-Break-

Location: Beastkin dorms

Walking through the dorms towards the exit, I am suddenly grabbed and put in a headlock by Ryan, who says, “Breast milk I was looking for you.”

Standing still out of fright I say, “What do you need Ryan?”

“You see I have been working really hard, and it has been causing me to get blisters all over my feet, so I was just wondering if I could get paid leave.”

With a shaky voice I say, “But if you go as well the amount of workers will be too little to help us handle the amount of slaves.”

“Stop being just a fucker, we already have a whole bunch of Merarks, so just ask them to keep watch.”

“What if they start rampaging and killing the slaves? I won’t be able to deal with them.”

“You’re the boss it is your job to deal with them, and I will only be going back home for Samhain. When the celebration at home are over I will come back to relax here at work because if I stayed home father would force me to help around.”

With a shy head tilt, I say, “I am the boss, so don’t you have to follow my or-,”

Ryan tightens his grip around my head, and says, “Hey I don’t want you getting big-headed you hear me breast milk? You might outrank me now, but that doesn’t mean shit!”

As he tightens his grip around my neck, I fight back desperately trying to break out.

“You complain but wasn’t it you who let a bunch of the guys take some days off three months ago? That wasn’t fair, just a huge show of favouritism. Then you even let Daniel and Finn go home as well.”

As he says Daniel and Finn’s names, the wounds those two gave me while they convinced me if I should let them leave or not start to ache. Still desperately trying to get air, I mutter with as much strength as I can muster, “Sorry.”

Ryan breaks his grip and says, “Apology accepted. But boy you like to do some stupid things every now and then.”

Looking away I give a nervous smile and laugh. But then Ryan takes my face and forces it in his direction, and as he does he smiles, then says, “But as your friend whenever I see you acting stupid I will be there to make sure you get over that stupidity.”

Feeling Cheerful, I look down and say, “Thank you.”

Ryan slaps my back, and says, “No problem, just listen straight away next time.”

As I walk towards the door, I hear Ryan shout, “He said we could all go home.”

Turning around, I see that Ryan is standing in front of a crowd of beastkin; all the ones remaining on the plantation.

“Breast milk gave permission?”

“Of course he did, now it is all on his head.”

“Thanks, Ryan.”

“No problem, but when you return bring some wine for me.”

“You can bet on it.”

As they all walk away I think of saying something, of raising my voice but as I do I feel a grip even tighter than Ryan’s wrap around my neck stopping me from uttering a single word.

I had thought that maybe getting this position might have changed something in my life, but it never has. Every day is just the same, and now even though I command all this power my voice is still unimportant.

But still, those words Ryan said to me are nice. Something that before I would have never heard, and at the very least just like Lugh’s words they will be enough for me.

-Break-

Location: Wonderbeast pens

The plantation is split into twenty-five campsites, with around two hundred slaves each. There are also one hundred and fifty beastkin to watch over all of them and about five hundred Merarks around as well.

The Merarks are fast and strong enough to rip through about fifty average humans on the battlefield, but in the state that these slaves are in I would say one of them equals the average human male.

Not to mention they can fight well in the highest of mountains, to the lowest of rivers. A true beast which is great in almost every environment, the only thing more adaptable than Merarks’ are the Tiritrexs’.

So the Merarks would be able to keep them in check. But the issue I face is that the Merarks need to be reigned in our they could go on a rampage and overkill the humans, and if by some misfortune they killed some of Bricriu's favourites, it would be a catastrophe.

It would become a favour owed from one red branch family to another, I would become much more of a failure than I ever was before, I might even be recalled home.

Charles would be left alone with those two dirty insects, I can’t let that happen. Wait, maybe this is the reason Bricriu even put me in charge of this so I can owe his family something?

This is bad!

Suddenly one of the Merarks starts to make a rather cheerful noise.

“I forgot that these guys can even hear the crazy of my heartbeat.” Rubbing the Merarks head, I say, “You did this to calm me down, thank you.”

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Standing up, I say, “It might be a few days to Samhain, but I am sure I can control all of the slaves by myself just watch me.”

The Merarks let out a noise of happiness all around me.

-Break-

The day of Samhain

Location: Centre plain

Φ Beside me I ask, Mariana, “Are we dreaming.”

“I don’t think so.”

“So what the hell is this!” In the area around us, is a large number of humans a ridiculous amount. More so than I have ever seen in one place, even more than on the day Bricriu comes to dine with us, and every single one of us are sitting around a giant pyre for Samhain.

“Hey Nero, you never told me it was going to be like this, and what’s that giant stack of wood for, I thought we each had to burn our pyres.”

“I don’t know why it’s like this but all we can do is just wait and see what going on.”

“Maith thú.”

Hearing a sound, I turn my head to Charles, and say, “Are you practising?”

“Tá.”

Mariana beside me says, “Looks like Charles might start surpassing you, Nero.”

“I don’t want to hear that from the person who struggles to speak it, the most.”

“Hey, I am still learning!”

Location: On top of a cliff, near the Centre plain

Φ “It seems everything is going well!”

The answer I was able to find to keep everyone in check, is to simply move all of the pyres into one giant one, then gather all of the humans into one giant area then surround that area with an encirclement of Merarks.

This breaks one of Bricriu's big rules; to not ever let all of the other campsites know about each other. He holds this rule so high that on his visits he makes sure, to hold different banquets so that they are all never gathered together.

But right now, I don’t have time for that, this is the only way I can keep them all safe, and that’s by doing this.

