It’s been four days since I was brought here, and it’s been… Better than I thought it would be… The smaller human has been nicer to me than any other human and is teaching me how to read. The other humans don’t like me and keep treating me like an animal, the biggest one still scares me and the smaller humans mother hates me, the butler human is the least mean, though it still doesn't like me, at least it doesn’t glare at me like the mother.

I still sleep in the room with the dried grass, but the nice human said he’d make it nicer to sleep there. I hope he’s telling the truth, so far, he hasn’t done anything to trick me, but I’m still scared he might be pretending to be nice and really be mean…

I lean back into the armrest of the large chair I can see the door from here, I'm holding a book in my lap that’s half as big as me and has nice pictures, but I still barely understand any of the words.

The nice human said that he would be back in two hours and when I asked what an hour was, he told me about clocks and how they tell the time so humans know how long it takes them to do things and when the hand is pointing in an L shape he would be back.

He said he would explain more later, and when I asked where he was going, he said that he needed to catch up on his training. I didn’t want to risk annoying him by asking too many questions at once, so I’ll ask about his training later.

He left me some water in a cup and some tasty meat to eat on the table next to the chair. The clock's hands were in the are nearly in the L shape and I've barely read two pages of the book, I eventually just looked at the pictures, it's not easy to guess what the words mean without his help.

I hear the door open and I look up, the nice human is back.

He walks over to the other chair that he moved so it’s next to the one I’m sitting in and sits down in it, he’s wearing different clothes than the ones he had when he left.

“why are your c-clothes different?” I ask quietly.

“I washed after I finished some light training.”

“what’s training?”

“Training is… Like practising. Do you know what practising is?”

I nod my head. The older kobolds always practised their sneaking magic… I should have focused on practising my sneaking magic more… Maybe the slavers wouldn’t have caught me if I was better at it… I wonder what he was pra- u training.

“what were you t-training?”

“I’m training to be a Knight.”

“w-what’s a knight?”

“Well, Knights are some of the strongest humans and they help protect the kingdom. It’s not easy to become a knight and not many make it past the rank of Warden.”

“oh…”

Are the Knights like the slavers? They said they were helping the kingdom by capturing us and selling us as slaves. I hope Knights aren’t like the slavers, I don’t want the nice human to become mean like them.

“So how are you doing with reading that book?”

“o-oh, i uh, i could only read s-some of the third p-page.” I say as I focus on the book.

“That’s better than I thought…” he says as he looks at the book and starts helping me read it.

It’s been eight days since I was brought here and I’m sitting in the shade at the top of the steps near the large door with the book on my lap, I’m trying to read the sixth page now. I look up from the book and see the nice human still trying to hit the scary human with a wooden sword.

It was fun to watch for a while, but they’ve been doing it for what I think is about three hours… The nice human explained time, it was a bit confusing, I think I understand what he was telling me, but it’s not easy to tell the time without clocks.

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The nice human started taking me with him two days ago, the first time he took me with him I was a bit worried, but he just told me to bring the book and sit down somewhere. I just sat down at the top of the stairs and focused on trying to read, it wasn’t that easy when they started fighting.

It was weird to see the nice human train, I could never do something like that, he moves so fast and looks focused… I don’t like seeing the scary human hit the nice one…

The scary human is much stronger than the nice human and much better at fighting, but the nice human is faster and moves out of the way or makes the scary human attacks slide of the wooden shield on his arm. But the when the scary human hits his shield he's usually knocked to the ground.

When they were done, he told me that he brought me with him so I could spend some time outside instead of being locked inside all the time.

I look up from the book and see the humans have nearly finished, I notice the nice human has that water on him again, he keeps getting it on him when he trains. I wonder why he’s got water dripping off him whenever he finishes. Is that just another weird thing about humans?

