Extra Chapter 4 - Duties

A man was sitting cross-legged, eyes closed and shirtless. His body was covered by a thin layer of ice, and his slow breathing would create a cloud each time he exhaled.

“You should be sleeping, master,” a girl said.

Akatau opened his eyes, breaking the ice covering them. He then smiled, and more shards of ice fell away.

“Meditation is a great training tool, and nearly as good as sleep,” He answered with a teasing smile.

“Humf.” Alistair crossed her arms under her bosom and sharply turned her head, glaring at the noble as her tail wagged behind her in annoyance.

“...I can’t sleep.” He explained, not joking anymore.

“I know. That’s why I’m worried, master. You haven’t been able to sleep since we lost the twins. That’s nearly eight month! I know you’ve got a skill to reduce your need for sleep, but even with it I’m pretty sure you’re not sleeping enough, what with the measly hours you’ve given yourself!”

“Yes…” He looked away, “I’m sorry if I left the bed cold lately…” He apologized.

“The bed is always cold,” She looked at the ice all around him, “But it’s not the same without you,” She sighed. “I can’t always take care of you, master.”

“What a bad master I am to make you worry like that.” He said as he rose on his feet, breaking away from the layer of frozen water.

“At least you’re aware of it, master, but now we need to work on that. But not tonight.”

Akatau raised his eyebrows, curious.

“I didn’t disturb you just because I’m worried sick,” She joked and kissed him, taking advantage of the fact they were in private to do so, “Another layer of the unknown dungeon opened yesterday. It’s currently being mapped out by adventurers. I thought you would want to know, master.” She smiled at him as her tail swung slowly.

“You think I should go?” He asked her, surprised, but she shook her head.

“No, I don’t think you should, but you will anyway, right? You know I won’t fight you, master, I pledged my whole soul and body to serve you as best as I can, and I know you still have hopes for the two children, so…” She shrugged and gave him a beaming smile, “I’ll just give it my all to protect you and bring you back home in one piece!” She put her fists on her waist and looked confidently at him.

“Nothing will touch you for as long as I breath!”

Akatau smiled and suddenly brought her in his embrace, kissing her as she fell in his arms.

***

Another woman was waiting outside of the room.

“Sister?” Akatau asked, greeting her with a nod.

“Is the room still working well, brother?” She asked in turn with the perfect demeanor of a noble woman.

Marie of Martyane was a beautiful young lady. Only one year younger than her brother, she had the same blonde hair and blue eyes that they both inherited from their mother.

However, unlike Akatau and Alistair, Marie looked small, nearly petite, and her body gave the feeling of some delicate thing to be handled carefully, a porcelain doll with spotless white skin and perfect countenance.

Slightly at odd with her look of fairytale princess, her current dress was more practical than pompous, dirtied here and there by strange colorful stains and lacking the usual embellishment the robe of a noble woman would sport.

Moreover, no jewels or any makeup could be seen on her, and the only frill she seemed to wear was a blue ribbon tied loosely around her neck.

“Perfectly, sister.” Akatau answered with a smile.

“You’ve been providing cold much more than usual those last few months, and at a ramping pace. I had to adjust the output per room.” She said with a neutral voice, but the sentences still sounded like a rebuke, or maybe a spark of concern.

“I guess my training is paying off, then.” He said, actively avoiding the subtext of his sister’s comment.

She clicked her tongue, “I heard that the next floor of the unknown dungeon has opened. I guess you will once more discharge your work on my and our poor seneschal’s shoulders, kidnap my dear Sayilgan and Alistairn and drag Sebas with you to train like the musclebrain that you are?”

“I… guess I will?” Please? Said his eyes.

Marie shook her head but her eyes were resigned.

She then turned toward Alistair, a soft smile appearing on her lips. “I would ask you to take care of him, didn’t I know that he means as much to you as he does to me. Though be careful, you know he hasn’t changed much since the day her rescued you, he’s still has reckless.” She said to the Dogfolk girl, and Alistair nodded with determination and furrowed brows.

“Of course! Master’s very clumsy, he can’t cook or take care of himself, he would be lost without me! Count on me, my Lady!” Alistair doubled-down on Marie’s teasing but Akatau didn’t mind, it wasn’t the first time his sister and lover united to tease him, and he knew they didn’t mean ill.

