Chapter 6: The Draft
Aisling stretched, it was about a week past her own birthday and life was going pretty well. At first, she had been worried that her life was going to end at age three. She had nearly died on a multitude of occasions. It seemed to her that everything was coming up Milhouse.
It had been six years since her catnapping and now she was nine years old. Her brother was nineteen and had married Sarah. It was almost as if she had taken Aisling’s advice and made a niece for her.
The child’s name was Athoria. She was three years old and was currently making a mess of the backyard. While she looked six, she was actually only three as mentioned and as such had a bumbling personality.
Beastkins’ personality during this age was very strange. They could go from acting their physical age or their chronological age. That was why Aisling was looked at like a rather mature lady.
She only really acted like her physical age or older. Currently, she looked twelve. She still acted her physical age though. If she was going to be in this life might as well act like it was her own life instead of someone else’s life she had taken over.
The young girl of about three walked over to her aunt and grabbed at her leg. It seemed to Aisling that the little girl wanted to wrestle. She went down on her knees and grabbed at her, pulling her into a tickling match.
The young girl didn’t in fact want to wrestle. It was just that Aisling had no idea what actual young girls liked to play when they were kids. For her, she loved to wrestle with her older brother.
But now she only really ever played sword games with the marshal. Such games included her not being able to see so she could better sense the world around her. The games were also basically just her training with none of her senses and only just her mana and chi sense.
What was really hard was when the marshal had her put on weights and run fifteen laps around the manor, only to ask her for a sparring match. And when he won, because she would be exhausted after it, he would rub it in her face for some reason.
He was not like that before she had turned seven. It was at age seven that he would basically make her feel little. She had a feeling he was scared of her for some reason. She couldn’t understand why though.
The little girl then started to retaliate by pinching her aunt’s elbow. For some reason, it did not hurt. A beastkins’ fingers, depending on what beast they are, are usually tipped with claws. The little girl used these claws to pinch her aunt.
The older girl simply didn’t seem to care as she continued her onslaught. The little girl had finally managed to get away and then stood up and caught her breath. Aisling had basically forced all the air from her lungs from that tickle fest.
She hadn’t realized that but now that she saw how out of breath her little niece was, she grew concerned. She waddled over on her knees and grabbed her again, this time she peppered her with kisses.
“Aunty, let me go! I want to tell you a secret,” the little girl said.
Oh, now this has to be good. It was probably a secret pertaining to which kid she had a crush on. Or maybe it was something to do with her older brother? Only listening to this little girl would tell.
She stopped tickling her niece and looked at her expectantly. This seemed to have inflated her ego. The girl of three stood with her hands on her hips and a triumphant look on her face.
“Mama is gonna have another baby. Imma be a BBBBIIIIGGGGG sister!” she exclaimed.
“Sarah is pregnant?” Aisling asked.
“Yup, and I’m gonna be a big sister!” she exclaimed once more.
Aisling was kind of shocked. Yeah, sure the family might need more workers for the family business, and sure Sarah might have had a miscarriage after Athoria was born. But she expected that miscarriage to discourage her, not make her want another kid.
‘How horny are they? Whenever I show up after I’m done babysitting Athoria and show up early all I hear is them enjoying each other’s company. Sooner or later, they’ll ruin their daughter’s innocence,’ she thought.
“Are you sure your mama and papa are good with this? Maybe they wanted to tell me?” she asked, making sure that she was well informed.
“Yep, they told me to tell you!” she told her aunt in a loud whisper.
“OK, thanks for telling me. Here’s a present in exchange,” she said, grabbing the girl and hugging her close.
She kissed the young girl on the cheek and continued to kiss the little one till tears started to form in her eyes. She started to laugh and laugh until she soon got fed up with her aunt holding her like this and tried to escape. This plan failed and she was bombarded even more with kisses.
Later that day, when Aisling brought her niece back to her brother’s house, she heard the two love birds arguing. She didn’t know why though, maybe it had something to do with Sarah’s pregnancy.
Knocking on the door, then opening it, she saw that they had gotten into a heated discussion. They weren’t even holding back in their insults to each other. It seemed like they had started to hate each other for no discernable reason.
As this was no way to act in front of one’s child, she walked right up to them and grabbed their ears. The both of them could be considered short back on her earth. In fact, she was rather short, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t grab their ears.
“The both of you, stop arguing. You’re making Athoria tear up and I don’t want to be the one to calm her down. I’m not very good at that,” she reprimanded them.
It seemed that this got them to realize what time it was. They both looked at the clock and gasped. It was around 7:00 PM. This was about the time when Athoria was supposed to be home, and they didn’t realize it was that time already.
“What are you two even arguing over anyway. If the argument took you two into the evening, then it must be something important-ish. Then again, you two didn’t seem to even be thinking what you were spouting,” Aisling said.
“We were talking about the message we got in the from the tax collector. He seems to have been ordered to tell everyone who he visited that there will be a massive draft after the harvest,” explained Kaelin, much to Aisling’s shock.
