Edited by: tommyjl7, flubbbykin
There are two things Gisele could never let me do. One, have her food, once we were eating in the inn and ordered completely different dishes, I was curious how her’s tasted, so I took a bit. A BIT! A little, itty-bitty-tiny piece! She almost bit my fingers off.
The other thing is having a fun-fight alone. I wanted to leave the guild (by myself, alone, Gisele-free), I would be back after month or two, yet even that was too much for her to handle.
And she would pretty much sure consider handling that little group by myself as cheating.
- “You are dead, ya hear me?!...” she yelled standing over me “… what were you singing a moment ago? I will fix your leg till you can’t walk, was it? Well, I am going to smack your ass so hard you can’t fucking sit!”
I decided to get up from the floor.
- “Gis, look at me. Focus, attention please, if I wouldn’t have sneaked into the castle, we couldn’t enter it, and then you would have no fun at all!”
- “We could’ve just stormed the gates!!”
- “And let dozen of good people die before reaching the walls? Then another dozen before getting inside the walls!?”
She knew that I was right, but damn, she didn’t care, right now all she wanted was to scold me.
- “That is why you went straight for the boss?!”
- “No, that is why I go for one person, leaving over hundred of them to you!”
Dragoness snorted and looked over at corpses of bandits.
- “I see more than one dead person here!”
- “I-I-I am sorry, but…” a weak voice could be heard from behind my mate, as knight and priestess emerged from corridor leading to the stairs “… but mind telling us… what the fuck… has happened here?”
Lanele asked helping miss Blackwater stand as her legs seemed to be wobbly.
- “Don’t mind us, we have such quarrels every now and then…”
- “No, I meant that huge beast that was throwing bandits all around the place like rag dolls!”
My heart skipped a beat.
Fuck. They saw, what should I do? Deny? No, that wouldn’t work they heard it from somebody else as gossip. Tell alternative version of the story? Something about summoning? Nah, it could work for now, but eventually they would find out the truth, then things could become even dirtier.
Maybe… Should I turn it into a joke?
- “Y-y-you saw that?!...” I yelled trying to act shocked. I covered my face with palms “… THAT’S SO EMBARRASSING!”
- “E-embarrassing?”
- “It’s same as if you would have a peek at my underwear!... You perverts.” I added after a moment.
Jessica blinked twice, apparently my casual responses helped her regain her composure.
- “Have you ever heard about lycanthropes?” I asked, twisting my head to the side avoiding looking girls in the eyes.
- “Werewolves?”
- “Yup, that will be our example. They are shapeshifters, creatures with the ability to change their appearance. I am one myself. Speaking bluntly, some people change their shirts, I change skin.”
- “THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT! You can’t compare those two!”
- “Of course you can’t!...” I pouted “…Changing your pants will never be as intimate as changing your skin! And you! You… you didn’t avert your eyes, did you!?”
And now, basic psychological trick, by starting to “attack” I forced Lanele into “defense” – thus, she stopped prying on the phenomenon she saw.
- “What? No, I mean… You can’t really look away when over three-meter tall beasts slaughter people left and right!”
- “Perverts…” I hissed “… You think you will manage to get away without taking responsibility!? Gisele saw me morph, and now she is my mate for life, so…”
Already mention Gisele smacked the back of my head. I admit, I deserved. I could get carried away a little with my monologues.
- “Stop it right here!...” she yelled clearly dissatisfied “… Will you just be fine with the fact that Zari is freak of nature?”
- “I prefer the term: one of a kind.” that was offensive, damn it!
It was obvious, that Lana wasn’t satisfied with just that.
- “But… what kind of shapeshifter? There are plenty! Also…”
- “You are a rare magical race that lives among human?” Jessica finally managed to utter a sentence. Despite her body that still remembered the horror she witnessed, she regained her mental stability.
Quite incredible, if you would ask me. On the other hand, field commanders needed to react to changes in the tide of battle in a jiffy.
- “I can already tell what you are thinking. Council of magic, King, Heads of Grand houses and Jericho from guild are aware of who I am, so no need to worry.”
