Nearly two more years came and went. It was a month before my 12th birthday. Penelope had unlocked her adolescent class and with her grandfather’s approval took a warrior class. The class was called Elven Spearwoman. The element of her class was Water and it was even high grade. Getting a high grade class as your first class was very rare, and meant she would have a strong start. Mathis had been blown away that she got a high grade class.
Most people got low grade classes as their first. Nobles with their extra training and privilege allowing them to learn rather than work gave them a huge leg up. Most nobles got medium grade classes, but a rare few got to start with high grade skills. It probably had something to do with how often and how seriously Penelope and I trained. Our technical skills were a match for any of the guards, we just didn’t have the stats to back it up.
When I saw how much she improved at training I knew then and there I wanted a combat class as my first class. With my medical knowledge taking a healer class could wait. I just wanted to be able to defend myself like Penelope could now.
She had gotten to level 20 in Elven Juvenile well before her class upgraded so she was able to start with 4 levels in Elven Adolescent which is apparently a pretty significant head start for most people. I suspected I might end up nearly doubling that start.
However the closer and closer I came to unlocking the more and more I dreaded Halcroft choosing my class. The way Penelope explained the process of gaining a new class he wouldn’t actually be able to choose a specific class for me to take. However he absolutely could and did give me an order to choose a light healer class. His specific order was: When you unlock you will immediately find a safe place to gain your class, then choose the highest quality Light Healer class available to you.
I just wanted to wretch at the idea that my future was being decided by that man. I promised myself I would find a way out of his thumb, but as the time approached I just couldn’t find a way. I would ask Penelope on the night before my birthday, but that was an absolute last ditch effort. Forcing her to go against her grandfather in such a way would bring him down on both of us.
Right now Penelope and I were about to spare, she had become quite a bit better than me after gaining her class, she often had to go easy on me. We focused way more on technical training rather than actual combat since a person with a class is just massively stronger than a person without.
I had my stance relaxed with my right hand on the grip of my sheathed sword. Penelope stared me down, with her spear in a neutral stance running across her hip. She was ready to lunge forward as soon as our spare began.
One of the guards was watching over us today and his hand was held up. He dropped it suddenly signaling the beginning of the fight. As I expected Penelope lunged forward with a forward thrust.
I drew my blade in a flash as I had been trained to just as the tip of her spear got into my range. The blunted edge of my practice blade caught the flat of Penelope’s spearhead knocking it to my left. I followed the opening slash with a quick move to my right.
Penelope pulled the spear down and around her body using her waist as a fulcrum. Using the spear as a quarterstaff she attempted to trip me by aiming for my shins.
Usually at this point I would step back, however I decided to mix it up and see if I could manage something more interesting. I stepped up closing the distance while plunging my sword down into the ground to guard my shins.
Penelope’s eyes went wide as my arm shot out to wrap around her neck as my leg went to move behind one of hers. If she wanted to escape my attempted hold she would have to contend with my leg hopefully putting her off balance.
My odd counter did work, technically. Penelope attempted to jump back and duck at the same time. However she clearly had not seen me move my leg behind her and instead of losing her balance she tripped. The haft of her spear hit me square in the back and I went flying down with her.
She fell flat on her back and not wanting to land on her I did my best to maneuver myself to fall just to her side. I succeeded only to end up face first in the mud. Nice Alea, really that was super fucking cool.
“Are you alright!” Penelope asked as she began to scramble to her feet. I probably looked like an absolute fool, my butt high in the air with my face and knees as my contact points with the mud.
I rolled and gasped for air. I wiped the mud from my face and gave her a chagrined smile. “Oh… just fine…”
“Says the mud monster…” Penelope furrowed her brows with concern.
I glared at her and shot my hand up to pull her down next to me. She stopped herself mostly, but still got mud all over her hands and knees. “Why?!” She gave me a betrayed look.
I shrugged. “I’m a scary mud monster, of course I would do something monstrous.”
Penelope laughed, causing me to start as well. The guard just shook his head.
