ã€ŠThe Tail of The Blade of Emnerã€‹


 Havenâ€™t we done this before? (1) (pro)

    The Tale of the Blade of Emner

    Prologue:

    Frank was looking around his yard at all the toys that had been left on the ground. His little sister had left all of her toys outside after her birthday party. Now if some other child than his little sister did this, he would scold them harshly.

    But it was his little sister who did this. It was his little sister who brightened up his day. So, he went along with her antics. It was a windy day today. The wind had picked up pace so much that his little sister¡¯s friends and herself had gone inside.

    That was the whole reason he was out here. He looked across the yard and then to the leaning trees. They were precariously perched on one another. It seemed like at any moment the two trees would fall over.

    It made him rather nervous if he was being honest. Then he noticed a tall tree man looking at him with concerned eyes. Frank blinked and the tree man vanished. It must have just been his imagination.

    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

    Surely, he didn¡¯t just see a Norse tree spirit. Surely that wasn¡¯t the old guardian that protected his family line. An old legend said that his family had brought an idle of a spirit with them over from Iceland.

    He began to pick up the toys left on the ground and then heard a great crack. The tree had fallen. He was dead. But death was a lot quicker¡­

    There was no great pain, no grief, just embracing. It was just the embrace of the reaper, and cold touch. He looked towards himself. There his body lay. It was crushed beneath the tree that he knew was going to fall.

    A cough woke him from the revere of his lifeless corpse. He looked toward it only to find the tree man. He was tall and gave off an elderly air, like those old war vets who want to tell a war story or two.

    ¡°Hello, you have just died,¡± the man pointed out.

    ¡°It seems like I have,¡± responded the peaceful Frank.

    ¡°It seems like I failed to protect this household once more,¡± cried the tree man.

    He had suddenly turned very sad. Frank did not know why this was. He had just learned of this man, and now it seemed like he had known Frank for all his life.

    ¡°No man, I knew it was going to fall. I simply didn¡¯t know when. Don¡¯t beat yourself up about it,¡± frank consoled the old man.

    ¡°You know what?! I have a blessing of primordial rule. How would you like to be reborn?¡± he asked Frank.

    ¡°That sounds like a deal to me,¡± he responded.

 First Breath (2)

    Chapter 1: First Breaths

    The newborn opened her eyes. Small locks of green hair tickled her nose. If one were to ask who this child¡¯s parents were, you probably wouldn¡¯t say two cat-eared beastkin.

    Well, that is if you were from her past life¡¯s Earth. On this Earth, there were a multitude of different races. This ranged from elves, dwarves, then to beastkin. Not all people are familiar with the beastkin trope so let me explain.

    They are a race of people that have animal-like traits. This ranges from having dog or cat ears, to a full-blown lizard face. But it never gets to the point of them just being bipedal animals.

    Now what was truly strange is how this little girl had green hair. Now, if you watch anime you know that means that she is a protagonist. You are pretty much correct.

    This little babe is or who used to be Frank. Every 50 years, a spirit beastkin is born among a population of beastkin. This ¡°spirit trait¡± that these people are born with allows them to speak with spirits.

    This is the blessing that Elder Guardian spirit gave Frank. The two parents looked at the newborn with care and love in their eyes. This was their first child, and she was to be named Aisling.

    People in this world or at least, this culture, had their job as their last name. so, she was to be known as Aisling Woodcutter. Yes, that was to be her name. but it wasn¡¯t supposed to be given to her yet.

    These two parents talked about which name to give to their child. They would have a year to do so, for that was a special sensitive time in a person¡¯s, or commers¡¯, life.

    For children of a year or younger had a mortality rate of 60%. It was rather hard to keep these kids safe in a world full of monsters and magic. Even noble children to a certain extent had to be careful.

    If one were to ask the child themselves. They would say they were confused. For they were only told of the world and not of the place they would be reborn in. It was quite a shock to say the least.

    She opened her eyes and looked at her new parents. They were both happy to see their newborn open her eyes for the first time. From the parents¡¯ perspective this was but a normal child. Well, she was as normal as a Spirit beastkin could get.

    Sher looked up at them while laying in the newborn crib, a crib for newborns, and started to cry. She wasn¡¯t used to the air anymore. She wasn¡¯t used to the chill that seemed to emanate from everything.

    The mother picked her up and spoke to her in a strange language that she couldn¡¯t wrap her head around. The mother seemed not to bothered as she unbuttoned her shirt and put the mouth of the crying child to her¡­ wait.

    Did the author put a nudity warning up? I don¡¯t think he did. Well, let¡¯s continue anyway. As she suckled on her new mother¡¯s nip, she thought back to her old life. She wondered what her little sister was doing right now.

    She shouldn¡¯t have, for she soon started to cry as the emotions came back. Why did she have to die? Why did she have to leave that adorable little sister of Her¡¯s? Why was Fate so cruel?

    Now the mother seemed flustered as she pulled the child off of her chest and soon started to panic. This was her second child, and she didn¡¯t want upset them all the time. Then again. Babies cried all the time. That is simply what they did.

    Soon, the panicked mother felt a hand on her soldier. It was her husband coming to save the day. The mother handed him the little bundle of teers and sadness. He held her in his arms and soon started to sing a lullaby.

    It was a somber song, it told of an army of men going to a land far across the sea to find their hearts which had been stolen by the women there. It told of how they protected this new land they found and settled.

    It calmed the child to the point of her falling asleep. This earned a sigh of gratitude from the mother and a peck on the cheek. The father gave the child back to the mother and she set her back down into the crib.

    ¡­

    He had been reborn. Some would say isekeied. He thought to himself how this day couldn¡¯t get any worse. Why is he complaining? Some would ask him that. But if you were a dude that suddenly got smashed by a tree, then got reborn as a little girl, you would complain to.

    He, or should we say she, knew she shouldn¡¯t be complaining. But it was so bogus that she was born as a woman. She would have to deal with periods now. She would have to deal with cat calling now.

    Well, at least she wasn¡¯t a slave, right. She could have been born into a slave family. She could have it much worse than being born into a commoner family. In fact, if she recalled right, this country was basically the same as the Irish.

    Though, in this world the majority of the population of Ireland was beastkin. Since the British Isles weren¡¯t isles in this world, Ireland was seen a lot now favorably as it had a head up on the mainland. As one could guess, the sea was Irelands ally.

    She sat up in bed, over the course of the year she would grow into the body of a three-year child. And because of that she could do things that no other human child could, build her body.

    She looked around the nursey and noticed her older brother looking at her, awake in bed. He seemed shocked that she was awake. She put a finger to her mouth and tried to make a shushing noise.

    But all that came out was a wet, blowing noise. Her older brother smiled at this and looked at her as he got out of bed. He seemed fascinated by her, and she couldn¡¯t blame him. She had green hair and was still awake at like 2 in the morning.

    He walked over to her and picked her up. She was shocked by this and looked at him with her big green eyes. Her older brother was about 10 years old. It didn¡¯t help that he looked 13 years old.

    What I¡¯m saying is that she didn¡¯t like being picked up. But she put up with his antics and smiled back as best she could. He seemed to notice her discomfort and put her back into bed. She rolled onto her belly and closed her eyes.

    Her brother frowned at this and manually rolled her onto her stomach. She then frowned back and rolled onto her stomach once more. He frowned and tried to get her onto her back, but she started to get irritated and then started to cry without meaning to. He became flustered and went back to sleep.

    ¡­

    ¡°Child, wake up. It is time to speak. My brother across the realms told me of you,¡± a voice above the baby¡¯s head said.

    She looked up. There, floating above her own head was a skeleton, well not really a skeleton. He was more of a tree in the shape of a skeleton. She didn¡¯t know who this was, and she didn''t know if he was here to do anything bad to her.

    But wait, what did he say about his brother? Was this spirit thing related to the guardian spirit back home? Was this Spirit here to help instead of harming her? Things were starting to get confusing.

    ¡°I will explain who I am. I am this family¡¯s guardian spirit. Your new father¡¯s great grand father was a spirit beastkin. He bonded with me, and I have stayed with this family ever since. Now, shall I teach you of spirit magic or should we save that talk for another time?¡± the old spirit seemed to ask.

    The newborn nodded and she looked at him. The spirit nodded and looked at her with eyes that conveyed the hope of a teacher for a new student. Over the course of the night, she was lectured too.

    She was told of the power of life essence called chi. This energy could be turned into magic. Although magic and chi were polar opposites of each other, it could be used to make mana.

    Elves¡¯ bodies naturally made mana instead of chi. Humans¡¯ bodies made chi instead of mana. This was why they were so different. Beastkins¡¯ bodies made both and this is why they couldn¡¯t use each.

    Since they both repelled one another a beastkin couldn¡¯t do magic or power oneself with chi. But because of the source of mana being in a beastkin¡¯s heart, the chi in their body circled throughout their whole body.

    This is why they were so strong, and this is why neither human nor elves particularly looked at them with kindness. The majority of beastkin were like this. But not spirit beastkin.

    You see, they could turn the chi flowing throughout their bodies into mana and sign contracts with spirits. This allowed them to use the abilities of the spirits they had signed contracts with.

    Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

    Though, this did leave them to be enslaved more often than the norm. it was seen as a statice symbol in Francia to own a spirit beastkin as a slave. They weren¡¯t all too rare. Being born around once every fifty years in a single population was kind of weird.

    Like, that meant there was at least one in every village. Which wasn¡¯t all too special in the newborns head but whatever floats their boats. The spirit then offered to sign a pact with the Aisling, and she had no other choice but to accept.

    And all the rest of the night she was taught the secrets of spirit magic. In fact, it was easier than normal magic as the spirit did half of the work. In normal magic the caster would have to do the chanty and direct the mana in their body to the place where they wanted to direct their spell.

    As night wore on morning broke and the newborn Aisling fell asleep. She had been woken up right after her older brother had fallen asleep. Now she had fallen asleep at around 6 in the morning. Of course, staying up that late really wasn¡¯t what the old spirit had in mind but, eh.

    The studying took to long. She was now put in a magic sleep that would last for 11 hours exactly.

    ¡­

    It had been a full year of living in this new world for Aisling to get a full grip on her body. Everyday, old man spirit who didn¡¯t like being called old taught her about most of the goings on of this land.

    While he did try to teach her the language of this country, all but spoken words seemed to stick. Whenever she tried to speak it would come out incredibly accented.

    She sounded like she was from an incredibly rural area of Ireland. The speech was so thick with hillbilly that she just didn¡¯t speak at all.

    Now it was her first birthday in this world. She was rather excited about that fact. When she woke up and stretched her little legs a loud crack from her back was heard.

    Now, one may ask why such a sound was heard. A normal person would question why a one-year-old-that-looked-like-a-three-year-old child would have back problems. It was simply a matter of a bad bed.

    Her bed that her father seemed so proud of was rather bad. The cushion was straw, and the frame didn¡¯t have any suspension. All in all, it was bad. She thought that maybe other beds were better, so she often went to her brother and slept in his bed, and it wasn¡¯t any better.

    Her parents were already up at the crack of dawn, so she went to the door and opened it. On the other side was her brother. He was leaning on the door and looking at the ground.

    He had a glum expression on his face. Aisling walked over to him and tugged on his sleeve. He noticed and looked at her with a sour expression. She calked her head to the side. She was trying to get him to tell her what was wrong.

    It seemed to work as her brother began to tell her why he was sulking. It turned out he had gone and told the neighbor kid, Sarah, that she was cute and kissed her. In response, she kicked him in the groin.

    As a person who used to be a dude, she could relate. Getting kicked there hurt a lot. As girls seem to misinterpret how the pane works, the author will explain. He also needs to write more words to fill his dopamine meter.

    It isn¡¯t really a sudden pain, it is more like a soft oomph, then a large spi8ke of pain and you suddenly find yourself crumpled on the ground.

    Now, it seemed like he had gotten over the pain and was now sad that his feelings were rebutted back to him. He didn¡¯t seem to be having a good day. To cheer him up, Aisling grabbed his shirt sleeve and pulled him to the cellar.

    The cellar was the place where she practiced magic in secret. She wanted to show him some cool-looking magic tricks she had. When they got to the cellar her brother reared back and forced his little sister to stop.

    ¡°There are ghosts down in the cellar sister. You shouldn¡¯t go in here,¡± he reprimanded her.

    She nodded at his thoughtfulness to his little sister and pulled him hard enough that he nearly fell down the stairs. She still wanted to show him her magic and brighten up her day.

    as for the ghost problem well¡­

    There were no ghosts. Her older brother had simply thought that all the magic practice for the past year was a ghost infesting the walls. After they had gone downstairs, she looked at the walls of the cellar and noted the amount of wine there was.

    Not everyone in the town she had never really seen could afford a cellar. In response, her family lent space in their own cellar. Whine was what most people kept. That and rum.

    She sat in the middle of the dirty floor and gestured for him to sit too. When he sat down, she summoned old man spirit. He then appeared in between the both of them. Her brother nearly freaked out until he saw his little sister looking at him.

    To him, it looked like she was exasperated with him. Because of this, he calmed down. He looked up at the floating wooden skeleton and calked his head to the side.

    ¡°Where have I seen you before?¡± he asked the spirit, pointing a finger at him.

    ¡°I am the guardian spirit of this household. I saw and appeared to you once. That was when you were just a babe,¡± old man spirit told him.

    The young boy was now less confused but still much so. He didn¡¯t know of the powers of a Spirit beastkin. He simply thought she had red hair, and it was as simple as that in his head. Aisling¡¯s older brother wasn¡¯t too smart as the reader can tell.

    Aisling decided to ignore his confusion as it would soon turn to wonder when she showed him her magic.

    Sitting crisscross-applesauce, she places her arms palm up on her legs. She then poured her chi into these areas and closed her eyes. She had minor spirits of essence and light dance through the air for the two of them.

    Soon, streamers of light and gold danced in the air. The cellar shown with light and the older brother who, moments before was sitting there confused, was now looking on in wonder.

    ¡­

    In the later hours of the day Aisling and her brother, Kaelin, along with the rest of the family are sitting around the dinner table. Kaelin and Aisling are recounting the adventure in the cellar they had just hours before.

    The two parents are having a hard time believing that little Aisling can already use magic at her age. After all, the only reason she knows how to use the magic at all is because of old man spirit.

    He is the one to teach her all about it and its side effects. All in all, it was hardly believable that a one-year-old could do this. Of course, beastkin aged quicker than humans.

    If you really wanted to push it, you could say that a girl of her age shouldn¡¯t even be able to think like she does. By the end of dinner both of the parents looked like they wanted to tell the kids something.

    That something was the fact that Aisling¡¯s mother was pregnant. Aisling had known this as she did know what sex was and she guested they were trying to get another child so they could help out cutting trees and hauling lumber.

    ¡°Both of you are going to get another sibling soon!¡± said mother.

    We are going to be calling her mother from now on just for simplicity¡¯s sake.

    ¡°And later today we are going to officially go to the town hall and sign Aisling¡¯s name onto paper,¡± said father who is also going to be called father for simplicity¡¯s sake.

    Now, it would be easy for the talk to end just there, but something strange happened. A knock came from the front door. The whole family didn¡¯t know who this could be.

    Father walked up to the front door and opened it. On the other side waiting was Jeffery, the tax collector. Now, this confused the family even more. They had already paid their taxes for the week.

    ¡°good morning, the tax has been raised so I¡¯m here to collect an extra-¡° he flipped through his papers, ¡°-15 Crownes¡±

    In USD, that would be 250$. So, the fact that the taxes had gone up so much set Father and the rest of the family off. The taxes, just so you know, the taxes were about 25 Crownes before.

    This much of an increase meant that the king of this land or the local lord were doing something strange. In fact, it made Father and Mother uneasy.

    ¡­

    They were on their way to the town hall. The town hall was in the middle of the town, and it was the place where if you had any grievances with the government, you would go there.

    It was also the place where you signed in your child¡¯s name if you had one that was coming to their first year. This meant that Aisling would be going to leave the house for the first time in her life.

    Aisling was sitting in her older brother''s lap and was currently braiding his hair. She had learned how to braid hair from her past life¡¯s mom after she wanted to braid her little sister¡¯s hair.

    The braids themselves weren¡¯t anything special. They were short as his hair was short. They were simple as Aisling was out of practice. But it made her happy that her brother put up with her and her stuff.

    When they got to the building Aisling noticed a couple things. First were the people. There was a group of people with two toddlers among them. The majority of people in the group were beastkin.

    Next, she noticed that the door seemed to be locked. The front door was a deep red wood color. That brings up the building so let the author describe it. It was a tall, yet narrow structure. The outside of it was a deep tan color and it seemed to be made from granite.

    The tall walls seemed to be like that for the flex on the other structures around it. The glass windows and shades visible from the inside of the building lent to the poshness of the building.

    Finally, after Aisling had taken it all in, they git off the cart. The mule pulling the cart was owned by her father and he often used it to pull lumber. When she got to the ground, she looked at the two other children standing by their parents¡¯ feet.

    The both of them seemed to be her age, chronological age that is. One was human and the other was Beastkin. The human child seemed to be 3 years old. The beastkin was one year old but, again, since they were a beastkin they looked 3.

    The boy was probably there because their parents drove the beastkins parents. Not everyone owned a cart or carriage.

    The beastkin was a boy as well, the seemed to be a cat beastkin just like her. She had brown hair and eyes, just like the majority of the people in this town. The boys stood next to each other.

    They seemed as close as brothers at first glance. It was in fact true. The two boys lived right next to each other, and they often played together. When Kaelin and Aisling walked beside their parents, who themselves were looking at the other two groups of parents.

    What the author means by that is, Aisling¡¯s family did not know all of the people in this town. These were some of the said people. The grown-ups made introductions and eventually they started talking about Aisling and her traits.

    During the whole introduction thing, the two children were looking at her as if she was a strange bug they found on the side of the road. The human boy, Graiger, thought that she was cute, but weird.

    Looking at her made his mind feel all funny and his heart quickened. She absolutely had cast a spell on him with her spirit magic. He had heard the parents explain what it was, but his ears only heard the word ¡®magic¡¯.

    The other boy seemed unimpressed with the young Aisling. His father was the kind of person to flirt with all the neighbor hood women and he had encouraged his son to gage how cute all the girls were. He seemed unimpressed.

    That was rather rude of him. But Aisling didn¡¯t really care all too much as she was more interested in finally getting her name put on paper.

    The door finally opened, and a human woman came out. She was rather short and had blond hair. When she smiled, slightly yellowed teeth were shown. It appeared as though she was British.

    She beckoned the first family in. This just so happened to be Aisling¡¯s family. Later that day, Aisling¡¯s name was put onto paper.

 Chapter 2: Catnapping (3)

    Chapter 2: Catnapping

    Aisling was now an older sister and she herself was very happy with this. Her little sister was around 2 years old and looked five. She herself looked 6. After all three years had passed since she was reborn.

    It was Aisling¡¯s Third birthday, and she was rather happy by this. She still hadn¡¯t gotten her speech to be any better, but at least her family could understand her.

    They had baked a cake for her. And by cake it was simply a stack of flapjacks on top of one another. But it was the thought that counted. And it was at this age that she was to be taught how to read and write.

    She already knew how to read from what old man spirit had taught her. But she had never had the chance to write letters before.

    Her father had worked very hard to save up for a stack of paper and a charcoal pencil. Paper was very expensive as it had to be imported from a very faraway place, China.

    But more to the point, she could finally put pen to paper and write something. As every kid knows, parents love it when you make art for them. Even if the art sucks the big one, they will love it.

    Many kids could make money this way at family gatherings. Ask anyone and they will tell you about how bad they were at it and how much they made.

    But getting back on track, she wanted to draw something nice for her parents after that. It just so happened that she was supposed to go with the rest of her family during the harvest festival.

    This was a festival that took place for a whole week. Many traveling merchants would come and go to peddle their wares. This was a plus for Aisling. She was very much looking forward to this.

    Not so much the interacting, as she had become somewhat of an introvert. No, she was looking forward to different pigments. Unlike in her earth during the Middle Ages, pigments were cheap.

    Since there was a large amount of spirit magic wielders, people could get the plants that produced the right pigments to grow during any season. Well, other than winter. But then who would want to dye stuff if you hadn¡¯t gotten the pigment beforehand.

    Flags in this world often times had colors that would be uncommon on earth¡¯s flags, like purple. that¡¯s the only color the author can think of.

    They had their cake and decided to eat it too. Wtf is that line supposed to mean. Well, whatever. Throughout the rest of the day Aisling wrote and drew. She decided to write a short little story about a cat and draw her adventures through the land.

    This was awfully childish, but she didn¡¯t care. She simply wanted to see the parents who were raising her in this life happy. In her past life her parents only stayed together because of him and his sister.

    While these two parents seemed to actually love each other. Aisling had never felt the true love of a parent before and for the love that she felt everyday now, she was thankful.

    Back to the story of this little cat, the story was nearly finished. All she needed was paint. She had a lot of practice with painting in her past life and she wanted to put that to the test.

    Later that day they went to the festival.

    ¡­

    It was rather late as the sky was about to darken. Aisling was walking with her mother¡¯s hand in hers and she wanted to tell her mother where she wanted to go. She had found some coins on the side of the road earlier that year and she wanted to use these coins to purchase some color.

    ¡°Mama, can we go and get some pigment? I need it for a story I am Writing,¡± said Aisling.

    Her mother looked at her and nodded. She, like any mother, wanted to grow her child¡¯s interests. So, she was rather happy that her daughter was interested in art.

    In all honesty, she was rather happy since if she got good at painting then her husband of the future wouldn¡¯t have to worry about his wife. Aisling¡¯s little sister was back at home.

    She was currently being looked after by old man spirit. While the rest of the family save Kaelin didn¡¯t know he existed, they always left their younglings and home under the care of the guardian spirit.

    If you are wondering what Aisling¡¯s little Sister¡¯s name was, it¡¯s Alise. Yes it is, after all, a new song that was sweeping the nation made by a old man in his forties wanting to marry a girl of 18.

