Flashes, Memories, Images.
Thousands of them coursed through her mind in a mere second, turning her anger and frustration into fear and despair.

"Stop! Please don't go."

 

Necro held Ace's arm as she turned to leave.

Flashes of her dream and Soleir's life still passing like a movie inside her mind.

She saw her go away as Soleir, She was seeing her go away as Necro. 

 

"Stay with me... I'll be with you."

 

Necro leaned forward as she hugged Ace from behind. 

She stood there in silence for a second before breaking from her hug and turning around, crying.

 

"What do you know about me?! You know nothing, yet you behave as if you had known me for a long time!"

 

"I... Know very little but... I've known you, I feel it! And I know you feel it too!"

 

"YES! I DO! And that's what pisses me off! Why do I know you!? Where do I know you from?! This is driving me insane!"

 

Necro jumped forward into her arms, Ace holding her dearly.

 

"The hell you think I know... But please don't go... I feel like I've seen you go before and it hurts!"

 

She held Necro's face, once again giving her a short and heartwarming kiss. As she parted. Ace's face and Nelphy's overlapped in her vision, almost as if a dejavu had managed to embed itself onto reality. 

Her crying face broke her heart, but she wouldn't let her go... Not again... Yet she was also unable to tell Ace the truth about them. She was afraid of her not believing it.

 

"Thank you... For being there for me without expecting anything in return..."

 

"That's what friends are for right?"

 

"Yeah..."

 

This was a first for Ace. Her whole life was directed to feed others' greed. Her childhood was a power-play where she was used as a measure of power for her beauty. Her late childhood she had to study non-stop to become a good and useful bride... And most of her teenage years were marked by ball after ball, trying to ascend her family's influence among other kingdoms... Until she was promised as a wife to that disgusting prince!

 

A couple of years ago she was sent to Ungri, to live with her Uncle and Aunt... The guise was that she was to study in the country's Royal School as the 2nd in line for the throne... But the truth was that she had been sent to tighten the bond between her parent's country and the southernmost country of the continent... Wallachia. 

She was meant to marry the first prince, who was studying at that very school. He was almost ten years older than her... And frankly disgusting. 

He was known for having a massive harem, full of young and naive girls, especially young servants. And aside from being a womanizer, he was disrespectful and biased. Thinking he was better than anyone else and only showing respect while in front of Ungri's Royalty...

A despicable man. He could not be called ugly though, his face was his biggest selling point for those naive girls who fell for him. But Ace only had eyes for one thing: Magic. And he was no magician. 

After months and months fighting her relatives over the marriage while visiting the Ivory Citadel many times, she decided it was best to run away. She let go of any of her ties with the Royalty the moment she discovered the worst truth.

Her family was broke and the prince in question had bought her. 

The sheer disgust she felt for her relatives who knew about the whole ploy, especially her very own parents, was overbearing. 

She left everything behind, stole clothes from a maid, and went on to become an adventurer, in the hopes of finding someone right for her and living a free life for once.

But now, she found that person, a person with overbearing magic, enough to blow the very foundations of her knowledge in magic... Yet that person was also from royalty, from the very thing she despised the most. 

How was she supposed to deal with that!? 

 

Ace sobbed as she rested her head on Necro's shoulder. Necro held her with all the affection she had and a little more, born from her past life. She knew now for sure this girl in her arms had something to do with Nelphy... But she still didn't know what. The mystery grew deeper at the same pace of their bonds. And in Ace's eyes, a red light started to shine, as her eyes became swollen from shedding all those tears. And again vanished, almost as if it had never happened in the first place.

 

After a couple of minutes Ace's sobs calmed down.

"Are you better now?"

 

"Yeah... Sorry I was a bitch to you"

 

"Don't worry about that... It's fine. Sorry for mistreating you earlier, but please never do that again."

 

"Okay... I'll tell you about what happened before later... It's a long story but... You should know it."

 

"Sure" Necro grabbed Ace's hand and rested her head onto her shoulder, as the two somewhat happily made their way towards the rest of the camp. Necro doing her best and making Ace laugh a couple of times along the way.

"Yo, salty girl!" Hal was the first to talk to necro as they arrived at the main camp. All the four tents were already set up.

 

"Hey, Hal..."

 

"You did a number on the little boy there... He's been daydreaming ever since you gave him that bowl... I had to set everything up alone with Mary. All he thinks about is food..."

 

Hal and the girls turned around to see a crazed Bid, seasoning a large deer with salt in front of a large campfire.

 

"We not using the regular fire-pit?"

 

"Nah... The prey is too large for it. But I'm not gonna chop trees down for a bonfire..."

 

"I feel ya..." Ace responded to Hal's depressed mutter... Apparently she had also had to cut trees down with magic before.

 

"Yea... When Bid becomes like this because of good prey or salt, it seems, he doesn't think of anything other than eating... The boy must have starved a lot before." Mary hopped in, giving some clarification to Bid's behavior. In this case, it might be very understandable, or so Necro thought.

 

Reality was much grimmer. Bid was an orphan, both his parents having died in a war when he was just a baby... Although the surviving soldiers managed to raise him until the war ended, he was left behind at a frontier town as soon as they scrammed back to their families...

Bid was only 5 when that happened. There's no such thing as orphanages in most countries. To avoid becoming a slave, which he almost did when he fell into a trader's trap, he had to work every day in the market, only to get some scraps of food that couldn't be sold. Money? There's no such thing for a 6 year old. Who do you think would pay them in money? People are not that kind. And as such he survived for almost 7 years, until at the age of 12 he was allowed to enter the Adventurer's Guild. Since he was still a minor, that only gave him the G-Rank, but hunting for food every single day made him rise surprisingly quickly. Not because he sold whatever he found, no, he ate every last bit he could lay his hands on. Bid killed so many monsters to secure his living without any money that only the proof of subjugation was enough to net him a substantial amount of money. Quests and Tasks? He barely made them until he reached F-Rank two years later. G rank tasks are generally herb-collection. Herbs are not food, so he wouldn't do it. Anyhow, by the age of 16 he was already a D-Ranker, and by the age of 20, he had become the youngest C-Ranker in the country.

How old is he now? I didn't tell you? Oh, Bid is nearing his 30's! Yeah right?! Hard to believe. 

Most of the party assumed one of his parents was an elf. Which, to be fair, is almost impossible, but not like even himself knows. So... His young looking appearance is yet another mystery.