Chapter Two
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Hi, a bit less stress-written but, if my word count isn't lying, about one and a half chapter worth of word count. I almost broke 5k in, like, three hours, y'all.

In other news, I have a beta! Which means the mistakes will run less rampant! All clap for Magikarp Karp, an evil, evil enabler from my CPwUR Discord and meanwhile I'll swap the chapters for corrected ones.

Today's warnings: violence, fantasy racism, powerful noble family dealing with crimminals in a way a powerful noble family realistically would. Also, Adetta gets pissed off for the first time since she was reborn. Also mentions of possible mental illness.

[Regalis: in search of Peace and Quiet!]

•chapter two•

Girl talks with father. Girl goes on a shopping trip. Girl picks up a stray.

•••

If Elijah and original Adelia started off on a bad foot which then became worse, then Elijah and Adetta of the current were-

Well.

Somewhere along the way (which Adetta bets was after the thunderstorm, or even during it) Elijah devolved into a duckling prone to anxiety if he was away from her for too long. Like, he would dissolve into a crying, panicking mess and the third time her parents tried to separate them for longer than an hour, Adetta called quits and just allowed Elijah follow her almost everywhere.

Upside was that when she studied—which took most of her time, because she was a nerd who loved reading everything that she got her hands on, as for her even a history book was, for her, a fantasy novel of great interest—so would Elijah. And he would remind her to stop and go eat something, or just bring snacks with him to the reading room. Adetta stopped trying to stop him after a series of pitiful looks.

Downside was- Downside was that he was suffering either from codependency, or DPD, she wasn’t sure which yet, and that was unhealthy. It would have been better if it were DPD of the two, but Adetta honestly preferred it was codependency instead—because that could be eventually broken and rid of with enough work. But then, he didn’t have problems making decisions for himself, he just really didn’t feel well while left Adetta-less, so it probably, hopefully, was.

And, hopefully, he’d grow out of it by the time his closeness to her could be interpreted by others as something of less innocent nature.

Or, worse, if Elijah got the idea that they were more than friends/stepsiblings/emotional support duo.

(It wasn’t that Adetta entertained the idea of having a wide selection of men to choose from, like a young lady of her standing probably would anyway, or that she feared a scandal; it was that she entertained the idea of being left completely alone on the romantic front, thank you very much, whether it was Elijah or anyone else.)

Yes, this also meant that he was incapable of sleeping by himself. Adetta understood during thunderstorms, but all the other times? But he was a child, frightened one who lost his parents recently, and he tended to be happier when around her, so she suffered through it.

Which, of course, made Rosaria jealous and therefore Adetta slept not with one additional tiny human in her bed, but two, because Rosaria was entering the age when she was convinced the world revolved around her and everything was hers—especially her beloved sister.

Who, which pissed Rosaria off to no end until she realized it gave no effect, took very little of it. Whenever Rosaria would throw a tantrum, Adetta would withdraw and grow very, very cold and curt, which frightened the child much more than any of their parents yelling, or threats of being put in time-out or otherwise disciplined. The upside was, Rosaria’s toddler-tantrums were few and far in between. The downside was, Adetta became the disciplining tool their parents would use against both other children. She gave her parents a stink eye every time they did, and they just beamed at her completely unrepentant.

The joys of being the oldest sibling, she guessed, despite the fact that Elijah was actually, chronologically, few months older than her. He was from the end of winter, and she was from early fall, which, actually, was rapidly approaching, and with it, her eight birthday.

As well as the beginning of the war.

She was becoming increasingly nervous, and everyone eventually noticed her fidgeting. Eli and Rosaria grew even clingier, the toddler demanding Adetta read for her up to four times a day, and Eli barely allowing her time to dress and bathe, and Crawforde with Penelope, previously content to largely leave their daughter to her own devices, started making more time for her.

That, and Crawforde unapologetically used her as an assistant with the massive mountains of paperwork he had to go through. Business and land management. But he let her stamp things with the family seal, and she did, with the gleefulness of a proper eight-year-old (to be).

“Father, and if I marry?” she asks him when he not-so-subtly insinuated that she maybe should start looking into this family headship business.

“Then the husband will either marry into our house, or you’ll become a Queen,” he answers.

“And if I don’t want to marry at all?” she presses, and he huffs out a chuckle and puts a hand on her head.

“You don’t know that for sure yet, but no matter what happens, you’re the eldest scion of the Bellville Archduchy, and you will inherit it eventually. What happens after is anyone’s guess.”

“And social pressures? Nobility are assholes.”

The last part startles a laugh out of Crawforde.

“The only one who can really make us do anything is the king, and he’s a friend of mine. And even if not, your mother and the queen are best friends, so if anything happens, we’ll just have his wife straighten him.”

“Huh. Okay. Is that where mother goes every fortnight? To the queen?”

He nods.

That would solve the mystery of where Penelope vanished every two weeks for two to three days. The Capital was about half a day ride from the Archduchy, and she would stay day or two. The queen never visited, but that much was to be expected—assassins and politicking and all that. Adetta wished she knew more about the queen, though, but the sources for [Regalis] were very sparse on her—as well as her mother. Just that they were friends and queen’s death really hit her bad.

(Well, now Adetta had much bigger incentive to try and stop the princess’ accident if at all possible. She didn’t care for the prince, but her mother was a whole different story.)

She sometimes wondered why, but it was probably because they weren’t all that important characters.

Except, her mother would later join Ifa Nalore and lead an army against Sheothia in the second war once Adelia was killed in the game proper, acting as the final villain, so Adetta would argue if she was really a side character.

Also, why the fuck would elves so eagerly accept a human noblewoman?

