Callie

As we made our way down, the ship rocked gently, causing Raya to lose her balance. Grabbing her by the shoulders, I helped steady her until we got to the bottom step. Ryel had already run off, following Rad to who knows where, Azalea and Kelcie were on the deck – staring out into space – and Raya and I had decided to find something to eat.

Walking through the narrow corridors, we finally found the ship’s galley at the very front. I say galley, but it was little more than a tiny area for cooking with a few benches nearby. Several adventurers were already being offered jerky and fruit by one of Enoc’s men.

The man turned to me, smiling widely and crossing his arms in the traditional greeting of his people. “Well met, Princess, what can I get ya?”

I cringed as he spoke, both with what he said, and how he said it. He had the strong and often hard to understand accent from the northern provinces of Skarra. Hard working people, fierce fighters, but their accent was atrocious for anyone else to understand easily.

I glanced at the insignia on his chest that stated his name and rank. “Well met, Crewman Mec. Please, just call me Callie, okay? And could we grab some lunch? Whatever you have available is fine.”

“Sure, sure. All I have is jerky right now,” he replied, nodding before grabbing a decent sized bag of jerky. His ‘sure’ sounded more like ‘shoe’.

“Thanks!” I said as I grabbed the bag and passed it to Raya, who immediately ripped it open and began eating a piece of jerky – apparently she was hungrier than I had thought.

Turning away from the Crewman as he nodded his acknowledgement, I led Raya back down the hallway, ignoring all of the stares. Opening the door to a room that had my brother’s name on it I stepped inside, after making sure it was unoccupied.

The room in question was a fairly typical captain’s office, richly decorated in various naval memorabilia. A large desk took up most of the room with a comfortable leather seat and another two smaller ones for guests. The desk was clear of any mess or paperwork, except for the mirror made out of crystal – a Crysom, or crystal communication device.

“We can eat in here,” I said, beckoning Raya behind me.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to get into trouble.” My cute girlfriend had an adorable frown on her face, even as she chewed on jerky.

I smiled as I closed the door behind her. “Trust me, it’s fine.” I pointed at the door behind the larger chair. “Just don’t go into that room – that would be his bedroom – and we will be okay.”

Raya sat down on the closest chair to the door, wiggling a little to position her tail through the gap in the back. “Okay, my Callie, I trust you,” she said quietly, as she had been since my past had been revealed. She still had the frown on her face, one that I thought I knew why it was there.

Sighing as I sat down next to her, I relaxed into the chair for a moment before Raya handed me a piece of jerky. Thanking her, I took a small bite, chewing and swallowing before I sighed again. “You want to know why I didn’t tell you who I was, don’t you?”

The little nekokin hesitated, nodding a moment later. “It really hurts, knowing that you don’t trust me.” I could see unshed tears glimmering in her eyes, gone a moment later as she sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeve.

Cringing, feeling my own tears, I leaned over and hugged Raya to me. From the position we were sitting, it was rather awkward but I was grateful when Raya leaned into it anyway. As we sat there in our awkward hug and nibbling on jerky, I tried to answer her understandable accusation – even if it hurt knowing she felt that way, it hurt more knowing I had hurt her.

I shook my head. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, my Raya, it’s that it’s hard for me to talk about. I know it was wrong for me to keep it from you, and I promise I won’t keep anything else a secret, it’s just not a pleasant subject, or memories.

“The king of Skarra – my father – and I never saw eye to eye. I had always wanted to follow in my brothers’ footsteps, learning the ways of war, he had always wanted me to learn the ways of being a good ‘little royal princess’, so I could be sold off to the highest bidder for a better price.” I paused for a moment, swallowing the anger I still felt at his callous actions. “He did whatever he could think of to try and force me, frequently getting into shouting matches with mum over it.”

Raya squeezed tightly where she held me, I could feel her claws on my skin, close to popping out and cutting me. I was used to that, though, with the amount of times she fell asleep on Buttercup as we travelled.

Speaking of Buttercup, I was grateful for Enoc placing a hitching post in the hold of the ship, much like the ones out the front of dungeons. It was rather clever actually, it meant that they could carry several dozen horses without worrying about their weight or being able to fit them. Just bring the horses into the hold one by one, attach them to the post and watch them vanish inside of it, no need to worry about fitting them, nor feeding or cleaning up after them for the duration of the trip.

Taking a breath, grateful that Raya hadn’t yet said anything, I continued. “Things had always been difficult between my father and I, between frequent punishments of starving me or having me whipped for disobedience – since he was too high level to do it himself, he would have killed me – dear old dad and I rarely had anything nice to say to each other, but everything got so much worse when I turned sixteen and unlocked my class.”

I winced as Raya hissed and her claws dug into my skin, drawing blood, her tail waving erratically. “He starved you and had you whipped? He’s a monster! None of my dads or mums have ever done anything like that to me or my siblings!”