‘What, a draft? Are we going to war? What is all this about?’ she racked in her brain.
“And we were talking about it calmly until the topic of how long he would be gone for came up. I was starting to get upset about the Baron and then Kaelin started to defend him. We might have started to get a bit mad…” Sarah trailed off.
“Ok, that doesn’t really matter right now. The fact of the matter is that you have no power of the Baron, and he has no power over the Duke,” Aisling complained; “what is the draft even for? Are we going to war or are we preparing for a power struggle yet again?” Aisling asked.
“We don’t know, and its very frustrating that we can’t get any more information about it… it makes me mad,” Sarah said.
“Well, you two should apologize to each other and explain why you were arguing to Athoria. To make up for it, don’t dump her on me tomorrow. I love her like a daughter but you two can’t keep doing that every other day!” Aisling told them.
They apologized to each other and then explained everything in a turned down way to Athoria. She seemed very confused but happy that her Parents weren’t yelling at each other. She was also very happy that she was going to spend time with her mama and papa.
Aisling went home after that. It seemed to her that after the two parents put Athoria to sleep that they would be making up for the argument in bed. Some late-night wrestling was going to fix this issue.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
All of this was new information was making her head hurt and she desperately wanted to sleep. When she got home, she would have mother let her rest her head in her lap after some pleading. After all, who wouldn’t say no to this face.
…
It was currently June; harvest was in September. It was going to be a while till the draft was here. So, Aisling wanted to make sure that her family was going to be okay. She got up from bed and stretched. A loud crack came from the young girl’s back.
Many people who haven’t got a good memory would ask why she has a bad back. It is that she still isn’t used to the beds of her home. Then again, none of the family is. She went over to her sister’s bed and looked under the covers.
The young lass was still asleep. She pulled the covers off and kissed her little sister’s forehead. She did this to make her mad for the most part. It worked, and her sister was up and angry.
“Aisling! Stop kissing me! It’s weird! No one else kisses their sibling’s good morning. Get back here, lets see how you like it!” she shouted at her older sister.
But by the time she had gotten out of bed it was too late, her sister that had woken her up so rudely had run off to the kitchen. In the kitchen was mother. She was currently making soup. Let’s hope it’s not too hot. She looked over to the girls to see them running after each other. It had been a week since the notice for the draft came by and she wasn’t worried.
While Aisling had a lot of worries, her mother had none. It was simply because she had a feeling that her husband and son were going to be stationed at home or near the mythril mines. These mines were only a couple dozen miles south of town.
but the thing that really worried her was the fact that the taxes were going up. They continued to climb until their family had coughed up most of their savings. This was a rather big problem for a multitude of reasons.
1. Lumber wasn’t needed as of now as Westport had a fleet of ships guarding it already.
2. The forest was getting sparse.
Over many years of not replanting the hundreds of trees that hadn’t been cut down, the forest was getting rather thing. In about two generations of woodcutters, the trees would no longer be there.
3. Because of the rampant cutting of lumber, the wild game was sure to run away and move to other lands.
The economy was to surely fall behind when it came to wild game and selling of it. then the price of food would go up. As you all know she has two wonderful children. It would be very hard to get enough food for them.
All in all, she didn’t know how to properly get the money to feed her family. They will have to eat a lot of soup in the near future. It was a rather good coincidence that both her daughters like soup a lot. Now if only there was a soup store…
The girls sat down at the dinner table when they had gotten their fill of chasing each other around the house. Mother poured out a bowl for each of them and they started to dig in, but mother stopped them. Mother wanted to wait for their father to get out of the bathroom.
Later that day, when father and mother had gone out to buy groceries, the two girls got to planning. Alise and Aisling had come up with a plan to make money fast.
While the young Alise could see the future and knew that this would actually work, Aisling was not so chipper. What was their plan, you may ask? They would hunt down the animals fleeing the woods and sell them to the butcher so they could get the food cheaper.
Neither mother nor father had any idea on how to skin an animal so they would have to spend money on that. But other than that, the plan was set. All they needed to do was go where the fleeing animals were and set a trap for them.
So, the two girls set off to the river that ran inland, that was where the animals were fleeing to escape the hunters of the town. They soon arrived at the forest and plunged into its sparce area.
They didn’t see any animals, but they could smell their trails. Many people think that a beastkins’ nose was better than a humans’ but that was false. If they trained their sense of smell though, then it could get moderately better.
Aisling soon started to sense the mana and chi of several wild animals. She pulled her little sister behind a large tree too large to be cut down and peeked around the corner.
There sat an ork, many people thought that orks were sapient creatures, but they weren’t. They simply were humanoid in shape, but they couldn’t speak. They also didn’t have a very good memory.
Their memory only lasted around a couple of months as one could guess; and as such, they simply didn’t recognize each other after long periods of time. In the event that they found an old friend or enemy, they mostly just observed each other and often times simply killed one another if they were a threat.
Their appearance was like that of a chimp and a pig mixed in one. Imagine the body of a chimp, with the amount of fat of a pig. Give this animal the beady little eyes of a pig and the ears of one then you have yourself a ork.
