-Break-

Two weeks later

Location: Campsite

Φ Giddy in line, I say, “I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait.”

Charles behind me says, “Is this because you finally went over your quota.”

“Of course, it is, now I can get some extra food and stop being just skin and bones.”

Walking up to the beastkin serving food, I say, “I completed over my quota this time, you can check with other beastkin if you doubt me.”

The beastkin says, “It doesn’t matter, we no longer do extra food for hard work. All the means have been standardised again.”

Hearing this shocks me to my soul so intensely that I freeze and collapse over to the floor. But in that state, the beastkin throws my water and potato at me knocking me out.

As Nero lays on the ground in defeat, Charles takes his food, picks up Nero and walks away.

Then sits him against the wall of the campsite where he slowly feeds him. To all the onlookers around, the sight is almost identical to how a mother feeds her child.

-Break-

Depressed I walk towards the gate, but then Charles gives me a weak smile and says, “Cheer up.”

Looking at him with my head hanging down, I say, “You seem to have the new encouragement phases I gave you down.”

“Yes.”

“But somehow you still struggle to point your finger upwards,” I say as I stare at his sidewards pointing finger.

Looking at his finger, he says, “It’s hard.”

“No, it isn’t you have already done it.”

“But I did it while saying good job, not cheer up.”

“HOW DOES THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE. I swear you really must be a golem.”

“What’s a golem?”

“I keep forgetting to explain this, you see a golem is a-.”

Suddenly I run into someone’s back, and then looking forward, I notice a bunch of people are clumped up in front of the main exit, unable to leave at all.

Then I hear a beastkin shout, “It is time for rotations, each and every one of you will be having your work changed.”

“Rotations?”

“Yes, we usually rotate work sometime within every new year.”

Hearing this causes excitement to flow through my veins, and feeling my excitement, Charles asks, “Are you ok?”

“Yep I am just happy I won’t have to do any of that horrible work, anymore.”

“I see.”

“Here's hoping our new work will be easier.”

The beastkin in front of all of us says, “Your work today will be.”

-Break-

Location: Far east of the River Lúide

Holding a brick in hand, I walk while a beastkin shouts, “HURRY UP YOU LAZY HUMANS!”

Moving with a group of humans, I prepare to place my brick where I am instructed and move on.

The first bit of work we were instructed to do was help build this castle, and they're working us to the very bone, and they don’t seem to understand that these rocks we're carrying.

Looking towards Charles, I see him effortlessly carrying the rocks, while I struggle to move. “NEVER GIVE UP,” I shout as I move with the rocks.

-Break-

As we walk back, I move my arms to stretch them out, and as I do I say, “That was painful, but definitely not as bad as the other work, well I would say those beastkin yelling at us was definitely bad.”

“Yes.”

“But this whole experience did confirm one thing, that the work we do is being switched with others.”

“Huh?”

“What do you mean huh, didn’t you notice the frame for our castle was already dug out, which means other people must have dug it out, I guess when they rotate they switch our work with that of other slaves.”

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“Wasn’t that obvious,” Charles says while confused.

“You think that is obvious but not sticking your thump up!?”

“Yes.”

“Of course, you’d think like that. But at least this answers what we were digging up the River for, they want to divert it to make a moat.”

“A moat?”

“It is a way you surround certain structures with water, to make them hard to break into. Diverting a river is a way to make one, and if my idea is correct another group of slaves are currently working to make a gate to control the flow of the river their diverting.”

Looking at me Charles, asks, “Nero are you okay?”

Confused, I say, “Of course, why do you ask?”

“You’re making lots of sense, so I just wanted to check.”

Annoyed I say, “You need to shut up and just practice your face exercises.”

As Charles tries to force his face into a smile, I just go over my thoughts. For what reason would they get us to constantly change jobs? It is refreshing but I doubt they actually care about us, so why then?

Looking over I Charles an idea pops into my head; could the reason be they don’t want us to learn how to do things? If I think about it like that it makes perfect sense, they don’t want us to learn information that we could use to better ourselves if we were to escape.

Escape is a funny idea to me now, because in all honesty, I don’t see a way out of here, for now, I have just been going along working my hardest even though what I am is just a slave. I doubt many of us have any hope in an escape attempt, funny how the beastkin think we have more of a chance to escape than we do.

But in all honesty, should I just be content being here? For all, I know Mother, Aurelius, Lillian, and everyone else are still alive somewhere and are probably feeling hopeless. I can’t just leave them like that but could I ever even escape from here not to mention reach and save them.

Even Father couldn’t defeat the beastkin so what choice do I have? What am I even doing in this life, it essentially just feels like I am working to not get killed, but even if I do not get killed, I am essentially working until my body gives out and I die.

