Author: New chapter, thanks for waiting.

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Chapter 3

Darkness is its color, silence is the song it sings. It whispers lullabies to the living, it gifts them dreams and nightmares alike. Such is the night.

And that night was even more so. More quiet, more dark, sweeter than every night before. It was giving more than just rest to the children of the day.

“The calm before the storm…” Raeg sighed softly and put his back on the outer wall of his shack-house. He had spread his special sense and was trying to listen to the voice of this peculiar night but nothing could be heard. The usually playful male-female pair living only some steps away was quiet this time unlike any other. The heartbeats of the living were in a most unusual peace and rhythm. The sound of breathing was lost together with the soft wind.

“We’ll be having a new moon tomorrow, huh.” While standing just outside the little building he mused to himself about his mother’s words. ‘Don’t get caught’ or how he liked to interpret it ‘don’t give up on your freedom’. As he moved slightly, he felt the black chain on his neck that looked as if it was trying to choke him.

“You’re not going to sleep Raeg?” Pavia appeared suddenly at the doorstep and talked to him.

Shaking his head slightly he asked “How’s father?”

The woman looked at him lovingly and sighed.

“He’s always been Raan to me so I sometimes forget he’s a human and his body is very weak when compared to us. We could probably grow a limb or two if we wanted but he heals so slowly even with those kinds of wounds.” She sighed and looked at Raeg again. “You’re my child so become strong, ok? You know, I’ve heard that muscular men are popular with girls.”

“Haha. Yeah right. One can take a look at Garner and understand that the profound truth of society is quite the opposite.”

“…”

“Well, Garner might just be an exception.”

“True.”

“Hahahaha” laughs erupted into the night as parent and child joked with each other.

“The sick guy wants to rest, you know.” As they heard the familiar voice they both turned their heads to see a pale Raan, trying to sit up.

“Raan, what are you doing trying to get up? Don’t move!” Pavia went immediately to his side and pushed him back in the bed.

“Ouch!”

“Don’t ‘ouch’ me! Who told you to get up! What if your wounds open up again!”

“Dear wife, if your loving shoving didn’t make them worse, nothing will be able to.”

‘Oops. Landmine. You probably shouldn’t have said that, father,’ Raeg was thinking as he watched his parents showing affection in their ridiculous way. Reading the mood he decided to leave them alone for a while.

“Wha-? You!! How dare you?! And here I was worried for your sorry ass! You R@#%^@!”

…And thus the silence of the night was quite short lived.

…

The rising sun signaled the breaking of dawn. The night passed and a new day started. A new day meant new possibilities, new hopes and new troubles.

Wearing only his pants, a child that looked as if made of snow, was cleaning himself with water from a well located near the west wall of the slaves’ residing area.

*whistle* A big group of people was surrounding him. Two of them separated from the group and approached the child slowly.

“Raeg, you’ll probably surpass your mother in beauty after few more years. You should start being careful of other people, you know.”

The one to talk was a dark skinned woman that helped Madre a lot with the herbs along with Raeg. Her name was Shera and she was a very friendly tiger beastkin that wore little clothes all year long, be it winter or summer. She had a well built but otherwise sensual body, and had no fear of showing it as probably no one around was stronger than her, excluding Pavia, and no man would be able to do anything to her.

“Really, really, I might just attack you.” This joke that couldn’t be considered a joke was said by the famous overgrown ninny, Garner.

“Raeg’s five, you know, five! At least hold your tongue if you’re not gonna say anything worthwhile you damn pervert.”

“E-eh. It was only a joke,” he said trying to laugh it off but, “ouch” he went down as Shera elbowed him in the stomach.

“Heh, the women here are no joke.” “Yeah,yeah.” “Pavia, Madre and even Shera.” “I would have bet none of them would ever get married but…haha.” Thus were the reactions of the crowd around.

Getting pissed off Shera returned at them and shouted “Oh, shut up! Get your asses back to work! Raeg’s not some circus attraction for you guys to see.” Then she gave a deathly glare accompanied by some ‘beautiful’ words (Madre Virus) and the crowd scattered soon enough. No one in their right mind would fight with her head on.

