Growing increasingly curious as to what was going on outside, I hurriedly got clothed and went outside to confront the source of the noise. Outside I saw my brother standing around with a bunch of the village adults. To the right side of my brother there was Bert, a middle aged man with a full black beard in his face. He was a farmer just like us and had his own fields not too far from ours. Next to him was his wife Maria, their child, who was two years older than me, didn’t seem to be here though.

To his left I could see another village couple. A relatively small, but muscular, man named Thomas and his wife Kira. They were a bit older and had three children, the oldest being roughly my brother's age, the youngest being a year younger than me. I could only see their oldest son around though. The man they were all currently facing was the village chief.

The village chief, his name Dennis, was a bit on the older side, but not old enough to be completely bald yet. He was kind, but strict when he had to be and knew a lot about life here, so the village decided to install him as our chief, or so my brother told me.

When I got closer to them I could hear Thomas speaking.

“I am not in favor of sending my Luke. This is all too suspicious. What the hell do they want from us, anyway?”

The old village chief answered him.

“I am also getting nothing but a bad feeling from this, but we can’t deny the knights. Especially not those on order of the king.”

“Those savages can hardly be called ‘knights’ and this ‘king’ is anything but that.” Maria, the housewife, spat out.

Her husband, though he clearly echoed the sentiment in secret, reprimanded her.

“Not so loud dear, those knights are still in the village and by the gods we know they aren’t exactly the friendly kind.”

“What’s going on here?” I walked up behind my brother and asked loudly.

All the people gathered, some I didn’t properly identify at first, turned to look at me, including my brother.

“Did we wake you up Mira? I am sorry, but we are discussing something important here, you can go back to bed for now.” My brother said.

He seemed a little tense.

“What are you talking about? I wanna know.” I was curious why everyone looked so serious and what that bit about knights was.

“It’s not important. The tax collectors just had a bit of a weird demand, but you don’t have to concern yourself with it.”

“But now I wanna know.”

“Listen, Caleb, this isn’t helping, could you maybe just take her away real quick, so we can finish this discussion?” The village chief said.

“Alright.” My brother turned from the village chief to me.

“Mira, come along now let’s go back inside real quick.” He gestured for me to follow and I did quickly. I am not good at talking to the other villagers at all.

Inside he squatted down to my eye level before talking.

“Listen, Mira the tax collectors just want someone to go with them to the king and no one really wants to do that. So we are discussing who will do it. It’s nothing serious, but we need to come to a conclusion, we can’t keep the knights waiting forever after all. So please just wait a bit for me.”

“Mhh okay!” I could tell my brother wasn’t gonna let me join in on the conversation regardless, so there was little point in arguing it further.

“That’s a good girl.” He said with a smile and a pat on my head, before turning back around to the door of our house. As he went outside he told me to wait for him again and then went back outside to talk with the villagers. Now I was sitting here alone in the house while everyone outside was talking. I could still hear them somewhat muffled through the door, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying at all.

I strained my ears really hard, trying my hardest to make out what they were saying and slowly their words became understandable to me.

“What do we do? We don’t have that many young folk in the village that can just go on a trip like that.” Thomas said. “And besides I just don’t trust them.”

“Neither do I, truthfully.” The village chief replied. Everyone gave a noise of agreement and the conversation seemed to come to a standstill.

“We’re getting nowhere like this.” My brother suddenly spoke in an uncharacteristically forceful voice. “I know that you all don’t trust them, but it’s not like we have any reason to believe something bad will happen. I’m gonna do it.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

All was silent for a bit. I had sneaked the door open to see their faces, but since most of them were standing with their backs to me I couldn’t make out much, just that a lot of the tension seemed to be gone.

Finally after an uncomfortable few seconds of silence, the village chief spoke up.“Alright then, can we ask this of you Caleb? Of course, we will take care of Mira during your absence.” He spoke to him almost like my brother did to me a few minutes ago.

“Of course. It wouldn’t feel right to not at least do this after you all helped me and my sister survive after our parents died. Don’t worry about me, just take good care of my sister while I’m gone please.”

“Of course, Bert, Maria, could we entrust you two with Mira? You have a son around her age, right?”

“Yeah it won’t be a problem, right dear?” Bert said as he turned to his wife.