She wasn’t convinced about that, not that she didn’t believe me, it was more her nature of the soldier – to report every event to her superiors.
- “If you want to make sure, feel free to contact old Blackwood, just please, be discreet about that, I don’t want it to become a common knowledge.”
- “Why? I heard many good things about you, I am sure that people would no longer see you as threat…” knight tried to find out the reasons behind my desire for secrecy.
- “It’s not about public opinion…” Of course, it is all about public opinion, I am not telling you the whole truth. The old legends say that one day I will swallow the world “… As you said, I am a magical creature, so who knows how valuable my organs are on the black market?” The black market that is controlled by Syndicate, which I partly control myself…
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- “I see, some shady organization may be after you.” Expression of Lanele changed, right now she was actually pitying me.
And now I felt bad because of it.
The sound of steel echoed across the stairs as one of the soldiers was approaching us.
- “Capitan, we are now in control of the castle, bandits defeated, most of them are dead, around a dozen surrendered.” He reported quickly.
Then he looked up, right at the man hanging on the chandelier.
- “For the mercy of Luxia, just how… Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
Wise of him.
- “Congratulation Captain.” I said my words of approval, by that I told her that I am fine with her taking all the credit.
- “There is nothing to be happy about, because of these scum I lost a few good men... and good friends.” The mood of knight darkened.
- “It may not be much, but at least they died honoring their vow. Think about how many people were saved by their sacrifice. For those villagers, your people that died here will be heroes for the rest of their lives.”
- “Such words coming from lips of an individual like yourself will mean a lot to my people…”
- “I don’t mind repeating them in front of the soldiers.”
- “Much appreciate.”
Blackwater’s thoughts already wandered far into the future, I knew what she was wondering about, the most difficult part of being a commander – informing families about the death of the soldiers.
The next things that happened weren’t nearly as exciting as conquering the castle. I watched knights getting rid of the bandit’s corpses, securing the prisoners and resting bodies of their fallen comrades in the old chapel in the stronghold, later they would call for the priests from nearest city or village to pray over them one last time. Eleven people from Jessica’s squad had fallen during the attack, around half of them were from arrows before they even rushed into the walls.
Jessica called for inspection, during which I once again was asked to boost the morale of soldiers. In same chapel, their comrades laid I took the place behind the altar and started speaking from the elevated ground to the men sitting on the benches.
And I talked, about honor, the noble duty. I said about how harsh, yet fulfilling the fateful life of a soldier is. I showed them my respect, thanked them for their sacrifice.
- “It is justified to cry after comrades you lost, it is understandable that you may weep after your brothers, but don’t be sad, I forbid you feeling bad for your comrades. They fulfilled their vows, death of each of them saved lives of hundreds more, instead of being sad, say with pride, that you got to serve with people so noble, that they gave their lives away to defend their ideals – ideals about safe and prosperous future, as a mere citizen, for those deeds you did, I thank you.”
I bowed my head to them.
- “Said the man that infiltrated the castle, opened the gates, and rushed to defeat the leader…” I overheard one of the men whispering to another.
- “I feel bad for making him bow to us, we should be the one doing that.”
- “THAT Zariel thanking us in person, it’s sad that Gordon couldn’t see that.”
Nonetheless, they seemed to appreciate what I said, just like Jessica predicted. No matter what you do, you always like being reminded that whatever you do is important, every human being searched for recognition and to be appreciated.
Still, the mood was heavy, so together with Gisele and Lana, we quickly left to the storage room for resupplying. Miss Blackwater followed us, mostly because she needed to catalog all the goods that were stolen by the bandits, later she would give them back to their rightful owners.
- “Looks like you have quite a renown in the capital, Zari.” Priestess said to break an awkward silence.
- “Of course he does, he did more good for the city in a year than Grand Houses and Senate in the past decade.” It was Jess who decided to quench Lana’s thirst for knowledge.
- “Really?”
