'Everything hurts... I wonder if poison makes you mroe sore from working out...' I sighed thinking about all of it. The strangest part was the poison that was used… Strangleweed… Conveniently one of the ones I mixed flour with, which was why it took so long to activate… Time of poisoning most likely being while I was asleep the night before.

I stared up at the ceiling in my room, lifting out one of my pale hands and watching the muscles flex as I wiggled my fingers. 'Diferent training huh… I wonder what that means… It's suposed to start today, right?'

A knock came on the door and it slowly opened soon after. "Get up, we're going."

I quickly looked down past the foot of the bed to see my father standing in the doorway, dressed in full black armor as though he had just returned from a hunt.

"Going where?" I asked as I swung my legs over the side of the bed. 'No way… Like, running away? If they decided training was hopeless, that's not entirely impossible, right? He was the one that decided they couldn't kill me last time.'

"You'll see."

I quickly followed along behind him, falling in line as we walked to the stables in complete silence, where a horse was waiting for us. I didn't even get to walk inside to say goodbye to Fritz, before I knew it he had wrapped a cloak around me and we were riding out the front gate.

'No way… Are we really running? But… I mean like… Where, where are we going to? He didn't even bring any rations? Does Mara know about this?'

"The training you were doing was ineffective… I am to blame, she went too easy on you. I should have handled it myself, had I maybe we wouldn't have had to resort to this…"

'Resort to… So we really are running away then…' I paused, sinking back against him in the saddle. On the one hand, I felt relieved, but on the other, I was a little disappointed in myself, not to mention, it all felt like a waste, the decade I had spent training my body just to run in the end anyway…

"I was an orphan… I grew up on my own in the wilds, starving. I was small like you before someone saved me… He taught me magic, and taught me how to be tough, how to be strong… If Mara's teachings have failed you, then maybe mine can save you."

I sighed. 'It's true… It's not like life will be easy living on the road as an adventurer… I'd still need to be tough… But…' "Magic?"

"Ask yourself… Would you be more of a disgrace if you used magic? Or more of a disgrace if you were weak and helpless, dying to a bitterweed of all things."

I looked up at him. "I mean… To be fair, it wasn't a normal bitterweed. That thing was scary man… I get your point though…" I looked back at the road ahead as we cut off into the forest. 'I know I'm supposed to feel ashamed… But… I get to learn magic? They aren't going to kill me AND I get to learn magic? Real magic.' I felt a chill crawl over me. 'It's… Kind of exiting right?'

The horse slowly began to slow down. "We're here."

'What, but we haven't even been riding for more than an hour though.' "Is there… Something special about this place? Is it like important for magic or something?"

"It will be for you I suppose."

Bhaltair suddenly walked out from behind a few of the trees, brushing leaves off of himself. "About time you showed up…"

My body and mind both went completely stiff. "I don't… Understand…"

"Yeah well you wouldn't would you… You don't seem to get a lot of things." He said back softly as he brushed a hand through his long hair. "Father… Are you sure about what you're doing…"

'Wait… What? Is he here to stop us? But how would he have found out?

"I am…" He said gruffly, pulling on the reins to make the horse slightly back away from a steep ridge.

"Then there's no helping it is there…" He sighed, rubbing his neck as he cracked it, stepping closer. "Goodbye then…" He said calmly, leaving a hand out as if to shake our father's hand one last time.

Rather than grabbing our father's forearm though, his wrist twisted, grabbing my shoulder and yanking me off the horse. My entire body felt weightless as I fell in slow motion, my magic nearly stopping time just long enough for me to see my father's expressionless face crumble into shock for the first time. 'What…'

My shoulder hit first, popping out of place as I bounced and tumbled, straining my knee and barely managing to avoid hitting my head as I pushed off with a hand to keep myself in the air long enough to tumble. By the time I stopped moving I couldn't even breathe, the sound of my body slamming against the earth echoing through my head along with my father crying my name, even long after it all fell silent.

I opened my eyes, gasping for air as I got my wind back, but everything was dark… 'what? Where…' I struggled to move, my arm shaking and giving out as I tried to put pressure through my dislocated shoulder out of habit. "Agh!"

I quickly covered my mouth with my other hand, muffling my groan before it could reach too far into the darkness. 'This is…Really bad… Right? I mean… I'm alive, that's good… Is that good? No that's good… For now… There aren't that many monsters in this forest, so I should be fine… We road east, not west, so at least I won't run into any dire wolves or anything…' I slowly swallowed, curbing my panic as I moved my hand to feel my shoulder. 'Mara… For once one of your lessons might pay off…' I groaned as quietly as I could as I stood up. 'Though… I'm not sure I'd call this combat medicine…' I thought, holding my arm tightly as I slammed my shoulder into the cave wall to put it back into place, my eyes watering as the chunk sent a shiver down my spine.

