Sidetracked

Annie didn't speak, didn't stop to consider anything. She knelt down and hugged the injured boy, then let just a bit of Mana out from her Core. She felt her body losing energy when she did, so she kept it small, but she couldn't let this go unanswered.

"Brady," she said softly, "What happened?"

Brady tried to catch his breath between sobs, speaking absolute gibberish. "Itsel, and, abben he, he, I-" followed by the howling cry of a child.

"It's okay," Annie said holding him close, "It's okay. Granny Smith is here for you."

Brady's sobs were briefly interrupted by a giggle, but his crying didn't stop. "G-Granny? You're... N-Not a granny, hehe...."

"Maybe not yet," Annie replied, "but before you know it? I'll be as old as dirt!"

Brady shook his head. "No, silly, th-that's not how it works! Y-You gotta get old slowly, then... I dunno, get all wrinkly!"

"Well, I'll make sure I do it right, then," Annie teased. "Now, what happened?"

Brady sniffled, able to speak much more clearly now. "U-Uhm, well, I, uh... I was trying to g-get some bread, a-and... Then Papa, he came by, a-and he s-saw me trying to take bread, a-and... H-He told me, I had to fight for it, a-and then...!"

Annie hugged Brady a bit tighter, shaking her head. "Oh, it's okay now, I'm here for you. Everything's okay, shhh..."

Brady started crying again, and somebody overheard him. Staggering towards the street, Brady's father made himself known. Annie heard the footsteps, immediately assuming he was drunk. Instead, what she was met with was a man who was battered and bruised all over- significantly worse than Brady was.

"Hey! Damn brat, BRADY!"

Brady gasped, hiding himself deeper in Annie's embrace. Annie scowled as she looked up at the man. "Are you his father?!?" she demanded.

"Yes, I am," the man replied, "and you are CLEARLY not his mother! So, step away from him right now, and we won't have a problem."

"Now why would I do something like that? You got in a fight with him- and lost by the looks of it!"

"He was trying to steal bread," the man shouted, "and he didn't beat me, the baker did!"

Annie looked at Brady. "Is that true?"

Brady shook his head. "I-It was... It was th-the bread you gave me yesterday, Miss Smith...."

Annie nodded, then stood up. "I won't let somebody hit a child for that!"

The man rolled up a sleeve, balling his hand into a fist. "Don't talk to me that way, wench. You're not the child's mother, and you're not his father, either. If you want to talk back for him, you'd best be prepared to get food for him, get water for him, and get a damn BEATING for him!"

The man lunged forward, only to run head-first into Lilin's elbow. She didn't show any mercy, slamming him into the ground with a swift kick to his leg. The man didn't get up after landing with a thud, clutching his face as he screamed and thrashed around. Lilin sighed as she looked at the sight, rubbing her elbow a bit.

Lilin grinned. "Damn, I really needed that."

Inside, there was a ghastly person in a bed. She could barely tell if they were a man or a woman, dressed in rags and with hair that hadn't been cut in far too long. Their skin was pale, their eyes sunken in even more than Euwelyn's, and they looked like they had just woken up for the first time in months just as much as they looked like they hadn't slept in months. They slowly sat up, turning their head to Lilin as they only made it part of the way to sitting fully up.

"I'm here to collect your taxes." Lilin replied, hoping the person would just die.

"Oh..." The figure laid back down. "Just kill me...."

"Why? Why the hell does everybody in this town want to die more than they want to just give us a bit of money?!"

"Because," the figure said, "it's easier to die. You'd come to us, kill us yourselves, and it'd be over with. The alternative is... To work until you're bone just to make enough to live, then work some more to make extra, and then hand over the extra."

Lilin looked at the figure. Her look wasn't angry anymore. It was horrified. This wasn't real, it couldn't be real. She wasn't just at a loss, she was completely defeated at this point. So, she sat down.

"You're not going to kill me?" the figure asked.

"I'm..." Lilin paused. Was she going to kill him? Was she going to give this... thing the death it craved? That wasn't fun. But at the same time, they had no more use. They were just dead weight. It was better off dead. So then why was she doubting herself? Was it to deny them their wish? Or was it because she didn't want to?

"I'm thinking about it," she replied, pushing her back against a wall and her face into her knees.