    This is not Beethoven, in case if you are wondering. This was made by a man named Quincy Frugal. He was a very famous artist in this world. People were just realizing he was just a down-bad Neet.

    But other than that, Alise was named after his song. Yes, Aisling¡¯s parents were fans of his music. But other than that, she was a normal girl. She often cried at night for unknown reasons.

    Aisling had a small inkling of why though. Sometimes, a Farseer Beastkin would be born after a Spirit Beastkin was. These children often died young due to self-harm.

    For they could see the future. But this meant that these kids could see every future. Every moment of their and their family¡¯s day. Every waking and sleeping dream.

    Alise sat in her room often and simply cried. For she could see the paths of anyone in a 40ft radius. This was utter torture for the child. Aisling always slept in the same room as her simply because they lacked the room in the house, but this only made her crying more intense.

    Finally, one night Aisling decided weave a sleep spell that would cut off this power of her sister. This worked by placing a shield of the opposite polarity magic that her body emitted.

    This stopped her crying till the spell ran out of energy.

    ¡­

    Aisling looked at all the different powders and sighed. These weren¡¯t the right colors. There was no deep blue, only light aqua. There was no light red only crimson red. It wouldn¡¯t look right if she used these colors.

    She looked over to the other stall and sighed in happiness. They had all the colors she wanted. The color of her paint was no longer an issue. The man at the front of the stall looked nice and as she and her mother walked over Aisling heard a scream.

    The two of them looked over to where the sound came from and they both gasped. There was a woman and a man in the middle of the crowd. Said man and woman was Kaelin and the neighbor, Sarah.

    Kaelin was on the ground clutching at his crotch as he let out small whimpers. It seems like he had told her about his feelings for her once again and been rejected.

    Aisling looked over to the stall owner and pointed to the pigments she wanted. Her mother used the money Aisling had found and paid for it. They then both went over to Kaelin.

    When they got to him Sarah seemed to be contemplating something. While Aisling didn¡¯t much care for Sarah her brother loved this girl, so she put up with the abuse.

    Sarah then nodded her head and went back over to Kaelin. She whispered something in the boy¡¯s ear, and he perked up. Aisling didn¡¯t know what she told him, but it seemed to have lifted his spirits.

    Her father then came over to the Aisling and her mother. He picked her up and gave mother a kiss on the cheek. As he looked down on his first-born son he sighed.

    ¡°Boy, the same thing happened to me when I was your age. All I did to make up with the girl was do as she said,¡± he told his first-born.

    Aisling looked on in shock and awe at her father and mother. She had heard how they had met before but nothing like this. It appeared that this reaction made mother laugh a little.

    Father set her down and helped Kaelin up. This got him to blush from the embarrassment. People were now starting to disperse. Then, all of a sudden, multiple spilt off from the crowd and walked over to the stall that Aisling and her mother had been to.

    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    The family really didn¡¯t care at all about this.

    That was until one of them ran forth and grabbed Aisling. The man rushed through the family, departing the square with Aisling in his arms. Father gave chase and a hunt for her ensued.

    The men stopped save the one carrying Aisling and tried to stop father. He halted his chase and kicked one in the groin. The other pulled a knife on the man and tried to stab him.

    Father simply pulled a sheathed sickle from his back and parried the blow, cutting the man¡¯s wrist in the process. The man who had been kicked stood up and pulled the other with him.

    They pulled back and ran after their compatriot. The man carrying Aisling pulled a cloth from his pocket and pushed it to her face. She involuntarily inhaled the fumes from the cloth and passed out.

    ¡­

    After an unknown amount of time, she awoke to find herself in a cage. Said cage was in a dingy room in an unknown place. She looked around to find her cage wasn¡¯t the only one. There were a multitude of cages and people inside them.

    She now looked inside her own cage and stood up. Inside the cage were a basket of staler than normal bread, a bucket of water, an empty bucket, and a sleeping girl that looked older than her by about 5 years.

    Next, outside of the cage was a table with a sickle on it. The blade looked dull, and the edge seemed to have dried blood on it. This was probably used for torture in all honesty.

    Aisling looked at the cage and back at her arms. She then got an idea.

    ¡®What if I used body strengthening magic on myself to break these bars?¡¯ she thought to herself.

    She did so. In case one was wondering what body strengthening magic was, the answer is quite simple. It uses the expansive nature of mana when it degrades from chi to mana.

    This basically floods the body of the castor with mana, fueling a short-lived burst of strength that didn¡¯t degrade the body.

    Aisling cast the spell and reached out her arms to the lock. She grabbed it in both hands and clenched her fists. The lock was crushed in her grasp. Now that she was thinking about it, she didn¡¯t need to do that.

    Her body was already strong enough to break the lock.

    Now that she was thinking back on it, those men seemed to not know about any of the local customs, and they didn¡¯t look like locals. They also didn¡¯t talk like locals. From what she heard and picked up right before the kidnapping, they didn¡¯t even know her own name.

    It seemed like this was a spur of the moment decision. These men had no idea the kind of power or mental capacity Aisling had.

    She opened the door and looked at the front of the room. There seemed to be no one guarding the door. That was until it opened to reveal a well-built man. He stood 5ft 9in. which is awfully tall for this world.

    In his hand he had a bottle of booze and in his other he held a collar. The man seemed shocked to say the least. He probably wasn¡¯t expecting to see aisling out and about.

    He darted forward well, as fast as his inebriated legs could carry him. He stumbled and tripped. He landed on his face, causing the girl in the cage that Aisling was put into to wake up.

    ¡°What is happening?! Has someone come to rescue me?¡± she asked herself out loud.

    She wasn¡¯t correct but Aisling was more worried about the man that was getting up than anything. She grabbed the sickle on the table and ran at him.

    He looked up only to see a blade coming towards his face. It penetrated his skull and came out the back of his small head. A scream came from the young girl in the cage and that elicited a question from the door.

    ¡°What¡¯s all the racket¡­ oh,¡± a shorter man with similar features came from the door and he seemed shocked.

    ¡°What did you do to my brother you little shit!? I¡¯ll skull fuck you!¡± he shouted as he charged forth.

    She used her body strengthening magic to fuel herself past her limits and dodged his fist. She then lacerated the back of his knee. He toppled to the ground and wailed in pain.

    The girl in the cage still cried. She huddled herself in the corner and cover her own face. That was for the best as Aisling then cut open the man¡¯s throat with a sickening slice.

    The other man came in. upon seeing the carnage that was the room he elected to pull out his slingshot from his back pocket and shot a ball at Aisling. He missed on account of her being small and she leapt at him.

    He caught her and as she writhed in his grip like an angry cat, he realized something. This girl wasn¡¯t worth it. If she could use body strengthening magic, then the cheap collars that they had bought weren¡¯t going to work.

    While he was thinking about his options, Aisling got out of his grip and cut open his ankles. He yelled in pain and Aisling silenced him with a slice of the neck.

    ¡­

    It had been five days since the catnapping. Aisling had walked out of the room, only to find herself in a cave system. She was still in that cave system. It was simply too large to large to find oneself around.

    It also didn¡¯t help that the girl from the cage was constantly asking questions. The only reason Aisling hadn¡¯t gone insane from all of it was the fact that there was plenty of food and drink in the bunkroom.

    They couldn¡¯t find a map and Aisling was getting tired of all the girls bugging. The girl hadn¡¯t even told Aisling her own name yet. Then again, she hadn¡¯t said her name either.

    So, it was kind of even. But even then, she hadn¡¯t spoken at all. She had only used some paper to write on to get her messages across.

    Now, they were walking back to the base that the catnappers had set up. The girl seemed to know something about them, but she didn¡¯t tell Aisling anything even when she asked.

    It was in fact, starting to get infuriating. The girl didn¡¯t even seem to want to get out of the cave. Maybe she thought that there was a search party for them and if they stayed there then they would be safe?

    That wasn¡¯t that bad of an idea. In fact, it seemed rather good. If they kept moving about then they would simply burn too many calories. They would run out of food quicker if they kept searching.

    Yes, that was a marvelous plan. If the both of them simply stayed there¡­

    When they got to the base, it was swarming with things¡­ Aisling didn¡¯t know what the hell these things were but better safe then sorry to stay hidden while she checked them out.

    She hid behind a rock at the end of the tunnel that the both of them were looking down. The girl seemed strangely quiet and as she looked to see what was wrong, Aisling¡¯s body stiffened.

    The girl was staring at the things with sparkly eyes. In fact, she would have to say, if the girl was ten years older then she would say the look was attractive. But more on her looks later, now was time to finally ask what was going on.

    ¡°Do you know what those things are?¡± Aisling asked in the clearest voice possible. She had practiced really hard to get his voice.

    ¡°Yes, they are what¡¯s called a ¡®Broken one¡¯. They are a sign of immense statice among the nobility of Francia. They have handlers train them to act as workers and hunting partners,¡± she explained.

    ¡°How do you know this?¡± Aisling asked yet again.

    ¡°I have studied Francia and her culture for some time now. Oh, and I¡¯m a noble by the way. My father rules over Westport,¡± she explained.

    By the time she was done explaining herself and what those things where they had left. The Broken ones had left a mess in their wake. They had toppled over tables, chairs and bookcases.

    If they were here, then their handlers would be nearby. If Aisling and the girl grabbed their belongings and some food, then they might be able to escape. Though, it was a gamble, the Broken ones could come back any time.

    They both made their way to the door of the bunkroom. There, they spotted their things thrown all around the place. Aisling had grabbed a blade from one of the catnappers and hidden it in her bed.

    By the way, the beds smelled like body fluids, and not the clear kind. She had to stack old clothes that smelled better than the bed to mask the smell. When she was done grabbing the short sword under the bed, she looked over to see the noble girl looking at her with unsure eyes.

    She tilted her head in confusion and the girl started to speak.

    ¡°I wanted to tell you, my name. if we both get captured by the Broken ones then we¡¯re probably going to be sold into slavery. So, my name is Sylvia, it¡¯s Sylvia. What¡¯s yours?¡± she asked.

    Aisling was hesitant for some reason. This girl was nobility yet didn¡¯t tell Aisling her last name. ever since surnames became law, most nobles grew incredibly proud of their middle names, which was the name of the first person of their lineage.

    But then she remembered. The Baron of Westport, the place where Aisling lived and Sylvia¡¯s father worked and governed, had recently become baron. Why wouldn¡¯t she want to brag about how cool his name was.

    She would probably love to say her accomplished father¡¯s name. After all, she was a rather young girl who seemed to be happy that she was a noble. If she wasn¡¯t, then she wouldn¡¯t have used that status as a way to gain information about Francia.

    All of this was a long-winded way to ask; why wasn¡¯t she proud of her new status? Only until recently did she even tell Aisling her name and the fact that she was a noble.

    That was rather answer didn¡¯t come easily to her. Then again, it would grow the trust that Sylvia and she would have to grow during their trek into this cave.

    ¡°Aisling, my name is Aisling,¡± she finally told her after much deliberation.

    ¡­

    Venator was rather intrigued. He had never seen such gumption in such a young girl before. She was only 3 years old, as his senses told him. Yet she could mask her presence from his pets.

    How very intriguing. This needed further investigation. Or rather, hunting and stalking. If the girl could sense him then she would be easier to keep to himself and train.

    After all, he needed a successor. A person who would guard the royals and do as they say. That being said, these royals that he worked for were probably the most bigoted, bloated, and downright stupid people he had the pleasure of working for.

    And I do mean pleasure. It was rather funny to see the king get worked up over the eye color of his newborn child, born from his mistress. Of course, Venator had slept with the girl in an effort to get this reaction and have the excuse of finding a new girl to pleasure the lord.

    But he was getting off track. He needed to get his pets to follow the girl. If she was lost the king would have his head. And then he would have to escape and find a new employer.

    That wouldn¡¯t be good, he was starting to run out of people to do so, employ him, I mean. At the end of his mind monolog, he no longer had any sent of the beastkin girl.

    FUCK¡­

    Oh well, he could still follow the other one. But that wasn¡¯t the safest option, they could separate, and he would have to only give the Barron¡¯s daughter to the king of Francia.

    That would be troublesome to say the least. Well then, he better get to tracking. He looked to the cave entrance and started to casually walk down the well-beaten path.

 Chapter 3: Hunted (4)

    Chapter 3: Hunted

    Down the tunnels and corridors, they went. After much talk they went left. They had seen the tracks of the broken ones go in the opposite direction, so this was the best choice.

    They had packed all the food they could in some packs that the catnappers had so they had quite the sum for two little girls. Down the tunnel they went for hours.

    The first bend split into three paths and they had to try and figure out which way to go. It wasn¡¯t an even split. The left path was farther away from the other two. The other two could be considered a whole separate tunnel as well.

    The front one went mostly straight forward and the other one went down. They passed on the one that went down and chose the forward facing one.

    They continued forth on their way. But not until they found yet another split and with this came another round of discussion. They fought about which way to go until they remembered that they were probably being hunted.

    They looked at the six splits and looked back at each other. The widest seemed like the way to go. Like said, it was the widest but also went up. This seemed like the safest path.

    They continued to go until they found themselves in a cave. Said cave opened up into a dark cavern with a wet sound dripping in the corner. The two of them were carrying torches the whole time and now their torches finally faded.

    If that wasn¡¯t bad enough, then a deep growling sound came from their side. It seemed like they weren¡¯t alone. A great padding sound came from the source of the growl, and it seemed like it was walking toward them.

    It stopped only a couple of feet from Aisling¡¯s head and a BIG SNIFF was heard. She felt the things breath on her skin, and she tilted her head back. The breath followed but didn¡¯t do anything other than that.

    It backed up and a THUMP was heard as it seemingly sat down. Aisling looked in the direction of the sound. It seemingly just sat there. Without a care in the world. They continued forward and Aisling decided that light was more important than the mana coursing through her veins.

    She summoned a spirit of light, and it took all her willpower to look over at the big thing in the, now, lighted up room. There sat a big mammal thing. She didn¡¯t have the slightest clue on what it was.

    She looked over to her companion for information as she seemed to know more about animals and the like than her. It was then that she noticed the look in the girl¡¯s eyes.

    It was the same look that she had had when she saw the Broken ones. She was infatuated with this random animal.

    ¡°it¡¯s a Wumplebirve!¡± shouted the young girl, ¡°it¡¯s an animal that lives off of mana only. Its fur absorbs the mana in the air and turns it into chi for the body to use. They are blind and their strongest sense is smell,¡± she turned back to her traveling companion, ¡°it¡¯s docile.¡±

    The Wumplebirve turned it nosed and ear-petaled face to Sylvia and snorted. It¡¯s massive head and small frame looked like a cartoonish ground sloth. It opened its mouth in a yawn to reveal a wide array of different types of teeth.

    Sylvia looked to Aisling like she wanted to say, ¡°can we keep it?¡± But she had to stay strong. They only had so much time until the Broken ones came for them.

    Aisling told as much to her friend, and she deflated. She had to spend about an hour explaining that they only had so much time before they got caught. That stopped her whining and renewed her vigor.

    After they came across multiple bends and such the cave finally opened up into a grand cavern. Said cavern had a hole in the top that was spilling sunlight. A small waterfall also spilled from the ledge of the opening.

    The cavern had a multitude of tunnels stretching for as far as the eye could see. That wasn¡¯t much as the tunnels still were mostly underground. But it was the sight of light that they hadn¡¯t seen in forever that got the girls excited.

    This excitement was short-lived as they heard a sound. Said sound was that of an animal. The two of them looked to the noise and saw that the Wumplebirve. It was sitting under a tree that had grown and broken through the roof of the tunnel.

    The two girls breathed a collective sigh of relief. Sylvia ran to the plumb beast and hugged the guy. He seemed to like being hugged as his species was basically a capybara in mood and let out a borth.

    Sylvia giggled at this and looked back at Aisling.

    ¡°he¡¯s so cute. I want to keep him. Or should we give him a name?¡± she asked.

    Aisling shook her head and let Sylvia choose a name for the big lug.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to call yoouuu¡­ Dennis!¡± she told the animal that wasn¡¯t even capable of speaking his new name.

    ¡­

    ¡°I can¡¯t hear them, but my pets can,¡± Venator mumbled to himself.

    His pets had just heard the footsteps of a small girl running over uncovered ground. In the caves his pets couldn¡¯t hear them. But it seemed like that they were now in some sort of uncovered tunnel system.

    He still had no idea where that system was, but he figured that his pets could figure it out. After all, they could hear the girls. And they could also hear a strange animal that Venator hadn¡¯t seen or heard of in a long time.

    A Wumplebirve.

    ¡­

    Aisling didn¡¯t know how to react to what the young girl was saying. She was spouting facts about the Wumplebirve. The facts were coming so fast that she couldn¡¯t speak.

    Even if the young girl could speak then she would probably, accidentally, ruin the mood with a line along the lines of; ¡°Why do you know so much about the Wumplebirve?¡±

    And then the mood would shift to either sad or more invigorated. So, she didn¡¯t want to say anything. She even liked this part about her new friend. The simple fac that she could find so much enjoyment out of a weird animal was rather cute.

    Was our darling little Aisling developing a crush on little Sylvia? I don¡¯t know. And neither does the author. He wings half the stuff here.

    As they both were looking at Dennis the Wumplebirve, they didn¡¯t notice the slight tapping coming from behind them. But the beast in front of them did. A Broken one had snuck up on Aisling and she didn¡¯t have any idea she was going to get snatched.

    But as She looked at Dennis, the animal looked back at her, and it seemed that there was a gleam of something in his eyes. The Wumplebirve darted forward and tackled the thing.

    Now that they were in the light, she could see the form of the thing. For while in the darkness a Broken ones from shifts every time your gaze lets up from them. This includes blinking.

    If you blink while looking at them, a small detail changes. What detail changes isn¡¯t controlled by the thing, but it helps keep people and the things they hunt second guessing.

    Aisling rushed to her friend that she was second guessing only that morning and hid behind her. She still had the mind of an adult man, but the body was changing that.

    Of course, she still had the knowledge of being an adult, but her maturity was only that of a child. If she wanted to, she could try and act like an adult, but right now she didn¡¯t feel anything like bravery.

    But Dennis was feeling something. For people of the above do not know this, but he was just as intelligent as you or me. Wumplebirves are Sentient, plain and simple.

    They simply don¡¯t speak like you or I. This is because our voices are too loud, and they only hear loud ringing when we speak. But they know this. They don¡¯t mind the ringing as they know that it isn¡¯t humans¡¯ fault that their voices are like that.

    As Dennis tackled the thing the two girls looked around for an exit to run to. But there was none. There was no way that they would escape.

    ¡°What do we do? He¡¯s fighting that thing all by himself. He might die! What do we do?¡± Sylvia asked.

    Aisling didn¡¯t know. She ran through all the situations that she could think of and came up short. What does she do? What does she have that can win this fight?

    The sword. She had a sword. The sword she stole from the filth that had put the two of them in this situation. The filth that brought her pain. They had nearly enslaved her.

    As She griped it in two hands and looked at her stance. Rage filled her head. Pain and anger clouded her eyes. The only thing she knew as of this moment about whoever was chasing them was scum.

    They wished the two children harm. They wished to do harm to the two of them. What kind of monster was this. What kind of monster decided taking two children from their homes and families was a good idea.

    Anger

    Pain

    Chaos

    Home¡­

    She wished to go home. She wished to stop whoever this was and go home. That is all she wanted. That is all. She didn¡¯t wish for pain. She wished to be treated like a child and be treated with kindness.

    She had never felt this in her past life. So, she wanted to know what it was like. She wanted to feel the love of a mother. She wanted to feel the loving hands of a father.

    She breathed in and out. Pain and anger gone, it was now only a deep lonesome feeling, right in the middle of her heart. Her stance that she had copied from Hollywood stars crumbled.

    That was until she felt a hand on her arm. It slid down to her hand and lifted up the sword she had. She had forgotten who was there. It was her friend who she had never even thought of as an acquaintance.

    Sylvia. She was here, right by her side. The only other girl she knew. The only person that had felt that pain of losing her home, if only for a week. But they had shared that week together.

    The girl then realized the fight wasn¡¯t over and looked forward. Dennis wasn¡¯t harmed, yet. He had avoided a majority of the attacks and dished out massive damage.

    But he was slowing down. And Aisling couldn¡¯t afford to let this harmless lug die. She straightened her knees, braced her back and looked to her side. There was the girl that was with her the first time she took a life.

    Of course, the girl had only screamed and done nothing else, but still. The mere fact that the girl didn¡¯t run as soon as the coast was clear, showed she didn¡¯t fear Aisling, wasn¡¯t going to leave her as soon as the chance showed itself.

    She pointed the tip at the beast of a thing and wondered how its blood would feel on her hands. Would it be smooth, or gritty; Sticky, or watery. She slowly inched to her opponent. She leveled her sword at the thing and chanted a spell in her mind.

    Her body filled with energy and powered up. She used so much mana that steam began to rise off of her. Aisling darted forward and stabbed into the things side. It screamed in pain.

    Blood gushed forth and her mind raced. The smell of the things blood was like that of men. What was this broken thing¡¯s deal? What was it. She knew what it wasn¡¯t though. It wasn¡¯t all that unappetizing.

    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    The minor spirits she had made pacts with screamed for this thing¡¯s death. In exchange her mind grew hungry for blood. Her antient heritage shining through. Her mother had once shared a story with her.

    She was apparently a descendant of a god. An old god of Ireland. She didn¡¯t inherit his skin shifting power, but she did inherit his bloodlust. This god she had never heard of.

    This god didn¡¯t exist on her earth. But his legend lived here. She began to sing a lullaby. As this god was one of the kinds that children feared. But the truth was far more tragic, he was cursed and turned into a Lynx and hunted.

    The Reason, He was a wielder of a blade. The Blade of Emner to be exact. He killed those who threatened piece but was tricked into killing a king. This king was well liked and as punishment, he was turned into a lynx.

