Lilith watched her parents walk away, frozen, confused, and more than a little horrified.

The man was moving a few items around in the carriage, mainly taking small lanterns off the display stand and putting them in bags, before closing the display window. He paid special attention to the bag of gold, making sure it was extra secure. Then, he opened up the back near Lilith, stepped out, and sat down facing her.

“So, what’s your name?” The man asked.

Lilith turned. Her eyes were red with tears. She just looked at him, confused and clearly not sure she should trust him or run back to her parents.

Now that he got a good look though, she looked pretty bad. In addition to the tears, her face and arms had several bruise marks on them.

He sighed. “Your parents must’ve been in a serious hurry since they didn’t tell me your name. That whole situation just screamed trouble. You get a sense for that as a merchant after a while.” He looked back to the cart and to his new bag of coins. “But sometimes trouble is worth it.”

Lilith just stared back at him with teary eyes.

“I’m Sebastian. I’ll be your driver to Solis.” He moved to allow her to enter, mimicking some gestures he saw some Chauffeur do.

Lilith glanced at the inside of the cart and back to him. Then, she seemed to realize something.

“Wait, you’re a human merchant right?” She asked. “This whole thing is, there was this one kid, Taro, he kept saying his brother needed armor, so he bullied me, but I didn’t know any human merchants so I couldn’t get armor, so I fought back, and now… And now I’m being kicked out…” She grimaced, her eyes tearing up again.

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. If anything, beastmen were known for their fighting prowess, so a village of beastmen kicking her out just for fighting back sounded like nonsense. At least, unless something really bad happened. He said he wasn’t going to pry, but he wouldn’t get to spend his new money if he died to some kid’s dark magic.

“You didn’t—” he hesitated. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

Lilith blinked, then shook her head. “No! No I didn’t!” She paled. “I just.” She paused, then looked left and right and thought for a bit. “Well, you’re a human. You do magic, right?”

Sebastian shook his head. “Not all humans do magic. The school I’m taking you claims it can teach everyone magic, but only nobles have the time to sign up for that if they don’t already have it.”

“I’m going to a magic school?” Lilith perked up a bit.

He stared back for a second. “Yes.” He sighed. “Your parents just paid for your tuition. I’m guessing you used magic on the guy, Tang or whatever, and now your parents just made sure that, instead of beastman village, Slimefrost I think—” He looked back at a map. “Close enough.” He turned back. “I don’t imagine most people here like magic, but it’s very different at a magic school.”

Lilith now stared back with rapt attention.

Sebastian frowned. “Just to be safe, can you show me your magic?”

Lilith paled again, then calmed down a bit and nodded. “Do you have a piece of metal?”

Sebastian tossed a copper coin to her.

Lilith leapt to catch it, falling onto the grass before grabbing it and standing back up. Then, she held the coin in her hand, and, with a shaky hand and gritted teeth, she barely managed to hover it a bit above her hand before it wobbled back down.

Sebastian stared. “I don’t think you could hurt a fly with that, let alone another beastman.”

“Oh, that wasn’t the same magic,” Lilith said.

“What? Why? Show me the same magic you used on the kid!” Sebastian resisted the urge to facepalm, before realizing her having two forms of magic was actually impressive. It wasn’t rare, and most mages tended to specialize in one, but for a beastman to have multiple forms of magic was certainly something.

This time, Lilith held one side of the coin in her fingers and placed it near her other hand. The coin quickly turned bright red before— “Ow!” Lilith dropped the coin. She tried to pick it up again, only to burn herself again. Then, she slowly picked it up in her magic as it cooled down. As she was doing that, she looked at Sebastian, a mix of pride and fear in her eyes.

“Okay, I can see how that could hurt someone, and burns from a fight would stand out,” Sebastian said, nodding.

“Oh, I got more!” Lilith ran up, excited now that she wasn’t being punished for her magic. Once she got up to his leg, she poked it, and a bit of static electricity zapped him.

“Ow.” He moved his leg away, more amused than anything. “Where did you even get all this magic?”

“I’ve been practicing!” Lilith said, clearly proud.