Aisling walked a bit forward and gripped her sword. I bet you forgot about that thing, didn’t you? Well so did the author. He hasn’t had the best ideas flowing through his noggin. He has a lot of writer’s block, and the usual way of getting rid of it isn’t working.
Back to the storyline.
Aisling pulled out her sword from her scabbard and inched forward even more. It was then that the ork saw her and it sat up. The beast screamed and roared at her, but she was determined. The beast didn’t know how to respond, and it roared again.
The beast was confused on why its foolproof plan wasn’t working and, in that time it took to try and think, she rushed it. She swung her blade at the orks neck and cleaved it off of his neck.
Her sword hungerly drank the thing’s blood so she no longer hard to let the blood drain. That was perfect. In fact, she could probably wait here so as to let her sword get its fill.
Alise came from the other side of the tree and looked at the beast.
“It’s so ugly, would anyone actually buy this?” she asked.
It seemed that she wasn’t a fan of the look of an ork. That was understandable. It was rather ugly in Aisling’s eyes as well. As soon as the ork was dry she grabbed the carrying brace from Alise and prepped the ork. She didn’t know how to butcher such an animal, but she did know where its stomach was.
…
He didn't know where his kids had gone. The last he saw of them, they had come with him into the woods as they said they wanted to see their father work. Now, he didn’t know where they had off too. It was like they had lied about wanting to watch him work.
They probably had, they most definitely had. He was going top have to scold them later. They had often done this now; he feared that they weren’t going to learn that lying was wrong.
But then again, he had told them both a white lie when Aisling walked in on her mother and him making them a sibling. That hadn’t panned out, but he did want to teach Aisling about the Fae and the Fair sometime later.
They had started to do this about 4 months ago that they had started to do this. It made him rather curious about what they were actually doing. Were they acting out different games and such? Were they meeting up with the neighborhood boys?
That was something to worry about later. The harvest was nearly here, and he wanted to tell his family about it soon. Surely his two daughters knew nothing about it, right?
…
Aisling did a big stretch. She arched her back and opened her mouth in a yawn. It was a good day. Or rather, a good hunt. She and Alise had been hunting for the past 4 months in the woods as a team.
Though, it was more of just her killing things but that was really just it. when they killed what they were hunting they packed it up and brought it to the butcher. He then bought it and gave them the proper amount of coin for them.
All in all, it was rather lucrative. They managed to make just enough for the weekly tax. But without father’s pay from all the lumber he was selling it would be harder to make the right amount of money to pay them off. He was of course going to get paid while being conscripted but it wasn’t going to be enough to pay for the weekly taxes on its own.
She walked over to her sister who was currently trying to put the deer on the rack that they used to carry their kills. She picked up the rack and set it down again so as to get a better placement for the kill.
Alise picked up the deer and set it back down onto the rack. The two of them tied the deer in place and Aisling picked it up and strapped it to her back. She stood up and she heard a crack come from her back as the weight was fully felt. Alise looked back at her and smiled.
“let’s get back to the butcher’s shop. It is almost time for dinner, and we don’t want to be too late,” she said.
Aisling nodded at this and began to walk to town. As soon as they got there, they spotted the butcher’s shop just off of the main street. They opened the door and saw the butcher. He was making sausage and was dutifully doing so. He looked up from his work and noticed them walking towards him.
He was right behind the counter and had an apron with grease stains on it. The apron was a deep brown color. If one were to ask Aisling or, anyone for that matter, what a butcher looked like, he would pop into their head. Or a butcher that looked like him.
They sold him the kill they made and received the money they were owed. They soon made their way out of the building and got back home. There, they noticed something strange. Father wasn’t in his normal garb; he was wearing a suit of mail armor. On his hip was a brass mace and strapped to his left hand was a buckler shield.
He looked at them.
“Well girls, I think it is about time to tell you. Father is going away for a while. I don’t know how long I’m going to be gone for, but I hope you pray for me. As I have been told, we are now at war with Francia. They have declared war on us and wish to kill the royal family. They also wish to steal the mythril mines from us.
So, I’m going to leave home for a while. I don’t know how long we are going to be apart, but I will be fine, trust me. I love you both, very much,” he told the two girls.
Ailing was rather confused. She did not expect him to have to go so suddenly. But as he walked over to them, and gave them a goodbye hug, she could only stand there confused and shocked. She knew that he would leave, she spent months saving up money to be able to pay off the increasing taxes.
But as he left the house to go to the recruitment tent that had been set up in town square. She could only hug him back, praying for his safety. She had been taught the horrors of war in her past life, and now it was appearing here as well. She had expected him to leave in the morning, after all, that give the most time for the recruitment officers to set everything up, but they were always prepared.
As he walked out of the house he looked back at his kids, Alise waved happily, knowing that she would see her father again, but as he shifted his gaze to his older daughter…
She had her back turned to him, she was turning, but ever so slowly. It was as if the world was going in slow motion for her. As he closed the door, he Saw the look on her face, and it was full of fear.