Chapter 7: The lost girl

The 25th princess was scared. After the light vanished she couldn’t move at first. After that she started shaking and sobbing. She didn’t want to be here. She never asked for this. Her mother was a dryad. Gentle beastkin that have a strong affinity with earth and water. She inherited the very rare gift of recovery from her mother. Recovery was a magic that combined water and earth to form the vitality of nature and recovery was able to not just healing but even regeneration. Even lost limbs with enough time and magic could be healed. A truly divine gift.

But not suited for combat! She had inherited form: the lower body that of a deer and her upper body that of a woman. Except for the two small horns on her forehead. She had a cute face with big eyes, round cheeks, green hair that were woven into a braid that fell onto her back and she looked adorable but at the moment she was just scared. Since she was born she had not hurt anybody. Her teacher gave up on her very early on and she focused on just developing her healing ability. Only when she was healing did she feel at peace.

Her nanny took good care of her but there was no affection. She was truly alone. Like all children she was named after her father with the 25th added at the end. So she gave herself a name. Mia. She liked that short simple name. It fit her she thought. She would spend her days healing her siblings whenever they were hurt from their training. Therefore she didn’t get as much scorn and hatred as for example her 17th brother. She felt genuinely sorry for him. But with her timid personality… there was nothing she could do.

Those and many more thoughts raced through her brain as she was scared stiff within the vast dungeon. After a while she started quietly talking to herself. “Maybe someone needs help, yes maybe i have to heal someone i have to go i need to move.” She tried to make herself move by any means. One has to know that by now she was already overcome by fear. Her reasoning wasn’t rational at all. But after a while she started walking. She had no reason to as she was sure that this was her grave but… she had no reason not to either!

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So she walked through cave after cave after cave. She kept talking to herself about all sorts of things and kept sobbing a little bit. After another corridor she had long lost count of how many she had past she suddenly walked into a rather small cave. If she had been a little bit less scared or nervous she might have thought why she never met anything but Mia just couldn’t think straight at the moment. When she reached the center of the cave she suddenly felt a chill running down her spine. And something within her told her: That’s it. This is where you will die. But nothing happened. Instead of dying Mia heard a very quiet voice talking instead: “Living with all this scum and still being this innocent…” It sounded astonished.

She knew that voice! “Even when i hit you with my unrestrained killing intent there was not even the slightest intention of retaliation.” Mia was shaking from head to toe: “se… se… seventeenth brother?” No response. But she forced herself to continue: “A.. Are you hurt? I.. I can heal you.” She tried to smile. She failed. Suddenly the darkness in front of her seemed to part slightly and she could see her brother. He had an unbelieving expression. “Mia we are supposed to kill each other why would you ever want to heal me?”

Then something broke in Mia and she started to cry: “I know i know i know… but… but… i don’t want to kill anybody and anyway i couldn’t even if i tried. And this place and brother was always kind to me he never scolded me or or hurt me, so when i saw brother i thought i though that maybe if i can’t live anyway then perhaps i can at least help brother the only person who ever said kind words to me, he even asked me for my name.” And she sobbed through every word. It was a heart wrenching scene. Suddenly irresistible killing intent rose throughout the cave. Mia was so shocked she stopped crying and backed away unconsciously. The source of it, her brother wore an expression of extreme sorrow and extreme hate. In an instant it was over. Panting Mia stayed where she was. Suddenly she felt a cool hand on her cheek. Again the darkness moved away and her brothers handsome face came near her: “Mia do you want to live?” She couldn’t help herself but cry again: “Yeeeeeeeeeees.” She threw herself in her brothers arms. She had nowhere else to go either she died now or not.