We got up. “Well I think training is done for today, Mathis will kill us if we show up like this.” Penelope said as she motioned for the guard to take his leave.
“Yeah, off to the baths with us!” I said, a bit excited for the potential to get my last level in Pretty. I always seemed to be more likely to level if I was really dirty before getting cleaned up.
Penelope considered for a moment. “Mind if we use yours? Mom will kill me if I come back like this.”
“Sure.” Off we went. On the way we discussed our training for the day. Penelope had been utterly flustered when I came into her guard rather back away. Of course I obviously hadn’t exactly thought everything through either as was evident. We both still had a lot to learn. Unfortunately we were the only two children our age so we didn’t get many chances to spare others. Fighting someone 50 levels higher than you was just an exercise in futility and didn’t really teach anyone anything.
We got to my apartment and entered the entertaining room. I immediately froze and closed the door right after Penelope got inside. I could hear something all too familiar from my college days. The obvious sounds of sex.
I cringed as I realized this wasn’t just anyone having sex, it was my mom. I could clearly make out a moan from her bedroom. “What is that sound?” Penelope asked way, way too loudly and I facepalmed.
I heard tumbling and quick movements from inside my mother’s room. A moment later my mom peeked out to see the two of us. My head was in my hands and Penelope was just looking confused. Has no one given this girl the birds and the bees talk before?
My mother looked a bit relieved before her already red face became redder. She closed the door and I heard muffled whispering on the other side. Penelope gave me a questioning look. “Just wait. They’ll come out soon.” I said.
“They?” Penelope asked.
I just shook my head and waited. My mom came out a minute later, her face still a little red. Taele followed after her trying to look cool as a cucumber. Right well guess my little suspicion had been entirely confirmed, our moms had been having an affair for nearly as long as we had been training. I always suspected but I never really wanted to confirm it.
“Mom?” Penelope just looked from each of us to the other.
Taele walked forward a bit. “Well you know what I talked to you about a few years ago? About when two adults love each other they…” She left the sentence hanging.
Penelope’s eyes went wide. “You and Lad-” I clamped my hand over her mouth as she began to talk way too loudly.
“Shhhhh.” I put my other finger to my mouth. “Quietly.” I whispered.
Mom gave me a really strange look at that. We had ‘the talk’ about two years ago. I had already known most of it and my mom was actually pretty comfortable talking about it, sex was just not all that taboo in elven society. It helped that I had been a doctor. Plus almost all elves were pansexual, we were like a buncha banobos in some ways. Sex was just a fact of life. Although unlike bonobos we didn’t use sex to handle everything it was still a fairly personal thing. So neither of us had hang ups talking about it, though it was still a bit weird to know about my own mother’s sex life.
I did however learn one really awesome thing. Elven women were only fertile two months out of the year. Those two months were followed by a slightly longer than normal period by human standards. Nothing nearly as bad as what humans had to manage, with having to deal with it monthly. Thank the goddesses for elven physiology! This species totally felt like a cheat.
“Yes well, Shalia and I have been enjoying each other's company for several years now.” Taele tried to save some face saying that as nobly as she could.
“Wait, does that mean… is Shalia my mom now too? Are we actually sisters?!” Penelope let out a quiet little squee.
I just rubbed my eyes, slightly concerned with how she had just entirely ignored the fact that Isaac would be royally pissed if he heard about this. I loved Penelope, I really did, but she could be a bit dense on occasion.
Taele coughed a bit, a clear attempt to cover her laughter. “No, I am still married to your father. In Ysara I could and would take Shalia as my bride even while married, but Hakan does not support the practice of polygamy and though it doesn’t condone same sex relationships they aren’t really recognized either.”
Penelope nodded with a bit of a frown. “Right… father.” I legitimately did not know the last time she had talked to her father or brother outside of passing pleasantries and the daily dinners. Although it would be currently impossible for her brother since he had left to the nobles academy a few years back. He would finish his studies there in another year or so. It was kind of like college.
“Well.” I tried to change the subject. “We are… muddy and need a bath. We could use Lady Taele’s if you two…” I let the insinuation hang of either them taking a bath together or if they were really crazy return to having sex.
