The First Mission Part 1 - Preposterous Advances

I have obviously grown fond of Seja. After having run some errands for her, consisting of buying stuff for her at the market – like this fancy soap or that special cooking ingredient – when she didn’t have the time to do so herself due to maid work, it also became a daily habit carrying laundry for her.

The huge woven basket carved pressure marks into our hands as we hauled it to the garden together. The butler who usually did the heavy lifting was missing since some time.

“Thanks again. I feel uncomfortable with the guards helping me. They always get scolded so quickly for leaving their post.” She was usually easy to understand, perhaps because she simplified her language for me. “I prefer a friend helping me.”

“Yes, I got that.”

She turned away, irritated.

“Hm?” Did I use the wrong form again?

Then she stated, questioningly: “You didn’t mean to.”

I shook my head in response. She was a tolerant teacher. But around the likes of Jared and Avenar, I always kept my mouth shut as much as possible and relied solely on Elana or Sarran for translation.

It got late while we went on following our respective daily routines – studying, training and reporting my progress; or cooking, serving dinner, cleaning rooms and more (overall way too much work on Seja’s fine shoulders). Sometimes she visited me in my room, where her supervisors wouldn’t intrude. It worked because it just seemed that I liked to order tea and cookies before going to bed.

They treated me like captive royalty. By the way, they do let us go into the city, but there is always someone breathing down our necks when we do.

Seja took a chocolate cookie from the tray and eyed it reluctantly. “There is going to be a mission for you soon. I overheard it while having to hold a bottle of grape juice for almost an hour...”

“What do you mean?”

“Right tomorrow. ”

I finished my cookie and gulped it down with. “What?”

“They are always this way. They don’t wait till you are ready, nor do they give you a say in this.”

An empty feeling expanded in my filled stomach. There was something that had worried me more and more over the last couple of days. I made a decision: “N…No.”

“He?”

“No, I won’t go and kill someone for them. What am I? A henchman?” I am not their soldier or something. There was no oath and such!

Some silence.

“Crap.”

Seja nodded, then added: “You won’t have to do that.”

“Actually? Really?”

“Yes, no need to kill someone.”

I exhaled an unpleasant cookie breath.

“But you will soldier for them till the day you eventually have to.”

My world became tinted deep black. “Isn’t this wrong, Seja?”

“Even peasants get drafted at war times. It is just a duty.”

I shook my head and sat down next to her on my bed.

“But I am sorry for you, truly. It is not even your country.”

Is that how these people think? Who cares what country stuff is about? “Those peasants don’t choose where they are born.”

“It is the same in every country.”

I stared at her. This is not what I am trying to say.

“Let me wait here for you to return.” She drew a bit closer; her eyes locked to the ground; her hands folded between her knees.

My breath grew uneasy. She doesn’t get it… What did she just say? I blushed, nervous. Many thoughts contrasted another in my suddenly light but heavy head:

Sure, just you wait here behind the castle walls, safely stuck away in ignorance.

Is this actually my chance? Would I finally be with someone? 

We only know us for a week or two.

But if it strikes you, it strikes you…

Better keep a distance for now.

She nudged me with the shoulder.

Keeping her warm won’t hurt… “I will see forward to it.”

As she stood up, her fine hands stroke her hair, which glittered violet in the candle's light; her voice sweet: “See you.”

“Bring it over already.” An annoyed Elana waited at the gates.

“What’s the matter?”, I asked and unshouldered my backpack until Sarran arrived.

“This guy can’t say goodbye to his ‘fiancée’.”

My jaw dropped. “His what?” I spun around and let my backpack fall over.

“I hope you don’t fall for this.”

I gulped. For Seja?

She stiffed her back to make a failed attempt at easing the mood: "Honorable I can proudly state that sofar I avoided all advances made toward me; send all away they..." There was a tone of suppressed envy in her voice as she bit her tongue.

Sarran rushed over to us with a bright red face. Elana rolled her eyes while I couldn’t avert mine in disbelief:

How do you make someone dance? You threaten them, preferably with the live of someone close. You bind them by love; even better in the long run: Let them marry quickly and spawn some more little hostages… ugh, I mean children. You give them a promise that is their own chains. And you hold the key. They won’t want you to remove them for any reason.

What to do about Seja? Hm… Let’s wait till she is no chain anymore.

Something in the way Elana conducted herself this day told me that she might very well have similar thoughts and may be even crying out deep inside… Because from time to time it felt like she transmitted her feelings telepathically, there was no way to tell if this was the real Elana, the real Lia, or simply the one she presented.