Pulling down my mask, I say, “I got to protect myself from the spirits.” Then taking a lit touch, I give it to the Merark beside me and direct it to throw it into the pyre over there.

Location: Centre plain

Φ Suddenly as me and Mariana continue to fight, the pyre gets set ablaze lighting up the dark area with a bright, warm, blaze. It’s beautiful, yet frightens some, including me who is completely caught off guard by its sudden eruption. This causes almost everyone who is near it to get up and move away.

But there is an exception to this Mariana, who sits in the same spot staring at it, and from her mouth, I hear her mutter, “It’s beautiful, just like all the flowers back home.”

Moving over to her, I say “Mariana what are you doing, we should probably back off from it.”

Jumping up, she stands on her two feet and says, “I need to dance!”

“What!?”

“This feeling welling up inside of me, is the same as when I used to stare upon all the flowers and uncontrollable excitement.”

“You can’t just start dancing!”

“Look around, have we seen any guards? It’s been weeks since we truly have seen anyone other than Dónal, so I don’t see the issue.”

“That’s correct but.”

Ignoring me, she runs forward, and begins to spin and spin, then stopping she claps her hands and continues to dance.

Mariana is still wearing the clothes she had on when she came, although they have grown more and more tattered with her stay, they are still rather intact. This combined with the falling embers, her smile, and her dancing memorizes me, causing me to clap as well.

Unbeknownst to Nero, his clapping caused Charles to start clapping beside him, and the scene the three of them were making started to attract more and more attention from the people.

Seeing Nero, clapping Mariana runs toward him, and grabs him saying, “Don’t just stand there join in.”

“No way I can’t dance, it is impossible.”

Pulling him, towards her, she says, “Nothing is impossible.”

Then with Nero’s hand interlocking with her own, she starts to dance with him. But then he steps on her foot which causes him to freak, out and say, “Sorry!”

“Don’t worry about it, everyone does it when they start. All you need to do is relax and enjoy the moment with me, and I am sure you will be able to dance.”

Together with Nero, Mariana leads and together they dance while the fire falls down. The continuous dance causes a smile, to appear on Nero’s face as it does with Mariana as well.

Seeing this Charles starts to clap harder and harder, and in the crowd behind him more and more claps start to appear.

Then in the distance from the Merarks encircling everyone an exciting sound starts to emanate from all of them, and beside a Merark, Dónal says, “It seems the sound the humans are making are exciting them.”

As everyone continues to clap them on Mariana lets go of Nero, and runs towards the crowd grabbing the hands of people and pulling them over towards her, she says, “Come on and dance with us. It's way more fun if we do it together.”

Mariana pulls and throws person after person near the fire and leads them all teaching each one to dance beside her and Nero. And soon just like how the pyre was quickly set ablaze Mariana’s fervour quickly spread to a lot of others.

But some sat out, with mean looks on their faces. One such of these people was a man named Edward a man who was not only involved in Charles's beatings but led the group.

And in front of him to his dismay, Charles appeared and asked, “Do you want to dance.”

Seeing Charles's face, images of his young daughter flashed in his mind, and he says, “Get the fuck away from me devil child.”

“I see.”

Even more angered he says, “You know I truly despise you. Here you are playing with your friends knowing full well if it wasn’t for you traitorous parents our home wouldn’t have fallen to the beastkin. All the members of our home of Wolleland. So get out of my face before I beat you up!”

“If you attacked me, Nero would beat you up again.”

“You brat.”

“I never understood you before because I never had a family. But now I do have three family members and I understand why you hate me, I understand what you had and how much it hurt to lose it. Yet I can’t do anything to fix that but I can do this.”

Grabbing his hand Charles pulls Edward towards the rest of the people. As Edward resists, he says, “How are you this strong!?”

“I have always been.”

“Let me go!”

“No! I can never make you as happy as you were when you had a family, but I can still allow you to have some happiness. So come and dance with everyone.”

Raising my fist, I prepare to hit him, but in that moment, I see his face and I see that the boy looks like he is about to cry. No matter how many times I have hit him over the years he never so much as shed a tear yet right now he looks like a child who is about to cry when his parents won’t show him attention.

Pulling my fist back, I say, “What have I been doing?”

“Good job Dad,” I hear from my left side.

Turning my head to the left, I see something that’s almost see-through in the shape of my daughter, and as I lock eyes with it the spirit disappears.

A smile appears on Edward's face and whilst he smiles he allows Charles to pull him towards everyone.

Soon a large amount of people are dancing, and one woman grabs Mariana who says, “I guessed it could only be you who started it.”

Seeing the woman who grabbed her, Mariana jumps and give her a hug while saying, “LOLA!”

“I missed you, Mariana.”

“Where have you been, I didn’t even know you were in this plantation.”

“I didn’t know you were here either, I have barely seen anyone from our island here, so I was concerned.”

Seeing them hug, Nero says, “Is that the Lola whose Husband cheated on her with her mom.”

Lola stops for a moment and says, “How do you know about that!?”

Nero looks at Mariana, which causes Lola to look at Mariana, and this causes Mariana to go, “Teehee!”

“MARIANA!”

Grabbing Nero Mariana runs away from Lola and start to dance in the crowd of people, and says, “Time to dance!”

Samhain; a day when the worlds of the dead and the living are said to be the closest, and on that day the slaves dance, they chatted, they laughed and they cried, while the spirits of those they knew watch over them from afar.

Upon his cliff, watching the sight of all of the humans dancing Dónal could only say, “I guess insects isn’t a word one could use to describe them.”