    As a Lynx he lost the blade and couldn¡¯t keep his sanity. He killed and killed till a man by the name of c¨² chulainn, he was a demigod with his own share of problems, slew him out of pity.

    Aisling had been told this when she was just a newborn by old man spirit. She didn¡¯t know why he had told her this then but now she did. Her mother had sung a lullaby and infused it with her chi.

    Her mother didn¡¯t know this was happening, but Aisling could feel it. And now she sung her lullaby.

    ¡°In the Emerald Isle''s embrace, a tale of old I bring,

    Of a man with a fateful fate, to the stars his soul did spring.

    A shape he took, a lynx he''d be, under moonlit skies so clear,

    A myth that echoes through the land, to a lullaby, draws near.

    Hush now, hush, my child, rest your head,

    In dreams, the ancient stories spread.

    A man turned lynx, his spirit free,

    Underneath the sacred tree.

    In forest deep, he roamed alone, a creature proud and wild,

    Yet his heart still held the memories of when he was a child.

    C¨² Chulainn, the hero fierce, with strength that knew no end,

    Met the lynx beneath the moon, on paths they both would wend.

    Hush now, hush, my child, rest your head,

    In dreams, the ancient stories spread.

    A man turned lynx, his spirit free,

    Underneath the sacred tree.

    Oh, the lynx with eyes so wise, shared secrets of the past,

    Of battles fought and friendships lost, of love that couldn''t last.

    But C¨² Chulainn, with sword in hand, could not break destiny,

    And with a tear in mournful eyes, he set the lynx soul free.

    Hush now, hush, my child, rest your head,

    In dreams, the ancient stories spread.

    A man turned lynx, his spirit free,

    Underneath the sacred tree.

    In twilight''s glow, the lynx did go, to the realm beyond the veil,

    But whispers say, when stars dance bright, you can hear his mournful wail.

    So close your eyes, my little one, let this lullaby take flight,

    And know the lynx''s spirit soars, beneath the silver light.

    Hush now, hush, my child, rest your head,

    In dreams, the ancient stories spread.

    A man turned lynx, his spirit free, hush, hush, hush¡­¡±

    ¡­

    Venator could not believe it. One of his pets was slain. No matter, he could always get another. But the thing was that it wasn¡¯t slain by the Wumplebirve, it was slain by the little girl he was chasing.

    He had his pets go back into the cave structure and he gazed at the two children from his vantage point. He was looking at them from the branches of a tree overlooking the tunnel structure.

    He had done his far share of research about the caves the lackeys used. He found it led to an old elvish tunnel network. The elves thought that hiding underground from the humans was going to save them from the, now, native Irish.

    They had colonized this land after being forced out of Scotland by the Gaelic Scots. This whole thing was debated by modern historians though. Most of them didn¡¯t believe that there used to be elves in Ireland.

    He looked to the Wumplebirve and then hid after it narrowly spotted him. This whole situation was getting out of hand. He needed to get those kids and bring them back to the King so he could feel better about himself¡­

    He just realized she was chasing after kids. If his dead wife could see him, she¡¯d cut off his member. She was very kind, yet temperamental. If someone bad mouthed her nieces or nephews she¡¯d just straight up kill them.

    But she was dead by his own hands. He wasn¡¯t scared of her anymore. So there, HA! Stupid woman, the old sea hag. She couldn¡¯t even bear any children. That was the whole reason he married her.

    He was getting off track again. He looked back at the group and realized they had moved on. They had left the body of his dead pet behind and ran off somewhere he couldn¡¯t see right now.

    Fuck¡­

    ¡­

    Aisling didn¡¯t know how long that presence was there. She didn¡¯t know if that was the handler of the thing she had just killed. Though, she did know that Dennis was nervous and that meant something to her.

    They quickly ran from their spot under the ceiling of one of the actual cave tunnels. The easiest place to find them was the brick tunnels so they chose to not run away with the aid of them. They chose to run away under the normal cave tunnels.

    They had gone left from their spot and arrived at a rather normal looking spot. This tunnel was on the right side of the place they came from, that being the tunnel that led to this strange pathway of stone brick passages.

    They ran for as long as their little kid legs could carry them. They ran for what felt like hours off of the fumes of their past meal. They could barely walk after some time of this. But they didn¡¯t stop for a minute.

    Aisling passed Sylvia a piece of jerky. It tasted like pure salt but neither of them cared, they were simply too hungry to care. Dennis kept looking back the way they came, as if he could see the Broken ones chasing after them.

    They then came to a split in the tunnel. Dennis took the left and the two girls followed suit. It soon became clear that he had traversed this passageway all his life.

    If they were going to run away from the beasts, then they needed all the cards they could play. They kept going and they soon came to another brick tunnel system. It looked rather similar to the past one except this one had an underground lake.

    What Aisling saw was astonishing. It looked like a convenience store. Well, a unfamiliar type of store to Sylvia, this was right up Aisling¡¯s alley. She walked up to the broken door and looked inside the place.

    The words on the signs and labels of the isles told her that it wasn¡¯t from earth. Well, not this earth. It was from the elves, for the elves from Ireland were incredibly smart.

    They rivaled the dwarves in engineering might, and the Germans in the study of war. That was not to say they didn¡¯t know of comfort, as shown by this place.

    Aisling looked for a place that all 21<sup>st</sup> century people knew off, the restroom. She hoped that this place had such a thing so they could actually get their behinds clean.

    Sylvia looked all around the place. Since she wasn¡¯t familiar with the concept of a convenience store, she followed Aisling. The two girls found a restroom, Hooray.

    The bad news is that it was a men¡¯s room. No matter, Aisling was more familiar with a men¡¯s room anyway. She walked in and as Sylvia walked in after, so did Dennis. She looked back at the Wumplebirve.

    ¡°No Dennis, you can¡¯t come in. I Know this is the men¡¯s room but there are two ladies in here. And also, it¡¯s weird for another animal or person to come in here. Could you stay outside?¡± she asked if the Wumplebirve.

    He complied with the demand and stepped out. She thanked the lug and tugged Sylvia in. She looked to the isekeied protagonist and Aisling showed her the stalls.

    ¡°What is this place?¡± she asked Aisling, and Aisling complied.

    ¡°This is a restroom. It¡¯s a place where you pee and poop. I hope to God that the toilets still work,¡± she said.

    She whipped around to look at the stalls and opened the doors. There, she found toilets. These looked to be normal toilets. They weren¡¯t in disrepair at all. Aisling suspected it had something to do with the cleansing spirits around the place.

    After all, they had been here the whole of 200 years. She thought that her luck was about to run out but, they flushed perfectly well. She was shocked to see them flush better than her past lives toilets.

    ¡°What did you just do?¡± asked Sylvia.

    ¡°I flushed the Toilet. It¡¯s the way you get the¡­ I guess the right word would be sewage, out,¡± she explained.

    Sylvia nodded at this then pointed to the roll of toilet paper. She asked what it was, and Aisling told her it was a paper one would wipe their behind with. Sylvia was shocked by this as no one had thought of using fragile paper for that purpose.

    Aisling was the first to use it as she actually had to go to the bathroom, and she closed the stall door. Sylvia waited till she was done, and Aisling got a bit nervous. There was only one stall, and she didn¡¯t know if it would clog or not.

    After an awkward pee and wipe she stood up and slipped her pants and underwear back on. Don¡¯t get any funny ideas, she looks like she¡¯s six. Like, legitimately, don¡¯t.

    She flushed, and it didn¡¯t clog. Thank God. Next, Sylvia used it and she asked all kinds of normal questions for someone who hadn¡¯t used a toilet before. Of course, Aisling hadn¡¯t prepared for these questions.

    When she was done and they both walked out of the restroom, Dennis walked in. They heard the stall door open and minutes later, a flush. He must have had to go too.

    Aisling then realized that the food she was looking for was probably not there, so she scrapped that idea, and they left the store. As they went, Aisling could have sworn she felt a pair of eyes lose sight of them.

    ¡­

    Venator stretched, he had lost them yet again. Their stench had magically vanished, and his pets had lost their scent. No matter, he just had to find the Wumplebirve¡­ its scent had vanished to. Guess he would have to use magic he hadn¡¯t used in years to find them.

    He was getting tired of this.

    ¡­

    The three of them had been walking for hours. Maybe days and they still couldn¡¯t find the end route. Dennis seemed to have lost his way and the two kids were hoping for anything to happen.

    They were starting to run out of food and Aisling was running out of mana. They didn¡¯t know if they could stop or not. If they did, they would get caught or lose time. If they didn¡¯t stop then they would die walking.

    It really was a pickle they had found themselves in. If they didn¡¯t find their way out soon then they would have to deal with both of those probabilities. They soon came across an underground apartment complex.

    Aisling looked on in shock at the building. She, in her wildest dreams, never imagined a full-blown apartment. Now you may be wondering, ¡°Zog¡¯s typing brain thing, what about the convenience store?!¡±

    You¡¯d be right to ask why she would have a different. But this is incorrect. This apartment complex is the size of one of those big, soviet Russia complexes. This thing was massive. Like, an elder scrolls dwemmer ruin massive.

    She looked all around the outside of the place, and soon she decided to go inside. Sylvia followed here inside the building. She looked around at the strange interior. It confused her how this massive thing could fit underground.

    If possible, could they get people to map out this place and live here again. That was the thought prosses of her as the daughter of the baron. He very much had drilled into her that the people that they were weren¡¯t the same as they are now and that they needed to look out for the people.

    As if reading her thoughts Aisling went up to the second, or should I say first lower level. Yes, the building was built upside down. She went to the receptionist desk and grabbed a key on the desk. It read something that Aisling couldn¡¯t read.

    She and Sylvia decided to go to the second floor and try to get the key to some doors. Room 1. didn¡¯t work. They tried the next door and no dice. They then tried the third door and it surprisingly worked.

    She opened the door to find something astonishing. The room was rather bare except for a bed and a bedside table. On the bed lay a case. She went over to the case and cut open the leather strap holding a thing closed.

    Why would she do so? It¡¯s a mystery box, why wouldn¡¯t you? In it lay gold coins with the faces of elves on one side, and a weird sword on the other. The coins were very intricately decorated.

    It looked like the coins were molded by an expert artisan. Sylvia looked at the coins and gasped. She thought that her good friend¡¯s jaw would fall off if she kept it open like that.

    ¡°Do you know what these are?¡± Sylvia asked.

    Aisling shook her head. She had only been alive in this world for 3 years. None of that time she had been used to reading about extinct Elven countries. Of course, old man spirit used to tell her about history, but she lost interest when the majority of the recent stuff started to become boring.

    The old stuff was full of heroes fighting tyrants and villains slaughtering heroes and becoming the heroes in their own stories. It was so fascinating that it was all she thought of when going through the rest of her schooling.

    They had to move the history to the end of the day when they learned of this. Back to the point, she didn¡¯t remember most of modern history. In fact, she couldn¡¯t remember the name of their current king.

    It was a rather embarrassing fact that she was so bad at modern stuff. She knew a lot about old history and antient history, but not modern. Sylvia looked at her in astonishment. She didn¡¯t know what to say. It was simply Ludacris that she didn¡¯t know.

    ¡°These coins belong to the old Underwell Elves. They used to live all over the Mythril isle. They then tried to invade Scotland but a group of Irish ancestors who were a warrior band kicked them out and took all the land for themselves. They then ran underground and stayed there for hundreds of years,¡± she explained.

    That info didn¡¯t sit well with Aisling, but she kept that to herself. She decided that grabbing some off the coins was a good idea. Her family was running out of money. She didn¡¯t want to run out of money, so she grabbed three handfuls so as to not weigh her down much and closed her sack.

    Sylvia grabbed some too and then they decided to wait there and relax a bit. If they locked the door and stayed here, then it might take a bit to get in here if they came barging in.

    They closed the case and hefted it down to the ground. They were still young, so it was quite heavy. If they had to sleep somewhere safe, then this was better than outside. They had only been able to sleep because they had Dennis.

    Speaking of, he was sleeping on the floor. He hadn¡¯t been able to sleep for a week now and it was starting to really get to the Wumplebirve. They looked at each other and leapt on the bed.

    The bed was the softest bed they both of them had ever laid on. In fact, Aisling would say it was better than her bed back on her earth. Now, they nearly fell asleep right there, but something caught Aisling¡¯s eye when she sat up to stretch her arms.

    There was a bathroom. She could take a bath. She could get rid of the smell that permeated everything about her. Shye got up groggily and looked back to her friend that was already asleep on the bed.

    She wouldn¡¯t let her friend stink like this, so she grabbed her feet and pulled her off of the comfy bed and to the bathroom. She didn¡¯t even wake up to the sound of the bathtub filling up.

    And yes, it worked. There was also a shower head in the tub, but she didn¡¯t want to merely shower. She wanted to cleanse herself and her best friend. She wanted to get rid of the rotting smell from the both of them. Blood had splattered all over them and the stench had gone away.

    But that was only after they went to the bathroom in the convenience store. Aisling¡¯s nose had PTSD of the smell and she couldn¡¯t get rid of the fumes in her memory. She hoped that this bath would fix that.

    ¡­

    Sylvia woke up to the sound of water and the feel of rags against her skin. She opened her eyes to find her best friend, naked, in the bath with her. Of course, they were both only six, or looking like it anyway, so there was nothing weird about them bathing together.

    Aisling had already taken off her clothes, so she was rightfully embarrassed. It only made sense. The bath was rather full since both of the girls were in it together. She looked down at the soapy water that had been made a light, translucent light brown from the blood caking their skin.

    A slight shiver went down her spine as she thought abought the song that Aisling had sung. It unnerved her¡­

 Chapter 4: Escape (5)

    Chapter 4: Escape

    They had left the building and continued to walk. Today was the 10<sup>th</sup> day they had been away from home. They had been captured for four days as well so they had both been missing for about 2 weeks.

    This is a long time for a child to go missing and it unnerved Aislings parents. They had been looking for her the whole time. Many people would give up on their child by this point and stop looking.

    Not Aisling¡¯s mom and dad. They had found the entrance to the cave and even found the kidnapper hideaway. Father had brought the men of the neighborhood with him, and they had started to search the cave. They came with torches and string.

    They had tied the string to each persons¡¯ waist so as to not get lost. Hours later, they had come across the corpse. The thing was pale white, with an elongated head. It¡¯s sharp teeth yellow. The tail, long and whip-like. Its feet were narrow and its talons many.

    A large sword wound in the side of its chest. In fact, father could spot foot marks in the ground a dozen or so feet from the thing. The person¡¯s feet looked a lot like Aisling¡¯s feet.

    She was alive and well. That is what this evidence told him. The others came over to look and the footprints left in the hard stone. It would take a lot to make marks like that.

    ¡­

    Aisling felt good this morning. Well, she didn¡¯t know it was morning. But she felt like it should be around that time. If she felt like this, then something good would have happened. She felt so good in fac that she could do a jig.

    She wasn¡¯t going to of course. But the option was there. Sylvia looked at her quizzically. It had been some time since they had gotten to know each other, and she now knew that this was strange.

    Aisling usually had a sorrowful expression on her face. But now she was rather happy. She in fact was skipping to and fro. Dennis seemed just as confused as Sylvia.

    She was looking at her with an expression that red, ¡°today is going to be a good day.¡± She didn¡¯t know if that was true, but it sure helped the mood of the girls. They continued to walk down the tunnel until they heard a noise. The noise came from in front of them.

    This caused the whole group to stop. Just as they stopped a Broken one appeared in front of them. It seemed like they had caught up and found the group of three.

    In the somewhat illuminated passageway, it rose to its full height. The only light source keeping them from panicking was a light spirit. The spirit seemed angered by the mere presence of the Broken one.

    It started buzzing all around the thing and making angry sounds. Ther thing tried to attack the little guy, but it dodged. Zipping all around the beast once more it tried hitting the broken one. It simply bounced off of the thing.

    Aisling was starting to panic. After all, they were in a narrow passage and all their ways out seemed blocked. They could go back the way they came, but that wasn¡¯t foolproof. The thing could follow them.

    She also didn¡¯t want to risk being chased by this thing. It was, assumedly, much closer to them than whatever other things were chasing them. She hoped she was right about that and that they didn¡¯t have to worry about being kidnapped in the middle of the night.

    But they did need more space to fight this thing. This was a very small passageway, and they couldn¡¯t really fight in here. They would have to spread out. This didn¡¯t bode well considering that she didn¡¯t know if this was the only Broken one here right now.

    It was at that moment that Dennis the Wumplebirve did something strange. He stood up on his hind legs and roared. The roar seemed to scare the thing and it back peddled.

    Dennis then put both of his front legs up and turned to the wall. He struck it. part of the strong stone gave way and caved free like a block of soap. He kept carving the wall out until they were deep in the wall.

    It took awhile to carve the new tunnel. He kept digging for 2 hours. The two girls didn¡¯t fully understand why he was doing this when they could just go back the way they came. It seemed to Aisling that the Wumplebirve had a plan.

    He had gone for about 150ft until the cave opened up again to another passageway. This time, the two girls saw something they didn¡¯t expect. There was a corpse in metal armor stuck to the wall.

    He was above the floor, his feet dangling 5in from the ground. The corpse was nothing but a skeleton. The two girls didn¡¯t know what to say, they had seen a lot in the past like, 2 hours.

    The thing that got Aisling going was the fact that Dennis managed to scare the Broken one. She got the impression that nothing and no one could scare a Broken one. But then again, she didn¡¯t even know much about them. Perhaps Sylvia has something to say about that.

    She looked over to her companion only to find that she was staring at the corpse of the man pinned on the wall. It was then that Aisling noticed the armor the man seemed to be wearing.

    It looked like crusader armor. The helmet was the only thing that looked like it didn¡¯t come from earth though. Its eyes were tear-dropped-shaped. The helmet also had a central ridge coming from the chin all the way up to the back of the head. Vertical slits were on the cheeks and there were six of them.

    On his chest was the emblem of a harp. The harp was blue and green. The main body of the harp being green with the strings blue. The front of the harp was a dragon and transferred to a harp.

    It was the same harp that the Irish flag used. It seemed that this man used to belong to a holy order. The chainmail underneath the fabric he was wearing seemed to be mail. It glistened with a silver-blueish light.

    Sylvia was mesmerized by its beauty. The thing pinning him to the wall seemed to be a red colored sword. The blade looked like it was made from a mythical metal.

    Mythril of, course, was considered magical but not in the realm of legends. The sword was going straight through his neck. The only place where it seemed that it wasn¡¯t Mythril.

    It was now that Aisling noticed that the young girl wasn¡¯t looking at the man, but the armor. She seemed entranced by it. like the armor was her birthright. Meanwhile, the sword seemed like it was calling to Aisling.

    This wasn¡¯t the blade of Emner though. Because fate smiled on the little girl and she didn¡¯t even know it, the blade only was able to ask to be used instead of ordered.

    This sword is a Vladewood blade. Partially, a blood Vladewood sword. A blade grown from Vladewood was a very rare find. For Blood Vladewood was extinct. For if Blood Vladewood was carved into a blade and enchanted with a special enchantment that stopped the rotting of the wood, it would start to drink the blood of those who it killed.

    This was because the wood needed fuel for the enchantment. Usually, a Vladewood blade would draw Chi or mana from the wielder, slowly killing them in the process. But Blood Vladewood would draw from the victims it reaped.

    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    She pulled the blade from the man¡¯s corpse and looked at it. the blade thrummed under the hand of its new lord. It saw that she was powerful, and decreed in its heart that it would serve her.

    Aisling just thought it a cool, yet unique and unnerving blade. Sylvia looked at the newly fallen knight and grabbed his armor and stuffed it into her pack with the force of a Karen buying the right brand of peas she wanted.

    The two of them set the corpse in an honorable position and said a soft prayer. They then left the corpse to follow Dennis as he walked off. He was still waiting at the end of the new corridor for them as they did so.

    ¡­

    Venator was baffled. He had expected the girls to run back the way they came, but it was not so. It seemed to him that the Wumplebirve had come up with an idea.

    Said idea was to make a new tunnel and ignore him all the way back here. What irked him wasn¡¯t that he did that, it made sense no, what irked him was the fact that the tunnel connected with another one that he hadn¡¯t explored yet.

    He looked at the corpse of the Irish Knight and sighed. He didn¡¯t expect the tunnel to have this guy here. It also appeared to be a member of the ¡®Harps of Vlade¡¯. It was really an irksome encounter. These knights had used Mythril as armor and now he would have to deal with that.

    The girls would probably use the armor to their advantage. But now he was right confused. He couldn¡¯t tell if they went right or left. He cracked his stiff neck and sighed. He had been doping that a lot recently.

    When he got home, he would have to take out some of his stress on his lover. He didn¡¯t worry about her since she was into that sort of thing. Stretching, he went right. His pets then followed him down the hall as they had been tasked with getting their fellow to stop running from the Wumplebirve.

    As he walked, he thought about his son, the person who would succeed the throne. He was a good boy. Maybe too good. He needed to know who was boss in their relationship.

    Well, that was for the future, if he wanted to get close enough for that sort of thing to even be possible, he would have to get close to him. Maybe he could give this Beastkin girl to him as a present. He would have to train her in many different arts.

    ¡°Pets would some of you be good and go and scout out the party we¡¯re following?¡± he asked, or rather ordered them.

    Two of his five pets went ahead and started to tail the party of three. This was going to go well for him. At least he thought. For one thing he didn¡¯t know was that Dennis had found a tunnel with a dead end. But the dead end aligned with the tunnel that led to the surface.

    ¡­

    They were close to the end of this tunnel. Since Dennis could tunnel and dig his way around, Aisling guessed that this was what he was going to do. They were probably near the end of this chase.

    If she had to guess, the hunter or the Broken ones were on their tails. She could sense it. They were close, very close in fact. She looked behind her and saw something in the darkness.