“No, feel free, we have nothing pressing.” Mom said with a little smile. Taele on the other hand had turned bright red, a truly adorable reaction. I could certainly see what mom saw in the elven woman, but Taele was just a bit too close to being a mother to me for me to feel completely comfortable with the whole thing.
I pushed Penelope toward the bathroom. “Off we go.” I said as I prodded her forward.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“I’ll get you a change of clothes.” Taele said as she walked out of the room still clearly embarrassed.
“Enjoy your bath you two.” My mom said with a smug grin. She was clearly feeling rather pleased with herself.
We got into the bath discarding our muddy clothes under the shower to wash some of the dried mud off before we sent them to be laundered. Then we both cleaned off a bit before entering the bath.
“I can’t believe our moms are doing that.” Penelope finally said.
I on the other hand was surprised it had taken us so long to walk in on them. Them taking comfort in each other with what they were dealing with just felt obvious to me. But that thought came from my adult mind, and there was no way Alea would know that. “I think, given everything we are dealing with they… just needed to support each other.”
“Dealing with?” Penelope asked. I motioned to the very obvious command crest on my hip. “Right… of course.” Her face fell. Then her brow furrowed. “I know your mom also has a crest, but why would they need to support each other?”
Oh shit, oh shit, I had totally slipped. I completely forgot Penelope didn’t know her mother was imprisoned here. Fuckity, fuck, fuck. What do I say? “Well she is an elf in a foreign land…” I said lamely.
Penelope gave me a look and it was that moment that I remember she had the Insight skill. It would help people discern the truth of statements, it wasn’t all powerful especially at her level, but with my half assed attempt at cover it would absolutely tell her I was covering something up.
“What aren’t you telling me?” She asked with an annoyed look on her face while she wagged her finger at me.
“Nothing.” I tried to sound confident in my answer, but it had been too fast, too forced. Yikes, did I need that Deception skill! She just continued to give me the look. I crumbled. “Look, it's not something I should be telling you, you’ll need to ask your mother.” I finally said. Solid save Alea, at least I was putting it on Taele to tell her daughter about her situation.
After a few more minutes of trying to milk more information out of me she finally relented. I just had to hope that she would be alright after she found out the truth.
*Pretty has leveled up, level 20.*
What? My last pretty level? Maybe things were looking up. I’m sure everything will work out.
-----------------
A couple days went by and nothing seemed to come from our discovery of the affair. So I let it go, getting back into the swing of my daily routine. I mean I was happy my mother had found someone, she had been so miserable the first few years after Respen’s death. I suppose the whole being a prisoner thing didn’t help.
Though over the years it began to feel more and more like we weren’t really prisoners. That of course would all change when Halcroft took control of my first class. As I see I had four choices: convince Halcroft that my potential will be wasted by becoming a servile healer, convince Penelope to rescind our active orders and escape, accept my fate, or try to find a way to weasel out of the control of the command crest.
The first option was… icky, I would go from being his slave healer to arguably a far more capable tool. I had a sinking suspicion with my training and achievements I might be due for a fairly powerful warrior class. It did have the benefit of buying me time to find another way to escape.
The second option was what I wanted. I truly hoped Penelope would choose my mom, her mother, and I when this whole facade of a pleasant life came crashing around her. However I just couldn’t be certain she would be willing to put her very cushy life on the line. Any attempt to allow us to escape would almost certainly mean she would never be a trusted member of the Halcroft family ever again. Despite her being less than a full-blooded elf she has the Elven Heritage skill, so she, like me, is ageless. Condemning yourself to a very long life of being hated by your family was… tough.
Accepting my fate was even more disgusting than the first option. I did begrudgingly have to admit that I would likely take a healer class at some point in my future, so doing it now wasn’t technically a big deal. Granted Halcroft wanted me to be a Light and very likely eventually a Light and Dark healer. That combination was crazy strong, but it also meant I would be crippled as a combatant for the rest of my life.