Sebastian was a bit surprised she had access to magic study materials, but her parents did just enroll her in a magic school, so he shrugged. Not the best parenting considering the location, but certainly not the worst.

“Alright, well you’ve graduated from practice now. You’ll be learning real magic in Solis.”

Lilith gaped in awe.

“Hop on whenever you’re ready and we’ll ride out.”

Lilith stepped forward, but then tilted her head. “You’re not going to sell stuff and do merchant stuff first?” She looked at the closed display window, curious.

“You just attacked a kid with magic, so I don’t want to hang around. And it’s fairly late anyway.”

“Oh,” Lilith said, then hurried on board.

Sebastian released a frustrated breath before closing the door behind her and heading to the horse reins and pulling them a few times. The cart lurched forward before moving at a steady pace.

“So, what was your name?” Sebastian asked.

“Oh, I’m Lilith,” she said.

---

As Sebastian controlled the horse like animal up front, Lilith found a bunch of rolled up blankets, took a blueish one she kind of liked, and unrolled and laid down on it. The ride was a bit bumpy and she felt a bit sick at first, but she could just look out the front to fix that.

She looked over herself and at her bruises, then ran her hand over them. With her sense magic, she could see some sort of different fluid around her bruises and move it around, but it hurt and she didn’t really know what she was doing. Wispy taught her a bit about healing earlier, but he focused on stitching things together with thread. There wasn’t really anything to stitch together here.

Eventually, she gave up and laid back, slowly drifting off to sleep.

After a few short fragments of dreams she had trouble remembering, other than her escaping her home in different ways, she found herself in front of the same large lake of water, with Wispy right above the water closest to her. But behind him was… her own bruised body?

She tilted her head. “Why am I there? Did I die? Am I a ghost?” She looked down and patted herself, testing if her hands would go through.

“You’re fine. This is just an extra body,” Wispy explained. Though, that didn’t really explain much. “Please, come closer. I need to show you something.” Blue tendrils beckoned her over.

She walked over and knelt down by her double by the edge of the lake. Looking closer, it had the exact same bruises as her.

“Hold your hand here and look with your magic.” One of Wispy’s tendrils hovered over a large bruise.

Lilith did so. She could see the same fluids she couldn’t make any sense of before.

Wispy moved one of his tendrils inside Lilith’s double, highlighting different parts as he spoke even though they should’ve been obscured.

“Most of what makes up this bruise is escaped blood. Look around and try to find the torn vessel the blood is escaping from.” He waited as she moved her sense around. The specific vessel wasn’t too hard to find, but it took some searching. “There’s a protein near the torn vessel that’s inducing coagulation, causing temporary clots. Let’s try something different: with your magic, rather than letting your body make clots that heal, try stitching the capillary back together, and pour the coagulation protein into that stitch to make the blood seal it shut.”

A few thin strands of silk thread floated over to her, which she grabbed with her magic and shoved through the skin. She wrapped them around the broken vessel, but it was a poor job that wouldn’t really help. Luckily, she could try a few more times in this dream space. Eventually, she wrapped the vessel closely enough without constricting it.

“Whew…” She breathed.

“Good job! But there’s more.” Wispy started highlighting again, and Lilith brought her hands back down to see. “There’s still all this blood here, and the coagulation protein leaked out too far here. Your immune system is trying to take back the escaped blood, but if it’s all in one place then there’s a lot of blood and little immune system.” One of his tendrils split a few times and the tips turned into pins before he paused. “Ah. I suppose it’s too small for you to see at this point, isn’t it. In any case, just spread out the blood that won’t be necessary in healing the capillaries, and move the coagulation protein and a bit of blood back to the capillaries.”

Lilith did so. It took a while to really thin out the blood, but she could see a few spots clearing up.

“It’s working!” She grinned.

“Well, you just spread it out. It’s not visible, but it will still take some time for it to fully heal.”

“Oh…” She frowned.

“Now, let’s try again on the other bruises. If you’re really skilled, you might be able to put most of the good blood back in the artery here before using the rest to seal it.”

---

Lilith stretched her arms out, knocking one of her bruises against the wooden walls of the car. She cringed, then started healing it with her magic just like she did in her dream. Luckily, there weren’t any broken veins here.

