Chapter 96

I stretched after waking up early. It was nice to be able to sleep cuddled up with my girlfriends again. It's been a bit more stressful having to pretend we weren't intimate with each other these past few days. Last night we opted to push four of the small single beds together and cuddle up as a group. This time I was on the outside, Morrigan was between me and Bella, and Mimi was on the other side.

Torien and Silva slept separately on the other side of the room of course. Despite Silva's definite interest we weren't really ready for that yet. Still, it was nice to see that she was receptive and accepting of our situation. She seemed like a surprisingly open minded person, it was a nice contrast to most of the people I dealt with regularly since coming here. Having to hide my sexuality from everyone was becoming a bit annoying. I wasn't sure how accurate the rumors of the Tamin church sending around death squads to attack gay people was but I wasn't really comfortable enough to stand up to them right now. I trusted my friends knew what they were talking about though, it led Morrigan to stay in the closet even from her own sister for her enire life... even if Torien actually knew anyway.

Torien was already up, she was dressed and sitting on her bed quietly. She looked a bit lost in thought, her tail flicking back and forth like a prototypical cat. When she noticed I was up and looking at her she smiled and quietly waved at me while I got dressed. One thing I would have liked was more opportunities to shower, there weren't any facilities for that here and it made me feel kind of gross. It hadn't been that long since we left town but it was a notable absence.

I grabbed my sketchbook, planning to draw on the ramparts again. It was a nice habit that grounded me and made things easier to handle. I looked over at Torien who looked a little bored, just hanging out waiting for the others to wake up.

"Hey Torien, do you want to talk with me a little bit while I sketch a little?"

Her eyes scanned over the rest of the people sleeping before nodding and joining me. "Sure. It might be nice to get some fresh air."

The two of us went up to the ramparts so we could look over the plains in the distance. I took out my charcoal and started a basic landscape on a new page. Charcoal wasn't my preferred medium but considering how much cheaper and easier it was than ink I was happy with it. I suppose the most expensive part was my paper sketchbook itself, even if the paper was lower quality than what I remembered from my old world.

I looked up at Torien who was quietly looking out to the horizon, her figure struck me as beautiful in that moment so I quickly started adding her to the piece. I liked the idea of having a few sketches of all of my friends, I hadn't had the opportunity to sketch each of them yet. I finished most of the layout before Torien noticed me staring at her. I was happy I was able to get in the block-in of her figure while she was still unaware of me sketching her.

She raised an eyebrow. "What?"

I smiled, "Just drawing you."

She flushed a little but I could tell she was curious. She leaned on the wall next to me and looked over at the sketchbook. Rather than hiding it I just moved my hands and let her look.

"It doesn't look like much..."

I nodded. "It's just an outline. Most of the landmarks I need to fill in the blanks myself."

She tilted her head. "You can do that? I thought you just copied whatever you saw."

"Sometimes you can get away with that, if it's a flower or a sleeping animal. But most of the time the things people want to capture with their drawings move too much, so you learn to get the major shapes in first and then fill in the detail afterwards."

I started working on the sketch again, filling in the blanks from memory. Charcoal was kind of fun to work with but it was still quite messy. Lots of smudging and charcoal dust. I would kill for a kneaded eraser or something, the best I had to work with was a dirty cloth. Torien was fascinated, watching as my quick and rough sketch resolved into her likeness. I just smiled and kept working, happy to see her invested in my work. It wasn't the fanciest or my best work, not by a long shot, but I was happy with how it was coming out. It might be worth looking into some sort of fixative for the charcoal, already some of my early sketches were smudging into oblivion and it would be nice to keep some of these as a record. Maybe I could find something in the capital. Maybe even some form of ritual magic.

"How did you get so good at that? I can't believe how much it looks like me."

I smiled. "Practice I would guess. It's hard to say, since I don't remember a lot of my past. I can tell that a lot of my lines aren't as straight or confident as they should be, like I don't have the right muscle memory."

"Isn't that frustrating?"

I shrugged. "Maybe a little. It feels more like I'm rusty though, like I haven't drawn in years. Who knows, maybe I was already rusty before I came here."

I looked over my finished drawing, pretty happy with it. I might make a point of drawing each of my friends some time. I gently closed the book and set it aside before using some ritual magic to clean my hands of the black dust.

"Hmm..." I leaned back against that wall and looked at the sky. The sun was just barely up and the camp was moving around more now. Already the cooks were preparing breakfast and the adventurers were chatting about their assignments. "Torien, do you think I did the right thing? Buying Silva when I did?"

