The tavern was pretty nice. It wasn't rowdy or filled with drunks. It was simple and there are a few patrons eating and drinking at a few of the tables, talking quietly. It smells great in here. The Hostess is a plump blond women with freckles who reminded me of the south with her southern manners. Granted that was directed towards Amicia and Ivaldri. I remember what Faye told me about how badly people view beast-kin. I never really had any experience with racism in my old life. My people had long been slaughtered and usurped by the time I was born. My blood only held 1/8th of my heritage.

Amicia got four rooms. One for her and Ivaldri. When I first realized they were together it blew me away. It made me understand just how different this world is even from the things we dreamed up in mine. Dwarves and elves are supposed to hate each other. But here they are married. Though, Faye did tell me when I asked that its not that common here either.

One room for Hawkeye and Novas. I still don't know Hawkeye's real name. Another room for Thora to have for herself, and the last one for Faye and I.

This is going to be awkward as hell. She has been acting weird ever since the basement. Keeping some distance between us. Glancing at me every now and then when I look back at her, she turns away, hiding her face.

'Oh god!' I didn't even think about bathing. My body has matured considerably since that night. It was weird for her to clean me before, but now.. lets just say I need to learn Clean and soon. I have the Spell Stone containing it in my inventory. I've been a little frantic trying to learn it. 

_

"How about we look around the town? We have a few hours before it gets dark." Faye said a little shyly pulling me out of my thoughts. I look around to see who she is talking to and grasp that its me.

"I-Is that okay?" I ask uncertainly. I mean, she seems really uncomfortable around me now.

"Amicia says it's fine. Just to keep our hoods up." She says. "I have some money too" she said. I can discern her tail wagging back and forth under her cloak. Ahh, she just wants to go out and explore, but doesn't want to go alone.

"Okay~." I tell her. I'll try to be inconspicuous and just keep her company. Let her enjoy her first night free in forever. 'That's right! She is finally free. Why wouldn't she want to exercise some of that new found freedom?' This is her night.

"Great" She smiled and grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the tavern and down the street. From what I can see the layout of this city is like the spoke of a wheel. We are headed to the center. 

_

As we get closer, the street foot traffic picks up along with a few wagons coming and going by. I get to see alot of people. Mostly Humans. A few Beast-kin slaves are on the back of a few wagons and some are sweeping in front of stores. I also see some men that could be dwarves, but idk. I wonder if female Dwarves have beards. The buildings are now shops of everykind. From jewelry to weapons. Food to tailors selling plain clothes to fancy looking ones. I even saw some underwear. There are restaurants mixed in along with some fancy looking inns, I think. Faye looks nervous, but that's to be expected. This is probably the first time she has ever done anything like this.

The road suddenly opens up into a giant bazaar. It seems this is the center of the city. There are people everywhere. Groups of kids are running around and being yelled at by vendors they pass and bump into.

Faye excitement overtakes her nervousness and I can't help laughing as she hurries around pulling me along with her. She starts dragging me form stall to stall just looking at everything. One has some weird trinkets another is selling some weird looking meat on a stick. Faye bought two of these and handed me one. It was really stringly, but otherwise not bad. She seemed to like it too. I like seeing her like this. Happy.

Such a diverse market place. I don't know what half of this stuff is. Some look like monster parts. There are some furs that have patterns and colors I've never seen before. Giant skulls and little itty bitty skulls are at one vendor selling bones for some reason. Some have horns and others look humanoid. I swear one was a dragon skull. There are a lot of fabrics being sold that are as smooth as silk and others that the vendor demonstrates cant be cut by a knife.

Faye is having fun looking at everything and asking about what they are. At weapon vendors she plays with Bows and looks at different types of arrow heads. At a vendor selling jewelry she makes me try some on so I make her try some on. I'm really turning into quite the girl. The women that owned the stall didn't let us touch everything though, and soon chased us away when we didn't buy anything. Some of the Jewels set in the jewelry I didn't recognize. The ones she wouldn't let us touch were glowing slightly. The metal ranged from copper to gold. Some were made from what seemed to be stone and wood. There were many I couldn't place just like the jewels. 'Do they have something like a periodic table here? Maybe I should start talking to Amicia more. That thing called her a Librarian.'