Once she was done, she looked around inside the packed cart. There were plenty of oil lanterns of different sizes, all secured with rope, a few small canisters of oil, and stacks of rolled up blankets. There was also a book and a lot of coins by the display window.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

She went over to the book. It was a bunch of sales records and some finance calculations. The most recent pages were all oil lanterns and related items, but it looked like Sebastian mostly sold cloths in the summer, nails, hammers, and other woodworking tools before that, and various other items throughout.

She closed it after a bit, then got up and walked over to Sebastian. Then, she realized it was pretty deep into the night. He had a few lanterns lighting the way, which also happened to be lighting up the inside of the cart too.

“Oh, hello.” He looked over from his reins. “Done with your nap?”

Lilith nodded.

He looked around, then stopped the horse-thing by some trees near the end of a clearing. Then, he picked up some rope, hopped off the side, and started tying the horses to one of the trees. “It’s about time to stop for the night anyway.” He moved over and untied the horse from the cart, finally realizing something. “What happened to your bruises? What, can you do healing magic too?”

“Mhmm!” Lilith nodded.

“Huh, got a real polymage here.” He stepped back into the cart and made his way to some boxes. “Ever heard the saying, ‘jack of all trades, master of none’?” He pulled out some chunks of meat, some weird mushrooms, and some porous cubes of some vegetable.

“‘But oftentimes better than a master of one’,” Lilith continued the phrase.

Sebastian paused and looked back, before shrugging. “I guess if they taught you fifty different magics they’d teach you that too.” He pulled out some wood shavings and some flint before stopping. “We need to gather some firewood. Can you light a fire with your magic?”

“On purpose?” Lilith asked.

Sebastian stopped, then looked back fully. “Please don’t burn my cart down.”

Lilith held one hand with another and looked away.

“Anyway,” Sebastian said, “We need to get some firewood for the night. You’re gonna help me.”

“Okay.”

Sebastian put the food in a pile before heading out.

Lilith turned to the food.

“Don’t touch that. Follow me,” Sebastian said.

She followed Sebastian and gathered some wood. The food he cooked later was decent, but not nearly as good as the food she had at home.

After that, they slept in the cart, and then continued traveling for several days until they got to the next town.

---

This was the first time Lilith had been in a human town. To be honest, it didn’t look too different from Slimefrost, except for all the farms around, and the houses themselves seemed a bit nicer looking. There were also fewer log houses and more thin houses. She was looking forward to seeing more places like this, as well as more of this place. So, she walked a bit away from the cart.

“Hey, what are you doing wandering off?” Sebastian called after her.

“I wanna see the town!” Lilith pointed.

“You can’t wander off without me. Carts go through there. Also this isn’t your home. It’s not safe.”

She frowned. Her home wasn’t safe now either.

“Just stay by the cart until afternoon. Then we’ll go exploring a bit.”

“Okay…” She sighed, but walked back to the cart.

Sebastian continued setting up his cart, finally opening the display and putting a few lanterns on it. Then, he noticed the bag of coins he got before, took out a coin, and held it to his chest. “Haven, this child…” he muttered.

---

Lilith watched as Sebastian haggled with various humans and wrote stuff down in his book. A few of the humans asked why she was there, and Sebastian actually just told them the truth: he was transporting her to school at the request of her parents. For some reason, the humans would always give her a weird look after that.

Finally, after a lull in customers, Sebastian needed a break.

“Alright Lilith, if anyone comes by the cart, tell them to wait for me.”

Lilith nodded, a bit nervous, before moving over a box so she could stand at the display window that was set up for his height.

Lilith started people watching as she waited for him to come back, until a large man came by, checked out the inventory, then grinned when he saw Lilith and her fox ears instead of a normal human.

“I’ll offer you a silver to keep for yourself if you give me that,” he pointed to a keg of lighter fluid, easily worth 10 silver before profit. “No need to tell your master.”

“Nope.” Lilith shook her head. “Sebastian said to tell anyone that came here to wait until he came back.”

The man glanced at her fox ears once more before smirking and continuing, “Look, I don’t know how long this ‘Sebastian’ will be gone, but I’m in a bit of a hurry. I’ll offer you two silver coins if you sell it quickly.”

