I walked into the grand hall, received my first mark, and entered into the massive ballroom with Isy. She was starting to get nervous again, but at least she wasn’t shaking. Honestly, I was feeling it too… There must have been over a thousand people there… Staring down at them from above before descending the main staircase gave me chills, and as I walked down it twisted my stomach… “So what’s the plan?” Isy asked.

As I walked down the stairs my eyes focused in and out, taking in all the information at once and narrowing in on my sister. “Sometimes war is really complicated…” I smiled as my eyes darted back and forth, scanning the other people in the room until they fixed on one that was particularly large… A boy that must have hit his growth spurts all at once. “Then again, sometimes all you have to do is throw your strongest fighter at the biggest enemy.”

“But Siya… We don’t have anyone strong in the guild yet… It’s just us right?”

I let out a small groan. “If you already wrote me off as weak then why did you join? Are you…” I let out another groan, stopping myself from asking if she was dumb. “First of all, I’m super strong… Second, I was talking about my sister.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

‘Does she think I’m a child? Well… I guess I am one… But come on?’ I nudged her. “Pick out three people you think I could beat in a fight. And remember, I’m Anna’s grandaughter…”

She made a whole array of different facial expressions as if weighing my twerpy size against her admiration for my grama before answering. “Uhm… Maybe her?” she muttered, pointing nervously at one of the only other girls there that was close to my height.

For fun, I scanned her with my eyes and… She was actually scary strong… Basically what my parents were hoping I would turn into… I sighed again, feeling defeated in more ways than one. ‘I’ve been debating how much attention I wanted to attract for a while now… If I attract too much then it might become hard to practice magic, but if I act as weak as I look that would be a whole other issue… I was planning on putting my sister on a pedestal and living in her shadow… But if it looks like I’m relying on her that’s a problem… And I don’t want to upstage her either and make her live in my shadow… Hm… Maybe there is a way this can work out for both of us…’

I approached Lu, tapping her on the shoulder from behind, quickly ducking a sudden backhand that nearly took my head off and sent a rush of manna and adrenaline burning through my veins.

Everyone around us froze stiff, even we froze stiff, me looking up at her, wide-eyed and half bent over backward, and her, equally wide-eyed and posing like the statue of a discus thrower. “Siya?”

“Yup?” I squeaked, clearing my throat as I stood up straight again. “You’re more hostile than I remember.”

She rolled her neck. “This whole thing has me put on edge. Fighting all of these guys in one night, it’s going to be one heck of a workout you know.”

“Uhm… But… You know you're not going to have to fight all of them right?”

She smiled brightly, relaxing a bit for a moment and giving me a quick hug. “Of course. I won’t fight you. I’m still not sure if I’m ready for another one of those just yet…”

“Ok… But like… You do know you’re not supposed to fight all of them right?” ‘She’s a child in a whole other kind of way…’

I heard a loud groan coming from nearby. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her! But she just says she’s too excited not to fight all of them…”

I turned to the person talking to see a man with a very charming and soft voice. His hair was cut short, and instead of casual clothes like the rest of us, he came prepared for a fight, wearing full armor that even included a metal breastplate. His short blond hair reminded me of the gold fades in my mother's hair, and just like every other guy there he fit the bill of a noble that I had come to expect. Wide shoulders, big arms, huge legs, and… Well, actually the skin on his hands actually looked pretty soft, rather than rough and worn, ‘Is he a friend of Lu’s?’ I raised my arm out to greet him. “And you are?”

He took my arm in kind… His thumb met his fingers as they wrapped around my muscles near the elbow. “Sorry. I’m Tia’dalith.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Just call me Siya,” I responded back, already getting tired of introducing myself so many times. ‘Do they not have a family name? I see a crest on the armor though, are they a knight of the family?’

“I-I’m Annanaiya Isebela Adelaide.” She muttered in a shaky voice, awkwardly trying to certsy, her hands fidgeting as she realized she wasn’t wearing a dress.

“So, I take it you’re friends with my sister then?” I asked.

He nodded. “Something like that. We decided to start our own guild, the rest of us are around here somewhere.”

‘Something like that? Friend… Wait a boy? She’s friends with a boy already? We’ve only been here for a day! How did they meet? This is bad isn’t it, she already showed how off how dumb and thickheaded she can act like 30 seconds ago!’

Lu smiled all the way to her eyes as she walked over and gave him a side hug, nearly shattering my soul. “Sorry mom… Airsidh… I’ve already failed you…”

“We all live right next door to each other and all became friends pretty quick so we figured why not you know. Uh… Siya?”