____

 

As it got darker the streets started to clear up and stalls were starting to close. There doesn't seem to be anything like street lamps here. So when it gets dark, the city shuts down. There are lanterns hanging outside a few establishments that look like restaurants or hotels/inns.

Were sitting on the lip of a giant fountain with a huge statue sitting in the middle of it. It depicts a man standing proudly over a humanoid body, with one foot on its head. I was going to ask Faye what it was, but then I saw a plaque so I read it instead of bothering her.

{Richard "Giant's Bane" Chrysos} 'Ohh' Is this Mistress's father? Is he really bigger then a giant? Because the "Giant" is smaller then him..

Faye scooched closer to me.

"Yuna, I had fun." She said looking at me with a smile. 'Huh, she doesn't seem awkward with me anymore. Thank god.' 

"Yeah, so did I." I tell her honestly. I just wish I had some money to buy her that bracelet she was looking at.. 

She just kept staring at me, seeming to be thinking about something as she started to bite her lip.

"Lets head back, okay?" She said grabbing my hand and pulling me up with her, after a short minute.

"Hahaha, Sure" I laugh and I can see her tail wagging again. I'm glad she got to have this. To act like a normal girl. At least by my standards of what normal is.

We start walking back out of the market heading to the tavern. I'm happy she seems to know where to go. Faye see's a stall and asks me to wait here for her. That she has a surprise for me. I agree to wait. The stall is only a little distance from me anyway. I start to look around at some of the various stalls that haven't closed yet. One is selling books and has a lantern lit. I would like to look at those..

I smell something sweet and I look over at Faye and I can see she has dropped the food she just bought on the ground. She is holding a man in her arms while they kiss..... She isn't pushing him away or anything, in fact, she looks to be smiling and giggling. The anger that was building in me dissipating when I see she is more then willing to kiss this man. They break off and the man grabs her hand and leads her away in a rush. 'Of course.' I can feel my heart tightening.

I was so worried that she would find a man in the future and leave me, that I didn't even consider that maybe she already had one. I never even asked. She was so small when I met her it didn't even occur to me. I'm so stupid. So very very stupid.

There she goes. Happily following where the man is leading her. She has already forgotten about me. 'Why is everything so blurry?'

___

 

"Where am I?" I don't recognize this place at all. I may have ran off in a random direction.. This isn't good. I have a terrible sense of direction in cities. In the woods, not even once have I ever gotten lost, but in a city? Everytime. I turn around to start to try and retrace my steps. 

"(Sigh) What are the chances I would run into you here?" A very familiar voice says. "I thought you were lucky." 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

[POV Faye]

 

   I can't believe I kissed her! And It worked! I could see she was struggling, that she was going to go berserk. Something about that person seemed to set her off. Her eyes were starting to have a red tint. I couldn't think of what to do to help her, when I just kissed her. It was only lightly, but still. Just thinking about it makes me flustered.

Her eyes immediately opened and I could see they were that beautiful gold again. The person ran out of the cellar as fast as they could. They knew Yuna was a Berserker. Now Amicia does too. And I now know she is a Librarian. That explains why everything in her pack is books. She isn't overreacting to hearing Yuna is a Berserker, so either she doesn't know what it is or she already suspected. 

__

I want to show Yuna the market. I know she wanted to explore all of the towns we went through. She would always try to look outside, but Amicia would always stop her.

I asked Amicia if I could take her out for a little while and she agreed rather easily. Amicia then started to give me "tips". That's what she called them. 

"Didn't you say to wait on the romantic stuff?" I remind her. I can feel my face burning.

"I said, "Wait until she was bigger." I reckon she is up to your level now, If not past it." Then she adds. "But you should know that better then me, you have been washing her." She said winking at me, making my face heat up even more. Its true. I was right about her not noticing how hairy she had gotten. I took the liberty of removing it and matching her to me. Removing all of the hair except a little patch above her vagina.

She was so excited when Clean removed it so easily. I told her that only Clean at lvl two could do it and she got really flustered, but then shrugged and muttered "I guess i'll just have to be hairy" To which I responded that I would remove it for her. She seemed unable to respond when I told her that. She had a defeated look on her face and nodded her head after a few minutes. She is so weird sometimes.

"I-i'm going to go now." I told her and walked/ran away from her. Amicia started to give me "tips" about sex. She seems so onboard with me being with Yuna. I'm only taking her to look at the city, why is she talking about this stuff?

