We made it back to the carriage and Airsidh jumped back into the driver's seat.
“Hey, where did Zu and Finlo go off to?” I asked, noticing them missing.
“They have a whole different set of things to do, much more testing and fighting and junk, it’s different than what born nobles go through. Now, let us sally forth, to the Copper Tip mansion.”
“Uh… brother,” I mumbled.
He looked down, waiting for me to elaborate.
“The wheel… remember?”
“Oh, that’s fine, Gild can fix it.”
He looked at it for a moment, inspecting the axle. “Just because I’m a commoner doesn’t mean I can magically fix a broken axle… What did you put this poor thing through anyway?”
Airsidh jumped down again and leaned on me. “Where to start? Well, some of the damage came from Lu just being Lu. Oh, and the Kraken.” He lightly smacked my shoulder, his voice more chipper than I had ever heard it before. It was almost like he was a different person around his friend.
“No, the Kraken didn’t really do that much to it the first time.” I pointed at all of the scratches. “Wasn’t it the giant spiders… Oh, and the stone butterfly monsters with the crazy teleportation spell?”
He snapped his fingers. “Oh, yeah, that was probably most of the damage.”
“What about the second time we killed the Kraken? Is that what stressed out the axle? Did it manage to hit the carriage? Things got pretty crazy when we set it on fire.”
Gild stood up, dusting off his hands. “The second time? How did you kill it more than once?”
I climbed up and grabbed my heavy chest from out the back of the carriage and let it hit the ground with a heavy thud. “Well, you see after we killed it the first time.”
“I,” Airsidh interjected.
I rolled my eyes. “Right, After HE killed it the first time, it came back as a zombie and ended up tearing down a castle, so then me and my sister had to kill it again and clean up his mess…” I dragged the chest around the front, sticking my tongue out at him as I passed Dropping it again closer to the horses. ‘Even with magic… This thing is going to be draining to haul around…’ “Hey, wait a minute. What about those bandits we took out? Not the undead ones I wiped out with Grama, the ones we let take the castle. Do you think they messed with the carriage? We left it behind when we went and camped in the woods.”
Airsidh shrugged. “I don’t see why they would have but maybe. The wood is probably just old and worn out.”
I turned back to double-check I had everything just in time to see Gild’s completely dumbstruck face. “Of course, Airsidh’s sister wouldn’t be normal…” He muttered.
‘Why is it so hard not to care what other people think…’ “At least I didn’t say it out loud…” I grumbled, making surprise shoot through his face upon realizing I heard him.
He chuckled nervously. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’re as amazing as him.”
I looked up at my brother and only felt patronized, but… At least I didn’t feel as bad. “I guess you can’t be normal and amazing can you…” I sighed.
I headed over to Fritz. “Hey girl… Can you carry the–” She neighed and sidestepped away from me. “Wuss…” I muttered, “You can kick a dire wolf's head off but you don’t want to carry a chest full of armor?” She rolled her eyes at me. “Fine… Fine, I know… Sorry for asking… You’re so picky.”
She neighed again, scoffing. I just let out a sigh and rubbed her neck. “Don’t worry, I still love you…” Without looking at me she slowly wrapped her neck around me for a moment as if returning the sentiment. ‘Although I’d love you more if you weren’t such a diva…’
heading back and sitting on the chest while we talked. ‘I don’t even know where the building I’m going to is… Much less my room. Ugh…’
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“You live three days south right? Sounds like you guys had quite the party on you’re way here.” Gild said, continuing his conversation with Airsidh.
“Yeah, well, party is one word for it. You haven’t even heard about the fun parts yet.” I grumbled, thinking back.
He chuckled nervously. “Oh… Right, the fun parts…” He slowly whispered to Airsidh. “Do I want to know about the fun parts?”
Airsidh just brushed it off, waving his hand. “That depends on if she’s referring to all the paperwork she did, or if she’s referring to all the times her death was prevented by a knight undressing in front of her.”
“What the…” I groaned. “That never happened… Well… That’s not what stopped me from dying at least…” I turned back to Gild and suddenly froze stiff again. “Airsidh… Why do you keep putting me in situations like this!”
He laughed, patting me on the shoulders as he mounted his horse. “Because you have trouble talking to strangers, but if I give you enough incentive, then you have to talk to them, and the more you do that the more you’ll improve. Man, putting in all this extra work to help you out, I must be the best big brother in the world.”
Before I could respond… He rode off on his horse…
It was just Gild and I staring back at each other, neither one brave enough to say anything. The longer we stared at each other the hotter my face got, but I couldn’t look away either. There was something pure and calming about the way his soul flickered behind his eyes… Honestly, that was the only reason I hadn’t gotten on Fritz and bolted.
