“AWAKEN!”
My tired lids barely open to the thin lights of day streaming through the oaken hut I’d been guided to only about 6 hours ago.
“I…eugh…”
I wriggle against my moss-bed’s wooden frame. It’s surprisingly comfy. I mean, certainly comfier than a goblin cage or the hard rock of a wet cave.
Room service though? Could be better.
“Dawn is upon us,” a voice says – a voice belonging to a blurry mass of white skin and silver flashing against my vision.
“Hmpf,” it snorts. “Do all your kind sleep in such a decadent way?”
I manage to blink away the residue of sleep from my eyes and see that I’m sprawled out, all my little parts on display.
“I…hey…I’m not the one who barged in here –“
My tongue stops as my eyes light on my intruder.
“A warrior gives no excuses for their stance,” Myrathellon barks down at me. “Whether on the battlefield or in the bedroom – form is everything!”
I ignore the obvious joke inherent in her words – she probably wouldn’t get it anyway - and instead just back away slowly.
“Y-You are my trainer?”
She bristles, kicking my bedframe to dislodge me. “I was sworn into the Glenmaiden Guard when I was big enough to wield a blade. I have served Mistress Palka for 80 Arwyllan years and led twenty-seven hunts in her name. You need not doubt my abilities.”
“That’s not what I’m concerned about!”
She pouts, and I’ll be honest – it’s actually kind of cute.
Not that I get to enjoy the sight as she picks me up by the scruff of my neck and drags me over to where my scimitar stands in its sheath.
“Pick up your weapon and report downstairs in 5 minutes!” she barks. “Breakfast will commence – 20 minutes. Eat well, and then join me in the village square to begin your morning training.”
She struts out without hearing my little whimpers – whimpers that would surely send a human girl into hysterics of a head-patting nature.
“But these are Elves, huh,” I say to myself as I pick up my scabbard and tie it to my back. “Looks like I’ll have to change my tactics…”
----------------------------------------
Once I shake off my sleepiness, I clamor down the bridge outside my little hut towards Myrathellon and her sister’s wall-adjacent home – the place where I first woke up here.
As soon as I enter, I’m met with the ecstatic picture of full lips, blonde curls, and – you guessed it – two bouncing balls of barely concealed flesh.
“Good morning Razzy-wazzy!”
Urthemia – Myrathellon’s voluptuous sister- cradles me in her arms and squeezes me tight. My snout is once again forced between her mountainous mummeries, and the scent of lilac fills my nostrils.
Now this is the kind of wakeup call a dog needs.
“G-goo’ mornin’,” I sputter.
She giggles and brings me over to a little table set with jam, bread, some helpings of chicken leg and a brewing pot of tea.
Myrathellon’s already sitting applying a copious spread of jam on a slice of bread. She watches her sister bring me over and set me down with eyes like fiery coals.
‘Go on, Razzy!” my blonde Goddess says. “Eat your fill!”
I look at the food and then back at her with tears welling up in my eyes.
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“Urthemia,” I sniffle. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
She places a warm hand on my paw and shoots me a sweet wink. “How about I feed you?”
My tail’s going crazy.
Calm down, boy. Remember: you’re here to train, not get fat on sweet treats. This is Lightborn business.
Then again, that piece of jammed-up toast Urthemia is slowly shoving towards me is looking pretty good right now…
“Say ‘aaah’, Razzy.”
I obey without question. “Aaah.”
And before I bite down onto the jam-soaked sweet bread held by the hand of an angel, a demon’s claw flashes out to toss the treat away.
“Sister!” Myrathellon shouts.
Our eyes both dart toward her – her face as red as a plump apple, and she switches her gaze between us as though looking for something to say.
“I – that is – you are…you are being too forward! This is the very man that attempted to molest you yesterday!”
I lower my snout as Urthemia only gives a girlish giggle.
“He did not!” she laughs. “Even Mistress Palka knows that, Sis! She said so. Besides, he’s a dog. Not a man.”
“He has the memories of men within him,” Myrathellon spits back. “Human men. Men with lecherous eyes that would give anything to debase you!”
“Oh, stop being so silly,” Urthemia giggles again. “Besides, it was only last night you were telling me how cute the little rascal looks.”
If I thought the proud elf-warrior’s face was red before, now she turns a shade of rouge I didn’t even believe existed on the color spectrum.
