Village

Sitting with others

Realizing what others

They are still others

“So Thue,” the princess of the rain asked while still holding his mate over her shoulder and carrying on towards the village.

“What is it,” the way he spoke out these words was more amicable she noticed, it was very defensive before then curious but this is starting to sound amicable.

“There is a reason, this curse was put up on this part of the forest, wasn’t there,” she inquired nonchalantly, not even looking at him.

He was shocked she asked this for only a moment before he remembered how insightful she seemed to be.

“Yes, yes there is,” he ended it right there.

“So you don’t want to tell me, or are you not allowed to tell me?” She had a few suspicions about why but kept it for herself for the time being.

“I think it’s better for both of us to not speak about this anymore and move on to another subject,” he replied, short but standing his ground.

She understood the meaning between the lines here, if she wants to get out of here safely by simply protecting a carriage it is better to not ask too many questions.

“Are we there yet? I am not one to complain but the forest was quite exhausting.”

This whole ordeal had messed up her sense of time at this point adding unto that the exhaustion of carrying a full male Lamian and all the emotional troubles she had faced not so long ago by facing her cousin.

“I think we can start seeing some wooden houses if we look closely in the far-end” he replied, he noticed this was not the same ‘princess’ he had met at first. This whole thing took a toll on her but something else too… He couldn’t figure out exactly what though.

They continued walking.

Suddenly there was a whole group of Lamians, 8 of the with spears surrounding Keraja.

The princess could have easily killed them all right then and there now her mang was back,

“Halt! Identify yourself!”

“I am the pri—,” Thue stopped her.

“She is with me, she’s the one that will be our mercenary to bring our stock.”

“How can we trust her?” they all asked in unison.

“Because you can trust me, I found her in the forest, she was lost, she is extremely strong and needs a ride back home,” they then looked at each other, slightly confused.

If this was a “soldier” like them or something along those lines, they would have asked. Yet mercenaries are known to not be asked about, they are mercenaries for a reason.

“So, she’ll bring our stock to where we want it?” they asked in unison, again.

“Yes, we just have to feed her. That is all, her payment was getting freed from the forest.”

Keraja felt it, the presence of a stronger foe. Definitely the strongest in this village.

He came slowly slithering towards them, they were slightly outside of the village and thus it was not much slithering.

“Who is she,” Thue again, explained what he had just explained.

He exuded his mang fully outwardly, it took quite some talent and experience to discern what the essence of a human being is just seeing it through his mang but if it is exuded this prominently fully towards the outside it makes it way easier.

His mang was green and white, it was a weird color mix of poison and the webs of an aran. His mang formed around him like the 10 legs of an Aran too. This was not the mang of a desirable Lamia, this was the aura of a trickster. No wonder he had put up the curse like that in the forest, no swift death for anyone that falls within his web.

Even people that have absolutely no knowledge of mang and that cannot use it feel it some way, some differently than others. His ‘comrades’ all felt it, there was a shiver going through their spine, they knew they were not safe around him but they also knew they couldn’t get out of the web anymore.

“Is this a taunt?” Keraja asked calmly, her calm control of mang had protected from feeling a thing but she could ‘see’ it.

“Ah, I expected you to be a mang practitioner, and adept at it too by seeing how you’re not flinching. No need to react, I just wanted to check that,” he had a smug smile, a smug smile reminding her of her uncle.

“Alright then, so it is ok if I’m the mercenary taking care of the carriage?”

“Yes, it absolutely is,” he replied, even these simple answers didn’t seem honest to her.

“Ok, so let me eat my fill, drink my fill and sleep, I can then go tomorrow after having rested for a day. I’ll take good care of everything you have in there legal or not,” she knew how to talk to those folks, at least that’s what she thought.

He complied, with no resistance.

She ate her fill, drank her fill and then headed to a very small hut that they had built for her. This special wood really was extraordinarily good to build things so quickly.

The hut was dark, yet there was one single lamp met out of spormo oil. They must have a very good quantity of wealth if they can afford spormo oil to light their lamps. Back in the palace they used that too, for the spaces that weren’t illuminated by some other way of course…

She had worn her dress for days now, it definitely had quite an odor to it at this point. She did not like smelling, that was one of her worst nightmares: going to a diplomatic meeting and smelling she absolutely hated the mere idea of it.

Keraja checked the small hut out, checking if there was really absolutely no way of them knowing what was happening in there. If there was, she would kill them on the spot that was for certain.

Our princess checked the dark corners, the small bed with a simple mattress on top of it that they had made out of fluff from the nam-bushes. With her eyes, hands and mang she had checked every corner and with certainty she could say that there was no way for them to see her in here.

Finally, after all of this had taken place it had already been quite a while since she entered. The princess undressed her dress and took out her blade that suddenly appeared on her left hip and started chanting while sitting down and having her dress in front of her laid out with her undergarments.

“Coverage of the water, spoiled by earth, recover,” she had taken a very specific stance while sitting and having her left hand in a specific hand gesture.

She kept repeating the words for a little while and then suddenly very little water came out of the tip of her sword, and passed through the clothing, taking with it all the dirt, grime and other unseen particles that caused odor.

The water kept going through the clothing in a very slow manner, it is as if the water had taken its own life and had decided that it will take it’s time with this task that the princess of the rain had given her.

It took quite a while until the water had passed through every fiber of the clothing, when it had done that the water returned to the tip of the sword again. When this had happened she put her sword back in her sheath and the sword disappeared.

“HAHAHAHAHA, didn’t I tell you learning those types of useful things with the ability of your mang was useful? “No dad, I’ll never use this you told me” I VIVIDLY REMEMBER YOU TELLING ME THAT HAHAHAHA. I STILL remember how I used to make entire tables, pots and so on for a feast back when I was on some adventures HAHAHA,” the voice of her dad was so incredibly loud in her head. It was as if he was here, and as if she got annoyed as she always did back then when he was so loud all the time.

“I hope you’d be less loud,” she spoke out loud. She heard her own voice in the hut, for a few moments she was waiting, expecting an answer back.

The answer back never arrived, only the silence of the hut and a few animals outside that were making noise.

It was spring at the moment, you could hear the screeching noise of the small insects and others to pair up and maybe start a family.

“I love the noise of the cicada during this time of year,” he always said.

“Aren’t they louder during the summer?” she always asked back.

“There’s something special about it when they make noise around this time of the year.” as he always replied back.

“Sure,” she replied back as always, finishing the conversation while her dad looked dumb smiling so happily from hearing his favorite noise.