“I guess it can’t be helped.” She wasn’t as motivated but still agreed in the end.

“Now that that is cleared up, I’ll go tell Mira and get ready.”

With those words my brother turned from the group and started walking towards our house again and I quickly shut the door before he would notice me.

But what were they talking about? A trip? My brother is going away and they are leaving me with Bert and Maria? I don’t want that…. I don’t want him to leave me alone. Why is he even leaving in the first place?

As I was going crazy thinking about what was going on, I could hear a somewhat muffled voice from the group, my honed ears picking it up despite my brother who was closer to them still, seemingly not hearing anything.

“I am glad he said it himself. I didn’t wanna be the one to say it, but we all thought about making him go, right?”

“Well, that’s the reason we came to discuss it with him after all…Seems there was some reason to keep those two alive yet.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“What? We were all thinking it.”

After that I couldn’t hear anything anymore as my brother came up to the door and I quickly ran away to pretend I wasn’t listening in on their conversation. I turned around and hurriedly looked left and right while my brother was opening the door.

“Mira…” He shot me a suspicious glance. “Were you trying to listen in on the conversation?”

“...No.” I hesitated at the idea of lying to my brother, but he’d get mad at me if he knew.

“Well, it’s not like you’d hear much anyway from this distance, so it’s fine.” He said exhausted.

“Anyway, listen Mira, I will have to go on a small trip with the knights who came to collect the taxes. I don’t know exactly how long it will take, but I should be back in at most a few weeks. During that time you’ll have to stay with Bert and his wife. I heard they have a son your age, maybe you can make some friends.”

My brother spoke assuredly, no hint of tension or worry from before, when he was talking to the other adults, in his voice, but I heard how tense everyone was and I heard them whisper. I don’t like the idea of him going alone.

“No! Don’t just suddenly go away. Stay here.” I demanded.

“I don’t really wanna go either, but someone has to, Mira. It’s not the end of the world, I’ll come back in due time and everything will go back to normal. So just be a good girl and wait for me.”

I was growing increasingly anxious that something bad would happen, but I couldn’t tell my brother that I listened in on their conversation either. At a loss as to what to do I just kept refusing, shaking my head and shouting. My brother looked troubled by my behavior, but he wasn’t relenting on going either.

“Mira, I feel I have to do at least this much to pay back the village for all the help we received when our parents died. It’s the right thing to do.”

“I don't care, why do you have to go in the first place?” I was not giving up on keeping him home.

“The knights asked for a young and healthy person to accompany them on their travels. They didn’t specify why, but apparently it’s the king's order. We can’t refuse him.”

“Even so, I absolutely don’t want you to go.” I couldn’t accept it.

He sighed.

“We don’t have time for this. The knights are already waiting and they were planning to take off today.” My brother spoke more to himself than to me. Then he looked me in the eye and spoke again. “Alright, then how about this: we both go. Would that be better?”

I thought about it. I still didn’t like the idea of my brother going on this trip - something about the way the adults were talking gave me a bad feeling - but if I was with him, I wouldn't have to worry so much.

“Mhm, okay. I will come with you.”

“Good, but no complaining on the journey, you got that?” My brother asked sternly.

“Yes.” I nodded my head lightly. Usually I would be more energetic, but I just couldn’t help but feel worried.

“Seriously, what is it with you today Mira. It’s just a short trip, no reason to make such a scene.” My brother shook his head slowly.

“... I just don’t want to be separated for that long.” I lied.

“Well, a few weeks probably do feel a lot longer to you than to me.” He smiled.

After we were done with our argument my brother made his way to the door again.

“I’ll just quickly go inform the others that you’ll join me, then I’ll come back and we prepare for the journey and leave immediately. Is that okay for you?”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“Alright then, wait for me here, it shouldn’t take that long.”

With those words my brother left the house and left me alone in it. Now I forced him to take me with him, but I am still worried. I don’t know what the adults meant, why they were so worried about going, but I don’t like this. On the other hand though, my brother did reassure me that it would be fine, so for now let’s believe him and stop thinking about it. It’ll just be a short, fun trip and we’ll go back to our normal lifes like nothing happened afterwards.

My brother was already back while I was still trying to keep my thoughts in order and we began packing our things. We would leave to meet the king in two hours.