"Yes. Even if you hadn't asked all of us first, I really do think we need someone like her for our team. It's not just about you... technically being our master. You by yourself wouldn't always be able to protect everyone at the same time. The environment was to our advantage in the dungeon, long straight hallways for most of it, but if we were more in the open with larger numbers of enemies you would probably have been overwhelmed trying to protect three or four of us by yourself."

"I think so too but... I just hope adding another person doesn't change the dynamic too much."

She nodded. "Yeah, things like that can happen. I have a good feeling about her though," Torien said with a smile. She looked over at my arm. "How is your shoulder feeling? Is it back to normal?"

I stretched my arm and moved it around. "I'd actually completely forgotten about it actually. It feels normal now."

"Good. You might want to volunteer for uuna duty again. I get the feeling a lot of people were happy when you helped out with that."

"Yeah." I scratched the base of my horn before turning fully to her. "Do you think you could keep an eye on Silva for me? ...It's not that I don't trust her but I would feel better if we made sure she doesn't get us into trouble."

Torien laughed. "Sure. It's alright if you don't trust someone though. We really haven't known her for long and she is a crime slave. After her story I'm inclined to take her side on things too but we weren't there, we don't know the full story."

"Does, stuff that happened in her story happen often?"

"No. It's actually pretty rare for someone to go that far. An aggrieved family member taking revenge isn't the only way something like that ends. Sometimes nobles above them step in, sometimes even the king, and slave revolts do happen. Even with the collars."

"The collars aren't fool proof then?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No... The collars aren't good with nuance and the orders need to be somewhat specific. Depending on how things are worded the slave can interpret the orders differently. Some people are good enough at choosing to believe their own interpretation over the way that it was intended and can take that to some pretty far lengths. The collars can also only 'remember' so many orders in the first place so they often have to be broad enough to cover lots of bases."

"Have my orders been effective ones?" I asked.

She paused and thought about it. "I think the secrets one is good, you worded it broadly enough that it forces us to take things we wouldn't normally consider a secret as a secret. ...I don't remember the exact wording of the one you gave to Silva but it should be good enough. I don't think you've given us much reason to weasel out of the orders in the first place so it's not like we're trying to find holes in it."

I sighed. "I honestly feel bad about giving you any orders but I truly think that as long as you're slaves, forcing you to be unable to tell my secrets would protect you."

"Perhaps. I suppose you left room for us to interpret it as strictly or loosely as we choose to. Not that most people would try to bump up against the limits. Refusing an order given by the collar is... very painful."

I nodded solemnly.

She cleared her throat. "Anyway, it's probably time to get back to the others. We still need to eat breakfast and since you asked me to keep an eye on Silva, I should make a point to sit next to her on the caravan today."

I smiled. "Thanks Torien."

The two of us walked back to our room where everyone was already up and getting ready for the day.

"Tori! I'm starving." Morrigan said playfully hanging off her sister.

Torien patted her on the head. "Yes yes little sis, let's go get some breakfast."

"Hey! I'm not the little sis, YOU are!" Morrigan said with an exaggerated pout.

Torien smirked. "Could have fooled me."

"Oh Lilith, good you're back! Silva's a lot um, bigger than most of us so we thought your clothes would probably fit her the best but we didn't want to go through your trunk." Bella was shyly trying not to look at the large amazonian woman sitting on the bed in what basically amounted to a loincloth and chest wrap.

Mimi set down my trunk and I dug through it. I found a decently large blouse and a pair of sturdy work pants for her. Turns out that despite her size, one of Bella's bras fit her best since she isn't quite as busty as me or Mimi are.

I handed the clothes to her and she looked up at me with a smirk. "I get pants do I?" She looked around the room at everyone else. "I thought this was going to be a skirts only team."

I smiled back. "If you want a matching dress like the other girls you're going to have to work for it."

She laughed and started undressing in the middle of the room, completely unashamed of her nudity. Everyone in the room but me and Mimi looked away from her sudden disrobing, making her laugh even more at their reactions.

"What's wrong? Nothing you haven't seen before."

It was actually quite the challenge to tell who was blushing the hardest among the three of them. It did make me wonder why the Twins would be so awkward with the nudity since I had assumed they had dealt with this sort of thing as slaves often, if how they were brought to me in the slaver's guild was any indication.

Silva seemed to enjoy pushing their buttons quite a bit though. I just laughed as I went back to lacing up my boots.

Bella shyly sat down next to me, gently covering her lap with her hands. She leaned in to whisper in my ear. "I'm starting to get a bit hungry, will you join me for a quick snack?"