Yuuki teleported back to her room and quickly read through the papers to better understand her mission, and a few things stood out to her. She was allowed to kill in self defense. She had to prevent any attempt made on the second prince’s life. If her race was revealed, she would have to hide any connections to her house and act as if she were just a normal kitsune, living outside the Federation. And lastly, she would have to make no reports.
After that, she read up what her forged backstory was. She was supposedly a random homeless fox-kin from a small village in the middle of nowhere. She also read that memories of her existence have already been implanted, so now she just had to go there and be noticed by a mage-seeker that will arrive in a week.
Having memorized the contents, she turned the papers into dust, all aside from her new identification papers. She was preparing to leave to her destination before she stopped and turned to Alice, happily eating her lunch.
She then motioned toward the air in front of her and the dust recollected them into papers. Yuuki read these all the papers over once more, which was unnecessary considering her perfect memory, and vaporized them once more.
--
Gilbert the mage-seeker was annoyed. He was sent to some backwater village in a forest that didn’t even belong to any country. It was absurd! There were probably no more than a hundred people living there! The chance that there would be a child talented with magic is near zero. And yet, he carried out his orders because orders were orders. He tapped on his mount to speed up, so he could get there faster. He was so close that stamina wouldn’t matter anymore.
--
The town didn’t even have roads, it was just houses next to each other. There was no market, there wasn’t even a town square. The village was going about, business as usual, each doing their job. A tall man with red hair in a white uniform riding a flaming beast did draw some attention away from their jobs however. He got off the beast, which disappeared, and calmly walked into the town hall, ignoring the stares.
He entered through the door, closed it behind him and bowed respectfully toward the village elder. The elder, an old man with shaman-like clothes returned the gesture.
“How can I help you?” Asked the elder.
“Good day, sorry for the intrusion. I am a mage-seeker in service of Estervale. Are there any children ages 6-12 in this village with potential for magic?”
The shaman raised an eyebrow. “I doubt any parents would be willing say goodbye to such young children.” He thought for a while. “I’ll ask around, but until then, there is one child in particular who might be what you’re looking for. Her parents abandoned her in the village and disappeared. Follow me.” The old man stood up and walked out the door with surprising confidence in his step and Gilbert followed him.
Gilbert was led outside of the town to a small clearing filled with broken boxes, crates and even a smashed open barrel. Inside the boxes were different shiny stones, small pieces of metal, some clothes and Gilbert even saw some cheaper jewelry here and there.
“What is this place?” Gilbert asked.
The elder sighed. “This is her ‘hoard’. She likes collecting small trinkets.”
“Hi!” They heard a childish voice from behind them, making them turn around. They saw a young fox-kin with white fur, wearing mismatched colorful clothes and a thick layer of dirt. She was hanging upside down from a tree by her legs, looking at them with a big smile.
The elder looked at Gilbert. “I’ll leave you two to discuss what you need. And make sure to keep an eye on her!” Saying that, the elder walked back toward the village.
Gilbert looked back to where the fox-kin was, only to see that she wasn’t there. He looked around and still couldn’t find her. He then heard something rustle, so he cast a spell just to be sure. He saw a small, glowing child-like silhouette circling around him, getting closer. He summoned some vines from the ground to grab her ankle, causing her to trip and fall, becoming visible.
“To cast invisibility at such a young age, I commend you. Did someone teach you?”
The girl looked at him and pouted. “You cheated!”
Gilbert sighed and tried to seem as friendly as possible. “I did, sorry. How about this.” He approached the young girl, squatted down and handed her a shiny silver coin. “I give you this, and you answer some of my questions.”
The girl looked at the coin with wide eyes and quickly snatched it from Gilbert’s hand, and hugged it. “Deal!”
“Alright, first off. What should I call you?”
“I’m Lizzie! Nice to meet you!”
“Nice to meet you too, Lizzie. My name is Gilbert.”
“Are we friends now?” She asked enthusiastically.
“Yes we are.” He smiled warmly at the adorable little fox. “So, how did you learn to go invisible?”
“Oh, that, I was running in the forest and there was this big thing, like a bear, but with lots of eyes, and I was running and running and it also kept running and then I hid behind a rock and then it, and left.” The girl was beaming with pride, as if she was telling the story of her heroic deeds.
So you don’t actually know and just do it on instinct? Gilbert almost said it out loud, but reconsidered when he looked at the girl’s smile. “Is there anything else you can do?”
“Yes, I can climb really good and I can run really fast and I can drink water really quickly.”
“No, I mean what other magic can you do?”
The girl looked at him, confused. “What’s a magic?”
Gilbert realized this wouldn’t get anywhere so he took out a small stone with strange writing on it from his pouch. “Here, hold this.”
Lizzie held the stone and it suddenly began glowing a bright violet color before cracking in half. Gilbert stared at the cracked stone that fell out of her hands for almost ten seconds.
“What was that? It felt warm.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He knew he had to choose his next words very carefully. “By chance, do you know who Mystra is?”
The girl thought for a second before answering. “Oh her, yeah! She visited me once! She’s a nice lady, she gave me stuff.”
Gilbert was practically sweating. “Yeah, right, great. Uhhhh….” He didn’t exactly know how to proceed. “Do you have your identification papers?”
“Yeah, lemme get’em” She ran over to a tree trunk and started digging with her hands. After around half a minute, she took out a small metal box with some magic symbols on it. Gilbert recognized them as glyphs to ward against water. “I was told to take care of them, because it will be annoying if I don’t.”
Gilbert opened the box she handed him. “Elizabeth Ashwood. It’s a nice name.” The two smiled at each other. “Right, everything seems to be in order, just one more question. Would you like to attend the Estervale Institute of Magic? You will be given a place to live, food and be taught different things for free.”
The fox-kin thought for a second. “Hmmm… can I eat meat there?”
“Yes.”
“Weee! Free meat! Free meat! Free meat! Free meat!” She was running circles around Gilbert with her hands in the air while chanting.
“Will you need help to bring your things there?”
Lizzie stopped and looked at Gilbert with confusion. “Why would I want take it there?”
“Because someone might take things while you’re not here?”
“So? If they want it, they can have it. I only collected the things they didn’t want.”
There was something poetic about the abandoned child collecting abandoned things, that only made Gilbert more attached to ‘Elizabeth’.
“Let’s go back to the village, I’ll explain everything soon.”
Such a nice child