-Break-

Location: Paths towards the campsite

Φ Led by a beastkin, a group of slaves walk towards the campsite. They are scared, sick, feeble, and angry.

They don’t know what to do, should they run? Should they fight? Despite having these thoughts run through their minds they all universally do the same thing; remain obedient.

Within this crowd though, a young girl cries as she rubs his freshly put-on brand. It is so sore that she doesn’t know what to do except hold it till it calms down, but every time her hands touch it she shrieks.

But her crying and shrieking annoys the beastkin near her so he stops the entire crowd of slaves, and then reaches for the kid picking her out and raising her by the neck.

“Let me explain something to you parasite, you no longer need to make any noise out of your mouth except to breathe. You will never be asked any questions, just given orders because you are a slave, so those pointless cries and whimpers stop right now.”

The beastkin drops the girl and then starts to lead all the slaves towards the campsites. The girl still feeling pain and sadness wants to cry with all her heart but inside of him there is something that overtakes that feeling completely; fear.

The group of slaves were marched right into their campsites with the girl being brought to her own.

They broke off everyone into groups and sent them into tiny little huts of their own, and after some time had passed there was only one person left in line, the young girl.

The beastkin who was leading them, looked at her and says, “This is your punishment.”

Then directs her towards a hut, but unlike every other hut it was empty, the girl had no roommates. So she simply just went inside and laid down. She wanted to cry, but due to the fear of the retribution she might face, he held it in and just slept.

-Break-

From her slumber, the girl slowly opens his eyes, and ass he looks up she sees an unfamiliar human face staring down at her, then moments later the person says, “You’re finally up!”

The girl instantly moves to the edge of the room and is about to scream, but she puts her hands over her mouth to stop himself from making noise. Then with a quiet whisper, she says, “Who are you.”

“Oh yeah, I should have led with that, my name is Nero Animus, and it is nice to me you, so can I have your name, oh wait it is probably ms snores a lot.”

The girl freezes for a moment thinking about Nero’s words, and then her head fills with steam as she quietly says, “I don’t snore a lot!”

“That’s a lie, I was watching you for a while and boy do you snore, my father didn’t even snore that much when I was a child!”

With her embarrassment increasing she says, “I DIDN’T’ SNORE!”

With a smile, Nero says, “Looks like you still have some life in you after all.”

Realizing what just happened, she covers her mouth and whispers, “That wasn’t a nice thing to do. If you keep making me speak up those monsters will come and attack us.”

With a nonchalant face, he says, “Oh you don’t have to worry about them.”

“Huh, why?”

“They usually only are around on the days the new slaves come in, and then they usually fuck off and go lazy around. It used to be them just going away for celebration, but their laziness has increased over the past few years.”

“I see, but that still doesn’t explain my question.”

“What question the great snoring empress?”

“THAT’S Not my name!” Huffing and puffing towards him, I recompose myself and say, “Why are you here.”

“Oh, simple just to introduce you to here. Despite almost doing no work, they still all like to punish us whenever they see us messing up, so all of us at this campsite have decided to train all of the newbies to make sure no punishments get dished out.”

“So you’re here to help me?”

“You’re right about that. Because I am the very incarnation of the sun, and I am here to put some spirit in your dull body.”

“I am not dull.”

“I hope so because the people around here can use a little more excitement.” Standing up, he reaches out his hand and says, “Let’s go.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Looking up at him, I pause for a moment. Even though he is wearing tattered clothes and looks rather ragged he still has a noble, if not heavenly feel to him.

Shyly, I reach out my hand and grab his.

-Break-

Location: Íogair grassland

Standing in front of giant flowers, Nero says, “Your first job will be to pick seeds from these lovely flowers here. These kind fellows tend to move around a lot, so you got to be precise.”

Moving forward, Nero brings his hand close, but the giant flowers move away, and turn away from Nero, then it tries to strike him with its steam but it misses and at the moment Nero pulls out its seed.

Facing me, he says, “Like so.” With a smug expression he says, “It might take you a while for your first try, so don’t feel down if you can’t get it.”

Moving forward, I try to pick out the seeds, but the flowers dodge and it tries to strike me. I dodge out of the way and at the same time I grab a seed.

Facing Nero, I say, “Like so.”

With a face of surprize, he says, “How did you do that so easily.”

“Where I am from has some flowers just like this, but instead of hitting you they spray poisonous gas in your face, so you have to be extra careful.”

Nero bows down, and says, “You win this round, I admit your superior.”

Looking at him bowing to me, I freak out and say, “Please stop that!?”

Jumping up he says, “But experience matters more than anything, I still have tomorrow to show you my utter mastery.”

Seeing his proud face I can’t help but giggle a bit.