    It was one of the things. It had found them yet again and was tailing them instead of outright coming after them. That probably meant it was a scout. That also meant that it was scouting for something or someone.

    The handler for these broken things was nearby. She could feel his gaze locking onto her. It sent a shiver down her spine. She gripped her new sword she had just gotten, and she could feel it pulsate.

    It tried to gage her feelings but all it could tell was that she was nervous about a thing that was going to happen. It couldn¡¯t tell her that it was here to kill any force that threatened its new master. In fact, it was kind of happy, the life force of whatever was making this strong person shake was surely tasty.

    She gripped the sword handle and looked forward once more. They had made it to the end of the tunnel and now Dennis was starting his digging. He quickly made his way into the dig rock and stone of the cave. It was then that Sylvia noticed Aisling¡¯s nervous face.

    She looked at her friend and smiled. She too had guessed the purpose of them coming down here. Of course, that didn¡¯t make this any less terrifying, but at least shew had her good friend here.

    During this whole adventure, they had started to get along swimmingly. She trotted over to her friend and gave her a big hug this caused Aisling to blush as she had been thinking about how their friendship had become rather close.

    She also had been thinking about what Sylvia would look like when they got older. Her blonde hair and green eyes were what one would call beautiful. When she got older many men would froth at the mouth just to see her¡­

    That wasn¡¯t a good line of thought to go down. She was only 11 right now. And Aisling was only 3, looking like six. She wouldn¡¯t have any chance with her. Especially since being Homosexual was looked down on in this region of the world.

    In the Byzantine Empire it wasn¡¯t looked down on at all though. So, if Aisling was to move for any reason, it would be there. This line of thought and explanation was going to weird places, so we¡¯ll stop here.

    She looked at Dennis again. It seemed like he had finally breached the other side and was nearly done. The three of them heard noises from the other side. Relief flooded through the two girls as they started to help out Dennis.

    Aisling grabbed the sword she got from the kidnappers and started to stab at the rock. It soon became clear who was on the other side of the stone. It was her father. His voice came to them like a waterfall.

    ¡°Aisling! My little girl is that you? Fathers here! Wait for a little longer. I new you were alive!¡± he shouted to them.

    Did everyone think she had been killed or sold to something of that effect? Well, it made sense, she had been missing for weeks. It would be a shock to say the least if they didn¡¯t think so.

    A Sound came from behind them, and the two girls turned and looked at where it came from. A man was stranding there. He wore what seemed to be casual clothes for spelunking, his brown hair and blue eyes were stark against the things behind him. He looked to be about 5ft 5in.

    He raked a hand through his hair. It seemed like he wasn¡¯t used to caves all too much. He cracked his neck and sighed. It seemed like he hadn¡¯t had the best day ever.

    ¡°I finally find you both, and your just about to get into the hands of your father¡­ this is just a horrible month in general,¡± he sighed yet again. ¡°Well, might as well kill all of you. Well, except for the little kids but I¡¯m getting ahead of myself.¡±

    Aisling¡¯s rage started to swell. This was the man who would kidnap kids. This was the man who would use these ¡®Things¡¯ to capture them. What sick mind this man has. What kind of fucker would do that?

    Well, she knew, this was the man who had been hunting them. They had been on the run for two weeks. If anything was to be gained from that it was this man sucked at his job.

    ¡°Pst, Sylvia, grab this sword and try and break away this rock,¡± she told Sylvia.

    Sylvia nodded her head and went to town on the rock. Stabbing it like it had murdered her mother. Dennis was nearly through, but the hole so far was only big enough for one person.

    Aisling squared off against the Hunter. Rage fueled gaze and the man seemed taken back by the eyes of this young girl. She pulled the Vladewood blade from her belt she had put on and made a stance.

    It wasn¡¯t a good stance, but it was correct for the most part at least. He seemed put off by this as he had never seen a stance like that before. It was much more fragile looking than most sword stances in this world.

    Aisling had seen a documentary about a sport known as HEMA. It was basically a sword fighting sport. She only remembered a few things from it but what she knew would be deadly.

    She had heard that all HEMA noobs sweep the legs so that¡¯s what she was going to do. And she was too short for anything else. The man rushed forward, and Aisling went between his legs.

    She then slashed at the back of his knees when she found herself behind him. He darted forward and whipped around so as to avoid the blow. He slashed at her from above and she met his blade with hers. She pushed the blade aside and pushed the point of her blade forwards and to the side, this staggered him somewhat.

    Now was her chance so she took it. she swung the blade left with a swift motion. This made the blade cut into the top of his forearm and the surface of his stomach. He jumped back a little.

    He looked down on his stomach and a rage filled scowl surfaced on his face. He darted forward stabbing at the little girl. But she side-stepped him and cut at his knees.

    ¡°GAH!¡± he yelped in pain as his shins were nearly cut.

    He had dodged but he was falling behind because of his lack of practice with the blade. He had never really needed to use one as his pets usually found his prey soon enough. But his pets wouldn¡¯t go near the girl right now. They could sense the bloodlust from the spirit of the sword.

    She had just picked up the blade and seemed like a naturel. She of course had seen HEMA in action, but that wasn¡¯t why. The sword she was using was helping her. It was basically giving her soft-lock aim assist.

    Right now, he was fuming like a toddler that hadn¡¯t gotten his way. He swept in a large arc in hopes of tripping the girl but that didn¡¯t do much. She simply blocked and swept his and her blade up, causing the sword to slip from his grasp.

    It was then an arrow landed in the back of his shoulder. He looked back to the tunnel and noticed that the grown men with sickles and axes were slowly making their way forward.

    ¡°FUCK,¡± he cursed and ran back to his pets.

    He tried to grab little Aisling, but she stabbed his hand, and he moved around her. Cursing as he did so, he hid behind his pets and pulled back. If they hadn¡¯t found the sword, then she would have had to deal with the Broken ones and the hunter known as Venator.

    This had been a crazy two weeks. Buit as her father went down on his hands and knees to hug her, all of her worry melted away.

 Chapter 5: S-word lessons (6)

    Chapter 5: S-word lessons

    This was the sixth year of her new life in this world. Of course, this world wasn¡¯t too different from her past one. There are a multitude of differences, but at the same time there were a multitude of similarities.

    Such as the fact that there is a rather large mountain range connecting Britannia and France. There was an island chain that looked like the Philippines and Hawaii had a love child they left abandoned on the side of the rode near the west coast of France. Italy had a weird finger thing sticking out of its knee.

    There were a multitude of similarities too of course. Such as Ireland always getting bullied by England. Germany was mostly the same actually. Oh, and there was no rivalry between England and France, or Francia as it was called in this world.

    Right now, she was playing in the garden of her good friend¡¯s, home and manor, Slyvia. Or, she would have called it playing if she had the mind of a child. She wanted to know sword play; in case someone catnapped her again.

    That led down a rabbit hole of her asking her father, then her father asking the mayor, then the mayor asking the baron. She had never actually met the baron. He had to move to Dublin so as to manage the Barony better.

    But his daughter put in a good word for her so now his marshal was teaching her how to move a sword. Standing a good 25ft way was Slyvia. She kept her back straight while in the presence of this man. A teacup in her hand, she called out tenderly.

    ¡°Aisling are you OK?¡± she asked.

    Aisling of course looked back to her and then was smote on the side of her head by the Marshal. She looked back at him and walked back to the starting spot. Every single time she was struck, she was to start over again.

    She showed up her stance that had now been forged into her and prepped her sword arms. She held the weighted stick in her hands and looked for a place to attack from. Her instructor was the Marshal and knight of the Baron.

    He was a rather strait-laced man. He had no time for fanciness. He had no time for unreliable sword styles either. Her sword was simply a cool looking stick that had weights cored into it.

    And he had made a game out of this training, on how many times she was going to try and hit him in the groin. That¡¯s why the author said she would probably think this a game.

    Every single time she tried to go for his crotch he would slap the side of her head. Of course, she knew it was wrong to go for it; but it would be too funny to see. She cracked her neck and probed froward, putting her foot forward and then the back one. Keeping her head protected with the sword, she walked forward.

    He then attacked. She parried the blow by flicking her blade the moment before his blade hit. This failed to push him back and he hit her blade. She tilted her sword to absorb the blow and his sword slid off.

    She then whipped her blade up and nearly struck him. But he moved his guard in place and flicked the point of her sword away. He then moved the point of his sword back at her. She ducked and swept his feet. He kicked the sword away and smooshed her head into the dirt. That ended the match.

    He got off of her head and went over to the table at the other end of yard. He picked up a pitcher of water and poured himself a glass of water. She got back up and Sylvia handed her a glass of water as well.

    It seemed that she was rather worried for her as Aisling had been utterly beaten. She had a long way to go in the sword play world. If she went for a different type of parry, then she would have won. But video games had told her that that was a way to parry blades.

    ¡­

    Later that day, Chloe Woodcutter was cooking in the woodcutter family kitchen. It was a rather long day as she had to go with her second youngest child to her sword¡­play¡­ practice¡­

    She didn¡¯t like her little girl doing sword tricks. It wasn¡¯t lady like. Sure, she could use the skills to get out of a couple tough situations but at most she would kill the criminal trying to do something to her little baby girl.

    She also didn¡¯t like the way the marshal looked at her friend Sylvia. She was a good girl. Sure, she was growing into her adult body now at age 14, but to look at her like that. It didn¡¯t sit well with her. That was the main reason the girl was here, with the woodcutter family for dinner.

    Chloe looked back to her pot of stew and nodded her head. It was supposed to be a really old recipe that Aisling found, but she knew that the girl had come up with it herself. The mother didn¡¯t mind the young girl keeping secrets. She had some of her own.

    She leaned back and a soft crack could be heard from her back. The girls seemed shocked by the fact that their mother had a bad back and looked over to her. She smiled at them and told them to be ready as it was nearly done.

    Sylvia looked awkward as she shifted in her seat. This was the first time she had been here, and it seemed like she was nervous. As Chloe picked up a stack of bowls from the cupboard she looked back at the girls.

    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Aisling and her sister seemed to be ready and eager for some stew while Sylvia seemed to be still nervous. Chloe called out to her.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be so nervous, you are my little girl¡¯s best friend. Treat this house as your house,¡± she told the young girl.

    This seemed to make the girl calm. But she now seemed to be confused after realizing something.

    ¡°Why am I here again? I don¡¯t mean to sound impolite but why? Aisling¡¯s and Alise¡¯s birthday was yesterday, so why?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Because it is Kaelin¡¯s birthday and he has no friends, so we invited you. But he is currently enjoying time with his girlfriend,¡± she told Sylvia.

    Sylvia blushed at this. She realized what that meant. Aisling looked at her and giggled. Alise looked at the girl with confused eyes and then at Aisling, her older sister. To tell you all the truth Alise was also a reincarnation. But she had died at such a young age that it all would have seemed like a dream to the younger child.

    All in all, this situation confused her. For she saw a multitude of futures for her older sister and Sylvia. She saw them arguing, making love, and other things that would get any YouTube video demonetized.

    ¡­

    The two love birds giggled as they walked down the pathway to their little, secret cave. Kaelin held his girlfriend¡¯s hand in his. He had finally got her to go out with him. Sarah was very happy. She didn¡¯t realize up until now that he would be so devoted to her.

    He got her anything she wished. He worked hard for her. If she wanted a rose from the baron¡¯s garden, done. If she wished for a chicken for her family¡¯s hen house, done.

    As they walked down the well-beaten path, he noticed something. Or more likely, someone. It was his little sister, Aisling. It seemed that she had followed them here, and somehow gotten in front of them.

    As soon as the two of them got to her Aisling walked right up to them and hugged her brother. It was her birthday gift to him. Of course, a hug isn¡¯t the best present for one¡¯s birthday but¡­ He already had everything he needed in his life, so this was the next best thing.

    ¡°I love you Kaelin. I just wanted to give you a hug because I couldn¡¯t think of anything to get you for your birthday. We already had dinner, but mother is making the flapjack cake you like later. You better come home after you¡¯re done making me a couple of nieces or nephews,¡± she told Kaelin, shocking him.

    Let¡¯s leave that right there. Right at the Insinuating line. The Athur doesn¡¯t want to continue because of writers¡¯ block in this scene so we¡¯re moving on.

    As Aisling walked away from the two of them, she had a thought.

    ¡®I wonder what my relationship with Sylvia will be in the future. Will we still be friends? Will she accept my growing feelings for her? Will these feelings have faded into nothing? And finally, will Sarah stop looking at me with that strange gaze?¡¯

    She looked back and saw Sarah now leading Kaelin into the cave. It seemed like she would be the one with pants in that relationship. Or maybe only whenever the pants were off. God the author needs to get his head out of the gutter.

    She walked back to where her little sister was standing and grabbed her hand. Alise only tilted her head at this as she was pulled back to the road. They started to walk back home. It was only about 15 minutes of walking back home.

    After about a minute of walking down the road and multiple hand waves to passersby, however, the spell Aisling made for her wore off. At first, nothing happened. But a small image arrived in her mind.

    It was a sword.

    As soon as it came to the front of her mind, a dam broke in her head. Images of her sister¡¯s life flashed through her head. Death, pain, misery. It all filed into her mind. Alise dropped to the ground. She gripped her head. She screamed into the sky.

    SO¡­

    MUCH¡­

    PAIN¡­

    Aisling didn¡¯t know what to do so she simply cast her spell once more. It went away. All the pain she felt in that instant was gone. All the suffering was gone in that instant.

    But the images were still playing in her mind. Her sister being beaten by some large mass of flesh. Bloody hands, torn limbs, spilling guts, loss of family, they all flashed. In that moment Alise was dumbstruck.

    Even in her past visions nothing as much as this had passed through her head. And then something else passed through her mind, a man. He looked like that hunter she had seen in her dreams; he had been chasing down her sister. But he was different.

    Brown hair, blue eyes, a set of scars running across his cheek. He stood in a battlefield. As he stood, he took in a deep breath; then she saw him mouth something she wouldn¡¯t forget, ¡°for my war goddess¡±.

    The man stood with a back that was ramrod straight. His plate armor gleamed in the light of the setting sun. piles of corpses being burned in his periphery. He pulled his morning star from the ground it had been lodged in.

    She didn¡¯t know who this was. She didn¡¯t know the circumstances. She only knew that this was certain. Pain and misery awaited her sister. Mother was nowhere to be found. Father was burning with the others.

    And her sister¡­

    Was falling from the s¡­

    She was snapped out of her vision. Aisling was hugging her little sister. She didn¡¯t know how long she had been stuck like that. She didn¡¯t know how long she had been crying either.

    She touched her hand to the side of her face; a tear was running down her cheek. She saw many things in that instant. Many of which a girl of her age should not witness. Though she was reincarnated, she wasn¡¯t the age in either life where a girl had to worry of a life like this.

    The tears began to flow. First it would be considered a drizzle, then a downpour, finally a typhoon. If only her sister was born a decade earlier. If only then she wouldn¡¯t have to deal with this pain.

    She hugged her older sister close. It seemed to her that she could fall out of reach at any moment. Only time could tell her if this was to be fate. Only time could tell her that her family would be alright. Her older sister picked her up and carried her home, tears still rolling down her face.

    As they got home, mother and father ran up to them. She could tell by the looks on their faces that they hadn¡¯t expected her to start crying from her night terrors in the middle of the day.

    ¡°Mother, Father, you open the door to our room; I have to set her down somewhere,¡± she asked.

    In response her father grabbed the both of them in his arms and carried them to his and their mother¡¯s room. he kicked the slightly ajar door open and plopped down on his bed.

    He sat against the wall, cooing the little girl till she fell asleep. Aisling was shocked by this. Her father knew what to do at that moment. Her father had the power in his heart to help her little sister fall asleep while she cried from the terror and sadness of whatever she saw.

    He was a ma- no he was a father. A real father that cares for his children. A real father who sees his children as truly precious. As pure as gold was his heart. At that thought, she too, fell asleep.

 Chapter 6: The Draft (7)

    Chapter 6: The Draft

    Aisling stretched, it was about a week past her own birthday and life was going pretty well. At first, she had been worried that her life was going to end at age three. She had nearly died on a multitude of occasions. It seemed to her that everything was coming up Milhouse.

    It had been six years since her catnapping and now she was nine years old. Her brother was nineteen and had married Sarah. It was almost as if she had taken Aisling¡¯s advice and made a niece for her.

    The child¡¯s name was Athoria. She was three years old and was currently making a mess of the backyard. While she looked six, she was actually only three as mentioned and as such had a bumbling personality.

    Beastkins¡¯ personality during this age was very strange. They could go from acting their physical age or their chronological age. That was why Aisling was looked at like a rather mature lady.

    She only really acted like her physical age or older. Currently, she looked twelve. She still acted her physical age though. If she was going to be in this life might as well act like it was her own life instead of someone else¡¯s life she had taken over.

    The young girl of about three walked over to her aunt and grabbed at her leg. It seemed to Aisling that the little girl wanted to wrestle. She went down on her knees and grabbed at her, pulling her into a tickling match.

    The young girl didn¡¯t in fact want to wrestle. It was just that Aisling had no idea what actual young girls liked to play when they were kids. For her, she loved to wrestle with her older brother.

    But now she only really ever played sword games with the marshal. Such games included her not being able to see so she could better sense the world around her. The games were also basically just her training with none of her senses and only just her mana and chi sense.

    What was really hard was when the marshal had her put on weights and run fifteen laps around the manor, only to ask her for a sparring match. And when he won, because she would be exhausted after it, he would rub it in her face for some reason.

    He was not like that before she had turned seven. It was at age seven that he would basically make her feel little. She had a feeling he was scared of her for some reason. She couldn¡¯t understand why though.

    The little girl then started to retaliate by pinching her aunt¡¯s elbow. For some reason, it did not hurt. A beastkins¡¯ fingers, depending on what beast they are, are usually tipped with claws. The little girl used these claws to pinch her aunt.

    The older girl simply didn¡¯t seem to care as she continued her onslaught. The little girl had finally managed to get away and then stood up and caught her breath. Aisling had basically forced all the air from her lungs from that tickle fest.

    She hadn¡¯t realized that but now that she saw how out of breath her little niece was, she grew concerned. She waddled over on her knees and grabbed her again, this time she peppered her with kisses.

    ¡°Aunty, let me go! I want to tell you a secret,¡± the little girl said.

    Oh, now this has to be good. It was probably a secret pertaining to which kid she had a crush on. Or maybe it was something to do with her older brother? Only listening to this little girl would tell.

    She stopped tickling her niece and looked at her expectantly. This seemed to have inflated her ego. The girl of three stood with her hands on her hips and a triumphant look on her face.

    ¡°Mama is gonna have another baby. Imma be a BBBBIIIIGGGGG sister!¡± she exclaimed.

    ¡°Sarah is pregnant?¡± Aisling asked.

    ¡°Yup, and I¡¯m gonna be a big sister!¡± she exclaimed once more.

    Aisling was kind of shocked. Yeah, sure the family might need more workers for the family business, and sure Sarah might have had a miscarriage after Athoria was born. But she expected that miscarriage to discourage her, not make her want another kid.

    ¡®How horny are they? Whenever I show up after I¡¯m done babysitting Athoria and show up early all I hear is them enjoying each other¡¯s company. Sooner or later, they¡¯ll ruin their daughter¡¯s innocence,¡¯ she thought.

    ¡°Are you sure your mama and papa are good with this? Maybe they wanted to tell me?¡± she asked, making sure that she was well informed.

    ¡°Yep, they told me to tell you!¡± she told her aunt in a loud whisper.

    ¡°OK, thanks for telling me. Here¡¯s a present in exchange,¡± she said, grabbing the girl and hugging her close.

    She kissed the young girl on the cheek and continued to kiss the little one till tears started to form in her eyes. She started to laugh and laugh until she soon got fed up with her aunt holding her like this and tried to escape. This plan failed and she was bombarded even more with kisses.

    Later that day, when Aisling brought her niece back to her brother¡¯s house, she heard the two love birds arguing. She didn¡¯t know why though, maybe it had something to do with Sarah¡¯s pregnancy.

    Knocking on the door, then opening it, she saw that they had gotten into a heated discussion. They weren¡¯t even holding back in their insults to each other. It seemed like they had started to hate each other for no discernable reason.

    As this was no way to act in front of one¡¯s child, she walked right up to them and grabbed their ears. The both of them could be considered short back on her earth. In fact, she was rather short, but that didn¡¯t mean that she couldn¡¯t grab their ears.

    ¡°The both of you, stop arguing. You¡¯re making Athoria tear up and I don¡¯t want to be the one to calm her down. I¡¯m not very good at that,¡± she reprimanded them.

    It seemed that this got them to realize what time it was. They both looked at the clock and gasped. It was around 7:00 PM. This was about the time when Athoria was supposed to be home, and they didn¡¯t realize it was that time already.

    ¡°What are you two even arguing over anyway. If the argument took you two into the evening, then it must be something important-ish. Then again, you two didn¡¯t seem to even be thinking what you were spouting,¡± Aisling said.

    ¡°We were talking about the message we got in the from the tax collector. He seems to have been ordered to tell everyone who he visited that there will be a massive draft after the harvest,¡± explained Kaelin, much to Aisling¡¯s shock.

    ¡®What, a draft? Are we going to war? What is all this about?¡¯ she racked in her brain.

    ¡°And we were talking about it calmly until the topic of how long he would be gone for came up. I was starting to get upset about the Baron and then Kaelin started to defend him. We might have started to get a bit mad¡­¡± Sarah trailed off.

    ¡°Ok, that doesn¡¯t really matter right now. The fact of the matter is that you have no power of the Baron, and he has no power over the Duke,¡± Aisling complained; ¡°what is the draft even for? Are we going to war or are we preparing for a power struggle yet again?¡± Aisling asked.

    ¡°We don¡¯t know, and its very frustrating that we can¡¯t get any more information about it¡­ it makes me mad,¡± Sarah said.