'Alright… Alright…' My breathing steadied as I tensely held my arm, leaning back against the wall. 'I got in here from somewhere, so there should be a way out… If I look around there should be a light source…'

Sure enough, after my eyes adjusted and dried I could see a single ray shining down from the ceiling, a place that was impossible to get back to… 'ah… This is… This is fine… Someone will come and get me… Rig– no… No one is finding me down here… I can't just scream for help… I'm more likely to find out something scary lives in this place…' I took another deep breath, finally able to fill my lungs to capacity as I started to relax. 'Alright… This cave doesn't really seem natural… As far as I can tell the ground is pretty level… It's too… Geometric? If a monster big enough to dig this lived out here, we would know, and if a human did it, it would have an exit… right? I really hope I'm right… How would I find it though? I nervously sat next to my only light source. 'I'm no good without my eyes… And when I look back there… It feels like… Somethings staring back… Now sure would be a good time for my big cat to come and save me…' I sighed.

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'If I can't operate without my eyes, then I need the light source to grow… In other words, all I really need is to get the opening to become larger. Luckily it looks like it's mostly made of dirt…' After feeling around, I slowly picked up a rock, deciding pretty quickly I couldn't throw with my right arm because of my shoulder. 'Guess it's a good thing Airsidh made sure I was ambidextrous… Which was a massive pain…' Heaving the rock, it hit a chunk of dirt, opening up a larger hole and spreading the light wider, a few more attempts and it started to make a difference, though… All I was really doing in the end was making noise.

There was still just a black void that I could stare into, not much else. 'I mean… if that didn't wake up any monsters this won't either…' I timidly walked to the edge of the light, clapping my hands and listening to the echo, as it came back, there was one path where it faded farther into the distance, implying a tunnel.

'Well…' I slowly swallowed. 'It shouldn't be hard to find my way back if there's nothing over there…'

Carefully stepping into the dark I somehow kept my balance, walking until I hit a wall. 'Dead end…'

Suddenly the wall began to glow, shifting and exploding outwardly, a web of light holding the shrapnel together before pulling it all to the side and revealing the way forward. 'That's new…'

The cave opened out into a more natural appearance with a faint light in the distance and as I crawled up over a small ledge I finally saw the outside… And next to the exit was a giant sleeping bear, likely in hibernation for the winter. 'I am so glad I didn't wake that thing up…'

I paused, too afraid to move as I calmed my mind. It was scary sure… But honestly it was half the size of a mournclaw, so it wasn't all that shocking, which felt weird in its own right. With no weapons… I had to get past it with stealth. Tiptoeing towards the entrance, I swiftly made my way outside, my heart nearly popping out through my skull with how hard it was beating by the time it was over…

A loud shriek suddenly echoed from deep within the cavern and with a roar the bear quickly emerged, staring right at me… "Hey! That wasn't me!" I shouted back. "Go back to sleep please…"

It huffed, shaking its head and locking eyes with me, but just as it started to charge Jayjay leapt from over 50 feet away, traveling like a black mist before tearing its to pieces with its claws and ripping its head off, swallowing it whole.

I was too stunned to speak, or move… "Nice… Kitty…" I finally said as she walked over to me, her face instantly softening again as she gave me her cute wide eyed expression. I slowly leaned to the side to look back at the gruesome unrecognisable mess. "That's gonna give me nightmares…" Another shriek echoed from deep within the cave and the birds all took off from the trees. "I don't know what that is but I really don't want to find out. Do you know the way home?"

She nodded, leaning way back to make it easier to climb on. Her defined muscles made for easy steps onto her back and she began skulking around the forest. Every few steps she shuddered though. 'Something isn't right…' "What's wrong?" I leaned over, grabbing her side to support myself and almost slipping off as my hand became covered in a blood so dark it was almost black. "You're hurt…"

She didn't even flinch when I touched the wound, but still she kept shuddering, frantically looking around as she snuck through the forest like someone was watching her. "Jayjay stop!"

She flinched, shaking out her head like a dog before her hair all stood up on end and I jumped off. "You're really hurt, is it bad?"

