For what is made of wood...

~

I'd been trying (very unsuccessfully) to train Xavier and Greyhat for a few days. Greyhat doesn't want to talk, let alone even think about trying to learn or fight or try to cast a spell. So that's a pain in the rear.

But then there's Xavier. I don't think he has something against my Scar like everyone else does, but I know for a fact he just doesn't like me in general. Trying to decide which of the two options is worse, but when a prissy, stuck-up teenager won't listen to you giving him valuable information, let alone when his listening is the deciding factor on you being allowed a place to stay in the base, you get the undying urge to knock him to his senses.

He's got an ego so big and heavy it could sumo wrestle, and has absolutely nothing to back it up.

One night, I was running my delivery errands, and a group of drunk soldiers were sitting at a fire well past lights out hours. Not that I was in any position of command to say anything, and not that the person in position of command honestly cared.

A few of them had letters and other mail for me to give them, which I dreaded, since this specific group has been a particular trouble for me - being Scarred and all.

I swallowed hard and thought, here goes nothing.

I handed out the mail, only after their rambunctious laughter and conversation went dead silent and their eyes almost hungrily tracked me as I circled them, trying to keep my cool.

One of them, a Lieutenant (or at least one that "will be soon, just you damn wait, you mongrel!"), stood up and just had to open his damn mouth.

"Bayfore yi run off, samthin I haf to tell yi!" He was trying to sound threatening, but I could barely take him seriously with that thick, extremely ridiculous accent of his.

"What's that?" I asked as completely neutrally and emotionlessly as possible.

"We've got a visitor coming soon. A mercenary from Teriu. She's one of the best, so you best not show your rat ass near her when she shows!"

Suddenly he started speaking normally. I guess the author got too lazy to keep writing the accent.

I nodded and rolled my eyes internally, then turned away and walked back towards the office to go to bed, since my struggling with Xavier and Greyhat all day wore me down.

However, I was stopped after taking a few steps by a firm, warm hand.

"You better show a little more respect than that," one of the drunk lackeys demanded in a cold, slow cadence. "I think you ought to be taught a lesson."

My heart completely stopped, and as soon as he said "taught a lesson," everyone else around the fire stood and smiles grew on their heartless, drunken faces as equally heartless, drunken laughs left them.

One cracked his knuckles and another snickered. The one with his hand on my shoulder shoved me with it. Hard enough that I think he was trying to throw me to the ground. I yelped, shocked by the sudden display of violence.

What the hell are these people thinking of doing to me here??

Like hungry hyenas, the snickering, devilish soldiers slowly approached and encircled me. I backed up with horror on my face and in my heart, but it didn't matter. I felt my stomach drop completely and my mouth dry up as I ran into someone behind me and realized that I was completely surrounded by these people.

The one that just shoved me then stepped forward. "Hey! You tryna get all rebellious? Know your damn place," he spat, kicking me in the shin, hard.

I lost my balance completely and toppled over, and immediately curled up as the snickering grew to what felt in my head like straight up maniacal laughter. One member of the group came up and tugged on my tail - no, not tugged, tried to yank my tail out of my body.

One thing I have learned about the Scarred, and other people with animal-like features: our tails are sensitive. We feel everything that happens to them, especially near their bases. A tear left my eye, quickly followed by another, as I whimpered in pain, too terrified to scream out, feeling like I would only draw out more soldiers that wanted to hurt me.

I sobbed and sobbed like a mess as the soldiers broke down from tugging and pulling on my tail and ears to just straight up kicking me. You see it in movies and think oh that must hurt, but these guys are wearing boots and rearing their legs back full force. I might as well be getting pelted by golf balls.

They were laughing and laughing and laughing like it was a derby or something, like I was just some animal on the floor or a soccer ball they were playing hackey sack with.

I guess I probably deserve this... it's what I get for killing my best friend.

That night I looked in the mirror and saw myself, covered in welts and bleeding a little in some places. But all I could really look at was my darker skin, strange, foreign eyes, and my ears and tail. I'm not human anymore.

I am the monster they say I am.

~

The next day, things were a little better. We decided to take a break from our training, and I was thankfully given leave to go off and do my own thing for the day. So I chose to explore off to the west of the base where there were just meadows and meadows as far as the eye could see.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The sun was out over the damp grass, as the first hits of winter had faded and the warmer weather came back for its last hurrah.

Almost all of the fields were completely untouched, and life just roamed on them as it pleased, which is something rare to see in most places of Earth. Just about anywhere you go here it's still raw, untouched land. In a way it's really lonely, but in other ways it's super beautiful and a sight to behold.

But I'm rambling again.

I'd settled on a tree and just kind of sat there. Most people would do more involved things with their days off, but it was an excuse to empty my thoughts and do nothing for a little while. I took a short nap against the surprisingly comfy and sturdy tree that my back seemed to be made for, supported by the cushy and pillowy grass that in some places almost reached up to my waist.

But my nap, like many good things over the last few months, didn't last long.

I was startled by a heavy rumbling and a distant, manic screaming, a mixture of fear and joy, and it was approaching fast. I didn't have any weapons, so if it was coming for me I was pretty well screwed.

Off in the near distance was a rapidly-approaching scene of a woman dressed in nearly rags with manic, almost insane bliss painted across her face as she sprinted like a kid runs from "it" in tag, running from a whole mob of dark-green-furred rodents that were almost as large as cows.