I took a deep breath. “Wait, you all live next door? Like, in the girl's dorms?”

The person of suddenly questionable gender chuckled, their laugh being several octaves higher than their voice and giving me some hope. “Right. I’m surprised you weren’t nearby too, usually, they try to keep family close together.”

Lu tilted her head. “I kind of ran off early, so maybe we just missed her?”

I stared at them, my eyes almost involuntarily examining every part of their body until I finally decided that there was no way a man would wear pants that tight… And after getting a little jealous relaxed. ‘I can’t believe I’m jealous of a girl that looks like a boy… I feel like this world is really messing with my head… Although I really should have known better… Her face is actually pretty girly when you look past the scars, and her voice is soft and light, even if it’s kinda deep. She also… No… That’s about it… I sighed, laying it to rest and deciding to just move on. “I doubt that. We were around for a while, you would have heard the commotion. There were what, 5 rogues that tried to break into my room, and then there was the assassin that showed up, that was interesting. There was a lot of yelling and… The wood is stained just outside my door now… ‘In hindsight, we probably should have cleaned that up with water or something at least…’

They both stared at me in complete silence as Isy tugged on my sleeve. “Wern’t there only three rogues? Uh erhm… I mean…”

‘You mean counting you? You don’t have to say it…’ I sighed. “No, two more showed up while you were in the shower, but they got scared off by my big muscles and ran away.”

Lu’s friend blurted out a laugh before covering their mouth and holding the rest of it in.

‘I was trying to be funny… But somehow I just feel insulted…’ “Well anyway, I scared them off… Which leads us here. You wanna help me do something fun?”

Her bubbly smile vanished and turned into a devilish grin that made me second-guess myself for a second. “Fun like fighting? Or fun like crazy stuff?”

“Uh… A little of both…”

Her grin widened as our two new friends suddenly started to look concerned. “What did you have in mind?” She asked, cracking her knuckles.

“I found the biggest guy in the room, who happens to also be the strongest. Go figure… I was thinking I beat him up for his mark, and then we say that anyone who wants to fight me has to beat you first. That way, everyone will want to fight you, even the people who don’t want to take on the strongest directly might want to test their luck.”

Her grin vanished, replaced with that adorable thinking face of hers, her eyebrows slightly scrunched and her head tilted. “But then I don’t get to fight the strongest guy… If you beat him won’t he be kinda dead afterwards?”

“What? No… I’m not some kind of monster…”

“Well, you know, I mean like unconscious. No, actually the way you fight you might kill him…”

“I’m not a wild animal…”

Lu chuckled, covering her mouth with a loose fist. “No, just a wild dragon.”

‘haha…’

sy quietly interjected. “U-uhm… What’s the plan if you both lose?” I

As Lu quickly started to scowl I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away quickly, if not only to make Isy less frightened. “Go easy on her ok… She’s had kind of a rough day…”

She shook me off. “I wasn’t going to yell at her or anything…” She mumbled back. “Wait, rough day… By your standards? Cheese…”

‘Cheese?’ “Yeah… So she’s probably really sensitive right now.”

Lu sighed. “If you think either of us are weak then you must be stu–” She growled. “An idiot could see that–” She growled again, looking over at me before letting out another sigh and relaxing. “I’m strong and she’s tough enough she doesn’t have to be strong…” She finally grumbled.

‘That’s how you see it?’

“How was that…” She asked, turning back to me.

“It was ok… But I’m strong too you know…”

“Of course, you got that whole inner strength thing.”

I growled back. “I have more than just that!” I whined.

“Oh yeah, you have that mental strength too, or at least that’s what Air says.”

I finally just let out a sigh and accepted it. In reality, she was right. Having crazy strength didn’t really count if I could only use it for a couple of punches before I either shattered my bones or ran out of manna and blacked out. “I have strong eyes too you know.” I joked, giving in.

“It still freaks me out that you can touch them without blinking…”

“And strong hair.”

“Oh yeah, none of it even ripped out when Bhaltair drug you around and threw you with it.”

“And I have strong ears too.”

She paused as if her train of thought crashed. “Like… the muscles that make them wiggle up and down before you sneeze?”

“My ears do not! Do they? Oh, whatever… I meant I have good hearing…”

“I don’t think that’s related to strength…”

I let out another long groan. “Well whatever, are you ready to go beat up the ballroom?”

Her grin came back twofold. “I think you mean hit up the ballroom.”

‘She has no idea what that expression means does she… It’s cute she’s copying me though.’