__

It's going great! She's being quiet, but she can't hide her tail wagging from me anymore, even under the cloak. I can see her smile every time I look at her too. I wish I had gotten more money from those bandits so I could buy her something. She seemed really interested in a Book one stall was selling. There was also a wyvern skull she kept staring at. I can't afford any of that stuff though. I can only buy a little bit of food for us.

___

Amicia said that I should kiss her again here at the fountain, but before, I just did it without thinking about it. I want to, but I feel so nervous looking at her and thinking about doing it.

I don't think I should force it to happen, so I grabbed her hand and told her that we needed to head back. Maybe in the room something will happen. We will have more privacy there then we've ever had before.

_

On the way back I saw some sweet cakes being sold. I know she's going to love them. I ask her to wait here while I run over and buy them. I don't want the name to give away what they are. I haven't had one since I was a kid, when there was a festival in my town. They are a little pricey, but its worth it.

When I turned around after buying them, standing there was a man I haven't seen in thirteen years. It's my brother. I'm sure the expression on my face looks very similar to the shocked one on his. Even though he looks different, his smell is the same. He rushes into my embrace and I hug him. When he try's to kiss me on the lips and I turn so he gets my cheek.

"Hehehe, you haven't changed at all." He always used to try this all the time. He laughed and pulled away after kissing me.

"Of course, you're still my cute little sister." He says in an unfamiliar voice. "Hurry! We have to go. They are looking for you." He said pulling me behind him. I was still so shocked and happy with seeing him that I let him drag me a few feet before pulling my hand out of his grip.

"Wait! I can't leave Yuna." I shout at him and run back to where I left her.

"Faye!" Gabriel called out to me. I could hear him running after me.

"Yuna!!" I shout out when I get where I left her. There's no one here. Where did she go? What happened? I asked her to wait. I look at the nearby stalls, but she isn't there. Did someone take her? I was only gone a minute!

I can still smell her. I start following her scent when Gabriel grabs my hand again.

"What are you doing?! I told you that they are looking for you! We need to leave! Stop shouting!" He says forcefully in a low tone, trying to pull me away.

"I told you!" I growl, once again yanking my hand free. "I'm NOT leaving Yuna!!" I say her name loudly, calling out to her again.

"Who is Yuna? No, don't answer that. I don't care. They don't matter. Gods, with a name like th-"(SMACK) I slapped him hard enough to make my ears ring.

"Don't. You. Dare." Just because he's my brother doesn't mean he can say anything about her. "Either help me or fuck off." I turn around and smell around for her scent.

"What happened to my sweet little sister?" He asked in a shocked tone. "And how am I even supposed to help? I don't know what they smell like. Leave them, Faye. Now that you're free we need to get away. Why did you eve-"

"You stupid Goblin!! She's the only reason I'm even free! It was her! Not YOU." I'm wasting time. "I'm covered in her scent, so just smell me you idiot." There it is! I picked up her scent again. 'Brother please just help me.' I know i'm being mean, but Gods, what is wrong with him? Can't he see she means something to me?

I follow it a good ways ignoring my brother, but then it becomes impossible to keep it as we come into an area that is saturated in smells. Everything form Monster corpses to Perfume. I try for an hour to pick up her scent again, but to no avail. 'Why did she run o-'

"We tried Faye. They helped you escape and you've tried to find them, but its time to go. The gates will be closed soon and we need to get out of Yalanue." Gabriel says grabbing my arm again.

"I swear to the Gods, Gabriel, If you say something along the lines of leaving her again, then i'll leave you here!" Its a good thing that i'm not a Berserker. I would have attacked him already. How did it turn out like this? I should still be ecstatic over seeing him again, but I just want to strangle him right now.

"Faye, your acting crazy! I'm your brother!" He says exasperated. "Its my job to protect you, and we need to get out of this city."

"Hahahahahaha" It's his job to protect me? "You've been doing a great job of that, have you?" I ask sarcastically.

"You're Damn right I have! Why do you think you have been so well fed? That no one ever hurt you?" Gabriel claims. …….. "Just look at you. You look great! They even helped you gain levels so you would grow up. That's all thanks to me, your big brother."

"Are you being serious right now?" I can't believe what i'm hearing. 