She was about to shake her head again, but realized she wanted to see what Sebastian’s job felt like. She remembered her mother’s advice earlier: ‘ten times the price’.

“A hundred silver coins!” She demanded, pounding her fist against the display stand. “That’s top quality stuff there!”

The man stepped back. “A hund— pfft. Ah haa ha! You wanna haggle huh? Alright, five silver coins.”

“What are you an idiot? I just said a hundred silver coins. Even half off would be fifty silver. You expect me to respect five percent!?” She crossed her arms and huffed. “Rude.”

The man furrowed his brow and his eyes darted to her ears again. “Look, you’re just a kid, so you might not have heard, but that kind of item never goes for more than tw— ten silver”

“Like I said though, this is top quality stuff! So you gotta pay extra!”

“I don’t care how good it is! I don’t need top quality lighter fluid, I just need it to work. Fifteen silver is the max I’ll pay!”

“You’re practically asking me to sell at cost! Twenty is as low as I’ll go!”

The man sneered. “Lower it to seventeen!”

“Tch! Eighteen then.”

“Deal!”

“Deal!”

“No deal!” Sebastian yelled as he ran back. “Lilith I thought I told you to tell anyone that came here to wait for me.”

“I did though?” She tilted her head.

“Then why are you selling my stuff? And so low!”

“Low? It’s nearly double the price we got it for though.”

The large man frowned and started walking off.

“And you!” Sebastian turned.

The man looked back.

“Stay the fuck away from my cart and Lilith.”

The man raised his hands in surrender. “No more haggling?”

Sebastian narrowed his eyes. “Not unless you want yourself on a blacklist. Now fuck off.”

The man ground his teeth before turning and walking away.

Sebastian sighed and turned back. “Yeah, you would’ve sold it low. If you count just the item then there’s at least some profit. But if you add the work done to get that item and the time that went into it, it goes up to twelve silver. It’s not like I’m buying and selling in bulk. And then we need to make the travel worth it, so we need an average of eight silver of profit to make the transport worth it. That’s one of my higher price items, so it’s gotta sell high. If it’s eighteen, we’re losing money.”

“Eh? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why would I tell you? I wasn’t expecting you to just sell my stuff!” Sebastian fumed.

Lilith shrank back into the cart.

Sebastian stepped back into the cart and stood at the display window, moving the box out of the way. “And this is dangerous too. What if you fell!?” He glared at Lilith.

Lilith looked away before curling up into a ball.

Sebastian sold a few more lanterns and blankets, but Lilith didn’t try to interact with the customers or look over his shoulder anymore.

---

After a few more sales, Sebastian closed down the shop, locked the cart, and dragged Lilith out. “Come on, we’re walking through the town like you wanted.”

“We are?” Lilith perked up.

“Yeah. I said we would, so we are.”

Lilith hopped out and started walking beside him. She gawked at the different houses and different people everywhere around her, not really paying attention to the confused looks some people gave her.

After a while, a group of children noticed them and ran up, most of them smaller than Lilith. She waved.

“Gya!” She yelped as one boy jumped up and poked her ear, before another grabbed her tail and pulled. “Ow! Stop!” She tried to pull it back gently.

“Hey.” Sebastian grabbed the boy who was still holding Lilith’s tail by the wrist, causing him to let go. “Did your parents not teach you to keep your hands to yourself?”

The kid, now terrified, tried to squirm away, but he was stuck until Sebastian let him go.

“Apologize,” Sebastian said.

“I’m sorry!” The boy looked up to him.

“To her.” Sebastian narrowed his eyes.

“I— I’m sorry!” The boy said to Lilith.

Sebastian let him go and watched him run away.

Lilith was a bit scared herself. “Uh, thanks.”

“Those spikes on your tail are sharp, right? If some kid does that again, you have my permission to slice their hand open with those spikes.”

“I… don’t think I can do that actually.” She moved her tail in front of her and poked one of the spikes. “Kinda blunt.”

“Hmph. Darn.”

