Evadne burst through the kitchen door, slightly bewildered and rather confused. Arthur Gabor looked up with a frown on his face. He was used to see his daughter enthusiastic about things, but now she was taking it to a whole new level. Apparently she'd been running, cause she was panting, and her eyes were wide.
"Found another poor defenceless animal in the woods, love?" he asked before Evadne could utter a word, concentrating once more on the vegetables he was chopping. Evadne shook her head fiercely, though she amused herself with the similarities between the memory and reality for a moment.
"Dad, there's a body in the road," she said, still breathing rather heavily. "A dead one?" her father asked without looking up. Evadne heaved an annoyed sigh.
"I know I have a wild imagination daddy, but I'm actually serious this time. And no, he's not dead. I found him on our land, not on the road. And he's unconscious."
Her last words were silenced by a deafening roll of thunder. "He's what?" inquired Arthur calmly. "He's UNCONSCIOUS!" repeated Evadne, louder this time. Finally, her father looked up with a mildly interested look on his face. "Really? What happened to him?"
Nervously, Evadne shifted her weight from one leg to the other. "Dad, what matters now is that we get him inside! We can't very well leave him lying there in this kind of weather, can we?? He might get struck by lightning! And if he doesn't, he might die from the horrible cold he will get from being soaked and ice cold for hours."
"Alright, alright," mused Arthur, wiping his hands on a cloth before standing up. Evadne was already out of the house before he even started following. She was halfway down the grit road that meandered through the fields, looking back at him. "Come on!" she shouted through the thundering rain. The speck between the crops grew larger as she drew nearer, and she prayed to Mother Earth that his horrible alcoholic stench would have washed away by the rain. It certainly wouldn't give him her father's benefit of the doubt, what with his complete appearance and all.
She got back to the place where he had dropped on the ground, not ten feet away from her. Evadne's first instinct was to be disgusted -- she still was, but her conscience wouldn't let her leave the man rot outside. That was just inhuman. However, when she got to him again, the scent was still so strong that there was no point in trying to hide it. Loud splashes behind Evadne announced her father's arrival.
"This rain is good for the crops," he muttered, but his daughter pulled his arm. "Uhm, daddy? He might be slightly drunk." She pointed at the body, half his face covered in mud, sleeping with his mouth open, gurgling from the rain that streamed down in it most happily. Up and until that point, Arthur hadn't actually looked at the man, but now he was staring at him with a strong look of disapproval on his face.
"Eva, you don't actually expect me to drag that thing inside, right?" Evadne nodded forcefully. "Yes I do. This man is on our land, and if he dies here we will be responsible." She had saved the argument for when her father would say this, and though she saw the muscles in his jaws contracting, she knew it worked. "Grab his feet," Arthur ordered in a dark voice.
About fifteen minutes later, the drunk stranger had been stripped down to his undergarments to avoid mud in the bed (by Arthur, who was not very careful and left at least a dozen scratches on the man's skin). It was Eva's bed -- her father's way of punishing her for convincing him to bring the alcoholic inside. She would sleep on the couch tonight, and would have to wash her bedsheets tomorrow, only able to hope they wouldn't still stink of wine. With a frown on her forehead, Evadne left a pile of her father's clothes next to a washcloth and a big bowl filled with clear water. The man would not awake to a house full of happiness, that was certain. With a sigh, she left her own room to help her father make dinner.