“Are you sure they were that close?”
“Old man, I saw it with my own eyes, two scouts from the east just on their way here. About 10 minutes from here. Only two though I’m not sure if they had any reinforcements,” reported Alfred’s fellow warrior back.
The cat-man, and also his superior in that matter replied cautiously, “We should still evacuate just to be safe. Let’s head to my wife’s office. We should be able to coordinate everything from there.”
The troubled father walked a while till he noticed a girl sitting on the bench of someone’s house, who was, in fact, his daughter. He sat down next to her and asked what’d bother her at this time of the day.
She glanced at the kind man, sprang up and apologized to the one who was, in fact, her father.
He smiled and asked once again what she was doing sitting on someone’s bench like this.
Evelyn’s ears laid back down flat on her head, looking at the corner of her eye: “Nothing sir was actually looking for you. Mom said she wanted to discuss something with you.” Although she still dreamed about becoming a warrior like her father she couldn’t let him be bothered with it. She remembers how many times her dad had lectured her on how dangerous it would be and how he didn’t want to see his daughter getting caught up in something like military affairs.
The mighty warrior dismissed the reliable soldier who was still standing guard for the old cat-man and his daughter.
“Well, shall we get going then?” he looked at his daughter and asked modestly.
She nodded and asked timidly, “how is everything going along? at work I mean.”
After he saluted the soldier, he and his cat-eared daughter walked towards the office where Evelyn’s mother and her brother Teo awaited them.
As they walked back towards the office, Alfred scratched his head and leaned towards Evelyn and continued rather passively: “Eve, I think something dangerous is coming. Let’s hurry up and get home.”
On their way home, they once again encountered several people with various complaints and rumors about her parents and the newly declared war.
“What you mean? The sun is high up and I haven’t seen one cloud all day. Teo and I even played on the road to the forest just now.”
He put his hand on her head and looked up thoughtfully: “You’ll see, mom will tell you, Eve.”
Her dad would always give away the complicated and problematic problems to his wife. Her mother Myla would then complain about it at night before sleep and Alfred would just lay down before her and let her stroke his cat ears, tail, and even his fur, which was supposedly one of a beast most precious and intimate traits. After the humiliation of one proud and honored cat warrior, they would go to sleep peacefully. Even though her mother would act mad and tough, her father knew exactly how her mother felt and would still hug her. With that being said, Evelyn wasn’t gonna question her father and would just go along with it.
At the time they arrived at the office, which was more like a home in truth, they heard Teo screaming in shock and fear: “What do you mean! What about everything you fought for?” As expected, Alfred abruptly opened the door and drew his sword so fast that none could ever hear or see it getting drawn. It’d always feel like the sword just appeared in his hand.
The worried father rushed into the house standing in the entryway ready to kill only to find no one home: “Stop right there!”.
“They are probably in the living room,” said Evelyn.
“Ah, right.”
He deliberately wanted to show Evelyn how thrilling it was to be a warrior since she displayed a none interest in becoming one recently. The father indeed wanted his daughter to become a warrior too since she had the most beast-blood in her. The speech about him not wanting her to get involved in all that warrior military business stuff was just something Myla had him do, considering the fact that she was against the idea of violence from the beginning. He, on the other hand, had high hopes for Evelyn and hoped that she would one day rebel against him and that he’d have no choice but to give in and teach her the ways of a fighter. However, the very idea of that might never be fulfilled.
As the father and daughter get closer to the living-room it became quieter, actually, no sound could be heard except the paws of the cat-warrior and the small foot-steps from his daughter following him. One could even hear their cat-tails following on the ground.
When they opened the door, the tense father stepped in holding his sword up in front of him. As the sword peeked through the door, meanwhile Myla was passing by the door nearly cutting herself.
“Lower your sword, Alfred!” she yelled at him furiously.
In an instant, the sword disappeared and the beast who was just full of pride and might a moment ago bowed down in apologies.
“I’m sorry, darling. I thought I heard something serious.”
“You should know your fight, dear,” was added to her small lecture.
He was still.
The mother who just put aside some folders passed the 1,80 m tall cat and sat down on the couch. Alfred was leaning on the wall next to the door.
“Oh well, I was looking for you anyway.” sighed the tempered mother of half-beasts children as she continued.
“I need to tell you something.”
“Yeah, Eve already told me, you wanted to discuss something-“
“W-What do you mean? Tell me something?! Don’t tell me!”
She nodded.
The silence came in. It became tense. Both of them had a fierce look in their eyes. Teo and Evelyn were watching closely and especially quietly. One would say that it seemed like they have been forgotten in all that intensity- as the discussion continued.
They saw the fear in their father’s eyes when he looked their way.
After quite a short while, the room calmed down from all the intensity.
The father let out a long sigh and asked with a quite irritated voice: “So how will you name him? Or her? How long have you been pregnant, dear?”
“Huh?!”, she stood up and looked at Alfred with a rather disturbing face.
“I’m not pregnant, you old fool! I was talking about the war and the future of our village damn it!” she yelled at him embarrassed by such an assumption.
