“This is Lady Elizabeth Porte. My niece.”

I guess there was a bit of resemblance with the facial structure, but still. The ears. Did she have a sibling marry an elf? Plus that last name. And the title. Generally noble’s last names are related to their territory, so by sharing the name of the local city…fuck, the last two days have been a roller-coaster.

“So. Mary.”

“Yes?”

“Does that mean you’re a noble? Didn’t you say your parents were from my world?”

“Uh-“

“Auntie never really cared for noble life. Even grandmother and grandfather never really were enthusiastic about being nobles, God rest their souls, but the king insisted for raising them to the rank for their accomplishments. Auntie ran away from home and went off adventuring before settling in the woods. Of course we still welcome her back in the city, she’s family, but she renounced any claims towards nobility. She even took the name our ancestors had before they became nobles.”

“Don’t call me ‘auntie!’ At least you could call me cousin, or even ‘big sis.’ I’m not old enough to be called auntie…”

“Don’t be silly, auntie is auntie.”

A despairing look washed over the witch’s face, like she was forced to confront the inevitability of time dragging her closer and closer to middle-age. I found myself feeling immensely sympathetic towards her, as the younger girl had dealt what must be a devastating blow to some one who quite frankly could only be a decade older than her at most. But as I opened my mouth to speak…

“By the way, auntie, I take it this is the apprentice you were telling me about?”

This seemed to pull her out of her stupor.

“Y-yes, she is.”

The girl turned towards me with a smile, a dangerous glint in her eye driving away the previous shell-shocked expression.

“My aunt was just telling me all about you, Miss Snyder. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Of course you call her miss, but I’m auntie…”

Elizabeth held out her hand elegantly, as if a lady to a knight. Something about the look she was giving me was sending shivers down my spine. If she was as openly dangerous as Mary was this feeling would make sense, but a waif who looked to be around 18 shouldn’t be “dangerous.” Well, relatively speaking.

I mean, in a world like this it wouldn’t be surprising for people to be considered adults at a younger age, and take up all sorts of professions like being a guard or soldier. Hell, even in my own world I joined the military at 17 and that was in the 21st century, not a more medieval-seeming world like this one.

Admittedly she doesn’t have the build of a trained soldier, and every inch of her looks like a noblewoman. Which could be dangerous in its own way. Maybe this sixth sense is warning me about her possibly trying to get me involved in politics? That would be dangerous, especially in a world like this were, at least going off Mary’s garden, poison and other cloak and dagger methods tend to be used with much greater frequency than our world.

It’s only common sense you can’t trust politicians, and what are nobles and courtiers if not medieval politicians? Political intrigue is a surefire way to find myself in a heap of trouble more than I have been. So that must be why she seems dangerous and predatory.

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I reach out and shake the hand she’s offered, and a look of utter disappointment shows across her face.

“It’s nice to meet a relative of my master, Lady Porte. She hasn’t told me much about her family, but it’s a pleasure to get to know you.”

Oddly, an expression of delight replaced the earlier disappointment. For someone so deep into the world of politics, she seems to show her emotions rather freely.

“Auntie tells me you know a lot about the fashions of your world, if you’d like, at a later date, maybe you could visit my estate and tell me about them over tea?” She shifted in her seat, facing more towards me than the table. “I have a wonderful wardrobe, and I’d be glad to let you try some of my outfits.”

Her political acumen really was impressive, trying to get the leg up on other nobles through fashion trends.

“You can talk about your fashion show later” Mary interjected irritably. “I still need to treat Rose’s wound.”

Why was she showing urgency now, after leaving me here bleeding over her chair?

“I can help-“

“I’ve got it, Liz. Finish your tea, it should calm you down.”

Elizabeth let out a huff, and sipped from her teacup. As Mary moved the hem of my skirt out of the way, she watched with a fascinated gaze. She must be curious about medicine, with an aunt who works as a healer. As Mary placed her hands over the wound there was faint glow, and the pain from the wound faded away.

“There we go, all healed. Now Rose, tell me about how you dealt with the bandits.”

Starting from when she ran off towards the scream, I explained the whole fight, not leaving out any detail. Except for the bandit’s comments on my age. Mary listened with a thoughtful look on her face, while Lady Elizabeth seemed awestruck by my story.