Is this the kind of life I want to live?

Slapping myself on my face, I say, “Don’t bother thinking ahead since you’re an idiot anyway.”

Looking at me with his hands on his face, Charles asks, “Are you also doing face exercises.”

Taking both of my hands which are on my face and using them to force a smile I say, “Of course I am, someone needs to show you how it’s done.”

-Break-

The next day

Location: Fíodóirí house

Opening the door to the large structure in front of us I look inside to see, and to my surprise I see a bunch of children like me and Charles.

“I thought it was weird that they only made me and Charles come here, but I guess it is for a reason.”

From behind us, I hear, “MOVE HUMANS.”

Turning around, I see a spider beastkin which causes me to instantly grab Nero and sit down in one of the rows full of children. He looks like the bat, his body is much more spider-like than human-like.

The beastkin gives me a nasty look as he walks towards the front of the room. When there he says, “I will make needing you to weave clothes. The supplies are in front of you, and I will be making you weave different-sized clothes by row. If you look to your left you will see completed versions of the clothes I want you to make.”

Grabbing a fabric from the table, he pulls out four different arms from his back, and then with unmatched precision, he starts to weave the clothes. “Now humans follow along.”

Suddenly all of us start to scramble to follow his instructions. “All rows after row two you must do this part bigger to make sure you meet your size requirements.”

What the hell is wrong with this guy, does he not understand that it is hard for us to constantly watch him, knit, and keep track of the clothes on the walls to make sure we are doing this right.”

Suddenly, the beastkin stops and says, “You four seats into row eight, stop right now.”

“Yes,” The boy says in return.

With a single lunge, he jumps across the room over to him, then says, “You ripped some of the fibre.”

“Yes, I am sor-.”

Before he finishes his words, the boy screams, then a moment later I see something fly across the room which Charles grabs out of the air. Looking at it in his hand, I see it is an eyeball.

When others around see this they also scream, and then the beastkin, says, “SILENCE.”

As the kid cries, he says, “Remember this all of you, the fabric is worth more than your lives, so no mess will be allowed.”

Lunging back to the beginning, he starts to continue telling us what to do, but hearing the kid in the back hold back his cries I say, “Master.”

Charles grabs me from my side and gestures for me to stop.

I really am sorry but right now I can’t let this happen.

Looking up at me, the beastkin asks, “What do you want?”

“Are we just going to leave him to die?”

“If he can finish his quota by the end, he will just die there.”

“Would I be able to patch him up, I will use my own clothes.”

“HUMAN STOP PESTERING ME.”

Hearing him raise his voice, fright fills me. “But if he does this we will be distracted and if he dies it will just be a waste.”

I know this is a dangerous game I am playing, but Charles did tell me that people from our campsite specifically are never really killed, so I am going to bet on that.

As the beastkin seethes with rage towards, me I start to prepare for my impending doom, but he says, “Fine, go fix him up but if you don’t meet your quota you will also lose an eye.”

Getting up I go up to him and rip a section of my winter clothes and use it to bandage up his eye. As I do I say, “Everything is going to be ok.”

But then he mutters, “Is it? There is no future in sight for us.”

With a smile, I say, “The only people who have no future are the dead and are you dead?”

“No.”

“Then that is good, umm, what’s your name.”

“Ogier.”

“Well remember this Ogier, I might ask for this favour back one day.

-Break-

“Charles, are you angry?”

“What’s anger?”

“A feeling of anger towards someone.”

“Huh?”

Rubbing my hands against my head, I say, “Urgh, I don’t know just what are you thinking.”

“That I was right, in that you want to die.”

“I didn’t want to die, I was using my brain and guessed he would have let me do that.”

He gives me a look, and says, “Isn't that too much thought for you.”

“I feel like you think I am an idiot.”

“I am very good at recognizing patterns.”

“HEY THAT WAS AN INSULT.”

Confused, he says, “Was it?”

“Now you just made it worse.”

Sticking his thumb up towards me, he says, “Good job.”

“What is this for?”

“You finished before anyone else.”

“Well, that is because knitting is easy for me. I used to constantly get my clothes destroyed back in my clan, so my mother got tired and started making me do all the knitting myself, and I just got rather good at it. Now that I think about it my mother got tired of a bunch of my behaviour.”

“Are mothers nice?”

“Why do you ask?”

“People are constantly calling my mother bad things and tell me she was evil, so I don’t know how mothers are, and what makes one good.”

“Well my mother, loved me, cleaned up my messes, made me laugh, and was always teaching me new things, different from my father but just as important.”

“Then are you my mother then?”

Stopping for a moment, I say, “I guess I am. Now that this has been established you must always follow what I say.”

“No.”

“WHY!”