She turned and growled back at me, and I could feel exactly what she was feeling… Making me realise that… It didn't matter how bad it was… It's not like I could help her… We had to get home either way… More than that though, it didn't seem that deep. Rather, the shaking was from a pure instinctual fear. So deep that I almost couldn't even fully grasp it. "S-sorry… Let's go…"

We came out of the forest and suddenly an overwhelming sense of ease flooded through her as we got back onto the road. "See girl… We're fine… It should… Be…"

"Hey boys… That a mournclaw? Teddy!"

I saw a group of six men all wearing heavy armor with sharpened blades calmly drawing their weapons. "Sure is… Those things are almost extinct you know."

"Just tell me the price…"

"More than any number I could give you…"

Jayjay growled, bearing her fangs and leaning back again, her claws coming out and digging into the ground.

"HEY! HEY! WAIT!" I shouted, waving my good arm and jumping up on her back. "She's not wild!"

The started whispering, and I couldn't tell why, but somehow I could hear them, as if hearing through Jayjay's ears. "That could be a problem, right?"

"Probably the lord's pet…"

"And the girl?"

"Does it matter… She's already lost, that means she's already missing."

Jayjay crouched even further as I slowly sank down as well. "Everything… Is… Fine…" I muttered, my voice cracking. 'Wait… after what she just did to that bear… Maybe everything really is fine…'

They slowly approached us with fake smiles and pretending to put away their weapons. Once again the blue lines appeared before me, telling me when they would strike and where. 'He who strikes first…' "Now girl…"

Without hesitation, a swipe from her claw cut one of them nearly in half, her paw getting stuck in the armor before she shook the corpse off like water on her hands.

"KILL THE MONSTER!"

My heart pounded as they fought. But after watching her eat one whole I closed my eyes, unable to look any longer, barely able to hold back my vomit until everything fell silent but her heavy breathing.

"J-jay? Jayjay?" She growled at the sound of her own name, but as I opened my eyes my heart began to race again. "J-ja… We have to get home… You have to get home right now…"

She slowly sat down. One of her front legs was missing, two spears in her left side and a sword stuck in her right flank, the wound from the bear was still bleeding and to top all of it off, there was an axe blade deep in her neck. With another huff and a deep snort she reached around and grabbed me from her back, placing me on the ground as her face softened. There was no fear or protective instincts left… No reverence… No pity… Just… A sense of joy that was unbearably confusing.

"Come on… I-I never even got to give you a better name… You know one that you won't growl at… How does Muffin sound? I know it's stupid but I can't…"

She closed her eyes and a sudden spike of pain ran through my chest from left to right as though my torso was cut in half along with my heart. In an instant the pain was gone and my knees were hitting the ground again. I couldn't think… Couldn't speak… Couldn't say goodby… Of course at that point… It was already too late anyway…

Hours more seemed to pass as the sun started to set before I heard more footsteps crunching through the soft dirt behind me. "Siya…" My father's voice said softly.

"I don't get it… I don't understand…"

"It's time to go…"

"LAST TIME YOU SAID THAT I ENDED UP HERE!" I shouted, throwing away his hand as I steadied myself back on my feet.

He slowly looked around one more time before turning to leave, several of the guards going around and taking care of the bodies before Catherine walked up to me, kneeling down at my feet and quickly looking over my body. "Well, you look fine at least…"

"How… Does any of this look fine to you?"

She let out a soft sigh. "I said YOU look fine…"

"I'm cold…"

Giving a soft smile, she wrapped her own cloak around mine as an extra layer. "How's that then…"

"How many more people… Do you think are going to die right in front of me…"

She didn't respond as my mind wandered off to a different time and place. As hard as life was, that was the first time I had dealt with real death. Even outside of that life, it was the first time watching someone die since my sister. I lost track of the anniversary of her passing since I was reincarnated and all, but from my eyes… "It still hurts…" I muttered.

"Where does it hurt, Siya?"

'You wouldn't understand if I told you…' "My feet…" I mumbled as an excuse.

"Well don't worry, we'll be home soon."

'No… You'll be home soon… I don't belong here.'

…

As we rode back through the gate, everything seemed more grey than before, under the light of the moons, only the brightest of them falling behind a cloud. I came back in covered in blood and scrapes from gore mixed with my fall, but it seemed like no one even cared… And when I took a bath to wash off I was left alone there too… It was what I always wanted… But it didn't feel anything like I thought it would.

'We didn't manage to run away… And then I was brought back here… And now Mara is acting distant again… So… What happens tomorrow? Hm… I hope you're having fun in heaven sis… Take care of my kitty for me…'

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