Humans are weird…

The humans have stopped fighting and have started to walk over towards me, I stand up while making sure that I won’t drop the book and follow the nice human as he walks past me. I follow the human for a while making sure not to look at the scary, after a while the scary human leaves the nice human and I follow him to his room.

He walks into the room and I follow him. He walks over to a large box with doors on it and opens it, it’s full of clothes, he takes some out and says.

“I’m going to go wash, do you want anything first? Something to eat or drink?”

I start to shake my head, but I stop myself. He said he was going to wash, would he let me wash? I haven't washed since the slavers caught me and I know I smell bad, the rude human said so. He shouldn’t get annoyed if I ask right?

“c-can i wash m-myself t-to after y-you finished." I ask in a quiet voice, nervous I might annoy him.

“Oh. Okay, do you mind waiting until I’m done?”

I didn’t think he would say yes, I nod my head.

“Okay then.” He says as he opens and walks through the door in the wall to the right of the entrance to the room.

I walk over to the chairs and put the book on the footrest that he got so I could get on the chair by myself, it takes a moment to climb onto the chair and get the book up there as well but I eventually get comfortable, I’m facing the door with my back against the armrest and book in front of me.

I try to read the words but I’m still having trouble with them, it’s easier to understand when the human tells me what the words mean and how to say them, but he said that I should try to learn as much as I can by myself while he’s busy with other things.

By the time the human walks out of the door the big hand on the clock moved nearly halfway. He looks at me and says.

"I'm done, do you still want to wash?"

I nod my head.

“Then come here so you can tell me how you want the water.”

I close the book, hop off the chair and walk over to him, wondering what he means. I follow him into the room and look around.

There’s not too much in here, another door across from the one I walked through and next to that door a large stone square with a wooden door and two weird metal things coming out of the wall,

To the left there’s a shorter but much wider block of stone against the wall, it’s a bit taller than me and nearly twice as long as the human is tall, it has three steps in the middle of it and it has two metal things coming out of the wall with handles on them.

The human walks over to it and looks back to me, I hurry up and follow him.

“Come here for a moment.” He says as he points at the steps.

I climb the steps and see that the block is hollow, I walk over to where he pointed. He points to the last step inside the block and I walk down to it noticing the steps are damp.

He put his hand on the handle and turns it, suddenly water starts coming out of one of the metal things in the wall.

I look at it with surprise, not expecting water to come out of it. The water pours into the thing and starts filling it up slowly.

“Test the water let me know when it’s warm enough.” He says as he turns the other handle, making the other metal thing pour

“uh, h-how do I do t-that?” I say not knowing what test means.

“Just put your hand in the water and let me know if it’s too warm or cold.”

I nod my head and crouch down to put my hand in it.

After a bit I let him know it’s warm and he turns the handles. He looks at me and says.

“The soap is over there, Uh, do you know what soap is?”

I shake my head.

“It’s uh… Something that makes you smell nicer and helps clean you. You can use that washcloth over there, that’s yours, and so’s the soap. They’re both new and haven’t been used. I don’t have any more clothes for you, so you’ll have to wear those again when you’re done, so try not to get them wet okay?”

I nod my head

“Okay. Oh, and don’t pull that plug out unless you’re finished, you can use that towel to dry yourself when you’re done. When you’re finished in here, just knock on that door and I’ll open it and let you out, until then, uh, have fun.”

He says as he walks out of the room, closing the door behind him.

I look at the water, it’s almost past the first step. I walk over to the pale-yellow bar that the human called soap, I pick it up and smell it. It smells like flowers.

I walk over to the step and sit down on it, putting my feet in the water as I sit. The water is warm and clear, better than the rivers and streams I used back home… I wonder how they’re doing, did they move after the slavers caught us? I wonder how my friends are, the slavers separated us when they caught us and I never saw any of them after they separated us, I hope they are okay…

I sigh as I think about my family… I look at the water and think about the human, I still don't know why he is nice to me and the others aren't, I just hope he keeps being nice to me…