-Break-

The next day

Location: Scortha fields

With a hoe in hand, I strike the dry soil under my and say with sweat trickling down my forehead, “TOO HOT!” If it wasn’t for the covering made of leaves I have over me I would be dead.

“Hahaha, looks like it is my win today.” Nero Laughs as he continues to toil away at the soil.

Hearing his words annoys me, so I say, “Don’t count me out yet,” And start to toil away just like Nero.

“You’re quite a bit stronger than you’re frame would have me believe?”

“The place I am from had many different farming techniques passed down to us by the great sage Cordum, so dealing with farm work is something I am very familiar with. And I would say from the way you work it is similar for you.”

Nero pauses for a moment, then smiles and says, “No my people never had a homeland, so we always just kept moving around so we had absolutely no use for farming. We used to just live off the land it was a lot of fun, but now those are just distant memories.”

As Nero becomes silent, I say, “Sorry for bringing up such a thing.”

With a bright smile, he says, “Don’t worry about it. I might have lost what I had before but right now I have two giant suns in my life so I have no reason to feel sad.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Now enough talk, all that is left is victory!” Nero proceeds to speed up and start to toil away at the land even faster.

So I do the same and try to compete, but the heat has started to really get under my skin. But Nero continues to work as if he is unaffected by it.

Looking over at him, I say, “How are you even able to keep going for so long, I feel like I am about to die just being here.”

“Simple the more you work, the woozier things become, soon your body, mind and soul will all become completely numb, and when you reach that stage of complete inability to feel anything you realize that you can keep going.”

Looking at the happy yet somewhat unnerving look he has on his face, I ask, “Nero are you ok?”

“I think I am about to throw up.”

-Break-

The next day

Location: A few meters away from the River Lúide

As the beastkin talk loudly around us, I walk with Nero towards a nearly fully built castle with a spade in hand. Beside me with his head down, Nero says, “I am sorry about yesterday.”

Rubbing a wound on my cheek, I say, “Don’t worry about it. You were only working so hard to entertain me anyways, who could have guessed you would have gotten sick.”

Still dejected he says, “I should have known better because when the beastkin saw what happened they hit the both of us across our cheeks.”

“It is fine, and anyways doesn’t the marking look sort of cool, if anything it just makes us look better!”

He looks at me and smiles, then he moves the part of his face next to the part of my face that has a scar, and says, “We sort of match don’t we.”

Flustered, I move him away and say, “Stop that.”

“Oh yeah, sorry I was told not to go around touching girls. Apparently, people have complained that I keep intruding on their space.”

Stopping for a moment, I look at him and say, “Yeah I can see that.”

“I am feeling some disrespect in that comm-.” Stopping his sentence, Nero grabs and pulls me towards him.

I am about to freak out, but right before that, I notice that a rock lands where I was just standing.

Looking over at it, I say, “Did you just save me?”

Letting go he says, “I just heard someone say they were going to throw it as far as possible, so I moved you out of the way in time. Sorry about having to touch you though.”

Blushing, I say, “Oh no problem.” Suddenly I realize something, so I say, “No one is talking except the beastkin in their language, so who did you hear?”

“That’s a secret.”

“Come on tell me please?”

“If you want to know information about me, you should relieve information about yourself first.”

“Well, back home they used to call me the animal whisperer because I was always really good with them.”

“Really?”

“Why would I lie?”

“Then you might come in hand a little bit down the line.”

“How so?”

“Another secret of mine.”

“Hey you told me it I tell you mine, and you will tell me yours.”

“Oh did I?” Nero instantly makes a break for the castle.

“Hey wait up!” I say as I run after him.

-Break-

Location: Campsite

As the girl lays in her hut’s floor she is suddenly hit on the stomach which causes her to get up.

Looking in her hut, she sees that Nero is sitting beside her with his hand in a fist, so she says, “YOU!” And tries to strike Nero.

But before she can hit him, he dodges and grabs her hand saying, “Let’s go.”

As they run out of the hut, she says, “If the beastkin see us talking during the night they will attack us.”

“Don’t worry, they have all already started lazying about elsewhere so we are safe to move out during the night.”

“Where are you taking me, Nero?”

“Here,” Nero says as he stops running.

In front of the girl is everyone at the campsite gathered together in one big group talking to each other.

“Not that the beastkin, has left we can finally have a proper welcome party for all of you. We do this every year and we can finally do one for all of you.”

Confused, I look at him and say, “But why would you guys do all of this for us?”

“Because we might all not want to be here but that doesn’t mean while we are here we have to be lonely, so will you join us, ummm what’s your name?”

“It’s Statilia.”

“I see well let’s go have fun.”

“Led the way, Nero."