"Of course i'm being serious. What did you think was happening all these years? Why the other slaves are treated so badly, but you're not?" Gabriel asks incredulously. He's a delusional madman.

'Amicia!' I have to tell Amicia. She'll help me find her.

"I don't have time to deal with you right now. I already have a way out of here. I'm not waiting for you to save me, brother, so get that nonsense out of your head. Follow me if you want." I tell him as I start running back to the tavern at full speed.

"What?!?" My brother yells. I'm starting to think all men are idiots. 

__

 

I bust into the tavern and search the ground floor. I end up scaring the Hostess. My hood has fallen off while I was running and she can see i'm a Beast-kin. She looks shocked at first, but doesn't look at me with disgust and leaves me be as I look around. Brother is following me wearing that weird uniform. She's not here. I run up the stairs and start pounding on her door. I almost hit her in the face when she opens the door because my brother was distracting me. Telling me I was drawing too much attention and to calm down. 

"Faye? What's wrong? Who's this?" Amicia says dodging my fist and tightening the sheet covering her clearly nude body.

"An Elf!" Gabriel says in disbelief. "You can't trust elves Faye!" I push into the room and shut the door in his face.

"That was my idiot brother. Yuna is missing!" I sob out at her, grabbing her shoulders.

"What happened?" She asks seriously, holding my arms forgetting her sheet and letting it drop.

"I don't know. One minute everything was going well. Then I had her wait while I went to get her a sweet cake, but my brother showed up and tried to take me away with him. When I went back to where I left her, she was gone." Amicia removed one of her hands and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"She didn't come after you when he dragged you off?" She asks after a moment.

"No, I don't thinks so.." now that she mentions it, why wouldn't she?

"Could she have known it was your brother?" Amicia asks.

"I don't see how. I only knew it was him because of his smell." (Knock,Knock) "Fuck off Gabriel!" I yell at the door. Amicia ignores the interruption. 

"Calm down and walk me through what happened, every detail." She said, I complied and recounted the best I could what happened. As for calming down, that's not possible.

__

"Did you kiss her?" She suddenly asks. I hear Ivaldri cough.

"N-no, I just didn't want to force it.." I don't want to talk about things like this with Ivaldri in the room.

"You idiot." what? "Ahh, not you Faye, though I have a feeling if you had kissed her this may not have happened." Amicia says rubbing her temples.

"What happened?" I ask

"(Sigh) Look at it from her point of view." She starts. "Not only did you embrace him and laugh when he kissed you. You ran off with him. So when she suddenly saw you with a man, willingly kissing and touching him, she must have thought he was your boyfriend or something. She got upset and ran away. That's why I said she's an idiot." Oh no. Could she really have thought I was kissing him? "Did you ever talk about having a relationship with anyone?"

"No. I didn't know it was necessary.." Who would I even have a relationship with? I've spent most of my life in a cage. "What should we do?" I ask desperately.

"Nothing." She says simply.

"Nothing?" what?

"Yup. Don't worry. There is no way that girl will leave you. She's just being emotional right now. She'll be back here on her own soon enough. You don't have to worry about her feelings since you weren't actually fooling around with some guy. How unlucky are you that this even happened? But its easy enough to fix." She says with confidence.

"I don't know.. Are you sure?" I ask. I'm just supposed to wait for her to come back?

"Uh-huh. Try not to worry too much." She said patting my hand. "Now, If that's all, I would like to get back to what I was doing." Amicia says waving at the door. 'ohh' I just remembered she's completely naked. I look behind her and Ivaldri's is naked covering his groin with a pillow and he is sitting up in the bed with a sour expression on his face.

"Uhhh, sorry." I say and squeeze out of the door and i'm assaulted by my brother.

"Are you okay?" He asks while grabbing me. After my talk with Amicia, i'm seeing things in a different light. I mean, I love my brother, even if he's an idiot. But i'm going to have to set some ground rules. I'm not a little kid anymore. He has some wild imagination if he thinks I've been living some kind of good life.

"You can't trust elves Faye! I don't want you talking with her anymore." He demands. (Sigh)

"First. Let go of me." I tell him as I separate from him. "You can't touch me like that anymore." 

"What? I can't hold my sister?" He said scoffing at me. "Stop talking crazy." He said trying to grab me again.