She was laughing and laughing like it was some kind of game - being chased by animals that seemed to want to kill her.

And of course she saw me and my tree, and the smile impossibly grew even bigger on her as she rerouted, with her new destination looking a lot like "Me and This Damn Tree" Street. I freaked out and waved my hands around, trying to say, "what the hell are you doing please go away holy shit we're both gonna die now why did you have to drag me into this sjkdfhgsjhdgfa"

She got closer and closer, and I just froze and tried to back myself up against the trunk and hope they'd just see this as an immovable object and go around.

But when the crazy woman got close enough to me and my humble little tree, she sprung up like her body weighed nothing, landing right in a branch, and then reached down and yanked me up, swinging me around by my shirt like I was a yoyo and weighed nothing to her.

The animals, in all their brainless glory, ran on, but I think my heart ran a little faster than they did.

"Wwhhhhwhat are you d-d-doing???" I barely managed to get out of me in a panicked jamble, nearly falling off the branch we were sitting on.

She laughed and explained that she was trying to get here quickly, but some of the grass-dwellers started chasing her, and they're a bit herd minded.

I then gasped and opened my eyes wide.

"I can understand you!" I shouted in elfish, then threw my hands in the air in celebration, forgetting they were my support and tumbling straight down to the ground.

A few minutes and a sore face later, the woman and I were atop the tree again and introduced ourselves, and I realized my practicing with Carla was paying off.

By no means was I an expert in the language, and she corrected me quite a few times, but I think she was just as proud of me as I was and she didn't even know me.

Her name was Kir, and she was apparently the mercenary that the soldiers mentioned last night. So much for not showing my face around her.

The most eyebrow-raising thing to me was that she had a Scar. She wasn't animal-like in the way me and Carla were, but she had a Scar no less. And yet she was a well-respected mercenary. How that worked out, I wasn't really sure.

We had time to kill up in the tree, and I don't think either of us really wanted to come down.

She sighed and stretched, inhumanly doubling over the branch at the center of her back - where any other person would have just fallen over.

"So, where you from?" she asked in near perfect English.

She had to drag me up the tree a third time, only after laughing her head off.

"You should see the look on your stupid face," she cackled out, slapping her knees with a red face.

After she calmed down, she explained.

"I was born in Vira, but moved to Teriu after finishing school. Vira's a small place, but it values education, especially in the capital."

"Why do you know English though?"

Really, why does anyone here know it? It's supposed to be a language from our world.

"While not common, it's used a lot in Donthaar, and a few sprinkles of it in Khazal and a few other places. I originally studied to be a merchant, so language was pretty important."

I gave her a look of unexpected surprise.

"I know - 'how'd you wind up as a merc?' Stuff happens."

She had a "shrug it off," "eh, whatever" attitude that really suited her. It both irritated and comforted me. More of the latter.

At the end of the day, we got along, and that was something rare around that army camp.

So we walked back under the late afternoon sun and she told me a few stories from Vira and Teriu, like what it took to get her regional certification as a merchant, and how she sort of just became a mercenary by accident.

Her Scar somehow hasn't given her an insane amount of trouble, despite the fact that Teriu, like almost all of the countries in the region, have no reforms on the matter. Apparently they tried to pass some, but the progress was halted with the death of their prince and princess.

Through overheard conversations and now Kir, I'm starting to get a really good picture of a lot of these countries and their pasts, and the outlook is a bit grim.

My day off ended with Kir and I in the grass, with neither of this planet's moons to be seen. So it was dark, but not so eerie, at least with a new friend to keep me company. She was tired from her trek, so I didn't want to keep her up much, but she rolled over and started asking me the questions.

"So Sage..." she began, a somewhat mischievous, knowing curiosity in her tone. "Are you one of those summoned heroes I heard about?"

I sighed. "Yeah. Well, I guess I used to be. Then I got to looking like this."

She paused and thought for a moment.

"What... what was life like where you came from?"

My breath caught on that question. Nobody's ever brought up our old world. Even the others of us that were also brought here don't like to talk about it too much. Fezege and the nobles and high-rankers never bothered asking what our lives were like or what we're used to or anything like that.

"Definitely... different. Definitely no swords and magic. People fought but with far more advanced weaponry. So many more people had an education and learned to read and write."

"That sounds amazing," she stated, a bit plainly. "But, what was it like?"

"Well, lovely. My own life there wasn't so great, but as a place, where I came from was pretty beautiful."

She stared in earnest silence.

"School where I came from was free for everyone, and those public schools had a great deal of a social food chain. Get good grades, be involved, get popular. I was at the top of that chain. So I've always kind of had to watch what I say and do."

And blur the lines of who I am and who I act like.

"I don't know. A different life, I guess," I concluded.

"Blegh. That sounds like no fun," she frowned. She had a sort of childlike giddy to her, but not in a way that made her seem childish. Just someone who's seen a lot and came out on the other end with a happy outlook. "But you had'ta have had friends right? Dontcha miss them?"

"Of course. Some of them came with me. Most of them I lost."

"Did y'ever love anyone?" She seemed genuinely curious to know my story, not like she was just trying to make conversation.

"Yeah, actually. Guy named Vincent."

She immediately gave me a disappointed frown as soon as I stopped talking and grumbled. "Well don't just leave me hanging, what happened!"

"If you really wanna know..."