Finding a way to escape without directly disabling the orders I was under was obviously the best solution. However my mother and I had spent a decade trying to find a way to do that and utterly failed. I doubted another few weeks of thinking about it would reveal some miraculous solution.
That really left me with option 1 and option 2. Or as I call them ‘Deal with the Devil’ and ‘Potentially Ruin My Sister’s Life’. Lovely, really just super great. I know I hadn’t wasted the last 10 years but right now it felt like I did. Was there more I could have done? Learning and training had both been incredibly important, and I know I wasn’t the only one who had grown.
Mom had been working diligently on her alchemy raising her level and ability. Halcroft had nurtured my mother’s interests because it helped him. However what he didn’t know was that she had done everything in her power to prepare for an escape attempt. I can rightfully say, we are more prepared for an attempt than we ever have been.
Granted being prepared and actually having the option were two entirely different concepts.
I huffed and rolled out of bed, this was Mathis’s day of rest so I didn’t have anything to do for the afternoon. Penelope hadn’t shown up for training and I was a little worried about her, but she had missed training before. It was also always good for me to get some solo work in, practicing sword slashes was just as important as sparing.
I was dressed in a fairly casual dress with my hair done up in cute braids. I was well beyond denying I liked looking pretty and had just embraced it. Not that I put up with impractical armor, there was a time to look badass and a time to put on a dress and wow people. They did not even have to be correlated.
I wandered toward Penelope’s apartment, which she shared with her mother in a similar situation as I did with mine. When I saw Penelope standing outside her door I got curious. I heard some muffled talking within her apartment.
I approached quietly since it looked like Penelope was trying to eavesdrop. I got to the door and stood right behind Penelope, but she was too intent on listening to the conversation to notice me. I walked around her and dropped my head down to catch her eye, she startled for a moment before she relaxed. “Hey, what’s happening?” I asked in a whisper.
“Father… he found out…” Penelope seemed frightened more than anything else. I put it all together instantly. Somehow our mom’s secret had gotten out, and after all this time I could imagine only one vector. It had to be Penelope that let it slip.
I reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it gently and listened.
“-my wife! By law I have every right to deny it ends!” Isaac yelled.
A moment of pause. “You do, of course.” Came Halcroft’s much calmer voice. “However, beating her was not the way to handle this.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you would just treat her like the slave she is! I’m so sick of the way you coddle them! They are our property!” Isaac yelled.
A booming slap sounded. “Need I remind you why I had to key Taele’s command crest to me alone? I had told you once that suggesting something so vile would mean you lose your arm.” A sickening crunch. “I will leave it at this today since you are obviously heated.”
There were some voices too low for me to make out for a moment then a groan of pain. “At least order them to break off contact.” Isaac said through obvious pain.
“Hmmm, your spine surprises me.” A pause. “You have a point, their relationship is… unsightly. I will take your plea under advisement.” Halcroft said. “You will make no more moves against Lady Taele or the princesses until I have secured Alea’s first class. We are nobles, try acting like one instead of being jealous over women you obviously hate.”
I glanced at Penelope to see her face locked in a horrified expression. Oh… she hadn’t known. She didn’t ask her mother, or her mother didn’t tell her. Oh no, I need to get her out of here before she starts crying.
I got her attention with a quick hug. Then I looked her in the eye and waited for someone within to talk again before whispering. “We need to leave.” I said and grabbed her hand pulling her away.
We got around a corner just before the door opened and slammed shut. I pulled us further down the hallway hiding behind a pillar with a vase displayed. I gave Penelope one look and it seemed she was about to crack so I clamped my hand over her mouth.
Just then Isaac with a very obviously broken arm walked past us without even looking our way. I easily wrestled down the usually very strong urge to help the injured person. Because fuck Isaac with a ten-foot-pole.
We sat like that for a long minute before I finally released my hand and Penelope’s sobs filled the hallway. I pulled her in for another hug. “I’m so sorry you had to find out this way.”
She sniffled. “You knew?”