    ¡°Well, you two should apologize to each other and explain why you were arguing to Athoria. To make up for it, don¡¯t dump her on me tomorrow. I love her like a daughter but you two can¡¯t keep doing that every other day!¡± Aisling told them.

    They apologized to each other and then explained everything in a turned down way to Athoria. She seemed very confused but happy that her Parents weren¡¯t yelling at each other. She was also very happy that she was going to spend time with her mama and papa.

    Aisling went home after that. It seemed to her that after the two parents put Athoria to sleep that they would be making up for the argument in bed. Some late-night wrestling was going to fix this issue.

    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    All of this was new information was making her head hurt and she desperately wanted to sleep. When she got home, she would have mother let her rest her head in her lap after some pleading. After all, who wouldn¡¯t say no to this face.

    ¡­

    It was currently June; harvest was in September. It was going to be a while till the draft was here. So, Aisling wanted to make sure that her family was going to be okay. She got up from bed and stretched. A loud crack came from the young girl¡¯s back.

    Many people who haven¡¯t got a good memory would ask why she has a bad back. It is that she still isn¡¯t used to the beds of her home. Then again, none of the family is. She went over to her sister¡¯s bed and looked under the covers.

    The young lass was still asleep. She pulled the covers off and kissed her little sister¡¯s forehead. She did this to make her mad for the most part. It worked, and her sister was up and angry.

    ¡°Aisling! Stop kissing me! It¡¯s weird! No one else kisses their sibling¡¯s good morning. Get back here, lets see how you like it!¡± she shouted at her older sister.

    But by the time she had gotten out of bed it was too late, her sister that had woken her up so rudely had run off to the kitchen. In the kitchen was mother. She was currently making soup. Let¡¯s hope it¡¯s not too hot. She looked over to the girls to see them running after each other. It had been a week since the notice for the draft came by and she wasn¡¯t worried.

    While Aisling had a lot of worries, her mother had none. It was simply because she had a feeling that her husband and son were going to be stationed at home or near the mythril mines. These mines were only a couple dozen miles south of town.

    but the thing that really worried her was the fact that the taxes were going up. They continued to climb until their family had coughed up most of their savings. This was a rather big problem for a multitude of reasons.

    <ol>

    <li>Lumber wasn¡¯t needed as of now as Westport had a fleet of ships guarding it already.</li>

    <li>The forest was getting sparse.</li>

    </ol>

    Over many years of not replanting the hundreds of trees that hadn¡¯t been cut down, the forest was getting rather thing. In about two generations of woodcutters, the trees would no longer be there.

    <ol start="3">

    <li>Because of the rampant cutting of lumber, the wild game was sure to run away and move to other lands.</li>

    </ol>

    The economy was to surely fall behind when it came to wild game and selling of it. then the price of food would go up. As you all know she has two wonderful children. It would be very hard to get enough food for them.

    All in all, she didn¡¯t know how to properly get the money to feed her family. They will have to eat a lot of soup in the near future. It was a rather good coincidence that both her daughters like soup a lot. Now if only there was a soup store¡­

    The girls sat down at the dinner table when they had gotten their fill of chasing each other around the house. Mother poured out a bowl for each of them and they started to dig in, but mother stopped them. Mother wanted to wait for their father to get out of the bathroom.

    Later that day, when father and mother had gone out to buy groceries, the two girls got to planning. Alise and Aisling had come up with a plan to make money fast.

    While the young Alise could see the future and knew that this would actually work, Aisling was not so chipper. What was their plan, you may ask? They would hunt down the animals fleeing the woods and sell them to the butcher so they could get the food cheaper.

    Neither mother nor father had any idea on how to skin an animal so they would have to spend money on that. But other than that, the plan was set. All they needed to do was go where the fleeing animals were and set a trap for them.

    So, the two girls set off to the river that ran inland, that was where the animals were fleeing to escape the hunters of the town. They soon arrived at the forest and plunged into its sparce area.

    They didn¡¯t see any animals, but they could smell their trails. Many people think that a beastkins¡¯ nose was better than a humans¡¯ but that was false. If they trained their sense of smell though, then it could get moderately better.

    Aisling soon started to sense the mana and chi of several wild animals. She pulled her little sister behind a large tree too large to be cut down and peeked around the corner.

    There sat an ork, many people thought that orks were sapient creatures, but they weren¡¯t. They simply were humanoid in shape, but they couldn¡¯t speak. They also didn¡¯t have a very good memory.

    Their memory only lasted around a couple of months as one could guess; and as such, they simply didn¡¯t recognize each other after long periods of time. In the event that they found an old friend or enemy, they mostly just observed each other and often times simply killed one another if they were a threat.

    Their appearance was like that of a chimp and a pig mixed in one. Imagine the body of a chimp, with the amount of fat of a pig. Give this animal the beady little eyes of a pig and the ears of one then you have yourself a ork.

    Aisling walked a bit forward and gripped her sword. I bet you forgot about that thing, didn¡¯t you? Well so did the author. He hasn¡¯t had the best ideas flowing through his noggin. He has a lot of writer¡¯s block, and the usual way of getting rid of it isn¡¯t working.

    Back to the storyline.

    Aisling pulled out her sword from her scabbard and inched forward even more. It was then that the ork saw her and it sat up. The beast screamed and roared at her, but she was determined. The beast didn¡¯t know how to respond, and it roared again.

    The beast was confused on why its foolproof plan wasn¡¯t working and, in that time it took to try and think, she rushed it. She swung her blade at the orks neck and cleaved it off of his neck.

    Her sword hungerly drank the thing¡¯s blood so she no longer hard to let the blood drain. That was perfect. In fact, she could probably wait here so as to let her sword get its fill.

    Alise came from the other side of the tree and looked at the beast.

    ¡°It¡¯s so ugly, would anyone actually buy this?¡± she asked.

    It seemed that she wasn¡¯t a fan of the look of an ork. That was understandable. It was rather ugly in Aisling¡¯s eyes as well. As soon as the ork was dry she grabbed the carrying brace from Alise and prepped the ork. She didn¡¯t know how to butcher such an animal, but she did know where its stomach was.

    ¡­

    He didn''t know where his kids had gone. The last he saw of them, they had come with him into the woods as they said they wanted to see their father work. Now, he didn¡¯t know where they had off too. It was like they had lied about wanting to watch him work.

    They probably had, they most definitely had. He was going top have to scold them later. They had often done this now; he feared that they weren¡¯t going to learn that lying was wrong.

    But then again, he had told them both a white lie when Aisling walked in on her mother and him making them a sibling. That hadn¡¯t panned out, but he did want to teach Aisling about the Fae and the Fair sometime later.

    They had started to do this about 4 months ago that they had started to do this. It made him rather curious about what they were actually doing. Were they acting out different games and such? Were they meeting up with the neighborhood boys?

    That was something to worry about later. The harvest was nearly here, and he wanted to tell his family about it soon. Surely his two daughters knew nothing about it, right?

    ¡­

    Aisling did a big stretch. She arched her back and opened her mouth in a yawn. It was a good day. Or rather, a good hunt. She and Alise had been hunting for the past 4 months in the woods as a team.

    Though, it was more of just her killing things but that was really just it. when they killed what they were hunting they packed it up and brought it to the butcher. He then bought it and gave them the proper amount of coin for them.

    All in all, it was rather lucrative. They managed to make just enough for the weekly tax. But without father¡¯s pay from all the lumber he was selling it would be harder to make the right amount of money to pay them off. He was of course going to get paid while being conscripted but it wasn¡¯t going to be enough to pay for the weekly taxes on its own.

    She walked over to her sister who was currently trying to put the deer on the rack that they used to carry their kills. She picked up the rack and set it down again so as to get a better placement for the kill.

    Alise picked up the deer and set it back down onto the rack. The two of them tied the deer in place and Aisling picked it up and strapped it to her back. She stood up and she heard a crack come from her back as the weight was fully felt. Alise looked back at her and smiled.

    ¡°let¡¯s get back to the butcher¡¯s shop. It is almost time for dinner, and we don¡¯t want to be too late,¡± she said.

    Aisling nodded at this and began to walk to town. As soon as they got there, they spotted the butcher¡¯s shop just off of the main street. They opened the door and saw the butcher. He was making sausage and was dutifully doing so. He looked up from his work and noticed them walking towards him.

    He was right behind the counter and had an apron with grease stains on it. The apron was a deep brown color. If one were to ask Aisling or, anyone for that matter, what a butcher looked like, he would pop into their head. Or a butcher that looked like him.

    They sold him the kill they made and received the money they were owed. They soon made their way out of the building and got back home. There, they noticed something strange. Father wasn¡¯t in his normal garb; he was wearing a suit of mail armor. On his hip was a brass mace and strapped to his left hand was a buckler shield.

    He looked at them.

    ¡°Well girls, I think it is about time to tell you. Father is going away for a while. I don¡¯t know how long I¡¯m going to be gone for, but I hope you pray for me. As I have been told, we are now at war with Francia. They have declared war on us and wish to kill the royal family. They also wish to steal the mythril mines from us.

    So, I¡¯m going to leave home for a while. I don¡¯t know how long we are going to be apart, but I will be fine, trust me. I love you both, very much,¡± he told the two girls.

    Ailing was rather confused. She did not expect him to have to go so suddenly. But as he walked over to them, and gave them a goodbye hug, she could only stand there confused and shocked. She knew that he would leave, she spent months saving up money to be able to pay off the increasing taxes.

    But as he left the house to go to the recruitment tent that had been set up in town square. She could only hug him back, praying for his safety. She had been taught the horrors of war in her past life, and now it was appearing here as well. She had expected him to leave in the morning, after all, that give the most time for the recruitment officers to set everything up, but they were always prepared.

    As he walked out of the house he looked back at his kids, Alise waved happily, knowing that she would see her father again, but as he shifted his gaze to his older daughter¡­

    She had her back turned to him, she was turning, but ever so slowly. It was as if the world was going in slow motion for her. As he closed the door, he Saw the look on her face, and it was full of fear.

 Chapter 7: Loss of Family (8)

    Chapter 7: Loss of Family

    Yeah know, people often say that you don¡¯t know how good you have it till you lose it. Aisling was hating that phrase right about now. The funds from her father had been more than she had thought. Now that he wasn¡¯t here, they were barely scraping by.

    The taxes have gone up in recent months. It was taking all of their money and mother was starting to have to use the food they stored for winter in order to be able to feed them. It was rather infuriating to Aisling as she knew why this was happening.

    If one were to ask her if she wanted this stupid war to end to see the taxes relent, she would agree. It was getting bad. There really was no inflation at least, that was good. There was a great amount of construction going on in Dublin, the home of the duke the controlled the whole of Ireland.

    The duke had once been the Royal King of Ireland, but had fallen to invaders. The English needed the land that the Irish had to grow food. They also wanted the secret recipe of Royal Mythril.

    She was ten years old now. Father had been gone for about a year now. She had just had her birthday yesterday. But without Kaelin or father it simply felt empty. Her niece was wondering where her father was, and Aisling had to tell her that her dad wasn¡¯t going to be back for another long while.

    She walked down the street without her little sister. She had gone to the market without her this time. This was so she could actually get into some trouble without her being involved.

    A group of men had been following the girls for a while now. Said group of men were four in number and had been watching and stalking the girls for about two weeks. Aisling found this rather strange that a group of grown men were following a little girl every day.

    She simply thought they were mistaken about her identity at first. She thought they thought that she was someone important to Sylvia or the Baron. That was what anyone would think after all.

    Or maybe she was being stalked because they thought she had money. It was as simple as that in reality. Many people don¡¯t have money right now because of the increase in taxes. She looked to an alleyway off of the main street and walked down it.

    In the alleyway there were a multitude of homeless people. Several of them looked at her and sighed. Some of them had had homes not too long ago. But the tax hike had forced them out.

    When she went deep enough into the alleyway she turned around and spotted them. She expected people dressed in suspicious garb. But the men were wearing normal looking clothes and seemed to be the average person in every sense of the word.

    It was just that they had the look of desperation in their eyes. It seemed that they were here simply to rob her. She rolled her neck and gripped the hilt of her sword. She kept it hidden on her back behind her coat.

    The temperature was starting to drop, and she and her sister had started to wear their winter garb. It was a rather thick and heavy winter coat the color of coal. The crooks pulled Knives out of their pockets and pointed them at her.

    ¡°We don¡¯t want to do this kid. But we have no money to spend on booze or women. Give us whatever you have in that coat, and we will let you go,¡± the middle man begged.

    It seemed like she would have to tell these men not to spend all their money on booze and women. Many single men that had no future or were simply to broke to be able to make sure their wives were happy, usually spent their money on stuff like that.

    She was not going to feel bad about this beatdown.

    Before they could react, she ran forward. Stabbing at the middle man. She aimed her blade for his ear. This was so she didn¡¯t hurt him too much. He dropped his knife and fell onto his rear end.

    The next closest man looked and this and decided that he had pretty good odds at winning. Like, she was just a prodigy at swordplay, how good could she really be? He failed as he held his knife in a reverse grip and tried to stab the young girl¡¯s head from the top.

    She dodged to the side and stabbed him in the forearm. She pulled the blade from his arm as he started to scream. He fell back and ran out of the alleyway. The two other men gawked at this. They too felt as though this was a fight they could win together though.

    By the end of the fight, she had three grown men groveling at her feet. These grown men had given her all of their remaining money. She needed the money so she could pay the increased taxes. She went home a happy kitty. But when she got there, that happiness slipped away.

    For the Tax collector had arrived. And something outrageous was happening. That something was Sarah.

    ¡­

    ¡°Get off of him Sarah! What is wrong with you? Pay your taxes like a normal woman and not with whatever this was supposed to be!¡± Aisling shouted at her sister-in-law.

    Aisling had to separate Sarah and the Tax collector from each other as she had tried to pay the taxes with her body. This was going to be a long day. If she was being honest, she would have been fed up with Sarah¡¯s shenanigans.

    Aisling was contemplating taking her niece from Sarah. But she had to stay strong. Her niece was young, and she needed a mother figure. She needed her mother. It was heart breaking to think this way.

    She had openly expressed how much she missed her husband. She had told Aisling herself that she was missing their nights together. How much she was made whole by Kaelin.

    It was rather eye opening for her. As someone who had never had a lover or girlfriend in their past life, Aisling was rather shocked to hear how much she missed her husband.

    It made her think of how lonely her mother was in comparison to Sarah. The thought of her perfect mother silently suffering was enough to send shivers down her spine. She even got the sense that her mother might have done something like this if she weren¡¯t so mature.

    Aisling thought of Sarah as a sister at this point. It was rather strange to see her so broken and out there about how she felt without Kaelin. It made her wonder why she would do something like this.

    Maybe it was simply because she missed him so much that she wanted to feel like how she felt with him with other men? Maybe it was because of the fact that the oppressive taxes and weight on her mind with her husband¡¯s safety pushed her to do dumb and often idiotic things?

    In all likelihood, it was probably because of the stress of the all of the factors that pushed her to do this. Aisling looked at the Tax collector and threw the bag of coins at his feet. He nodded at her and took the money.

    She looked back at the seemingly emotionally broken woman and sighed.

    ¡°You can¡¯t throw yourself at people like that. You have a daughter and a husband. Sure, that husband is at war right now, but you still have to stay strong here for him. What will my brother think of his wife if she sells herself like that?¡± she asked.

    Sarah looked at her sister-in-law and deadpanned. Her mind was a cloud of painful emotions at those words. She didn¡¯t even know how to respond.

    ¡°And this is our house. You do not even pay taxes here. What are you doing here? What Business do you have here? Did you come here to ask for money? What is it that you want? I¡¯m not even sad or disappointed anymore. I¡¯m just angry that you would even do that,¡± Aisling railed into her.

    She flinched at her own words. She was truly angry, but in all honesty, she didn¡¯t even mean for it to sound that bad. She simply wanted to get her point across, but it came out angry and loud.

    Sarah stood up and started to cry. First it came as a drizzle, then a downpour. She crumpled to her knees and kept choking back the worst of her sobs. Aisling rushed over and grabbed her in her arms. She rubbed the older woman¡¯s back and cooed.

    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

    ¡°It¡¯s all right, my brother would have forgiven you. Now let it all out,¡± she said, rubbing her back.

    ¡°Sniffle- I miss him so much! -sniffle- you can¡¯t even know what it feels like! -sniffle- to not have him in bed next to you! -sob- I miss him so much!¡± she sobbed.

    Aisling looked at the face of her sister-in-law. She had tears running down her face. She had snot starting to drip down her face and she was about ready to start pouring tears again.

    Aisling kissed her cheek as if she was trying to make a child feel better. She had lived more years than her sister-in-law, at least chronologically. This made her feel as if Sarah was her younger sister instead of an older one.

    She hugged her surrogate older sister and sighed. She continued to rub the older woman¡¯s back while she whaled for her love. The two of them didn¡¯t even know what his fate would be in this war.

    He may die, he may live. Little did the two girls know that this wasn¡¯t the end of their worries. Fate had decided that pain was the road that this family would walk on. Fate had decreed that death was to be their travel companion.

    That was all a fancy way of saying that they didn¡¯t have much happiness left in this world. Sorrow was to be the whip that drove them forward. Anger was to be the food that fueled the little girl that held her sister in her arms. Anger and hatred were to be her driving force in the years to come.

    Hours of this embrace passed by. Aisling grew a bit hungry, and she looked at the clock that hung from the dining room wall. It was only 5:00. Sarah should probably go home by now.

    Or maybe the young mother of one should eat here with her daughter. That would be a much better idea. Then they could let her mind be at ease within the presence of family.

    ¡°Sarah, its five. My niece is probably hungry. After all, she is a growing girl. How about you two eat here today, huh? Is that a good idea?¡± she asked the older woman.

    She nodded at this and looked to the door frame that led outside. There, standing in the doorway was her mother. In her hands she held a tarp bag full of dried meat and veggies. She looked at the two girls kneeling and holding each other in their arms and asked something.

    ¡°Sarah, may I ask why you are here at such an hour? Your daughter is surly hungry, and it is not good habit to leave one¡¯s child unattended,¡± she asked the younger woman.

    It took a multitude of tries to get her to tell mother why she was here. Aisling didn¡¯t even know why she was here. She had started to cry before she even had a chance to tell them why.

    ¡°I came here to talk to you. I just got word that Kaelin is going to go to the front lines! He hasn¡¯t even been to war before, but he has been told to fight in the front before he even see¡¯s blood!¡± shew balled.

    ¡°That¡¯s no good,¡± mother said, ¡°but we can talk about that once I feed my grandbaby and daughter in law. Aisling, would you be a dear and go and grab you niece for me?¡± she asked.

    ¡°OK,¡± was Aisling¡¯s only response.

    As she went out the door she looked back at her mother and sister-in-law. Her mother was helping her up and directing her to the table. Mother looked at Aisling at that moment and beckoned her to go and grab her niece.

    ¡­

    Dinner went well, Sarah got to tell the whole family about her own feelings. In all honesty, Aisling was getting tuckered out. Her mind felt like it was being swamped out by her sister¡¯s feelings and thoughts.

    She felt it weas rather a pity that she didn¡¯t stay up during the whole talk. She looked down at her own food and then leaned back in her chair. She felt like dozing off. And that is exactly what happened. Her head slumped to the right and her body grew still except for the rhythmic breathing of her sleeping chest.

    Mother noticed this and stood up. She grabbed her first daughter and pulled her into her arms.

    ¡°I think it is getting late. We might have to put Aisling and Athoria to bed. It seems that they can¡¯t take all of your woes and tears. I¡¯ll put them to bed, just keep eating your dinner,¡± she told her daughter-in-law.

    Mother went to the nursery and put Aisling in her own bed and Athoria in Kaelin¡¯s old bed. When she was doing that Sarah sat with her own thots for a bit. She kept repeating the words from the letter in her mind over and over again.

    ¡°We are sending this letter to inform you that your husband has been relocated to Rotterdam in Occupied Francia. He will be at this post until the foreseeable future.¡±

    ¡°We are sending this letter to inform you that your husband has been relocated to Rotterdam in Occupied Francia. He will be at this post until the foreseeable future.¡±

    ¡°We are sending this letter to inform you that your husband has been relocated to Rotterdam in Occupied Francia. He will be at this post until the foreseeable future.¡±

    The words kept repeating and repeating. They soon started to change within her mind. Like her fears were starting to grip her. She soon started to get upset and depressed at the new words floating in her head.

    Like a broken record player that hadn¡¯t been invented yet, it took on a unnerving tone. Tears started to form in the corners of her eyes. Her sight was blinded by her own fears and mixed-up phobias.

    ¡°We regret to inform you that your husband and lover has died fighting for the crown, have a wonderful day!¡±

    ¡°We regret to inform you that your husband and lover has died fighting for the crown, have a wonderful day!¡±

    ¡°We regret to inform you that your husband and lover has died fighting for the crown, have a wonderful day!¡±

    She balled her hands into fists and pushed them into her face, covering her eyesight even more and causing it to swim. Strange shapes colored, pink, yellow and purple, danced in that blackened vision.

    She let her head drop onto the table and openly sobbed. Soon though, mother came back. As soon as she saw her daughter in but blood only, she walked over and held her in her arms.

    ¡°Hush now little one. It would do little good to have the wife of my first-born cry like this, now would it. You can stay in my arms as long as you would like. As long as you need and find my body comforting you can stay here,¡± she whispered to her daughter.

    Sarah simply nodded her head. She had broken down today. She didn¡¯t know how to feel now that her family had seen her like this, but they didn¡¯t seem to mind. As her breathing became more and more even, she slowly drifted away from the land of the conscious and to the land of dreams.

    Mother set her back down on the chair she was sitting on and went to her own room and grabbed a blanket from there. She then came back and set it on her daughter in all but blood.

    She looked back to her daughter¡¯s room and sighed. It seemed like Alise didn¡¯t want to see her niece. For whatever reason, she got incredibly sad and down whenever she saw her sister-in-law, or her niece. Mother suspected that it was the special magic she weas born with, but who was to say other than the girl herself.