“I’m here you know,” He said flatly, crossing his arms on his perfect abs.

“And you’re also half-naked, brother. Clothe yourself before anyone lose an eye on those.” Marie shot back, her voice perfectly ladylike, her words, not so much.

“Yes, you should put a shirt, master, those are only for me.” Alistair added, leaning against his bare chest.

“Okay, okay, I get it.” The young nobleman answered, blushing a bit as Alistair stuck to him.

“And after that you’ll have documents to read and sign. Don’t worry, I looked at them over lunch, it will be fast.”

“Thanks.” He quickly put a kiss on his sister’s forehead, a show of sibling’s affection that he wouldn’t dare to do in public, what with all the bullshit about how a noble should behave.

Marie simply smiled, a perfect young lady.

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***

“Finally.” Despite what Marie said earlier, going through all the paperwork that his sister prepped for him took all morning to Akatau.

The power of his city and the fact that it was a march, a border that needed to be protected, made Akatau nearly immune to politics, as he didn’t have to deal with intrigue and scheming from other nobles, but it also generated as mass of paperwork that passeth understanding, and even more so when you added Akatau’s personnel slave venture.

“Sebas?” Akatau asked to the empty room.

“The carriage is ready, sir, and Sayilgan knows we’re coming to pick her up, albeit you do know that she won’t be ready anyway.” The older butler said in front of Akatau’s desk, as if he had been there since the beginning.

Sebas may have been old, but he hadn’t lost a shred of his previous job’s talents.

“Alistair is with her, I guess?” Akatau said, rising from his seat.

“Being an overbearing big sister as always, sir.” Sebas answered with a smile and a scoff, marks of familiarity he knew he couldn’t show in public.

“Not like it’s a bad thing, some of them needs her badly.” Akatau commented, sadly smilling at Sebas before the two men exited the room.

***

The carriage led them to a large compound far away from Akatau’s castle and the noble district, to another side of the lake, deep in another district that once used to be the slum but was now seeing better days, mainly thanks to the noble siblings’ efforts.

The compound was a large association of buildings that used to be shops, houses and warehouses but had been slowly repurposed to turn into a large training and living facility.

In the end, whole streets had been assimilated in it and, now, the main entrance was an old reconverted public street, closed by a massive gate of wood with sentinels on top of it.

Said sentinels looked more like adventurers than soldiers, with their missmatched but costly gears and their decontracted countenance, and they waved at Akatau as he poked his head out of his carriage to say hello, in a most un-noble-like kind of way.

The first door opened, leading to a large fortified holding area where more adventurers-looking guards checked the identity of the coachwoman, Sebas and Akatau, before the door closed behind them and the second door opened.

On the other side the wide street was peaceful. Under the shade of high trees, gatherings of children were playing here and there in the grass, as the road had been changed in the middle into long stretch of fields. A handful of adults could be seen here and there, keeping and eye out for the children.

The carriage stopped on the side of the road on a parking space, and Akatau stepped down. He could have made the rest of the journey in his carriage, if he wanted, the roads were still wide enough for it, but he liked walking through this place he helped to build.

“Bro’!” “Big brother!” “Akatau!” The children beamed and swarmed him, laughing and playing, and he ruffled some hair here, took one of them in his arm, and played a handful of minute with them.

Very few High-Race could be seen, nearly no humans, dwarves or elves were mixed in the mass of children. Most of them were Beastfolks of many kinds, avians and canine and feline mostly, and every last one of them was Akatau’s slave, albeit no collar nor shackles could be seen hurting them.

Akatau soon broke way from the children, but not without Sebas’ and the caretakers’ help.

As he walked deeper into the compound, the scene repeated itself more than once, with the caretakers also greeting Akatau, some of them slaves of him, others already freed, all smiling at him with genuine care.

During one such encounter, Akatau found Alistair, playing with the children and giving them candies from a tiny bag on her waist.

“Fiiiiiiiinally!” She exclaimed when Akatau approached. “Now everyone, attack Akatau and smite him for the sin of making me wait until now!” She exclaimed theatrically, pointing a vengeful finger toward her lover.

“Oh no! I am not strong enough to face you all!” Akatau answered the same way, then played with the children some more as Alistair threw weak spells around to entertain them.

“Okay, okay, enough of that, Akatau has work to do.” Alistair finally called out, calming the children now and greeting Akatau with a kiss.