A pain shot through me, I should have told her. I shouldn’t have left it to her to ask her mother, I should have told her when it came up in the bath. “Yes… I think you are the only one that didn’t…” I lost my sentence after that, I wanted to say more to comfort her, but some random hallway wasn’t the place.
“Will you come with me to my room?” I asked her with a serious look on my face.
She looked up at me for several long moments before nodding. I stood and offered my hand to her, she took it and we made our way back to my apartment.
When we arrived I saw Farva and mother having tea. Well dammit I really needed them not to be here. Mom immediately stood up when she saw Penelope crying. “What happened?” She asked, worry lacing her voice.
“We overheard Isaac and Halcroft talking about… they found out about your relationship and she learned about her mother.” I said while still ushering Penelope to my room. I opened the door and let her go inside, then closed it behind her.
“How are they?” Mother asked stoically.
“It’s bad.” I said. “I’ll take care of Penelope, you need to find Taele...”
Mother closed her eyes, a tear forming in the corner. “Farva, come with me.” She said before rushing out the door our maid followed after her.
I went back into my room to see Penelope crying in the fetal position on my bed. Poor kid, she really wasn’t prepared for this family to prove itself as shitty as it did. I sat down next to her. “What do you need?”
She ambushed me with a hug and I somewhat caught off-guard took a moment to return the hug. “Why… What?” She said into my shoulder.
I just waited for her to speak again. “How long did you know?”
Ouch cool there is that jet of guilt again. “I found out when we first met, we were all prisoners in a gilded cage so Taele confided in us.”
“When you were still little?” She backed up with a strange half miserable half confused look. Inwardly I laughed at her statement, ‘still little’ we were very much still little children, I was almost 12 and she was only 14.
I schooled my expression and nodded. “I don’t remember all of it, but when your control over your future has just been taken from you, meeting other people like you tends to leave an impression.”
That made her look change and I saw anger starting to bubble up. Goddesses I wanted to foster that anger, to turn her against her father and grandfather, but this had to be her choice. I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “It wasn’t terribly fun for me to find that I was becoming friends with a member of the family that imprisoned me, that is actively planning to take my future from me. But I want you to know, I consider us sisters and nothing will ever change that. I know you are better than them. Certainly better than Isaac.” I couldn’t stop myself from making my voice scathing at the end.
Penelope gave me a very kind look. “I do too! I just don’t know what to do!”
“I won’t be like them, I won't tell you what to do. But I need you to know that everything is only going to get worse from here. I’ll be forced to take a class I don’t want to, our moms won’t be able to see each other. Isaac… will continue to be the man he is. I doubt we will be allowed to stay together much either…” Wow, that last part hurt more than I expected. My anger was really starting to flare, but for Penelope I had to keep it under control.
“I don’t want any of that.” She said firmly. “I just want our family, our moms and us, to be left alone.”
I flopped back down onto the bed and sighed. “That’s what I want too, but it means going against your grandfather, and he is not a forgiving man.” Silence prevailed between us, because I just didn’t have anything else to add unless she directly asked.
“You have a plan don’t you?” She asked eventually. “You just don’t want to force me into it.”
Caught, I guess I really am transparent. Although I did heavily allude to it on purpose hoping her Insight skill would do the rest. “We do, mom and I have been preparing for this for a long time. You are the last piece of the puzzle.”
Penelope sat and thought for a long moment. “What happens if your plan goes perfectly?” She asked.
“We all escape never to return, probably go back to Ysara, find a free life there for as long as we can.” I said wistfully.
“And what if it goes poorly?” She asked.
“My mom dies, my imprisonment becomes much less pleasant, your mom will either die or be forced to submit, and you will lose your standing in the Halcrofts.” I didn’t sugar coat it one bit, this was what we were wagering. It was an insane risk that only really made sense for those of us that consider our near future lives a fate worse than death. That wasn’t true for Penelope, she was the one really risking something here.
“I’ll do it. Tell me everything.” I shot up at her nonchalant answer with a grin on my face. I believed she would say yes when push really came to shove, but hearing it and believing it are entirely different things. I scooped her into a hug and we fell onto the bed. Her laughter was infectious.