- “He saved Madame Blackwood – Matron of our family, when he was offered a prize he just asked for free entry to the library, then he established company which is selling potion by half of the original price, the reason why Alchemists Guild reduced their prices a little is Zariels action, also, I heard about your last project you intend to carry on, orphanage was it?”
- “Orphanage?” priestess tilted her head to the side.
- “I know only the general concept, maybe you will elaborate it for us?” she turned her head toward me.
- “In the case of parents death, the elven society takes care of the children, right?” As far as I know, they had a bit of a different approach to children.
- “Yes, because we aren’t very fertile, our lifespan is long and if there isn’t any war our number doesn’t change a lot, we have very few children in a generation, if one child would lose their parents, every family almost fights with each other for the privilege of adoption, in the end, having a child to rise is the greatest blessing of Aira… But I heard that human society is a bit different in this matter.”
- “Indeed, if your closest family wouldn’t take you in, you pretty much end up on the street and are forced to end up as a beggar or thief… or something even worse. So… our company generates a little bit of excessive funds, we have enough to cover the salary of workers, buy supplies, and invest in the company’s growth, so… I thought about making a huge building that would serve for those kids as a home, hire a few women that would take care of them and give them some basic education till they reach adulthood.”
- “Why would you do that?” she clearly was surprised.
- “Before I started the company, I met a girl on the street, she was a beggar with some basic talent in magic. There was no way she could afford education in Academy, so she was studying by herself, nothing serious, just trying to ignite candles and such… She was also trying to lie low, for if mages would sense magic being used daily in slums, they would hunt her down and seal her powers – the Senate calls her type the Rogue mages, in reality, it’s nothing more than controlling who has access to the power. In the end, I hired her in my alchemy facility. But then I started wondering, somewhere out there, in the streets, are dozens of talented kids, some of them may become merchants, some magicians, some blacksmiths… yet they were deprived ofthose opportunities simply by being born in the wrong environment. I started getting a little depressed that I couldn’t possibly find every single one of them personally… So I just changed my approach, instead of looking for them, I would just open another facility, pro-bono-publico, which would be like a haven for those that had a harsh life. This way I give them the opportunity to once again have a somewhat normal life, life with opportunities. Everything has a right to grow, plants, animals, so why not human?”
That, plus I needed a way to send money to Syndicate without anyone wondering where the money went, no one knows how much maintaining such facility costs, so I could just pour 10 gold coins monthly, where one would be given to the kids, and nine to the Syndicate. No one would check on it, because no one is interested in the fate of orphans.
And if there would be some truly talented individuals, Syndicate could train them from the very start. If you would also add the fact, that in eyes of people I raised to the range of hero, you would have a whole picture of how splendid an idea it was to take care of a few stray cats.
- “That’s… wow.” Lana was left speechless. In the end, humanity as a whole doesn’t really have an opinion of being generous and selfless.
- “Also, at the same time, I am paying my debts. You already know that I am not human, yet despite that, there were people that took me in, offered me shelter and food. I believe in Karma, if you do something good for someone, something good will happen to you, but also, if someone was good to you, you are morally bound to do something good for somebody else.”
- “How does it affect all the people you killed?” Gisele decided to mock me.
- “If fate put me on those people’s path, it means that they were some nasty fuckers and deserved everything I did do them.”
- “That’s one handy approach.” Jessica couldn’t not smirk
- “Right? Otherwise it would mean that I am doing something bad, but I can’t be doing anything bad because I am perfect.”
- “Still, you are perfect only because you are with me!” dragoness grinned widely and ruffled my hair.
- “Looks like Gisele has a bad influence on you.” Lanele sighed.
- “Zariel, Gisele, Lanele…” Blackwater said after a short pause “… I owe you a lot. If we would ever cross paths in future…”
- “You will buy us dinner.” Gis gave a pat at woman’s shoulder, almost making her trip.
- “Are you really fine with just that?”
- “That’s not as easy a task as you think, Gis can eat more than the whole platoon!”
That was a mistake. I already forgot that Gis was still mad and was looking for an excuse to quarrel.
- “Did you just call me fat!?”
I felt her iron grip tightening over my neck.
NOT THAT AGAIN!