Mary was in an unknown forest. The prevalent color was dark green, unlike the light browns and greens in the empire. It looked a lot like how she had heard the far north of her continent was. Way beyond its middle where monsters lived. There was only one confusion, everything was too big. The grass on the clearing she was on looked to be two meters tall as well.
She tried to move, but no amount of struggling accomplished more than a twitch of her arms or legs.
Slightly panicked, she tried look around, something she somehow managed.
She wondered why she didn't feel the cold of the forest floor.
The moment the thought occurred, she noticed she was being held by a giant smiling down at her.
Instinctively, Mary knew the giant to be her mother.
Something was wrong though, her mother was smiling at her with sad eyes.
She seemed to fight with herself.
Taking a closer look at her mother, she saw someone looking a lot like herself.
Her mother had the same eye color and hair she had.
The differences were stark though, she had slit eyes like a cat, a green tinge on her skin and longer canines than Mary.
She looked exhausted and desperate, and Mary wanted to help her, so she tried to lift her arms and embrace her mother.
That seemed to cause something in the woman. With tears filling her eyes and a shocking display of illusion magic she cast the spell that would enable Mary’s life.
Looking at her mother casting a spell as complex as this while crying made Mary proud and envious. The control the woman had over her mana exceeded even Mary’s. The ease and concentrations she had while casting the spell was in stark contrast to before.
Even the dragonrune of the spell was cast without any problems.
Her mother said something, words Mary had never heard, put her in a basket and took out a manacrystal.
While not particularly rare, one as big as that one was used for very specific purposes. They were gifts to the apprentice once he was a full mage.
Mary watched in awe as her mother used all the mana in it for one spell.
Mary had seen these runes before, they were used for a single person teleportation spell. Suddenly, instead of being surrounded by her mother's love and a forest, Mary appeared on the doorsteps of what she recognised as the orphanage she had lived in. Her past self started to cry.
Sitting straight in her bed, Mary managed to fully recollect the dream for the first time in her life. In the past years, Mary had dreamt that memory in irregular intervals, though she only remembered glimpses of it so far.
Mary got up before the details left her and quickly wrote down the words her mother had said to her, it was the first time she heard the language.
While she didn't know the it, her interest in her biological mother had risen after that dream. The words she remembered were the only clue she got, so she made sure to remember them.
The only thing she needed to do now was to find out what language her mother had used and ask the adventurers guild of their records in that land at the time she came to the orphanage.
Mary still vividly remembered the first time she had had parts of that dream. Back then, she had just started to notice the bruises she got while training healed that fast. She had been new in the house of her family and started to warm up to her parents.
Mary woke up with a start. She shortly wondered why she woke until a face came to her mind. It was a person she had never seen before and yet she was sure that was the face of her mother.
At first she was elated, perhaps she could be find her now that she knew her face.
Before she would forget the face, she tried to engrave it into her memory, when she noticed something terrible and made a surge of panic getting hold of her heart.
The woman wasn't human or elven or of any of the races that owned most of the lands. That could only mean she, and Mary aswell , was a monster.
There was only one thing that humans did with monsters. They killed them.
A deep sadness joined the panic in her heart. She didn't want to leave the house, over the last months she had started to warm up to the two nobles that were her parents now.
But her parents were human and the empire’S law required them to kill all monsters they came across if they were able to.
Mary didn't want to die, so there was only one course of action she could take.
Getting up, she quickly dressed and left her room, with a sad look, she said goodbye to her home of a few months and turned to leave.
It was still night so she met noone, the servants would start coming in in a few hours, but Mary would be long gone by then.
She left the mansion through the same door she used to get into the garden to watch the sunrise every morning.
Mary made a beeline towards the walls surrounding the property and arrived there ten minutes later, the maze had slowed her down more than she would have liked.
As there was no good way off the property, she just started climbing the walls, something possible from the inside but entirely impossible from the outside.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Before reaching the halfway point she heard a strong gust of air and could feel tendrils of magic gripping her and ripping her small body off the wall.
She was gently set to the ground. Turning around to see who managed to spot her, she saw the woman she had started to call mother in the last few weeks.
Seeing her face mixed with anger sadness and concern broke her resolve to run away and she broke down crying, all the pent up emotion since she woke up being released at once.
In between her sobs, she felt her mother sit down next to her and start to hug her against her chest.
Ten minutes later, Mary managed to calm down a bit and her sobbing decreased to the occasional hiccup.
“You have to let me go, I don't want to die.” She cried.
“Why would you die if we don't?”
“Because you have to kill me.”
“I'm pretty sure murdering children is a crime.”
“But I'm no child, I'm a monster.”
“How did you get that insane idea?” Diane asked with a hint of amusement in her voice.
“I'm not human.”
“You know we don't care about that honey.”
“But I'm not elven or dwarven or anything else too!”
“How do you know that, you don't know your parents!”
“I had a dream about my mother. She is a monster.”