“What took you so long?” She asked him, and they kept talking while they walked forward.

As they entered the buildings proper, the trio started to encounter teenagers. Some were taking a break, eating and resting, others were going from one class to another, and most in classroom, being taught about one skill or another, subjects ranging from different magics to various crafting, encompassing most skills that didn’t need a lot pf space or very specific conditions to be trained.

Here the greetings were more restrained toward the trio, although no less happy or thankful and, just like the children, all teens were slaves of the the noble young man, and some teachers too.

Alistair sported a smile large enough to warm the world in winter, and Akatau threw a shoulder at her. “What’s up?”

“You know what’s up.” She answered with a blushing face. “This place is awesome.”

“Then you should hug Marie more.” He answered, as that place was build on the money his sister made from alchemy, albeit the ingredients still came from Akatau’s adventuring.

“I know, but right now it’s you that I’ll hug.” She said teasingly before taking his arm bringing his head to her shoulder.

Walking all lovey-dovey, the couple and Sebas stopped once to ask their direction to a teacher, as they didn’t know where Sayilgan was, exactly, before resuming their walk.

The Demi-dragon knew they were coming but, as usual, she must have lost herself in training Akatau’s slaves.

She was a slave too, by choice since she could have bought her freedom a thousand time over by now, the last slave that Akatau saved by strength, back in the day when he raided slave markets, before he had to stop because of all the problems he created to his family.

That wasn’t many years ago, but Akatau felt old thinking about it; so many things had changed since then.

***

“Trust! Step! Parry! Rest!” Sayilgan was training many teenagers and young adults with energy and enthusiasm, walking through the ranks of thirty-so slaves and calmly helping them correct their postures and do the training properly.

Alistair and Akatau stopped at the outskirt of the training ground and didn’t interrupt the Demi-dragon yet.

Sayilgan aknowledged their presence but, upon seeing that Akatau stayed back, she kept up with the training.

Alistair and Sebas, too, stayed silent at his side as he was looking at his slaves, all of of them bought away from a slaver to ensure that they were treated well and had the opportunity to recover their freedom in the future.

Some of them still bore marks of the abuse they suffered in their captors’ hands, but everyone that was here had recovered enough to start their training. Those that hadn’t were still attended to by yet more of Akatau’s slaves that chose to help the newcomers and take care of them.

“What are you seeing?” Alistair asked softly after some time of silence.

“I’m hopeful. They’re all hard-working and seem able to tolerate the presence of the others, and some have more than a bit of potential.”

He nodded at a young foxboy. “Look at his hands and status windows. He’s careful, his fingers are steady, his gaze sharp. He could be a good jeweller or chirurgian. And she…” He looked at an older howlgirl, “She’s paying attention to the others, she helped her neighboors once or twice already, she’s firm. She could be a good team leader or teacher.”

Alistair nodded as she noted Akatau’s comments as they came for the next ten minutes or so.

That was Akatau’s talent. He was a great noble, a good fighter and mage, and a more than decent administrator, but that wasn’t what made him great. No, Akatau’s thing was gauging people.

She’ll be a good team leader, he’ll work great in this group, she’ll be loyal to us, Akatau had a preternatural talent to read people’s potential, and Alistair strongly suspected that what had started as a natural talent, many years ago, had turned into a skill at one point or another, as he wasn’t this great at judging people when he first broke her away from the slavers that locked her away.

***

“So we’re off to another dungeon run?” Sayilgan asked, dusting the purple faither mixed with her hair.

“Yes.” Akatau answered succinctly to the Guard Captain of his private guards.

Sayilgan nodded.

“Okay.” She simply said, flapping her faithered wings as tiny sparks of electricity ran through them.

They started journeying to the dungeon. In the carriage, the usual warm scene played; Sebas was sharpening his daggers and smiling at nothing as Alistair bugged Sayilgan, braiding the mid-long air of the Demi-dragon or playing in her fathers while the guard captain pretended to not care, yet still covered the dogfolk under her wings, a sign of deep affection for a Demi-dragon, albeit not everyone knew that.

In a corner, Akatau was looking through the window, holding one of Alistair’s hand and thinking about the twins.

They had survived until now, as the remnants of his contract with them weren’t broken yet.

He was confident they were doing fine.