---

They kept walking for a bit until Sebastian got fed up with how everyone acted around Lilith. Another kid even tried grabbing her tail, but this time she yanked it, hard, and he screamed and cried before running off. His hands weren’t sliced, but it definitely wasn’t pleasant.

After that, they went back to the cart. They didn’t stay at an inn. The town was small enough that it didn’t really have one, and even if it did it would still cost money that Sebastian would rather not spend. So they both fell asleep in their blankets laid down on the hard wood.

After a few dreams, Lilith found herself in front of Wispy again.

“What’s… going on?” Lilith asked. “What’s with this town?”

Wispy seemed to shrug, but it was always hard to tell. “Let’s start with the obvious. I know you saw that shopper’s eyes dart to your ears.”

“So he thought he could cheat me out of money because I was a beastgirl?”

“Yes. And because you’re young.”

“But why? I’m not an idiot!”

“Of course not. But how well do you think his tactics would’ve worked against anyone else in your village.”

She paused to think about it. Considering some of them called what human merchants did ‘trickery’, she didn’t have high hopes. “Five silver maybe?” She shrugged. “I don’t think they would’ve memorized the base prices.” She paused. “I don’t know about Priscilla though, and my parents are super smart!”

“So out of the hundreds of people you’ve met in Slimefrost, you can think of three exceptions, two of which are your parents.” Hundreds of tiny blue dots drifted off of one of Wispy’s tendrils, and three of them turned yellow. “On average, you must think beastmen are pretty dumb yourself.”

“But, but…” Lilith stared at the floating dots.

“But not all beastmen are dumb. You gave enough counterexamples to prove that. However, imagine if you had no magic, no access to me, and you let your teachers convince you that human ideas were all just ‘trickery’.” Wispy leaned in. “You already acted close minded to fit in. The price you paid for only going that far was being beaten, bullied, and having your parents rush you out of the village so nothing worse would happen to you.”

“But…” She started tearing up.

“You were hiding from the people in your home that tore your family apart so you, your family, and your friends wouldn’t get hurt. I think you did a good job.”

“Huh?”

“The truth isn’t always something you should reveal to anyone, Lilith. People like Taro may jump to their own conclusions. Thieves like our shopper may see it as a weak point to attack and an excuse to take from you. Oh, and anyone hurt by beastmen may view it as a reason for revenge. However…” One of his tendrils squished into a spiral before opening up, showing a picture of Priscilla instead of the lake. She was smiling as she talked about various animals with Lilith, and even about some of Lilith’s magic. “There are some that can and should be trusted with the truth.” The image switched to scenes of Sebastian protecting her from the boy, from the carts that went through the street, from the shopper, and feeding her. “Now the truth isn’t just your magic.”

Next, Wispy formed some of himself into the keg from before, as well as the eighteen silver coins she would’ve sold it for, both of which sat on top of the water. “And for your other question: how can eighteen silver be a loss? Let’s break it down. Ten silver to buy the item, but how much is your time worth? How many coppers per hour? How much do you need to counter the items that don’t sell? And don’t forget the tax…” His tendrils drifted off before forming various floating words.

---

“Good morning sleepyhead,” Sebastian said, offering some stew to her. “You sleep a lot, you know that?”

“Thanks.” She took a spoonful and swallowed. “Sebastian… Can I get a hat?” She wrapped her tail around her waist as she asked.

His eyes widened in surprise. “I was going to get you one later. There aren’t really any good clothes shops in town, or carts, right now. At least, not any that wouldn’t make you look out of place in Solis. Is it that bad?”

Lilith shrugged. “I wouldn’t say it’s bad. But, you know, that one guy kept eyeing my ears before he made those really low offers. And the kids keep touching my ears.”

“Well, the kids are just kids, but that shopper was a problem. Hmm.” He paused to think. “There’s a shop in the next city, so you’ll just have to wait until we get there.”

“Okay.” Lilith spooned more of the soup into her mouth.

Sebastian finished his stew, put the bowl to the side, and went to the reins again. They were heading to the next city now.

---

After a few more days of travel, Lilith woke from her sleep when she heard something really large fall over and make a loud thump in front of the car. She crawled over and peaked out, only to see the horse lying on its side, its neck slit.