Smiling at her cute reaction, even if the topic itself didn’t warrant a smile, I hugged her tighter to me. “Things continued that way until close to my eighteenth birthday. My father kept up his attempts to force me to become the princess he wanted me to be, even trying to get me to change my class. He spent thousands of platinum on that, for me to only select the same class again and again, while mum did what she could to curb his… enthusiasm. By this point, I had had enough, and began planning a way to run away – not that I hadn’t been doing that for years, mind you – when two things happened that accelerated that plan for me. The first was that I was informed on my eighteenth birthday that I was to marry the prince of a neighbouring kingdom, with no arguments or discussions on the matter.

“The second, if I hadn’t already needed yet another reason – as I had known for a while now that I did not like men enough to marry one – was that I received the option to accept a quest to kill my father and overthrow the kingdom. At the time, I was afraid of what people would think or do if they even heard I had been given it as an option, so I ran away. Collected food for several weeks inside of my inventory, along with whatever armour and weapons I could find, then bolted the night before my ‘fiance’ was supposed to arrive. It seemed that fate was on my side, as I managed to slip out during the guard shift change, getting away without being spotted. That’s not to say that it was all easy after that, though.” I buried my face into Raya’s neck, feeling her warmth and scent calming my racing heart down.

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Raya gave me a horrified look. “You got a quest to kill your own father?!”

My expression hardened. “Yeah, apparently even the system doesn’t like him. If I got the quest again, I would accept it this time.”

“I’m so sorry that you had to deal with that. I can understand why you didn’t want to share this with anyone,” Raya said suddenly, placing the bag of jerky down and sitting on my lap.

She began purring as she snuggled into me, resting her head on my chest. I hugged her, leaning my chin on the top of her head between her twitching, furry ears. Closing my eyes, I enjoyed our closeness. That is, until the crycom began flashing, a clear notification that a call was incoming. Using [Inspect], Raya froze in place as I stiffened in shock. It was Queen Lacia, my mother.

Raya

As my Callie tensed, I looked around for the cause of her anxiety, the flashing mirror on the desk being the only obvious cause. My Callie stared at it with such fear and longing that it broke my heart to see.

“What is it, my Heart?” I asked, reaching up to cup her cheeks with my hands, gently encouraging her to look at me. Her eyes pierced my own, their blue depths a tempest of emotions, raging deep from within her.

Unshed tears glimmered as my Callie took a breath. “It’s my mum calling using the crycom. I haven’t talked to her in so long, I was rude to her the last time we spoke.” Her voice trailed off to barely louder than a whisper as she finished, before she looked back up at the mirror with longing.

“Answer it! I am sure she would be thrilled to talk to you again!” I exclaimed, equal parts frustration and excitement racing through me at my Heart getting to talk to her mother again.

Callie looked back down at me, her eyes tracking my tail as it lashed from side to side in my agitation. I could see her wavering, and watched as she lifted her hand up hesitantly to touch the mirror, when the door we had entered suddenly burst open, and Enoc strode in, some kind of pin on his wrist flashing the same blue as the mirror. For some strange reason, he had a silver metallic bird on his shoulder.

Freezing as he saw us, Enoc glanced between my Callie and I, noticing how we were sitting. My Callie yanked her hand back instantly, as if it had been burnt, blushing slightly. My tail instinctively curled around her wrist, offering her support.

“Oh, Emi- er, Callie, sorry, I hadn’t realised anyone was in here. I thought I had locked it behind me,” Enoc said, looking embarrassed for some reason.

Tyral strode in a moment later, looking amused as brother and sister blushed slightly. “Well, this is unexpected, is everything alright?” She asked, glancing at me on my Callie’s lap.

“We were just having lunch,” I answered Tyral, smiling happily.

Enoc looked relieved, letting out a sigh of relief and faced the still flashing mirror before glancing at my Callie. “It’s mum, did you want to stay here and greet her? She will be excited to see you again,” he asked quietly.

My Callie looked at Enoc in surprise. “Will she?”

Leaning past me, Enoc gently put his hands near his sister’s shoulders, smiling softly at her. “Definitely, she loves you as much as I do.”

A single brief head nod was all the permission Enoc needed, spinning around, he grasped the mirror and tapped it with a single finger.

The reflective surface of the mirror rippled and smoothed as if a wave washed over it, revealing a mature – but no less beautiful – woman who could have been my Callie’s older sister, except where my Callie was beautiful in a rougher, tougher sort of way, her mother was more elegant and refined. She looked directly at Enoc, a concerned expression on her face.

“What happened? Why did you take so long to answer?” She asked the instant she spotted her son.

Enoc sighed. “I was dealing with some drama between fairies,” he answered.

Fairies, plural? As in more than one? Surely he didn’t mean Kelcie, right? What had Azalea done this time?

I glanced at my Heart as she looked back at me, a look of thoughtful surprise on her face.