    Mother stretched her back and heard a deep crack. She sighed in happiness ands walked to her own room. It was going to be a long and lonesome night for her. She laid down on her own bed and turned around. Her love was supposed to be there. He was supposed to hug her till they fell asleep in each other¡¯s arms.

    But he was off in a war, he was not here right now, and he wouldn¡¯t be for the foreseeable future. She sat up again and took off her clothes and set them in her laundry basket. She laid back in bed and pulled the blankets over her head.

    ¡­

    She was running, from what? She could not tell. It was as if the very thought of what was coming would bring it closer. She panted as if she were a dog, trying to make her body rejuvenated faster so as to run faster.

    But that wasn¡¯t how this song and dance would play out. She would die here. She looked around the cave and sighed. This place was to be her resting place. It was to be the place where she made her last stand against whatever it was that was chasing her.

    But it was strange. It was almost as if she craved this feeling, in a masochistic sort of way. She pulled her sword from its sheath and stared down the rocky corridor. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. She opened them again only to find herself back home.

    But it wasn¡¯t home. It was home home, the place where she had spent the first 27 years of her past life living.

    ¡®Why am I here?¡¯ she asked her mind.

    The young man now looked around to find the room he had spent his past life in. the wall of cool license plates and posters of cute anime girls was a dead giveaway. It was almost as if he had never left. Never been killed by that falling tree.

    And it had found him. The walls closed in on him and his hand went to his belt where he kept his sword. But then he remembered that was him, that was Aisling. That was her life¡¯s work; her trade was the sword.

    The thing closed in on the door. Loud banging could be heard. The thing was nearly here. He could feel his death in his bones. And then the door broke. Light spilled in the room.

    ¡­

    Aisling woke up to a dull morning, except this morning was going to be anything but dull. She got out of bed and stretched. She then walked over to her sister¡¯s bed and shook her awake.

    Her sister woke up with a start and stared at Aisling as if she was making sure that shew was real. She simply looked at Alise funny in response and went to the door.

    Going out into the hallway, she moved herself as if she was merely a puppet on strings. For the dream she had left her feeling depressed and used up. Moving her way to the kitchen she rolled her neck and a loud pop echoed around the room.

    She went over to the sink and poured herself a cup of water and guzzled it down. The cool water filled her throat and mind. It cleared her. She could think now. Think through the weird dream she had.

    ¡°What was that dream?¡± she questioned out loud, ¡°It didn¡¯t feel like a nightmare, but it was a nightmare; So strange.¡±

    Mother soon went back into the house. She had gone out to grab some firewood so as to start that oven. The oven extended into the fireplace. Father had built the oven and fireplace like that so they could save heat in the cold mornings of winter.

    ¡°What nightmare?¡± mother questioned.

    She had only heard the tale end of Aisling¡¯s sentence, so she had to describe the whole thing to her mother. It took about fifteen minutes, but to Aisling, it felt like an eternity. Of course, she couldn¡¯t have told her mother about her past life, but she did tell her about the whole thing.

    She had to pretend confusion and make up her whole reaction to section of the dream, but it couldn¡¯t be helped. Mother nodded and set the firewood down into the fireplace. She lit it and stared into the flames as they grew. Today was going to be a long day.

    After Alsie came into the room and the three of them had made and eaten breakfast the two girls went outside to do their chores. This included raking the leaves, making the morning pottery as the last weeks had broken down too much to use.

    When they had done that and told their mother they were going to play outside after, she let them. Mother knew that the girls would stay safe on their own. They knew about stranger-danger. They knew most of the kids in the neighborhood. It would be safe for them today.

    But that was so untrue.

 Chapter 8: Death of Her Childhood (9)

    Chapter 8: Death of Her Childhood

    As she got out of the house and spread out her arms to welcome the sun in, Aisling looked up. The clouds of the sky had cleared and the rain from yesterday was gone. Aisling had decided to go on for a walk today and see the woods and how they were doing without people there all the time.

    It was honestly kind of amazing how she had never actually had the idea of just walking instead of going there to hunt and collect firewood. Even as a smaller child she had never truly gone out in the woods to just explore.

    But recently she had a thought to just see what was out there in those old but sparce trees. But as she got ready to go out there on her own, she turned back to the house to see her sister with old man spirit floating behind her.

    ¡°Sister, I was wondering if I could come exploring too. It looked like you were going to have some fun without me,¡± she complained.

    Aisling still thought of her little sister as a small little girl to be taken care of. But in all reality, she was just a year younger than herself. Her sister had a deep blue, almost black hair color.

    It was a sign of her magic ability. Her green eyes matched her sister¡¯s, and it was a source of secret pride for her to have the same eye color. She was actually taller than her older sister and looked older too.

    It was quite a shock for Aisling to realize that her younger sister was going to be taller than her when she was growing up. But over the years, she grew to put up with it. the old guardian floated around the pair and he nodded at his two disciples.

    He of course had taught Aisling all she knew about magic. But he had also taught Alise all she knew too. She didn¡¯t soak up nearly as much knowledge as her older sister, but it was enough for personal defense. The two girls looked at each other. They could read the old man¡¯s mind and knew that he was giving himself praise.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go, I want to explore the woods seeing as we haven¡¯t really done that,¡± explained Aisling.

    As they both went down the road, Alise felt a headache come on. It was strange. It was very strange. Ever since her episode with Aisling all those years ago when Sarah and Kaelin had just gotten together, she had never seen another image like this again. Images started to creep up in her head, but she pushed them down.

    At least she hoped she would never have to see visions like that or as powerful as that ever again. She shook her head from those flashes of death and the like. This day was to be the last day she ever saw those images again.

    As Aisling walked through the woods with her little sister, she noticed something. The trees and the ground were quiet. That was quite strange. When she was with her little sister, hunting things in these woods, it was never like that.

    It was usually quite loud if she was being honest. All, the noise usually got on her nerves if they stayed there for too long. Maybe if the ears she was born with were like human ears, then maybe she wouldn¡¯t complain so much.

    But with her cat ears, she could hear a large and loud margin of all the noises that the animals of the woods made. It was rather annoying as she could barely focus on what she actually came there to do most of the time.

    But now, for some reason she couldn¡¯t hear them. The noises, the author means. It was rather strange. Aisling looked over to her sister but found her clutching at her head in pain. She was crying, for what reason, well it was obvious. Visions had started to dance in her head once more.

    Her own death, her mother¡¯s death. Old gray-haired men laughing at the expense of her sister¡¯s untimely demise. She could feel it, her own death was coming. She had heard from Aisling that death would be comforting, but in this case it wasn¡¯t.

    As soon as Aisling saw that her sister was on the ground, begging for something in a bumbling whisper she knew that something was desperately wrong. Shye finally heard something in the woods, that something was a man.

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    He had on a uniform that Aisling didn¡¯t recognize. It was blue with some grey accents. In all honesty, it was rather fashionable. But fashion wasn¡¯t something that she needed right now. She looked at the man scanned him for any danger that he might pose.

    He looked up from his walk and locked eyes with her. He stopped, as if he thought her sight was based on movement. He mumbled something in probably French. After all, Aisling recognized the uniform at last.

    ¡°you¡¯re a Francian,¡± she said, and the man nodded, ¡°what are you doing here? Our countries are at war, are they not?¡± she asked the man.

    He nodded his head from side to side in a sort of bob. It seemed he could tell where she was coming from.

    ¡°Well, I am a scout. I was under the impression that there was going to be no one in these woods as the whole of the working men had been drafted. But it seems I was unlucky, or rather, you were.¡±

    From his back he pulled out a flint lock pistol. It was rather small for a pistol of this age; the barrel was only like four inches long. Aisling pulled out her sword from its sheath.

    The two of them were about ten yards apart. Ther was a very high chance that he missed. She looked at the man¡¯s handgun. He was gripping it awfully tightly. It seemed like he knew that he might miss this distance. And if he took the time to aim down the sights, she would skewer him.

    ¡°Can I make my leave? It seems like we are at an impasse,¡± he said.

    She saw where he was coming from, but he would probably tell his comrades about the landscape and other information he had gathered. It was unsafe to let him leave. He needed to die.

    ¡°I¡¯m afraid we can¡¯t have that,¡± Aisling said as she lowered herself and made for Alsie to hind behind a tree.

    But as she did so the man fired his only shot. Aisling reacted by darting to the side, but even if she hadn¡¯t moved it would have missed. The bullet missed by passing her lower right-hand side.

    The Francian cursed in French and ran back the way he came. Aisling told Alise to get back to the town and she obliged. The young cat girl ran back the way they came. Aisling ran after that old soldier and soon caught up with him.

    As she crested the small hill covered in trees, she saw the old man. He had just started to look exhausted, panting all the way up the hill. He looked back to see her. She ran up to where he stood and got her sword ready.

    He screamed something in French and dove on the ground. It seemed like he was trying to dodge her attacks. But it was all for nought, she penetrated his back with her sword. She looked up from her handywork only to see what she could only imagine before.

    It was a whole army. Well, more accurately it was simply a battalion. They looked up, only to see a young girl stabbing their scout through the back while he lay on the ground. Some of them seemed dumbfounded, as if they weren¡¯t in the middle of the woods in which people regularly came and went.

    They quickly got ready to mobilize. One of the men ran a bell that resonated all throughout the camp they had set up. Some of the men had pulled up their muskets and fired. The majority of them missed but one hit her stomach, sending a river of pain into her body.

    She clenched her teeth to hide the pain. She retreated down the hill. She looked behind herself and noticed that she wasn¡¯t being followed by the majority of them. Only a handful had chosen to follow her. She looked to her side to see Old Man Spirit there.

    ¡°Remember the magic I taught you, the one where the spirit enters the body of it¡¯s contracted partner and gives them full magic power?¡± she nodded yes, ¡°well, we should do that. It is risky but you will survive this encounter.¡±

    He entered her body after they had gotten a decent distance away from the bullet hell that was behind her. As soon as he did Aisling felt a rush of power. It was like her whole body had filled with the textbook definition of might.

    Her body grew powerful, the strength in her limbs felt like it had tripled, the speed of her thoughts had sped up as well. The bullets that were passing by her seemed to have slowed down a peg. She could now make them out as they passed. It felt like she could cut them in two if she wanted to.

    Her senses had grown sharper, the sound of thew bullets hitting the ground made her ears go flat. These guns were flintlocks, the bullets they fired only had a muzzle velocity of about 340 feet a second. She could probably cut the bullet out of the air.

    The soldiers had fired their shots and now they came running at her with swords drawn. It was like they hadn¡¯t heard of bayonets yet. Then again, the first bayonets plugged into the barrel of the rifle so it would be rather inefficient if they used them.

    The first man came to her and slashed from above. She dodged and cut him across the stomach, his guts spilling form his belly. The next man seemed to know even les about sword play as he rushed for her knees. She pulled back and parried the blow, resulting in him falling on his own blade, gutting himself.

    It got easier after that. The stupid men who had nothing going on in their brains kept charging her. A pile of corpses soon started to form, and her body soon became used to the sight and smell of them. The was till she felt something on her back.

    Then she remembered what old man spirit had told her. If you kept a spirit in your body for too long, you would take on attributes of that spirit energy. She had spent too long, she needed to finish this fight.

    But as she thought that a thunk resounded in her skull. Her mind started to slip; and finally, the world went dark. and that was the end of the battle of Westport.

 Chapter 9: Into Slavery (10)

    Chapter 9: Into Slavery

    Jameson looked at the young girl that had been collared. She had barged into the camp and killed Frank on the spot. This was going to be a bad day. He could feel it in his bones.

    After they had collared her, a platoon of soldiers had arrived. Said platoon was too small to put up a fight so they had pushed through. They then made their way into the town and killed a large portion of the population.

    They had even decided to pillage the place while they were at it. it was rather shocking to see the fight the locals put after that. They had managed to push them back and into the woods.

    The battalion had run into a young girl that seemed to be trying to wake up the captured girl after they got back so they killed her. She must have been a relative of the young girl, but Jameson didn¡¯t really care.

    Sure, he was rather confused as to why they had been told to invade Westport secretly. But after all, he was just a soldier, and good soldiers followed orders. That¡¯s their job, and that¡¯s what they are going to do. But they failed to push into the city proper.

    It was surprisingly hard to breach the gates of it. If only they had time to set up siege weapons. Then they might have been able to make their way inside. But the battalion had been pushed out and back into the forest.

    Jameson and his troops had to run back to the ships that they had hidden in the old, abandoned, elven dock. It was all rather strange in all honesty. The place was swarming with mana. It was almost like; well, something was about to happen.

    ¡­

    She woke from a nightmare. Said nightmare was that her family had died, and she was left all alone to wallow in her own life. No mother to keep her warm after a bad day. No father to keep her safe with his mere presence. No sister to liven it all up, to make the day feel divine.

    She looked around the room she found herself in. Well, it was really just a cage. Said cage was better than the one she had been in before. The bars were thick and rust free. The lock was robust and had a powerful magic seal on it. in all honesty, it looked like this would be her home for the foreseeable future.

    But something felt different. Like her limbs had an extra pair of friends. Sitting up in the cage, she looked behind herself. Her eyes widened in shock. Her mouth opened, agape.

    There was a pair of wings on her back. It was so strange. She could feel them in her mind. She could feel her blood going through them. She could feel the heat of her body being trapped by the feathers of the wings.

    And speaking about the feathers, they were a beautiful emerald green. They looked rather large as well. At least the ones on the edges. The other feathers on top of the wings were much shorter than the edge feathers.

    Her new wingspan seemed to be about a foot long than her arms could reach on either side of her. She could feel the chi flow through them, it was like they had always been there. She touched them and found that the fluffiness was unparalleled.

    They were so soft as well, like a pair of clouds had been glued to her back. But a noise interrupted her revelry in her knew found limbs. The noise was that of the door to the room she was in opening. Into the room came a rather burly man. She honestly did not know why he was here. He could be here to make sure that she was all healed up. Or he could be there to make sure she was asleep or awake.

    He walked right up to the cage she was in. He then reached his hand in and grabbed her wings. She tried to pull away, but he said something in French, and she felt a quick sear of pain go through her neck. She looked down with eyes at her own neck.

    There, clamped around her neck, was a slave collar. It also looked far more powerful than the last slave collar she had seen. When the man said those words, it seemed like the collar had interrupted those commands and enforced them.

    She stopped struggling and crawled over to the man on her own knees. He nodded and inspected her wings. Now that she was conforming to his order, he became a lot gentler. He looked at them and nodded his head.

    He then combed his fingers through her wings and checked the skin underneath. He seemed satisfied and stood back up. The cage was actually rather small, and it seemed to be just on the floor, so he had to get on his knees to check up on her.

    He then walked over to the stack of crates on the other side of the room and grabbed a tool off of them. It was a brand¡­ Aisling¡¯s mind did not quite catch up with the reality of what she was seeing. He was going to heat that thing up and stick it onto her skin.

    She didn¡¯t have to wait awhile though. She could feel magic emanating from the brand. The brand appeared to have been enchanted with fire magic. The end heated up and started to glow like a white-hot iron.

    ¡®He is going to brand me!¡¯

    ¡®He is going to brand me!¡¯

    ¡®He is going to brand me!¡¯

    Those words ran through her mind a mile a minute. He walked over to her cage once more. But instead of sticking the brand through the bars like she expected, but instead he opened the door to her cage.

    He reached in and tried to grab her. But she did something that most cat beastkin don¡¯t ever do. What she did was seen as very rude and bordering on taboo. She hissed at him and bit his hand.

    He pulled his hand away and scowled. She had drawn his blood rather easily. In fact, it was rather easy. You don¡¯t know this but cat beastkin have cat-like teeth. This means that they can bite into flesh rather easily.

    But what shocked her was the fact that he had no reaction besides the scowl. He said another phrase in French, and she felt yet another sear of pain go through her body. She flinched when he reached in again but didn¡¯t resist him anymore. He pulled her out like how you would grab a cat and set her dropping her onto the ground.

    She simply lay there, steeling herself for the most painful feeling in her life. Then he ripped her pants off. That wasn¡¯t what she was expecting. Was he going to rape her, and the brand was simply a kink of his? No, he took the brand and stuck it to her thigh.

    Because of the shock of her clothes being ripped off, she had lessoned he pain resolve she wasn¡¯t ready for the brand. She screamed out in pain and started to finally tear up. He then grabbed her once again and shoved her into the cage she was going to call home.

    Tears began to roll down her face.

    ¡®Why am I here? Where is the old man when I need him? Why am I here? Why am I experiencing this pain? I don¡¯t deserve this¡­¡¯

    Thoughts of home ran through her mind. Until she finally got tired and fell asleep from the overbearing pain.

    ¡®I want to go home!¡¯

    ¡­

    When she next awoke it was dark in the cage. She sat up and poked the tarp that covered it. It seemed that they had put a tarp over the cage she was in. She then decided to inspect the brand on her now exposed leg. She felt the burned skin and seared flesh.

    It hurt to touch. But another thing was in here with her. She could feel that something was off. Like she was being stared at. It wasn¡¯t the new thing in here with her, but it was rather looking at her through the tarp.

    She decided to inspect the new thing as well. She crawled over to it and grabbed it. There was very little light in the cage. But her cat eyes were ever-so slightly better than a human¡¯s eyes. So, in the dark so she could see the thing mostly.

    It was a bucket, a rather large bucket. The thing reeked of human feces. This was most likely a poop bucket, or a spare one they had lying around. It was then that she noticed how much she had to go pee.

    Sucking down her pride she pulled down her now ruined pants and sat down on the bucket. She had to bend forward to even fit on top of the thing. She then sucked in a deep breath and let loose her bowels. The soft sound of her pee hitting the surface of the bucket resonated. Some bounced back and hit her butt, but the majority of it stayed inside the bucket.

    When she was done, she got off and pulled some of the ends of the tarp through the space in between the bars. She wiped herself down with it and pushed it back through. She then put back on her ruined pants and sighed in pleasure. She had actually not made a mess of things.

    It was then that the sound of the door opening resounded through the room. She stopped in her effort to lay down. She then sat back up and decided to sit crisscross-applesauce. Sounds of two people conversing in French came from outside her vision and it seemed like they were changing shifts.

    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

    She was very thankful that her now masters had put a tarp over the cage. It would have been very embarrassing to pee in front of them. Or, it would have been humiliating. Now that she thought about it, why was there a tarp over her new home?

    It wasn¡¯t like they had any respect for her. Or maybe they didn¡¯t want to see a young girl pee in a bucket and probably eat off the floor. She was very thankful for the little miracles she had.

    The old lookout went out of the room and that only left her and this new guy. She didn¡¯t know anything about the last guy, but he seemed to be the one that had been staring at her through the tarp. If he had wanted, he could have just taken off the tarp. But he didn¡¯t so she was thankful.

    This man however seemed to have different ideas about how to watch her. She heard him walk over and then he pulled the tarp off. Aisling flinched at the light of the lamp in the man¡¯s hands. She covered her eyes and looked down to avoid his gaze.

    He seemed satisfied and walked over to the table in the middle of the room. There sat on it was a piece of hardtack. He picked it up and threw it to her. It flew through the air and just managed to slide through the bars and land next to the poop bucket.

    She sighed in relief that it didn¡¯t get soaked with her own piss and grabbed it from the floor of the cage. She then sat back down and began to eat the thing. She looked at eh man who was now sitting down at the table. He was rather robust, and not like the last man.

    He had a beer belly and slightly chubbier cheeks then the last man. He kind of looked like Santa Claus if Santa Claus was in the French military. His mustache was curled at the ends and his gaze lingered on her brand for a moment and then he looked at her in the eyes.

    This man was going to be just like that other man, wasn¡¯t he? He wasn¡¯t going to talk to her, and he wasn¡¯t going to say or do anything that would make her more comfortable. She was a slave now. She could not escape.

    But he did feed her. She was very thankful for that. She had been starving since before she was branded. She looked down at her hardtack and sighed. Since she was starving, it tasted better than it probably was, but it was still the closest thing to food she had had all day.

    ¡°Thank you, sir,¡± shew said in the most submissive voice she could.

    She didn¡¯t want to anger the man. She didn¡¯t want to get into his mind. She didn''t even want to be on his mind. This man might be a pervert. Or maybe even a rapist. After all, they had enslaved her. She was their or their lord¡¯s property now.

    If she acted like a person, it would get on their nerves. But if she acted like a thing to be tossed around, like a tool, like a pretty piece of furniture, then she would be able to actually keep her mind intact.

    She wouldn¡¯t have to be beaten down at the start. She could stay whole. She then looked at the new lookout and saw that he had grabbed a thin book from atop the table. On the cover was some French she couldn¡¯t speak; but below it was Irish.

    Then he nodded his head and lifted an eyebrow in intrigue.

    ¡°You are Thankful. Was that yes?¡± he asked in a deep throaty accent.

    She was shocked that he would try to actually talk to her. It was not something that she expected him to try and do. But he was kind of off. His accent was clear enough, but the words weren¡¯t right.

    She nodded her head slowly and looked down from his gaze.

    ¡°You were mostly correct sure. You used thankful instead of welcome, and used yes instead of correct,¡± said in a submissive voice once more.

    He nodded his head and smiled. It seemed like he had been satisfied with her correction of his grammar. He then started to talk in French to himself and smiled. He then set the book down and walked back over.

    He grabbed the tarp and put it back over the cage. Thankfully she would have some privacy yet again. She sighed and thought about the location of Old Man Spirit. She didn¡¯t know where he was, but she still felt like his power was going through her. Like he was¡­ trapped¡­ inside of her. He was, wasn¡¯t he? He was lost and his power was locked and merged with her. She didn¡¯t know that was possible, but it was. A tear ran down her face. She was truly alone now, all alone. With no one coming to save her this time.

    She lay down on the floor of the cage and cried, she didn¡¯t know if the lookout was listening to her tears, but it seemed like he didn¡¯t care. Her tears soaked the whole right side of her face. Soon she drifted off to sleep. But when she next awoke, things were different.