“I can… Carry you… I mean… Carry that. I can carry that for you If you want…” He said carefully, keeping his distance but pointing to the chest I was standing next to.
“Uh… oh… Yeah, thanks… Do you know which way I’m supposed to go… Or which building my room is in…”
He stepped up to pick up the chest but paused, staring at me again. “Your key is orange, right? Let me see it.”
‘He’s so close… But I can’t back away… That’ll make me look scared right? I can’t act like a coward… I’ve been training my whole life to come here and prove I’m strong. This is my first step towards–’
“Uh… Miss?”
I fumbled the key, barely managing to catch it before handing it to him with my eyes closed.
He folded it back into my hand and pushed it back against my chest. “Uh uh, I asked to see it. Never give that key to anyone, even for a moment you understand?”
I slowly nodded.
“Good. And yeah. I know where you’re staying, just follow me alright? We can drop you’re horse off at the stables.”
He single-handedly lifted my armor chest off of the ground and threw it over his shoulder. “Right then, you’re brother is pulling another one of his stunts to get out of work… So I’ll help you get settled in if that’s alright… Of course, if you’d rather just figure things out on your own that’s fine too.”
“Hm…”
The whole way to the stables I practically clung to Fritz, but after we left her behind and it was just the two of us, somehow the silence felt even more awkward until I almost felt like I was going to explode.
“Listen… About earlier. You don’t have to explain what he meant, I don’t think you're some weirdo or anything just because your brother teased you about something out of context, so if that’s what you're worried about forget it. If you said nothing like that happened, I’d believe you, so don’t worry about that either alright?”
‘He really is so nice…’ Surprisingly, I felt my chest lighten a bit from his words. “No… I should still explain… If nothing else I owe it to the person who saved me that you don’t think anything weird happened… Or worse yet ask Airsidh to explain it later…” I groaned just thinking about it, knowing he would probably find a way to punish me for not at least trying to overcome my own awkwardness.
“Hm… Ok then, if you’re sure.”
‘Ok… But how do I even say this… Let’s just start by breaking it down how I usually do, but out loud, that could work.’ “See, I have special dragon eyes that make me super hot so he had to take his clothes off too…” I stopped my feet, my whole body stiffening up again as I nearly tripped. ‘That definitely didn’t come out right…’
He readjusted the chest on his shoulder as he looked back, but the moment our eyes met mine darted to the side, my face turning red again as I not only embarrassed myself but started thinking back to the incident in question where Finlo held me in his arms wearing virtually nothing. I almost felt like I was overheating again. Covering my face I quickly squatted down and buried my face in my knees, feeling terrible that all the while he was carrying my luggage… ‘Why…’
“It’s fine, so you’re tongue got a little twisted, just try again, maybe a little slower this time.”
I groaned, keeping my eyes down as I carefully forced myself back up and we kept walking. “How slow… Can I start from the beginning? It’s all kind of a long story so…”
“Well, at this rate we won’t get there very fast anyway, so you might as well start at the beginning.” He chuckled, smiling so brightly it put every other smile I had seen to shame and gave me chills.
“Right… So the beginning then…” I squeaked out. I took a deep breath, starting again but slower. “My eyes got hurt when I was fighting a demon and… But that’s another long story… And I don’t really want to talk about how my eyes got hurt… But anyway, after that, my father went and made me this potion called Dragon Sight. I had to use that and gave me dragon eyes. Well, when we were in Nayana, that’s my family's town that we run or… manage. The one we are responsible for. There was this lizard man… Reptilian… And he did something weird to me that made my whole body get really hot and…” ‘I did it again…’ I growled, unsure of what to say next.
“Not bad, you did a lot better that time, but you got carried away and started speeding up again. Take a deep breath and keep going from where you left off, but don’t let the nervousness you feel come across in the words. Try pausing after every few sentences.”
I let out another small groan. “Somehow being near him activated the dragon blood that was in my body from the potion, and that made my whole body start to melt from the inside, I almost started breathing fire and everything. Somehow our knight, FInlo, knew what was happening… He threw me into the ocean and the cold water cooled me off before I got really hurt and scorched all my insides… I can’t swim though… So… He had to jump in after me. He isn’t exactly what you would call shy so much as practical… So he stripped first to keep his clothes dry.”
I slowly covered my face with my hands. “Airsidh wasn’t even there… I don’t know how he even knows about it…” I muttered.
Gild just sighed. “Well if he didn’t he wouldn’t be Airsidh… At any rate, though, you got through the whole story, congrats. See, that wasn’t so hard.”
I let out another small groan. “Yeah, it was…”
He sighed. “Yeah, you're right. It’s just something people say to try and make you feel better you know?”
“That’s just dumb…”
He flipped the chest onto his other shoulder, slowly rolling the one it had been sitting on. “Well, that depends. Did it work?”
“Maybe…”