“…and I followed your tracks back to the cottage.”

“…you heard me scream?” Elizabeth was the first to speak, blushing slightly as she asked this.

“The bit about the bandits being aided by another witch seemed the most concerning to me.” I stated to Mary, “admittedly, being new to this world, I’m not exactly sure what sort of groups to watch out for, but it seemed rather important.”

“Never-mind that.” Mary replied. She seemed as if she was still in thought.

“Well,” she finally said “I guess the bandits shouldn’t be too much of an issue. We can leave the matter be for now.”

“Not too much of an issue? The bandit leader made it sound like there was a lot of them.”

“I’m sure there are.”

“They could follow us here though!”

“I’m sure they will. They probably already are.”

“We could be surrounded!”

“Surrounded? That simplifies our problem. They can’t get away this time.”

“Was that reference on purpose?”

“Do you really think someone of my abilities would leave my house undefended?”

“…”

“Let’s table this discussion for the moment.”

“Fair enough.”

Elizabeth seemed confused by our exchange. “What reference…”

Taking the opportunity to break the awkward silence that followed, I turned towards the young noblewoman.

“By the way, Lady Porte, I’ve never seen an elf before.”

“Oh please, you can call me Liz. You’re my aunties apprentice, so we’re practically as close as family. And I’m only a half elf, or rather, like fifty-three or four percent elf? Granny and Grandpa already had some elf blood before they ended up here, and Daddy ended up marrying Mom after they met at an event in the capital where the king was negotiating a treaty with the faerie courts...”

She seemed to slowly drop the haughty tone she had initially started out with. As she spoke, the resemblance between her and Mary became more and more clear, fantasy-novel appearance aside. She seems like a nice enough girl, although there’s still something unsettling in the way she looks at me. It’s probably just the awareness that she’s a noblewoman putting me on edge. I’m sure that’s it.

“By the way, what were you doing in the woods in the first place? A noblewoman like you, with no guards, seems like a prime target for a kidnapping.”

“I-I wanted to meet you.” She looked at the floor. “My parents keep pressuring me to look at candidates for marriage, but none of them seem interesting to me. It’s just tiring, being shown lists of all these stuffy noblemen. When I heard from one of my guards that Auntie finally got an apprentice, I thought that was as good of an excuse as any to sneak out for a visit.”

“Sneak out? Of a walled city with guards?”

“It’s not that hard. Even as a half-elf, we have a way of blending in if we desire.”

“And you couldn’t do that with the bandits?”

“They caught me off guard. Though I’m sure if I had someone like you to protect me, I could-“

“She’s my apprentice, Liz.”

Mary has really been seeming more irritable this evening that she was earlier today. I can only assume the bandit attack put her in a bad mood. She looked like she was about ready to give Liz the lecture of a lifetime when, off in the distance, a faint booming noise rang out.

“Oh, it’s about time.”

More booms followed as we listened quietly. After about two dozen the noises stopped, and silence returned only to be broken by a disturbingly more cheerful Mary.

“The defensive spells I set up worked like a charm. Now that we know none of them broke through, we can finally go to bed!”

Considering what those booms probably signified, she really seemed overly chipper.

“Shouldn’t we have at least kept one alive to interrogate?”

“The souls of someone who died violently should stick around for a few days, all the more so if they’ve lived an evil life like those bandits. We can just pop over tomorrow and compel them to speak. It’s much easier than dealing with a live one, and spirits as weak-willed as some bandits wouldn’t be able to hold out against a witch as skilled as me and a half-elf.”

Elizabeth nodded in agreement. As far as a resolution to this whole incident goes, necromancy seems like a rather dark ending. More so than having the bandits killed off by what I assume is the equivalent of magical landmines. And what was that about them lingering? Is this place going to end up haunted?

“Don’t worry, we’ll exorcise them once we’re done, though it’s better than that lot deserves. It’s not good to have too many restless souls this close to the homestead. Now let’s get some chow before hitting the rack, I think is how you said it yesterday.”

After everything that happened today I was ready to go to bed without eating, but Mary and Elizabeth seemed excited. I guess I could stay up for some beer before going to bed. After all, I was finally a citizen of this fantasy world.