."

Andross's free hand clawed for a loose shard of wood. He struck upward, catching her across the snout.

Your Mother blinked. Slowly. Then she lifted her other claw and brought the flat of it down on his wrist with a wet, heavy *thwack*, sending the shard spinning away.

"You'll pay for that," she said, without anger, as if stating a fact about the weather. "Now be a dear and hold still. Mother's got a nap to finish."

She leaned harder, and Andross, pinned beneath a mountain of grey flesh and broken crates, could not move. His mask stared up at her, unreadable, but his struggle told the story: there was no leverage, no room, no mercy in that bulk.

Your Mother sighed a deep, satisfied breath, and rested her chin atop the crate like a woman settling into a favorite chair.

"I win," she announced, to no one in particular. "And I didn't even have to get up properly. That's the secret, boy." Her tiny eyes drifted shut. "You don't have to be a good fighter. You just have to be too much trouble to move."

And beneath her, Andross's efforts finally ceased, pinned in place by the immovable, unearned authority of a mother who refused to be bothered