    She looked up and the roof of the cage and heard loud feet stomping over to her. The tarp was ripped off. Light form the lamp the last man and current lookout was carrying spilled into her eyes. He then opened the cage and grabbed her.

    He put her over his shoulder and said something in French. By the feeling of pain that shocked through her, she could tell that it was an order to not escape and to stay still while he was carrying her.

    She complied as she didn¡¯t know what was going on and being with someone who knew what was happening just seemed like it was a good idea. He then grabbed some thick steel cuffs from the top of one of the crates and stormed out of the room.

    It was then that she finally figured out where this was. She was staying in an old abandoned Elvish port, with a craggy rock overhang. There, docked at the port, was a Francian warship. Or more accurately, a slaver ship. A strange crest belonging to the duke of the west French isles was imprinted on the main sail.

    She could hear gunshots and shouting coming form behind the man that was carrying her. A stray bullet missed past her captor¡¯s shoulder, nearly hitting her leg. It was nothing but chaos. Then a cannon ball collided with the ground a couple of feet from them. The man carrying her was blasted back. As a result, he dropped her. When her head hit the ground, the whole world went black.

    ¡­

    She opened her eyes to find herself in a crate with some airholes. Said crate was rather small. It was so small in fact, that she had to bend her spine a bit to move. She could feel the sides of the crate, they were course and wooden. She tried to move but the fact that it was small hampered that idea.

    She could feel that the box was being moved. It didn¡¯t help her current predicament in all honesty. Here wings were at odd angles and one of her feet was stuck up her rear end, the other foot was in her face.

    Then, she felt the crate fall. It hit whatever that was below her with a great force. A sound that frightened her to no end arrived at her ears. It was water. She squirmed in her confined space.

    She didn¡¯t know why she was in a crate, but she did know that if this thing filled with water, then it would be over for her. In any case, she was going to have to try and escape faster than she thought. She could feel that the water from the outside of the crate wasn¡¯t leaking inside yet.

    The bobbing of the crate was starting to make her feel seasick already. In all honesty, she wanted to barf. But she swallowed it back down as she tried to figure out the best way to escape. She looked around in the crate. There was no light in the crate.

    And then she had an idea, a very normal idea. One that she was shocked she didn¡¯t use earlier. She simply called up her light spirit and had it fill the crate with light. She was rather stupefied with herself that she hadn¡¯t used this in the cage when she had no light, but better now than never to remember.

    She looked around the crate, but her eyes didn¡¯t land on the airtight build, or the drilled through air holes. Her gaze landed on her thigh. She could still remember the hot sting of the brand in her mind. She used her awkwardly postponed hand to move the leg so she could actually study the mark left by the man who seemed so used to being bitten by beastkin.

    She prepared herself to see letters, or maybe a nasty image. But it was just a simple letter-like crest. It took the shape of the letter Y. It had two, short lines coming from the two arms on top. The lines bent down.

    Next in the middle of the Y¡¯s tale end, two diagonal lines came from it. the left line had yet another line coming in at a right-angle inwards. The right side one had a large dot on the end. A line extended from the dot and wrapped around the whole thing in the shape of a simplified heater shield.

    It was a simplified version of the Francian duke that rules over the west French isle¡¯s crest. As she looked at it, she could feel the sting of the iron on her skin. After a shiver of pain and fear ran through her. She shook her head and sighed.

    It was then that she noticed that she could see some stars in the sky if she peered through the air holes. It seemed to be night right now. If she weas to believe that she had been thrown into the sea for some unknown reason, she also had to believe that she would be abandoned.

    The reason she came up with that answer; they had left her in the sea. If you were going to sell a rare and expensive looking slave to someone, then why would you chuck them into the ocean?

    If they wanted to hide her from the army that had no doubt found them, they all they would have to do if keep her in that cage, but instead they put her in here. She was fed up right about now but as soon as she was starting to grow frustrated, something else drew her attention.

    Some salt water had washed into her crate. The salt water itself was simply that salt water, but it made her realize that she was tipping over. She desperately tried to right herself, but it failed.

    The crate she was in had tipped over and now there was saltwater seeping in. But the water soon stopped, the water level had stopped because of the air in the crate. She soon steadied her breathing; it was rather shocking she hadn¡¯t remembered that it wouldn¡¯t fill all the way up in the crate.

    There was still air inside, so she would not drown, but she would still suffocate. That was when she heard a clap of thunder. It seemed like poor weather was rolling over the sea.

    It soon became clear that she might die here. In this crate. As the box she was stuck in soon began to rock and dip up and down. She grew even more seasick. She could barely hold in her lunch. Not that the lunch she held in her was really anything but hardtack.

    it rolled back over. She could now see the sky through the little holes in the box she would surely die in. The sky seemed beautiful. She was sure it was. Buit she was stuck in this box, in the middle of the sea. If only someone, anyone could pick her up. She would be almost thankful enough to let them keep her a slave, almost. That thought made her mind slip and she nearly lost her lunch once more.

    ¡­

    In all honesty she was expecting, well, she didn¡¯t know what she was expecting. It was simply that she thought that something would have happened by now. She had spent about a hole night in this crate.

    It almost made her miss the cage. Then she remembered the brand, and the emotionless face of the man with the brand. Then came the searing pain again. All the emotions that came with it. that longing for that cage was nothing more than her wanting to be safe.

    But she was not safe in the cage. She was going to be sold for crying out loud. She didn¡¯t know why she felt that way. Maybe she simply wanted to be on dry land. That was probably it.

    She looked up at the broken sky. The blue of it marred by thick clouds, for the storm had passed, for now. She could feel it in her bones, it was going to storm once more. The little box she was in might just fill, and she might just drown. It was a very slim possibility, but it was there.

    She wanted to sleep. She had been awake for an entire night. But she might tip the crate in her sleep and suffocate. She might get found before that though. She hoped someone would find her.

    After hours of her awake mind keeping her from sleeping, her thoughts were starting to slip. It was starting to become harder to stay awake. Sleep closed in and snagged her mind away. It was then that the gears of life began to turn around for little Aisling.

    ¡­

    Cold, dead hands wrapped around his grip. This generation¡¯s champion had fallen. It was going to be a while before he found a new host, a new friend. He looked around now. It seemed as if fate had decided to take the bone it had given him this time around.

    But then, he felt new hands touch his hilt, grip his leather padded handle. They were small hands. They were that of a child¡¯s. He was shocked. He had only had one child become his wielder. And it seemed she was shocked as well.

    His mind shifted to her mind. His point of sight shifted to her point of sight. It was truly a shocking feeling for the girl, after all, he could feel her emotions now. Her pain, her sadness. And now her relief at being free!

    But it all came crashing down.

 Chapter 10: The Master (11)

    Chapter 10: The Master

    As much as Aisling actually wanted to go back home, she could not escape a boat. And if anyone wants to argue, you can talk to the hand. But in any case, she had been in this cage for the majority of her slave-hood. That didn¡¯t really sicken her as much as it should have.

    She had been let out to get some sun as she was a very valuable slave, but she did have to go back to her cage. They didn¡¯t want her to die from lack of sun. That French man had been very helpful in making sure that the other sailors didn¡¯t do anything to her. Some of them looked starved for any female interaction, even that of a girl.

    It was rather disgusting, and she felt no pity for those tempted by a young girl. She had learned that the man¡¯s name was Hanz. As you could guess, he was German. He had moved to Francia as a way to escape his woes. It didn¡¯t work and he needed money, so he became a knight for the duke.

    He had taught her some French fraises and words. All in all, life wasn¡¯t the worst. It was bad as she had to pee in a bucket and didn¡¯t have running water, but it wasn¡¯t all around bad. She did have to eat hardtack. She couldn¡¯t even eat any fruit or veg.

    While all the sailors showed some signs of scurvy, she didn¡¯t get it. While cat Beastkin could eat fruits and veg perfectly fine, they didn¡¯t need it. But she did need to eat meat sometimes, they had run out of it, and she was showing some signs of Carnolust.

    Carnolust was a similar disease to scurvy, there was a large difference. It involved vitamin B12. Cat beastkin needed a lot more B12 than humans, and if they didn¡¯t get it, they would go crazy and start eating any fresh meat they could get their hands on.

    She was starting to see Hanz as a very tasty meal right now. In fact, it could be a problem. Hanz had been only good to her, if a little distant. But then again, she was a slave. That meant she was an object now. Nobody would sympathize with her. Her new master apparently liked beastkin.

    That meant he would probably dress her up and treat her as a doll. If she was small and made of plastic, he might even have had her put in a jar. That would be a nightmare. What was even scarier was that she was used to this kind of thing from her past life.

    She had been in the ¡°Federal Standing State Guard and Army¡± in her past life. A standing guard was not human, they were a tool for his chancellorship to use against those he saw fit. And they drilled that into you in the Guard. She was all too familiar with this sort of thing.

    She sighed as she looked around the room. There stood a multitude of people. One of them was the man who had been the one to brand her. He seemed undeferential to the people around him. Over the month she had been here she had learned he was still alive, and his name was Jameson.

    The images of the brand being pushed to her skin was enough to bring tears to her eyes. Another was Hanz. He also seemed to be bothered by Jameson¡¯s presence, why she didn¡¯t know. It seemed to her that he wasn¡¯t well liked.

    She looked to the other men, and they all seemed to be thinking. They then started to converse with each other. She only knew a little French so she could barely pick up what they were talking about, but it seemed to her that they had made their way to the main island.

    They hadn¡¯t docked yet; she would probably be able to tell if that was the case. Thinking about it, they were probably just outside the port or something along those lines. If she was being honest, she couldn¡¯t wait to get back on dry land.

    The men then dispersed; the only ones still there were Jameson and Hanz. Hanz stood up from his chair and opened the cage. Aisling got out and stood up straight. She had been stuck in the cage for the past 24 hours and she wanted to make sure that her spine still did spine things.

    She leaned back and heard a rather loud crack come from her back. It seemed that her body wasn¡¯t supposed to bend like that. She was a cat, but not all cats liked being in cardboard boxes. She had a cat in her past life as a kid, but he never wanted to be boxed in.

    Then Jameson came over and pulled her arm. She tried to resist at first, but he commanded her to let him pull her around. She felt the now all too familiar sear of pain go throughout her body and she complied. He yanked her over to one of the stacks of crates and forced her to sit down on the chair by the stack.

    She saw that there was a multitude of items and such on top of one of the crates. The items in question seemed to be a bottle of alcohol, fresh clothes that looked still somehow clean, wads of wool, and some barbershop tools. It seemed they were going to make her presentable for the lord.

    He then ordered her to sit still and not move. Rushes of pain came through her as she complied. Why did she feel pain when she was ordered to do something, even if she did that thing? She didn¡¯t know. But it was rather annoying.

    It took about an hour or so for him to finish making her look good. He had taken off her clothes and put on this new maid outfit. She noticed how it was a tiny bit revealing but she pushed that to the side of her head. He had her drink some of the alcohol so she would gain a healthier complexion. Her hair was cut short so as to not get in the way and to make cleaning easier. It was then that she noticed how mature her own body was starting to look.

    She looked maybe fourteen, possibly older. She was starting to think that the age of old man spirit was starting to accelerate her own already fast growth. It was rather scary that she looked like this even. The simple fact of the matter was she was starting to sympathize with those sailors.

    When they made their way out of the ship, she noticed that they had not yet docked. They had made their way to the island and were just out of reach of the island¡¯s fortress cannons. Another ship was pulling alongside them. It seemed to be here to drop off cargo.

    A gangplank was put over top of the deck and another was put on after that. She got deva vu from this. It was like when she was brought over from the Norse ship to the one, she was currently on.

    Some men had started to bring some supplies over the first plank and then some more men, and a woman, walked over the second one. All the sailors looked the same. They had muscles on muscles. Tanned skin and seemed slightly exhausted.

    But the woman. She was wearing a maid outfit as well. She seemed older and had a more revealing outfit than Aisling. She also wore a brass collar with some Nordic runes on the sides. Her age seemed to be between thirty and thirty-five.

    What really drew in Aisling¡¯s eyes though was her hair and ears. Her hair was a vivid orange and her ears that rested at the top of her head were those of dog ears. They stood up straight and looked to be of a Kerry beagle.

    The older woman looked at her and smiled. The smile was one of a mother, like she was welcoming someone home after a long time of being away.

    ¡°Hello dear, you shall be the newest servant in a very long time,¡± she spoke in the most alluring, mature voice Aisling hadn¡¯t heard in years.

    ¡­

    She was brought off the ship with the head maid and her guards. As she got a closer look at the woman, she seemed to have a multitude of marks she could barely spot across her body. They looked like they had come from a whip or some sort of switch. Some bruising was also spotted.

    Though, the older lady didn¡¯t seem bothered by this at all, and instead of hiding these marks, she simply ignored them, at least, that is what Aisling had noticed. This woman might have been a pleasure slave.

    If that was correct, then what was to be of her if she later became more than a maid? Was she going to be struck like a masochist? Was she going to become like this woman, so used to the pain and marks that were strewn across her body that she didn¡¯t bother hiding them?

    As they landed the ship on the dock and everyone who had to get off, got off, Aisling looked around. It was rather strange; the simple fact that this port city looked so good. The buildings were rather tall, and their structure looked rather roman.

    She simply could not stop her confusion. This place was bombarding her with so much new information that she could hardly keep up with it; and it wasn¡¯t like she had never seen a port town before, she lived in one. No, this one was so much more well-built than her own small town.

    It was as if the lord had invested only in this island and none of his others. Sure, that could help the city itself and if he never left his main island or ever manor it would seem like a good idea, but in the long run it was truly a silly idea.

    Or maybe he was simply rich. Taking slaves and raiding land from Ireland all the way to Morocco. And yes, the author knows where that is. He¡¯s not a philistine. His riches, if that was true, would be massive.

    Everything considered, the amount of money spent to keep this place running and grow it into even better things was staggering. She had heard of the riches of the Francian privateers, so maybe he was one?

    She looked on with trepidation as the head maid and, seemingly a pleasure slave, led her off the ship. There, on the hard ground, sat on the packed earth, was a carriage. The carriage was nothing special. It seemingly was only there to bring her to wherever they were going.

    But what it wasn¡¯t was not any of her concern. It was seemingly a slave carrying carriage if that was a thing. The wheels were wide and had a reinforcements of steel all over. The height of the thing wasn¡¯t any more than the average carriage, but the length was much longer.

    The outside of the carriage was also reinforced by steel. The surface of said steel was nothing but the patina of the forge. It seemed to Aisling and her inner voice, that is me, Zog, that she was going to be riding in the back. The head maid took her hand in hers and guided her to the back of the carriage.

    The two guards that had followed them off the boat opened the door at the back of the carriage. She looked over to the head maid and she saw her get in the back. She then scanned the whole inside of the carriage. The inside was not as dark and miserable as she thought it would be.

    ¡®It is rather spacious,¡¯ she noted in her head.

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    She then looked up to the head maid once again and noted that she had a rather impatient look on her face. Said face was the face of someone who wanted to get some talking done. So, Aisling stepped up into the gilded cage that was the life she was going to live from now on and peered at the inside once more.

    ¡°What is your name child?¡± the older masochistic lady asked.

    ¡°Aisling,¡± replied Aisling rather submissively.

    There was really nothing other than that to say. Her life was that of a slave now. She could not escape while she had this collar on. That was something that Hanz had told her. And it was something that she had to come to terms with. She dipped her head and deflated herself. Trying to seem smaller.

    ¡°Now, here is what¡¯s going to happen from now on. You are a doll that will cook and clean for the Duke. When he asks, you will come and look pretty for him. When you grow older, like me because he likes older women, you will service him,¡± she stated.

    It was less of an order and more of simply stating the weather. It would happen, she would service him when she was older. She would be a bird in a gilded cage.

    ¡°Am I understood?¡± the pleasure slave asked.

    ¡°Crystal clear ma¡¯am,¡± said Aisling.

    She was starting to understand this woman more. She was less of the head maid, and she felt more like the wife of the Duke. She really wanted to ask at what age this woman had been enslaved but she felt like it encroach on private territory. It was probably something that she would learn more of later.

    She was probably enslaved since childhood. Maybe she was born into slavery. Something that wasn¡¯t uncommon. But it was then that her own thought had been interrupted.

    ¡°What element do you have the most affinity with? We are both Spirit beastkin, but we obviously have different affinities. What is yours?¡± she asked.

    Now the author hasn¡¯t talked about how the most of all magic works. Yes, he has talked about how mana and chi work, but he hasn¡¯t talked about how the different magic are produced.

    For now, simply know that there are four elements. They are all linked to elements that don¡¯t have anything to do with these elements. There are also a multitude of elements that don¡¯t fit into this system. Such as Aisling¡¯s element, sound. But there are others that simply don¡¯t work like how the many people of this world think they do.

    There weren¡¯t many sound spirits that weren¡¯t just music makers. Sound spirits loved harmony and would do anything to make sure that that harmony was safe and sound, no pun intended. These guys are the reason why she felt the need to sing when she stabbed that ¡®Broken one¡¯ all those years ago. The spirits guided her. They simply hated the aura of the thing.

    So, she simply made the call to tell the woman what her element was. It might lead to confusion, or her getting punished for being disrespectful and lying. But she was going to tell her either way.

    ¡°It is sound, my element is sound,¡± she said to the head maid who looked at her funny.

    ¡°Your element is sound?¡± she asked, very confused.

    ¡°Yes, Head maid, that is true. My element is sound. Most of the time the spirits I bond with just wish to make music. That is all they really do,¡± she said in a quiet voice.

    Aisling nodded in affirmation. Many Spirit beastkin knew of the dumb ways of categorizations but this one did not. She herself had no major spirit of any element. And that was rather shocking in and of itself. One would think at least one spirit would make a pact with her, but she didn¡¯t have any.

    The slave turned pleasure servant explained as much to the new doll of a slave that seemingly was more adjusted to the slave life than any other of the new slaves. Aisling had explained the fact that she had sound as her element to the older woman. But it was very hard not to step on the proverbial.

    This girl had no idea how magic seemed to work in the natural world. It seemed to Aisling that this older woman had only known the life of a pleasure slave for her whole life.

    Pity had seeped into Aisling; this maid had never known freedom or anything of the like. It was rather sad all things considered. But before the pity could bleed into her expression, the pitiable woman actually remembered something.

    ¡°Oh, and by the way little doll, I haven¡¯t told you, my name. I would be sorry, but a doll like you doesn¡¯t deserve pity. Oh, what shall you call me? Hm, I wonder; If you could call me Ma¡¯am. That would be fantastic!¡± she exclaimed.

    ¡°Of course, Ma¡¯am. As you wish Ma¡¯am,¡± she responded in a submissive voice.

    ¡­

    After about an hour of riding in the back of the carriage, they had arrived at their location. Said location was a rather large and imposing manor. As with all Francian buildings that Aisling had seen, this one seemed to be styled after a roman villa.

    Or maybe, at one point, it had been a villa but was rebuilt into this. The roof was a deep, sky blue. The walls were made from marble. The front door was a deep blue, with brass accents.

    Two guards flanked the door. The two of them were wearing brigandine amor and had kettle helms atop their heads. They looked at the approaching Aisling and head maid. Seemingly my muscle memory alone, they dropped their halberds in front of the two of them.

    The head maid looked accosted and the two guards that had accompanied the two women looked at the manor guards with pity. It seemed to Aisling that these men had been here on duty for too long. It reminded her of her past life and the countless hours she had spent patrolling the perimeter.

    Sure, it was boring, but it was rather important. She peered at them, and they seemed to realize who these people were and pulled up their halberds. They then looked at Aisling in wonder and a bit of something else.

    That was a very strange reaction to a young girl with angel wings. She wondered what was going through their minds right about now. They looked at each other next and then at the head maid for explanations. She did not give any.

    They simply shrugged their shoulders and let the four of them through. As she stepped into the manor itself, she could not stop but gawk at the paintings on the walls. They were portraits of beastkin.

    Several of them looked like they were paintings of spirit beastkin. The five on the left were of woman in skimpy outfits that, instead of showing off their curves, showed off their mutations.

    Yes, the majority of them were mutated beastkin. But the mutations weren¡¯t all pretty. Some looked down right like biblically accurate angels. One girl with cat ears and antlers, had four pupils in both eyes each. Another young man had actual lion claws, without the fur.

    It was honestly the strangest thing she had ever seen. The head maid looked at her gawking and turned to her and chuckled. She closed her eyes and opened them again. Then grabbed the younger child¡¯s arm and pulled her to one of the paintings.

    She seemed to have thought of something. She led the smaller girl to a singular painting up the stairs the Aisling had somehow missed. The stairs themselves were rather ornate, with a spiraling design going counterclockwise.

    The handrails were blue with brass accents just like the front door. It seemed that that was the theme of the manor. Now that she had noticed. The walls, the floor as well as the ceiling, were awfully well made. The walls looked wooden, and the floor seemed to have an Irish motif for some odd reason.

    And then her eyes landed on it, or rather them. They were twins. Two young women. They looked awfully similar to each other but with some differences. Like the left sided one had cat ear and the right sided one had the ears of a terrier. In fact, the right sided girl just looked like a younger version of the head maid.

    While the left girl had cat ears, there was also something strange about her. That thing being her having bone blades coming from her forearms. She also had three cat tails instead of just one. The two younger women in the picture were both striking somewhat suggestive poses. While the younger version of the head maid in the painting had on an even more revealing outfit than right now, the other girl had on some boob plate armor.

    Aisling, despite not being that attracted to females in this life, started to stare intently at the picture of the two women. She then realized her mistake and shook her head to clear the thoughts from her mind. In all honesty, the head maid could understand the reaction from the doll in front of her.

    She had once two drooled over the pictures of many of the people in these paintings. But now they had to go and meet the lord, her lover and loved. Aisling felt the need to apologize. But they had no more time to waste. The head maid turned unofficial wife of the duke had simply lost herself in wanting to show off.