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The pretty amused children tried to hold back their laughter as it seems that their parents have talked past each other the whole time.
Tears were starting to form in Alfred’s eyes when he realized that he failed to understand the situation.
Myla walked towards him and slapped her whole hand through his soft cat-face.
“Thanks, Myla.”
Evelyn looked understandably surprised when she saw her father taking pleasure in getting hit by his wife.
However, he understood the importance of the situation, following with a straight statement: “Alright kids, get your stuff you leave this place immediately, we don’t know how much time we have left so hurry up and get your stuff. Myla go tell the folks to send some of the people with their children to the rendezvous, have some folks, who can fight, stay here!”
Myla was once again pretty enraged for having to do the work involving the villagers, but she knew very well, that now was not the time to argue. Evelyn and Teo went to their rooms. Teo had already prepared his things and was ready to go. He had a bag packed with some food and his clothes. A sword was hanging on the back of his body. He wore shoulder and knee protectors and had a chest plate protecting his upper body.
Evelyn, on the other hand still needed to pack her things, which included her wear things some books and a small watch her mother gave her as a small kid. She also had a small collection of worthy coins, which she quickly deposited in her black ash-like bag, not matching her dress.
The reason that both of the children were so calm about literally leaving their home behind to escape, is that they had practiced and executed the escape plan several times already. They even used the tunnels underground connecting to the rendezvous point as hiding places when they played hide and seek, so they were certainly confident in their escape.
As for their parents. They were greatly aware of the dangers that came when they had fled from their homes to live a peaceful life in isolation. Everyday life became a struggle for both of them. They then finally settled down in a small village with fellow refugees.
Alfred had already sent out one of his scouts to confirm the location of the newly found threats. In a short amount of time, Myla had warned the villagers. The village had gone silent.
Evelyn’s father quickly returned to their house and searched for her as she was just getting ready to gown down the tunnel with Teo.
“Evelyn!”
“Yes, Father?” Evelyn answered from afar in the kitchen as she just had wrapped around some bread.
He sprinted into the kitchen and pressed a book into her hand.
“Please keep it. It’s important to me, like a diary you know? I’ll be busy protecting the village, so if anything gets burned or destroyed in the process, at least this will be safe.”
She gulped and nodded, putting the book deep inside somewhere in her bag.
A loud scream could be heard as she was climbing down the ladder, which made her tail stand ou of shock. Her brother holding the trapdoor. She looked up and asked what could have happened. Her parents were long gone into the village informing the villagers. Her father was probably preparing for battle. So much had Evelyn wished to be helping her father but she couldn’t despite everything. In such combat, she would just be another person to worry about.
“I’ll go look give me a second,” said Teo. He was gone for about two minutes. Evelyn still waiting for her brother to come back.
The door shut opened, Teo standing completely out of breath.
“We need to go, now!”
“What happened?” asked the worried daughter of a beast and human.
He stuttered and answered: “They are here, we need to go. Father and the others are fighting them. He told me to leave with you as fast as possible!”
“Where is Mother?”
“I don’t know but she’ll be safe. We need to stick with the plan and meet up with the others as soon as possible.”
They closed the trapdoor and ran through the about one and a half meter tall and one-meter wide tunnel. The tunnel itself wasn’t that far below the ground so sounds could still be heard as for the sword clashing against each other, buildings were falling and war screams were practically shaking the ground above their heads.
“..-shake the ground!” the spell was yelled out with such hatred.
And indeed the ground was shaking. A crack opened a hole where the soldier fighting with Alfred stood. Falling down and realizing that there was some kind of secret tunnel below them he rushed to the half-beast siblings. “Freeze!” The threatening soldier stood still not moving a muscle, ice began to grow around his feed slowly growing up his leg. Teo wasn’t especially physically well built but he would compensate that with his studies about magic.
Evelyn, as expected, was a bit ahead of Teo. She looked back and ran to him.
“Go!” he yelled with a peek of desperation and anxiety.
She protested: “No, I’m not gonna leave you behind!”
“Run Eve and don’t look back. I’m gonna catch up with you in no time.”
He had a smile on his face as he looked back. A fake smile desperately trying to get her away from here as soon as possible, trying to get her to safety, his own little sister.
She stood still. Thinking of what she should do, what she could say to convince her brother to run with her, but it was too late. The ice around the soldier’s leg broke, shards splattering everywhere as Teo’s spell seemed to have expired.
She left no choice for him. If this would continue the soldier would first kill Teo and then go after Evelyn, not to mention that he would then be on the way to the rendezvous place and might even kill the other villagers and children.
With that in mind, he then fired a stream of fire sparkles towards the soldier with one hand and spoke out another spell simultaneously reaching out his hand towards Evelyn and finished his next spell. “..of the air!”
The invisible ball of concentrated pressure hit his sister, pushing her back about 3 meters until she finally hit the ground.
In that split second where she was blown away, she could hear her brother saying: “I’m sorry Eve.”
The impact had brought the tunnel to shook as it collapsed in itself where the spell hit her.