“You really won’t get a husband if you keep doing that, you know?” A childish voice talked teasingly at her direction and a small laugh was heard. Shera turned to look at Raeg who had an unexpectedly innocent bright smile in his face. She wanted to retort but held back as she felt she was a grown up and it would be wrong to get angry over this against at five year old.

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Shera may have been also raised by Madre but unexpectedly enough she showed a much mature side and talked in friendly way most of the time. She would show her tomboyish characteristics only around people she considered close to her.

She took another look at the beautiful child before her and sighed softly.

“Raeg, it is good that you have been blessed with looks great enough to ruin countries but do you know that pretty face of yours has brought us a new problem?”

Raeg looked questioningly at Shera and then at Garner and shook his head.

Shera said with an expression full of disgust “That stupid master of ours who only has money in his hands, head and heart will be cutting our food for a while. He wants to make you give up on your own and go with the cow. Those dogs of the housemaster dare not approach you because of Pavia so…”

Hearing this, his expression darkened a little. This place was a prison. It had high walls surrounding it from all sides. It was near yet not quite close to the manor of their ‘owner’. The slaves that lived at the manor house were people master might have fancied but they were either quite short lived or sold to different households to make money.

Only the working salves lived here. They would be given all kinds of work when the morning came and had to finish it by midnight or they got punished by the higher-ups. Punishments usually consisted of whippings and being left without food for a period of time. These however were considered light punishments.

“That’s not all.” This time Garner was the one to talk. His face was now completely different from before. It was serious and also gloomy.

“What do you mean?” Raeg asked in a very calm but otherwise cold voice.

“They are going to send some of the slaves to work in the mines.”

Those words came as a shock. What was worse punishment than being left without food? The mines.

The working slaves had an unusually easy life. They did a lot of heavy and hard work but different from the manor’s salves they were not as guarded. They were given food if they finished their work and weren’t minded too much as long as they didn’t cause any problems, and didn’t try to run away (for this they would be killed). Most of them were considered trash and thus left in this place to simply work until they died.

Raeg was a special case. Though the housemaster had taken an interest in him, Pavia wouldn’t let anyone anywhere near him. As Raeg was still a child he hadn’t pursued this matter much, until now.

The mines were the hell of the working slaves. There was no guarantee for one’s life, health and food provisions. For some things you had to fight with other salves to get. If you made too much of a ruckus you were punished. If you were disobedient they even went as far as torturing. In the worst cases you might even get drugged. There had been times when people lost their minds in there. You would see broken salves muttering to themselves and others that simply killed themselves. In some cases they were buried alive and perished while gasping for air.

That place was the hell of the living. There, death became a sweet temptation. The dead kissed the living welcome and the living laughed at the wails of the dying.

“W-who will be sent there?” Raeg asked in a very small voice.

“…Darda, Kuna, Shor, Dano, Gvil…”

“…”

“What is it? Why did you stop? Is that all?”

“…me, your parents and some other guys.”

While talking, Garner was looking down all the time. He was deathly pale and his usual idiotic mood was nowhere to be seen. It was a wonder he was trying to joke earlier, same with Shera.

“The other salves still don’t know it. Some guys earlier wanted to take me by force when Pavia and Shera came and beat them up. I think others will be coming, though. If there’s one thing our master is good at except loving money, that’s saving his own ass.”

Raeg was probably paler than the two in front of him. Being separated from his mother and father and the others, he didn’t want that, he hadn’t thought that such thing could happen. He wanted freedom but he lacked knowledge, he lacked resources and he lacked experience. He was still too naïve.

A sudden noise attracted his attention at the direction of the eastern wall, a bit near his home. Something was wrong and a weird anxiety sprouted in his heart. It was a similar feeling to the time he had killed Gaia, his first mother. It was like the buzzing sound that keeps you awake during sleepless nights. 

“Shera, Garner, come quickly!” A panicked man shouted while running in their direction.

“What happened?”

“They caught Pavia. Raan won’t last long as he’s injured.”

“They caught mother?! How?” The words came like thunder in a clear sky. His mother’s strength was something he admired. It reminded him a bit of Gaia and, since he remembered, had left a deep impression in his mind. Though untrained it was beautiful.

…But now they caught her?!

“T-they drugged her. They shot her with p-poisonous arrows.”

Hearing this Raeg immediately started running in the direction the man came from.

For the first time since rebirth, he was beyond angry.

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