    ¡°I simply wanted to show you something that you yourself will participate in. in the duke has only owned two beastkin. My sister and soon, you, are and will be my lord¡¯s pride and joy,¡± she explained, ¡°oh, and in case if you are wondering, all the other spirit beastkin all used to belong to my lord¡¯s family in the past.¡±

    Aisling straightened herself out in mind and body. She then bowed apologetically. She wished to say sorry for overstepping her bounds and gawking at and over the many pictures.

    ¡°I am sorry ma¡¯am. I am sorry for gawking, it will not happen ever again,¡± she pleaded like she was nothing but a doll.

    In truth, she would never stare and drool over these paintings again if she could help it. years of service in her past life would lend itself to that. The head maid seemed impressed by this and nodded her head while looking down at the younger girl. Aisling¡¯s effort to put herself in the new situation she was in was working, maybe too well.

    As they walked down the upstairs hall, Aisling got a strange feeling. Said feeling was like she was being watched. She looked around the hall and at the paintings. Some of them seemed to have clich¨¦ peep holes in them.

    One of the paintings, a picture of a dog beastkin to be precise, had eyes watching. As soon as she locked eyes with them, they went away. It was rather strange to see someone do something so clich¨¦ as to peep on two girls walking down the hall to the duke¡¯s office.

    As soon as they got to the door they had been walking to, Aisling started to feel nervous. It was like, up until this point, she hadn¡¯t been walking to meet her new master. It was like she was walking to go to a new job interview. That was also even stranger to think about.

    She hadn¡¯t been to a job interview for years. And the last job she had in her past life was that of an unofficial audiologist. That was someone who cleans ears if you didn¡¯t know that. It was a rather fun job. While she didn¡¯t always have the best time with it, she did meet some friends at that job.

    Men often didn¡¯t come and so many of the people who came were woman. Like the author has said, it was unofficial. She didn¡¯t have a degree or anything of that sort. It was more of a booth that her boss had set up in the back of his barber shop.

    Though, the rest of that story will be saved for another time. Right now, she had to meet her new master and owner. It would be rather strange to start living, and thinking like she had in her past life¡¯s time in the military.

    The doors that led to this new, or rather old lifestyle were even more ornate than the other doors all over the hall. It kind of remind her of the old America¡¯s oval office. Before it became the oppressive, tyrannical chancellorship it was now.

    The head maid opened the doors. What lay beyond was going to be her new life. She was now property, and she expected to be treated as such.

    What greeted the two of them was confusing to Aisling and typical for the other. And as for the guards, they simply waited outside. This had been a long day for the two of them and they simply wished to stop tailgating this masochistic woman any longer.

    The man in the center of the room was currently painting a picture of a naked beastkin woman. Said woman was a hawk girl, a very rare variant of a bird beastkin. She had a rather large pair of assets and the pose she was in didn¡¯t help to hide her strange scar across the right side of her stomach. Her brown and grey feathers gave her an average beauty look.

    The man painting such a thing noticed the open door and beckoned the two women in. He had average stature and grey hair. His robust yet plump frame seemed to have been made from hours of work and eating. He also seemed to be balding. His receding hairline was proof of that.

    ¡°Harless dear, you can relax,¡± the man spoke to hawk girl.

    The hawk girl relaxed and readjusted herself on the chair she was sitting on. Said chair looked to be padded do that was nice for her. The man then looked over to the two of them again. He then stood up and adjusted his posture.

    ¡°Paddy dear, who is this new and stunning doll you have brought me?¡± asked the man, now most certainly the duke.

    ¡°This is Aisling, she is from Westport Ireland and is 10 years old. She seems to have grown a pair of wings as a result of a spirit magic mutation. They are very soft as you can tell just by looking at them,¡± the head maid explained.

    The duke then looked at Aisling with glittering eyes. He seemed giddy at the fact that he had yet another mutated spirit beastkin. All in all, his smile looked kind of like a child who had just gotten a shiny, first edition Charizard. He seemed to want to say or do something but was hiding it.

    ¡°Yes, my lord, I am yours to do with as you please. If you need me to do anything you wish, simply order me,¡± she said.

    The smile on his face turned into a strange mix of surprise and awe. Then it filled with giddiness once more. He started to bounce up and down in place. He then looked over to Harless and then back to Aisling and then to the head maid. Finally, after holding it all in, he burst into cheers.

    ¡°PADDY, I finally have a green haired cat girl! There are so many blue-haired or pink-haired girls and even boys! But not any green-haired! Harless, get off that chair, I have a portrait to paint,¡± he shouted out.

    As soon as he said that the hawk girl got off the chair and stood by the wall. And while she was sat down and put into a very wholesome and actually rather whimsy position, all that was going through her head was¡­

    ¡®he¡¯s a weeb and autistic, holy fucking shit,¡¯

    End of arc one¡­

 Chapter 11: Life as a Slave (12)

    Chapter 11: Life as a Slave

    She had not been traumatized, not bothered, not mistreated. It was all strangely¡­ well¡­ strange. She was expecting to be raped or something along those lines. Like the author said, traumatized.

    Aisling was relatively happy now. That was strange thing to say as a slave, wasn¡¯t it? well it was the truth. She had been here for about a month now and all things considered, it was a rather swell life. The master had her dress up in cute clothes and held cute poses for long periods of time.

    The first thing he had her do was pose for a new painting he wanted of her. Once that was done, he had his guards take her to a special magic device and give it her blood. Well, not all her blood. It only needed a sample. The device was a tool used to categorize all the slaves the owner of the tool owned.

    It learned the date of her birth, any allergies, and if any of her own relatives were also in the database. It was quite a handy machine, she had to admit. Now she had no hope of escape. The machine alerted anyone if she had her collar removed. But back to the present.

    She was currently standing on one leg, with her wings swept upwards in a showing off pose. Her arms were wrapped around a fake sword stabbed into a platform he had her pose on. Her smile that she held was empty of course, like all fake smiles. But the diligence that she held firm in her heart was still there. She was determined to hold this pose till her master was done with his painting.

    Unlike what she thought was going to happen, he didn¡¯t have her service him in bed no, he had the head maid for that. Instead, he simply wanted her to do well at being a doll, or a muse for him.

    She was very happy that she didn¡¯t need to serve him in that way. he often had her just stand and look pretty for him to paint. But sometimes he would ask her to pose for a nude picture. Those times she really hated the fact that she was a slave.

    But whenever she had seen those pictures in the hall¡¯s days later, she had on an outfit that she hadn¡¯t worn when she was posing for him. Often times, it would be a set of clothes that he couldn¡¯t get, like roman togas made from Chinese silks, or she was wearing Japanese clothes.

    Her eyes were nearly closed from the wide grin she had plastered on her face, and every now and then she had to blink. He didn¡¯t like that. It seemingly ruined his concentration. Instead, he had a servant come over and drop water in her eyes.

    The maid in charge of that was of course different every time he had her pose. It was rather nice actually, she didn¡¯t have to make connections, think like a person. She could just be the doll he wanted. Though, the only difference was that she had to act like a person.

    But getting back on track, it had recently been Halloween, and her master wanted her and all his servants and slaves to dress up. He had given them all costumes, most of them ever so slightly lewd. Aisling¡¯s costume was that of angel, seeing as she had the wings for it.

    She was actually wearing it right now; her master had wanted a painting of her first Halloween here as his new doll. What was rather strange though was that he didn¡¯t have any other of the slaves do this. But then again, she was the only new one.

    After about an hour or so of her standing there and perfectly holding the pose, her master put down his paints and brush. He looked at the painting and then back up at his doll. Then he gazed at the painting some more.

    He nodded his head and smiled, he made himself ready and started to put away his supplies and such, but then remembered that his muse was actually a living and breathing doll; she had stood too rigid and still that he had plum forgotten that she was alive.

    ¡°You may move now. You can put back on your maids¡¯ uniform and start up work again,¡± he told her.

    She nodded at this and stepped off the platform she had been standing on. The next thing she did was grab the clothes that she had left on the side of the chair that sat beside the platform. She then stopped for a second. Most of the time when she posed for her lord, she posed while wearing her uniform.

    But now she had on her costume, and she was told to take off said costume and wear her uniform. She didn¡¯t know if she should ask for a room to change in, or if she was expected to change in front of her lord. But her master didn¡¯t like girls her age.

    She in fact had heard her lord and the head maid getting busy while in the safety and privacy of their own room. but at the same time, they had had sex while just in the office. It was a rather shallow conundrum.

    ¡°Master, do you want me to change here, or in another room?¡± she asked, hoping that he wouldn¡¯t want to be a pervert.

    He looked up from his work and squinted his eyes while looking at her. He put a finger to his chin and nodded his head. It seemed that she had been ignored partially, and she sighed. But just when she was about to take off her shirt, she was stopped.

    ¡°No, go to another room. I don¡¯t want to be tempted to paint you mid-undress,¡± he said.

    He tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling, ¡°but later, I want to try and paint you mid-undress.¡±

    She nodded at this and took her uniform and left the room. she held herself like a statue would, with her back ramrod straight and chest puffed out as to show herself off. It was very important for a doll to look her best.

    But in the presence of her master or any actual authority, she was to look demur, submissive, like she was nearly an afterthought in the grand scheme of things. That was her posture, that was to be the way she held herself. And that was to be her life.

    She went down the hallway, and down the staircase. She then went into the somewhat hidden door that the servants were supposed to use and opened it. The wall had a carved in pattern; the door itself was implemented in that pattern.

    She pushed the large rectangle that had slightly more engravings than the rest of the rectangle of the wall pattern and slid it to the side and into the rest of the wall. She then stepped through the wall looked down the skinny corridor that went down into the earth.

    There was very little light, and it led to the barracks and sleeping quarters for both the guards and maids and butlers. This was the only thing that really felt like an old manor that one would see in medieval movies that she had watched with her sister before such things were made illegal for some reason.

    ¡­

    As she walked out of a hallway that led to another section of the manor, she pondered the meaning of the work shew was assigned to. It was rather normal work when considered against the other stuff that slaves often did or didn¡¯t do. In all honesty, she was rather lucky.

    As she walked down the public hallway, she dipped into another doorway and found herself where she was supposed to be. It was a library, a public library for guests to read in. But it felt more like a study room in all honesty. The door was rather out of the way when compared to all the other doors that lined the halls of this manor.

    On her left was a row of bookshelves, and that was where she was going to clean first. She had been instructed to clean as thoroughly as humanly possible. So, that is what she did.

    She unclipped the feather duster from her hip and looked at the tall bookcases that were planted in this wall. The room was about 10ft tall, with a rather tall doorway, the walls had bookcases implanted in them as well. There was also a hearth in the wall opposite the doorway.

    In its little nook, there was a fire burning, and sitting in a wooden chair with rather comfy looking cushions was a guest. Thinking about guests, she looked at him nervously. She had been ordered to do some strange things before by guests.

    Such as that one time when a young nobleman needed a footrest, and he asked her to be that footrest. He had then asked if she was used, and the duke had said not to ask about those kinds of things, ¡°best not to ruin the prettiest dolls¡± he had said.

    This guest though, seemed content to simply sit and read a book, said book was written in German form what little she could spot, and she didn¡¯t know any German. That was a rather said fact, she had been asked if she knew any other languages, and she had to tell her master and some other guests that she only knew English, Irish, and some French.

    That had seemed to dampen their spirits as nobles had to speak at least five different languages in total to be a noble. That was the only cool thing about this country. All the other things were rather strange. Such as the fact that women could marry up to three men, but men could only marry one woman. Though, that was more of a religious thing than anything else.

    But getting back to the present, she seemed to not have bothered the man in the chair, so she went bask to her work. She went and turned back to the bookshelf and began dusting, it took her nearly 15 minutes to get all the dust and detritus off the tall thing that kept books.

    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    She then began to walk to the other side of the room, the right side to be more precise and began to clean the desk and such. The room¡¯s left side had those bookshelves built into the walls, while the right side had a cozy looking desk and chair.

    First, she lifted the chair a little and pulled it out from its place so as to not make much sound. She cleaned the chair with some fabric wipes rinsed in alcohol. She then wiped it down again with a dry towel. After about doing that thoroughly for 15 minutes, went on to the desk itself.

    She looked at it and nodded her head to herself, she then got her hands and knees and looked under the desk for anything lost, there she found a mug for some reason. She got back up while holding the mug and set it on the chair. She then started to climb back down on her hands and knees, but someone stopped her.

    Thinking it was the guest that had been reading the book by the hearth, she got back up to a standing position. She used her hands to flatten her maid¡¯s uniform. Looking down on herself, she checked her skirt and shirt. It was rather alright for now. She looked over to the chair that the guest had been sitting in. and noticed the man was now standing and looking at her.

    He stood about 5ft 6in tall, which was very tall for this time period. His hair was a deep brown, his eyes were both a deep blue in nature. His gaze was a bit unnerving as he seemed to be shocked for some reason, as if he had seen a ghost. He took a shaky step forward, and then another.

    At this point, she just had to ask if he was alright. He seemed unwell, and he was a guest in the manor. So, the only natural thing to do was ask what is wrong¡­ And you would be correct in that statement, if this was a normal case of that.

    But you see, this man was a rather strange case. He seemed rather out of it, like his mind might just straight up explode at any minute, he also seemed familiar, like she had seen him from somewhere. Wait¡­

    He was from her past world, the earth she came from. He had that same, pent up, insane, and all-around manic energy about him that seemed to draw in people like him, people that had the same ideals. Those ideals that got her entire troop killed in friendly fire.

    And what were those ideals? You might find yourself asking. Well, that was rather simple, his ideals and the work he did for the nation went hand in hand with each other. It was Jingoism, the extreme of nationalism. She hated it in her past life with a burning passion.

    So, what was he doing here? Why was he in this blessedly pure and non-eugenics-based world. And yes, there was eugenics, but only for people who signed up for it, you would be placed in an area of the state were your genes and your assigned partner for that area¡¯s genes were needed and forced to spread them together.

    It was a rather strange and overall weird situation, and he was head of it. If she was remembering this right, she had found him in this office railing a woman with sewn on animal ears, then closed the door. She got yelled at later, and she really hoped he wouldn¡¯t rape her here.

    But then again, she was a slave. She was merely a doll for people to use and pose for their own amusement. She had no say in the matter. Though, as mentioned earlier, she had yet to be asked into anyone¡¯s room yet. The master liked older women, and she wasn¡¯t even of age yet.

    ¡°My lord, do you need anything?¡± she asked in the most noncommittal voice she could speak in.

    ¡°It¡¯s just, I have seen your pictures on the entry way into the greater manor. I was wondering if you had any older relatives that are¡­ maybe¡­ single?¡± He asked the question that she had not expected.

    She had wondered if he was going to ask how old she was, she knew that he wasn¡¯t into ten-year-olds, but he was into that loli stuff that she had liked when she was younger in her past life.

    ¡°No, my lord I have no access to my family as of this moment. They all live on Ireland. I also do not have any sisters or older aunts that would be interested in humans, I apologize,¡± she said it.

    It hurt to speak with this man, after all, he had been the one to get the rest of her troop killed in that night raid on the United Kingdom all those years ago. He also looked quite older, like maybe thirty-five. And that was rather old in this world, if he didn¡¯t flex whatever cards he had to get to this world, then he may never get a partner.

    She loved that feeling, it was a giddiness that filled her belly and made her nearly lose her submissive poker face. She sure hoped that he didn¡¯t catch that. It looked like he didn¡¯t, and he slumped his shoulders.

    ¡°I was hoping to find a girl that was maybe a bit younger than me that I could maybe form a romantic bond with, but that ship seems to have sailed,¡± he let out in a pitiable voice.

    ¡®Yes, little sad man. Cry, cry all those Fascist tears away!¡¯ she screamed in her head.

    ¡­

    Now, as a rule, it was very much against the unwritten rules of slave hood that you didn¡¯t smile at the misfortunes of your master. But here was Aisling, smiling away in her own little room, telling her minor spirits that she had made pacts with about her day.

    It was common knowledge among the other slaves that Aisling was a spirit beastkin, and because of that, the master liked her a lot more than the others. Some looked at her with jealousy, others with puppy dog eyes. Those people¡¯s gaze¡¯s seemed to stem from the fact that they thought she had a more, let¡¯s just say intimate relationship with the master.

    She often had to tell the others that she wasn¡¯t a sex slave, she was really a muse for him to paint. But that was rather hard for her to do, as the other slaves often didn¡¯t believe her. The reason that they didn¡¯t was quite simple, she was a mutated beastkin.

    Spirit beastkin could mutate if a major spirit of any element stayed in them for too long, this often happened because they got too greedy and wanted to stay that strong forever. But the drawbacks were quite potent.

    If they kept the spirit in them for far too long, their minds would break, and they would shift into broken things. This is what a broken one was. Well, that is what would happen if a human did so. But if a spirit beastkin did so, they would shift into spirit beasts.

    Spirit beasts were exactly what they sounded like, a beast that was tied to a pact with a spirit. It was something that was quite common in the bogs of Doggor, the large selection of bogs, swamps, and glades that made up the land in between England and France.

    But, back to today, she was still confused as to why he was here. Why he, of all the people she hated, wanted to burn and kill, was here. She had heard nor seen news from the outside world since she was taken in as a slave.

    In the past, people had summoned others form different Earths, and other worlds that contained the touch of man. It was a strange thing they did, the simple fact of the matter was that it was always used in emergencies. As far as she knows, there was no other emergency that the crown of Francia needed to worry over.

    That being said, what did him being here mean for her? Was he here because of a magic incident? Or was he here because of a science experiment gone wrong? That was the real thing she needed to worry over. Would he be able to tell the she was in fact, someone from his past? That part was unlikely, so delving more into that worry would only make her mind more cluttered.

    She lay back down on her bed, sighing as she did so. It was so confusing, the simple fact that he was here was a detriment to her psyche. She then got up from her bed, and looked at her dresser. It was a simple thing, only enough space for 5 pairs of clothes each.

    Overall, it was small. The only clothes she had were maids¡¯ uniforms. She cracked her neck and began to take off her clothes, at least, she was about to so she could sleep without overheating, buy the bell in her room dinged.

    This bell was connected to another bell in the master¡¯s room. Each bell was for a specific bell for each of his favorite slaves in his room. What was strange though, was the fact that it was like 12:30 in the morning, her master should be asleep.

    She fitted her overshirt back on her body and as she made her way to the door. Just then, her own door opened and on the other side was a servant. He himself wasn¡¯t a slave, but the servants and the slaves were treated about the same sometimes.

    She was basically treated the same as a low paid servant. But that being said, she did see a lot of glares directed her way from the non-slave staff. This man was one of them, he was a personal servant of the master and one of his most loyal confidants.

    It was rather strange to see him in front of her room like this. Sure, they lived on the same floor, but other than that, he and her barely interacted with each other. In fact, it was going to be rather awkward to walk with him to the master¡¯s room.

    ¡°The lord wishes for us to go to his room. shall we go together?¡± he asked, and she nodded in response.

    The two of them left the room and she noticed something right away, he wasn¡¯t looking straight ahead. The man usually stared straight ahead all the time, so as to best show his dedication to his lord. His back was usually ramrod straight, as her back was right now, but it wasn¡¯t.

    What was even stranger was the fact that he seemed out of it right now. To her knowledge, he was the type of person to be on their best behavior and such at all times. But his arched back and saggy gaze said otherwise. It was all rather silly in her honest opinion, that a man such as this was like this.

    So, something had to be wrong. She decided to ask that right away, as soon as they got into the normal hallway. She followed him up the stairs and to the secret-but-not-really-a-secret passageway. At the top of the stairs, he turned back and looked at her.

    The look plastered on his face said something to her, it was tiredness. He was simply tired; he had been woken up rather early in his sleep cycle. That must be the reason he seemed so out of himself right now. But as he continued to not move from his spot at the top of the stairs, he sighed.

    ¡°You know, it is rather stressful. This job, I mean¡­¡± He took in another sigh, ¡°the simple fact that he wants us to go up to his room in the middle of the night says a lot about him.¡±

    He looked down onto her, as if thinking about something deep, like the intrusive thoughts at the back of his head were winning. At that point, she saw him nearly drop onto the floor due to his exhaustion.

    ¡°May I speak sir?¡± Aisling asked, and he nodded in turn, ¡°I was simply thinking about how nice it is to get paid, how nice it is to not be painted nude. I know it was selfish of me; I am not taken advantage of all too much, I have a good relationship with the master,¡± it was now her turn to sigh.

    ¡°But you are paid for your labor, my good sir. Sure, you have to work till 10 o¡¯clock in the afternoon, but I just finished my work thirty minutes ago. I only sleep for four hours. I clean the lord¡¯s office at 4:30, I stay in place of the lord to paint for hours at a time. Yet I only an aloud to eat breakfast after that. And may I remind you that this schedule is not fixed,¡± she reiterated.

    ¡°The painting usually starts at six o¡¯clock. The painting only ends when he is finished. That may be at a completely odd time, or when he decides to stick to the schedule, he has made up in his mind that only he can see and use. The cooks do not make food at any time like for you, my good sir. The cooks do not care if I am favored by the master.¡±

    ¡°They only make food at the normal eating times, but I am his favored slave, I must use his timetable, or he gets angered and threatens to hit me, my good sir,¡± she told him much to his shock.

    He was simply a servant that used the same timetable as everyone else. Sure, he was good friends with the duke, but he didn¡¯t follow the lord¡¯s schedule. He only started work at nine o¡¯clock, and only ended it at ten o¡¯clock. He got to eat whatever leftovers the cooks had, and they would heat it up for him.

    Sure, he was a well-paid worker, but that was overshadowed by his master¡¯s absolute whims. This girl however, worked for twenty-three and a half hours a day. That was cruel, even to his noble person¡¯s eyes.

    ¡°So my good sir, what is the matter?¡±

    ¡­