Chapter 87

"My name is Sera Faelyn Morrister, I'm the daughter of Baron Norrin Morrister. ...My father is dead."

Ah shit. That sounds like a problem. I scratch the base of my horn. "...Do you happen to know who murdered him, or why?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. They seemed well prepared... organized though. They had matching equipment so I don't think they were hired mercenaries. They weren't paladins so I don't think it was the Tamin church."

I raised an eyebrow. "Why would the Tamin church be on the list of people who may have killed your father?"

She glanced at the collar around Torien's neck before looking back at me. "My father was one of the main people organizing a slavery abolitionist faction." She was gaging my reaction, Silva had stopped moving, prepared to jump in if I did something.

I looked at Silva's collar. "If that's the case, why the collar on your guard here?"

She was silent for a moment, considering her answer. "She's a crime slave, charged with murdering a noble. By all rights she should have been executed for it. Instead my father saved her and had her enslaved instead." She glanced at Torien's collar again before continuing. "You are hardly in a position to judge me, you have two slaves here yourself."

"...I swear by Sorsette I would have them freed if I could. They are Pantherians."

She glanced at Torien and tilted her head in interest. "I see..." She turned back to me. "At any rate. I would like to know what you intend to do with this information. I trust that you won't kill us the moment we turn our backs on you but I don't know about the rest of this caravan."

I crossed my arms and sighed. "Tarklin Silvergrove is affiliated with Morkinnen. Do you know their stance on slavery?"

Just then Tarklin sighed and turned the corner. "The followers of Morkinnen generally dislike it, though it can be necessary at times," he said with a glance at Silva. Suddenly I felt the familiar sensation of a [Zone of Silence] close around our group, the sound past the small courtyard we were in suddenly ceased. I felt my chest tighten in anxiety but I took a breath and let the sensation flow through me and dissipate. I wasn't in any danger, Tarklin was my friend...

Unperturbed by the casual use of magic the young lady looked Tarklin up and down. "...You are a Silvergrove? Truly?"

"Yes," he answered, not further elaborating on it.

She held her hand out and to everyone's surprise, summoned an item from a dimensional storage. In her hand she held a sheathed silver dagger with a crest etched into the gleaming metal.

Tarklin's brow furrowed. He slowly approached, took the dagger and studied the crest closely before handing it back to her and stepping away.

"Fuck," was all he said in reply.

"The queen of the elven Northern Greens gifted this to my father in friendship. It is supposed to entitle me to protection from the elves of the Northern Greens."

He groaned and rubbed his face. "That it does... What would you wish of me?"

"...I wish to be escorted by someone capable to the Northern Greens."

I could hear Tarklin speak under his breath. "I fucking hate elven politics, this is going to be a nightmare." He straightened up and looked her in the eye. "As a member of the eight great elven houses, I promise to personally escort you to the Northern Greens and be received by the queen."

The young lady's shoulders almost imperceptibly dipped in relief. "That is encouraging to hear."

"Unfortunately, there is a problem," Tarklin added.

There always is. I thought to myself.

"I am currently headed for the Capital. Our intention was to stop in your father's lands on the way there. I unfortunately am under obligation to lead this caravan and I do not feel it would be wise nor justified to abandon my duty here."

There was a pause, I could see the human girl weighing her options before she looked back up at him. "I will accompany you then. It is probably best if my identity... remains hidden however. As I said before, I do not know who targeted me and my family."

He nodded then turned to me. "Until we get to the capital I'll put you under the protection of Lilith here then. She's rather capable, I've seen her fight personally. Until we know more about the situation I believe it is best not to let others know of our connection."

"Of course," she said turning to me.

"Why are you looking at me? You're hardly giving me a much of a choice here," I said.

Tarklin smiled. "Of course you have a choice, I'm the leader of the people protecting this caravan but this is a matter... outside of that scope. It sounds like you're amenable towards this from the choice of your words though."

I nodded. "I wouldn't feel comfortable abandoning someone in a position like this since I have the ability to help. What about you? You said you were worried about what kind of trouble her status would bring."

He frowned. "That's true but I'm no longer in a position to refuse, even if I wanted to."

The [Zone of Silence] faded as quickly as it had snapped up and Tarklin clapped, back to his normal cheerful self. "Alright everyone, sounds good. Lilith, you're in charge of this runaway noble. Keep her out of harms way but if she wants to escape her dreary life and live as a commoner then she gets to be treated like one, no special treatment. As far as I'm concerned, you two are of the same status. Since it was your idea to bring her with us, you're in charge of her." He walked away without a word, speaking loud enough that everyone in the immediate area would hear the cover story he just set up.

I was honestly happier for it, I hadn't even considered up till that point that she might expect to be treated as a noble. If that bothered the young lady she didn't let it show. She smiled and walked over to our group. Silva who had been quiet up till that point joined us as well.

Now that she was standing closer to me I realized just how tall she was. She was almost a head and a half taller than me, and significantly taller than the rest of my party. The young lady was about a foot shorter than Bella, making her the shortest among our group.

"So..." I said scratching my horn. "What should we call you then?"

"...Please call me Fae for now."

I looked down at her dress, it was nearly destroyed, ripped in several places and barely holding together. We should get her a change of clothes, otherwise they were going to fall apart.

"Bella, do you have some spare work clothes for Fae to change into? That dress doesn't look comfortable in its current state."