“Enough of your tall-tales!” She spurts, slamming her fist on the table and almost knocking the teapot over. “The Lightborn must keep a balanced diet and see to it that he feeds himself. A sliver of chicken and breadloaf. That is all!”
Urthemia groans as she places a thin strip of chicken on my plate followed by a sheath of bread from the table’s center.
I can see that in the meantime the flustered Myrathellon is helping herself. And none of it is going to her chest, evidently...
“Have some tea, Razzy,” Urthemia says, snapping me back to something good in this world.
“Thank you, Ur – Urthe – Urthegenia?”
“Hmpf,” her sister snorts through her tea. “Can’t even remember a simple Elvish name.”
“Oh, be fair to him, Sis!” my Guardian Angel snaps back. “He’s not one of us, after all. Remember when the last Lightborn came through here? He didn’t know the names of any of the Sisters that left with him.”
They both lock eyes, consumed suddenly with the memory, and Urthemia instantly regrets her words.
“No,” Myrathellon says quietly. “No, he didn’t.”
There’s quiet then as Urthemia grabs some chicken and we all chew away, both of them occasionally shifting their eyes to watch me tear through my food like a rabid animal.
Because – well – that’s what I am, right?
Can’t even remember when I’ve eaten a meal this good.
Probably never.
“Where’s Swiftrunner?” I ask, both to sate my curiosity and as a way to break this awkward silence.
“He has his own quarters in the communal hut,” Myrathellon replies. “A quiet place for contemplation and reflection. He claims to be interested in our library records. A strange thing to meet a wolf that reads but – well – stranger things have been known to exist.”
Coming from a pale-skinned, immortal woman living in a giant mushroom under the protection of an aquatic fire-breather, that certainly means something.
I’ll find Swifty later. Nice to know he’s not just laying down on the job. I guess for now I’ll start lapping at my tea for a bit. At least that will give these girls the impression that I’m semi-civilized.
“I knew you’d be hungry,” Urthemia says quietly. “You’ve been through so much.”
And then – as though I wasn’t already in heaven – there it is: she reaches a pale, thin hand towards my head. She lowers it. And – oh yes – she’s about to start petting…
When her hand begins scratching between my ears, my snout jerks up on impulse. My eyes close. The scent of her hand fills my entire being…
“Urthemia,” I whimper. “That feels…so nice…”
“Please,” she whispers back. “Call me Mia…”
“BREAKFAST IS OVER!”
Myrathellon sits up, still with a slice of bread in her mouth, and starts marching outside.
“Meet me at the foot of the village waterfall in 5 minutes” she says. “And not a second later!”
She slams the door on her way out, leaving myself (plus my lolling tongue) and Mia to stare after her.
“Can you tell me what I’ve done wrong?” I ask.
She sighs, leaning on one arm while the over shovels the remains of her sister’s breakfast into her mouth.
“That’s just what Sis is like,” she explains. “If it makes you feel any better, it’s not you specifically that she hates. It’s the Lightborn that came before and took everyone away. She had to say goodbye to a lot of her old friends. A lot of Glenmaidens she’d trained with since she was little…”
I look at the door and place my paws on the back of my chair.
That tightening feeling in my gut is rearing its ugly head again.
“She strikes me as the kind of person that would have fought back,” I say.
Mia sighs deeply. “Yeah,” she says. “She did. Well, she tried…”
The way she just trails off tells me what I needed to know.
She’d tried. And failed.
“It was a sad, sad day,” Mia goes on, looking towards the oaken window at the neighboring huts that lined the walls of the glen. “After already losing her Master, Sis couldn’t take losing anybody else.”
“And she blames the Lightborn,” I add. “Of course, she does.”
Mia flies to try and deny this fact, but I look at her with cheery eyes.
“Hey,” I say. “I’d be the same if I was her. That’s why I’m surprised she’s willing to teach me what she knows. I just hope I don’t let her – or you – down.”
Mia blinks as she stares back at me, before settling back and beaming a full-lipped smile. These two sisters couldn’t be any more different.
“You won’t,” she says. “You’re nothing like him – the other one.”
I look towards the slammed door before jumping from my stool, shaking myself off, and following my new master out.
“Yeah,” I say as I leave. “I’ve been hearing that a lot.”