“Fairies? Why are you in Fairy for? How did you get inside?” The Queen shook her head, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Never mind that, I have important information, and a mission for you once you have finished whatever it is that you are do-”

Queen Lacia abruptly stopped talking as she seemed to notice that Enoc wasn’t alone in the room. Her eyes widened in shock as she took in her daughter for the first time in over twelve months. “Emilria! Oh my Gods! You found my baby!” All semblance of the elegant woman from moments earlier was gone as she screamed happily into the mirror, tears of joy on her cheeks. I could see her bobbing up and down, clearly bouncing on her feet.

My Callie had a tremble in her bottom lip as she smiled through her own teary eyes. “Hi, mum, I’m so sorry I didn’t contact you, or leave a note.”

“Oh, my baby, I am so glad that you are alright! I was always worried that I had made the wrong decision, helping you escape that night.”

I giggled at the startled look on my Callie’s face, her mouth open in shock. “You what? You knew?”

The Queen smiled, wiping her eyes, smudging her makeup. “Of course I knew, dear. You are my daughter after all. I had expected you to run earlier than you did. I kept dropping hints, and getting the cooks to leave out extra food each night.

“I’m just sorry that I couldn’t do anything more for you sooner.” Lacia sighed, looking weary suddenly as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “As much as I’d love to continue our little reunion, Emilria, I unfortunately have some disturbing news to report.”

“It’s Callie now, mum.”

One elegant eyebrow rose as the queen looked her daughter over. “I see. You always loved those old stories, dear.” A fond smile graced her lips as she chuckled lightly. “My apologies, Callie, I love what you’ve done with your hair by the way, it really suits you.

“Now, back to what I called about, before there’s a possibility we get interrupted. Your father has been in communication with someone named Droconist Thon for quite some time, if I read between the lines correctly in the letter I discovered between them.”

Enoc frowned. “A Droconist, here? I didn’t think we had any on our continent.”

“There are idiots everywhere, son, never forget that, but I don’t think that he is on our continent.”

I snorted, giggling at Queen Lacia’s response, it reminded me of my father Zar so much right then, that I had a strong urge to see my home again.

My giggling brought the queen’s attention to me, apparently she hadn’t noticed me, or at least hadn’t paid me any attention until now, as her eyes widened slightly, taking in my ears, my tail, my position on her daughter’s lap, her arm around my waist. “Hello, dear, I don’t believe I have had the pleasure, who might you be?” She asked, her elegant eyebrow raised yet again in curiosity.

Bowing my head, I smiled politely. “I am Zaraya Greensmythe, Your Majesty. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

The older woman stared at me for a moment, looking me over thoroughly before she replied. “Well, you have manners, I like that. What are you to my daughter?” Her eyes pierced mine, demanding an honest answer, even if her tone was pleasant, and her smile polite.

My Callie shifted uncomfortably underneath me. “Mum don’t-” she began, but I cut her off, squeezing her hand gently.

With my pulse racing and sweat beading on my forehead, I met the queen's gaze with my own. “Your daughter is my Heart, for as long as she will have me, ma’am.”

Queen Lacia held my gaze for a long moment without giving anything away, before her eyes crinkled in a warm smile. “It is a genuine pleasure to meet my daughter’s partner. I had feared that she would become an old crone, only married to the battlefield.”

“Mum!” My Callie groaned, cupping her face in embarrassment as I giggled on her lap.

“What? I thought you would be happy that I like your girlfriend, dear.” The older half-elf shook her head and tsked. “There just is no pleasing people sometimes. Well, no wonder you rejected so vehemently all of those princes who came to claim your hand in marriage.”

Despite her apparent harsh words, her tone was amused, taking pleasure in embarrassing her daughter.

Enoc looked away, biting his lip to stop himself from laughing as Tyral burst into laughter, drawing the attention of the queen.

“Oh, Tyral! Hello, dear, it is so hard to see everyone through this tiny mirror. I am glad that Enoc finally found you, he’s been moping about ever since my bastard husband exiled you.” There was real venom in her voice at the end, flames of righteous anger burning in her eyes. A chill ran down my spine at her tone.

Tyral suddenly stopped laughing, flinching slightly. Enoc put an arm around her waist, leaning into her. Watching the two of them, it was unclear who was holding up who. I nodded approvingly, they were holding each other up, like a proper partnership should.

“Right, I’m sorry. That cannot be a pleasant memory for either of you. Now to finally get to what I called you about, Enoc. Please head to the eastern continent as soon as you are finished with whatever it is that you are doing, and take your sister.” The queen suddenly turned her head like she had heard something behind her, before turning back to us, looking far more rushed. “We need to find out what he is doing communicating with a Droconist, and why. There isn’t much time to waste, now go! Stay safe, and always remember, I love you!”

Before anyone could say anything more, the mirror cut out with some odd static, as if something was interfering with it, moment’s later, it was as smooth and reflective as any normal mirror.

“I love you, too, mum,” my Callie whispered quietly, sighing and hugging me tightly, burying her head in my neck.