"Gods! What is wrong with you? Listen to me and shut up!" 'Geirdriful give me patience.' I pray. "We can touch, but not like that. You were touching my boob for Gods sake Gabriel! I'm not a little kid anymore. Its inappropriate." What If I saw someone touching Yuna's boob?.. The thought sends chills down my spine and makes my stomach tighten.

"Second. You can't tell me what to do! Not now not ever!" I say forcefully

"Fine. I'll be more careful about touching you, but i'm your OLDER brother. I can tell you what to do." He insists laying a hand on my shoulder.

"Stop. Touching. ME!" I smack his hand away. Was he always like this? "I don't care if you were to become a king! You. Cannot. Tell. Me. What. To. Do." I feel like I need to emphasize each word to get this through to him. "You are free to make suggestions or give advice, but you cannot tell me what to do." He just scoffed at me and crossed his arms. 'What is wrong with him?'

"Third. You will treat Yuna even better then you do me." I state. "But don't even think of touching her!" I hurriedly add.

"Her? So its a girl? If she's anything like her namesake, I'll have to worry about her touching me. Won't I?" He haughtily says.

"You!" He's your brother. Just keep reminding yourself. Geirdriful, don't abandon me now. "I swear Gabriel, Don't you ever imply such a thing again." 

"Fine." He said indignantly. "But i have some rules too. Firs-"

"IF." I interrupt him. "Your rules have anything to do with me, then keep them to yourself." I tell him and his look of annoyance only grows, but he remains silent. "I'm going to wait for Yuna downstairs. You can take this room for now." I say handing him the key to the room that Amicia got for me and Yuna. "When Yuna comes back you need to find other accommodations."   

"I'm just going to come and wait wit-" he says.

"No." I interrupt him again. "I don't want her to see me with you. You have messed things up enough." I told him as I walked away, but he grabbed my hand. AHHHH. Breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out.

"Faye. We are finally together after so long, can't we at leas-" I interrupt him yet again.

"No." I can't be near him right now. He's so infuriating! "Let. Go." He lets go. "What if she runs off again as soon as she sees you? What if she gets angry and I can't calm her down? You need to stay up here, Gabriel. We'll have time to talk later." I leave him standing there. I head downstairs and sit in a chair facing the door. The hostess asked me if I needed anything, but I just told her I was waiting for my friend. She left me alone after that and finished cleaning up before heading to bed, I assume.

__

Its late in the night and she still hasn't come back. Was Amicia wrong? Did she leave?

___

"She's still not back....." I feel like i've been waiting for days. I feel like i'm at the edge of a cliff and i'm about to fall off. "Please come back."

____

"Faye?" I hear Amicia call out. "Gods. She didn't come back?" Then I heard her tsk. "I'm sure she'll be back by the end of the day. Why don't you go get some sleep?"

"What if she's in trouble? I'm going to go look for her." I say standing up and head out the door.

"I don't thin-" I heard Amicia start to say.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

   It's been two days. I've searched all over. Even trying to ask at the gate to see if she was seen leaving despite the dangers of describing her. I even got robbed while looking around the slums, losing the little money I had left. There is no sign of her. I haven't slept. My brother is driving me insane with his constant pestering. 

"You said she would be back Amicia!!" I'm in her room. "You said there was nothing to worry about!"

"Somethings wrong. I don't believe she would just leave you like this." Amicia says calmly. It's not the first time I've exploded and started screaming at her. I could tell she was worried after she didn't show up the first night, but I can't stop myself from being mad at her. "I've learned she hasn't left the city, but that's all. I don't have any contacts in the castle or the guards there." She tells me. "Do you think you can get your brother to go back to the castle and see if he can find out anything?" She asks.

"I'll ask him." It would be dangerous for him to do so. He took off when he heard I had escaped. I haven't really talked to him about anything yet. Anytime i'm near him he just pesters me. "We have to go Faye! I'm sure she will be fine." And "I'm sure you'll see her again one day, but you need to be alive to do it!" Also my favorite. "She probably just left without you. Did you agree to meet her somewhere?" I may have smacked him a few more times. 

I have to get him to help me find Yuna. I have a really bad feeling. I think she was caught by Mistress. I think Amicia thinks so too. If he actually cares about me then he will go and look for her.