Bella hesitated, "I'm sure I have something that would fit her but it would be in my trunk..."

Ah... right, the trunk Mimi is holding onto.

"Alright, I'm going to go with Bella to look for her trunk. Will you two keep Fae company for a minute please?"

"Sure thing!"

"No problem!"

The twins answered in unison and spoke over each other but it just made me smile.

"We'll be right back."

The two of us walked behind one of the carriages and Mimi took Bella's crate out for us to dig through. I'm not sure why but something about the cute and feminine Bella being this disorganized made me smile. A small thing you might not expect but just made her all the cuter to me.

She untangled a pair of pants from the pile of her clothes. "I'm not sure if they'll fit, we might need a belt but I don't think I have anything that would be small enough and I don't want to ruin my own belt by punching extra holes in it."

"Why don't you bring these clothes back to her and I'll go see if I can buy something from the merchants."

I spent the next few minutes talking to some of the merchants before convincing one of them to sell me a long strip of leather and a buckle that would make a decent, if not ideal, belt for the young noble. By the time I had returned she had already changed and Morrigan was looking over the torn dress. I handed over the makeshift belt and Fae started adjusting it while I walked over to Morrigan.

She was examining the dress pretty closely. "What are you up to?" I asked her.

"Mmm... I think I could repair most of this if I had a sewing kit. I didn't think to ask for one when we were still in Traehall."

"You can sew?"

Morrigan nodded. "Yeah, just a bit. Mostly for small repairs and stuff. We thought it would be a good thing for one of us to know so I learned it in exchange for not having to learn dismantling," she said with a laugh. "You'd think I won out there but it was actually Torien who had begged me for the deal."

I smiled. "That makes me wonder if she did that to make you feel better or if she really hates sewing that much."

Morrigan sat up in shock. "I never considered that."

"It's the latter!" Torien called out from the other side of the little area we were working in. "I hate sewing." The four of us laughed while our two guests looked at the four of us curiously.

Morrigan held the dress up to the light and I could see the pretty obvious hole in the front where the knife had stabbed into the her.

"Burn it," Fae said.

Morrigan turned to look at her. "Are you sure? I think I could fix it up. Maybe not good as new but—"

"I got stabbed and watched my father get murdered in that dress. I don't want it."

"...Right, sorry." Morrigan began to fold it up, presumably to be burned later.

Fae sighed. "I know you were only trying to help... We've been running for days now and I haven't gotten much sleep. I apologize."

She went back to adjusting her clothes and an awkward silence hung over our group until she was finished. She stood up with her arms out. The clothes looked a little big on her but the pant legs were rolled up and covered the sturdy looking riding boots she wore under them. Her shirt was a bit loose but was pulled in and tucked into her pants, they were held in place by the makeshift belt I had given her. Her blond hair was a bit dirty, making her look mostly like a commoner. The only thing that really gave it away was her forced looking posture.

Tarklin walked back over calling out to make sure she was finished changing.

"Dinner is just about prepared. Once you're finished with that we're going to talk about sleep rotations before we assign rooms for the night." Tarklin glanced at the noble and nodded towards her. "Naturally your guest won't be on watch, she better get some sleep now that she has more people to guard her back at night. That goes for you too," he said nodding towards the rabbitkin.

"Thank you sir," Silva gave a short clumsy bow. Clearly unused to the formality of it.

"Lilith..."

"Yes?" I turned to see Fae trying to talk to me.

"Would you mind if I slept near you tonight? I... don't know who to trust here."

I felt confused. "Sure, I don't mind. What about..." I saw some tension in her expression so I decided not to finish my sentence. "No problem."

She turned to the rabbitkin. "You know the rules Silva. Try to get some sleep. ...I order you not to hurt anyone except in self defense." Silva's collar glowed with blue runes as she smiled back sadly.

The moment was awkward and I didn't know what to make of it. It was clear the two didn't trust each other despite the rabbitkin likely having saved the woman's life on more than one occasion. At least one that we know of.

We got our portions of stew that was made for the caravan and found out about our night watch assignments. I was on second watch with Bella tonight and because of the way things rotated, the twins didn't have to be on watch this time. After that we headed to our assigned rooms in the small fort.

Since they were all considered servants, Torien and Morrigan went with Silva in one room while Bella, Fae and I went together towards the other. I was a bit hesitant for us to be separated like this but the twins assured me it was alright. I wasn't fully on board but it would give me a chance to talk with Fae so I reluctantly agreed.

Before we split up I took off my belt and handed Mimi and her sheath to Torien. "Hold on to her for me tonight." Torien nodded knowingly.

-- "Mimi, tell me if the girls are in danger and protect them if you can. I'll rush over no matter the time of night." --

-- "I will." -- Through our link, more meaning was conveyed than just the simple words she passed along. Though she wasn't as close to the twins as she was to Bella, she already saw them as her family too. There was something charming about her naïve innocence that contrasted with how observant and smart she was.

I refocused on our two guests after handing Mimi over. Something about this situation was unclear to me and I wanted to hear more about what the issue she had with Silva was. It was concerning to me that Fae didn't trust her and I wanted to know if I should be worried about it too or if this is a personal thing.

The three of us quietly ate the stew in our assigned room. All of us were aware that there would probably be another difficult conversation after this.