“A dream isn't reality honey. Dreams are expressions of our subconsciousness.”
“It wasn't a normal dream. I know it. The law dictates all humans have to kill or report high evolution monsters as soon as possible. And you are human.” She started crying again. Her mother pulled Mary closer to her.
“We would never kill you. You are very dear to us even though you were only here for a few months. And I know for a fact that you are no monster.”
“But I am. I heal faster than any human, need less sleep am stronger fast can see in the dark and overall better than any human my age!” She insisted. With a sigh, her mother was silent for a few minutes.
“Have you ever heard of the sixteen?
“Of course. They were the elite of fathers forces in the north and have vanished since he is in the capital. Why?”
“They were monsters. Very powerful ones too, each of them was nearly as powerful as your dad.” That was the first thing that broke through her despair. She looked up at her mother.
“No, someone would have noticed!”
“They perfected living under humans. And nobody here would have let them if they knew you are right. But things in the north are different, the people are different. While the population of the capital has some bias against other races, the north doesn't. As its way more dangerous there, there are only two kinds of people there. The ones that want to kill you and those that don't. At least it had been until your father took over and started pushing back the constant monster incursions.
But the mentality didn't change. People in the north will glady hide a powerful monster should it fight with them.
Anyways, they were all as powerful as a weak archmage.
They all came in the span of five years asking for employment. Back then we didn't know, but seeing as they didn't want much in return, your father figured it out fairly quick. When he did, he came to me for advice, he was required to kill them, but they were became friends over the years and he needed them for an effective defense.
I advised him to ask them personally and only kill them if they didn't admit it. As you know, there are still all sixteen of them left, so you know how that ended.
WE came to the conclusion that we were like the people we governed, we don't act on stupid superstition like the most of the citizens in the south.”
“Where are they now?”
“Officially, they were removed of our service, but they are still employed for missions in the north, though they went into hiding as some of our enemies could target them to weaken us. They don't know these sixteen would never come so far south, as they don't like the atmosphere here.”
“Tell me more about them.”
Back then she managed to calm down enough to come back to the house while her mother distracted her with stories of the five generals of the north.
They hadn't been real generals, even a grand duke wasn't allowed to have more than two legions under his command, but got the rank so he could sent them anywhere he wanted without them having problems in the chain of command.
Looking out of her window, Mary saw the sun was about to rise, so she got up and went to the spot where she always enjoyed the rising sun.
Sometimes, Taimanu would join her, but it looked like the lynxkin would be sleep in today,. That was fine for her, she had to contact her father anyways.
She started to cast the spell a few minutes after the sun had fully left the horizon.
“Hi dad.”
“Hey Mary, how are you?”
“I'm fine, got attacked by one of my teammates and failed my first quest. But that's not why I contacted you.”
“You know I can't let that sit there like that. Are you fine and what happened to him?”
“I'm fine, you know something as simple as a head wound won't seriously put me in danger and"
“Head Wounds are the most dangerous wounds. Did a proper healer check you?” He interrupted her.
“Of course, like I said everything is fine. The teammate is dead, he wanted to continue the quest I deemed too risky and knocked me out when he left in the night.”
“What quest did you do?”
“We had to capture a hobgoblin for one of the teachers. He was a shaman and had a ward out that warned him so he ran to his tribe.”
“You made the right decision, one of the eastern tribes is more than your group can handle right now.”
“I know and so did the rest of my team. He was just angry I didn't treat my friend, who turned out to be a clanlords daughter, properly. So in a fit of anger he discarded reason.”
“Your lizardfolk friend has royal blood?”
“Yep, she said it has been quite some time though.”
“That's interesting. I assume you will find a melee fighter that isn't a lizard than?”
“Already have. A crazy elf that creates a wooden golem and uses it as armor.”
“That's certainly unique. Did you see him fight already?”
“Nope, but we will be on a quest soon, my team needs to regain their confidence and I have the perfect quest for both.”
“Keep me in the loop.”
“Will do.”
“What's the actual reason for your message then?”
“I had that dream again.”
“The one about your mother?”
“Yes. This time was different though.”
“How so?”
“It ended with me on the doorsteps of the orphanage. And she said something.”
“That's new, did you understand it?”
“No, it’s none of the languages I know. But I noted it down.” She told him.
“I take it you want me to search for the language?”
“That would be great.”
“I’ll see what I can find. Any ideas to limit search?”
“Could be anywhere on the world, she teleported me here. But I think it was in the far north, beyond monster territory.”
“I’ll see what I can dig up. Any ideas what changed so you remembered it fully?”
“One. I recently tripled the ambient mana in my room. If my mother was as powerful as it seems, I think that caused it as the ambient mana is now closer to how it was when I was born.
We also now know I was actually born the day I came to the orphanage. She looked like she came right out of labour.”
“So you are actually a little younger than we thought. Anyways, I’ll see what I can dig up, I will contact you when I find something, bye.”
“Bye.”