A riddle for another day.

♦►☼◄♦

The summer eventually started to morph into winter. The air grew colder, the heat-caused storms to subside, turning into cold rain with a lot of wind and little thunder. The trees were slowly turning yellow, orange, red, and brown. Then suddenly the fall was here, Adetta’s birthday in a week, a week after that a planned countryside trip to celebrate because the weathermaster predicted the last storm of the season exactly during her birthday. Thankfully Adetta wasn’t old enough to have her social debut yet, so her birthday, for now, was purely a family affair.

However, now, a week before she turned eight, her father decided to take her and Elijah to the town maybe half an hour away in carriage. It was part of the Bellville territory, he had some business with the Mayor and so Penelope had him pick up a dress order for her, and take the eldest children—Adetta, so that she could find a nice present (which everyone knew she’d make a beeline for the bookstore), and Elijah because he still suffered being apart from her about as well as a month ago.

They enter the city with little fanfare—just them, their coach and two guards from the house because you’re never certain what might happen. Of course, Crawforde wouldn’t have taken the guards if he were alone, as he was fairly skilled in both sword and his—innately destructive—magic.

The town is small, rather picturesque medieval-ish location. It doesn’t even stink, which Adetta initially slightly feared. Medieval cities, at least in the history of Mary’s world, stunk of excrements and everything else.

They stopped briefly before the city hall for Crawforde to dismount.

“Not that I think anything will happen,” Crawforde says, “but if it does, you’re allowed to use your magic to maim. Even kill if your life depends on it. Understood?”

They both nod and he leaves them without much further ado, as the coach turns the carriage towards the bookstore. The store is rather small and not at all impressive compared to the Bellville library, but the owner makes sure to always have the new things in stock—fiction, mostly, contrary to Bellville’s stash of mostly political, historical and theoretical books, and others on every topic but genuine fun.

And Adetta liked to indulge in a cheesy romance novel sometimes.

“Are we not going with the guards?” Elijah asks as they leave the carriage, the two guardsmen leisurely standing next to it, chatting about something.

“No, I don’t like making fake crowd in the store anyway. They know to come if I scream.”

“What if you can’t scream?” the boy asks, and she chuckles.

“Magic reacts to emotions, and my magic is dual Wind and Lightning,” she tells him. “If I’m panicked or angry, what made me panicked or angry will probably get fried and slashed, repeatedly, in random order. And I’ll have a plenty time to scream.”

“Oh,” he says, and that’s that. He follows her to the entrance, but she stops right before the door, her sensitive hearing picking something in the quiet hum of life that doesn’t quite fit.

Soft, pained whimpering and curses, and a sound of something striking something else that sounds suspiciously like flesh. She moves from the bookstore door, suddenly stiff and alert, and towards the edge of the alleyway.

There, in the shadows, four grown men are kicking a tiny child, laying curled on the ground. The child is maybe five, at most, dressed in rags, bleeding and bruised, with animal ears pressed against his skull and tail tucked between his folded legs.

Ah, Adetta thinks, fantasy racism. How lovely.

One of the thugs gets slammed into the wall with a gust of magical wind before they can really react. Before she can ever consciously make a decision—her magic just surges, eager to answer its wielder sudden, swift rage.

She doesn’t take long to take advantage of their obvious confusion, as they haven’t noticed her yet. She takes a deep breath and raises her voice for the first time since she was reborn, just to shriek, shrill and loud; “HELP! BANDITS!”

Because as furious as she is, she still isn’t stupid and knows that taking on three grown men is not something she’s capable of with her current age and body. Yes, her magic is more powerful than the average, but she’s eight, and relying exclusively on instinct.

The coach of their carriage pounces into the alley once she’s barely finished screaming, Bellville guards hot on his heels. He roars—a twig of a man, really, but tall and sharp-faced—and jumps at one of the thugs, because how dare they make his lady shriek? Adetta doesn’t waste time, though, grabbing Elijah by the wrist and sprinting towards the cowering beastfolk child. One of the thugs notices her and makes grab for her hair—long, pale lilac, standing out in the darkened alley like a light—but her magic lashes with her anger and he roars as the magical wind slashes his hand viciously through skin and muscle.

She doesn’t remember being angry too many times since her rebirth, and it was always a silent thing and never harmful, always passing after few minutes to an hour.

She doesn’t remember ever being furious.

She turns her head to look at her assailant, eyes pink and glowing with nothing short of murderous rage, and he, even through the pain of mutilated arm, gasps in fear.

The next air blade slams across his chest, ripping the leather jacket, and linen shirt and his skin, and knocking him backwards into the wall before anyone can even jump at him.

She’s not even doing this. Well, she is, but not consciously—it’s her magic, surging happily to serve her in rage after years of calmness, after years of her not needing it. It’s as if it now developed a mind of it’s own, focusing its destructive power on any and all she turns her rage towards.

She tramps it down, and can almost feel the disappointment of the magic, as if it were sentient (and maybe it was, who knows, it was magic), as she brought it back under her normally near-ironclad control. She falls down on her knees by the curled child, and maybe scrapes her knees but there are much more pressing matters at hand.

The child is breathing still, at least, which is good. But he’s shivering and whimpering, and flinches when she moves too close.

“Elijah, how good is your healing ability?” she asks her stepbrother, and he blinks at her owlishly.

“Uh, I mean, I still haven’t learned anything-“

She gives him a look. “You healed my papercut few days ago. Can you try alleviating the pain?”

“Yes, I- I can try,” he gulps, and holds his hands over the child. It whines, curling even tighter into a fetal position and looks at the two of them.

The child has the most striking, blue eyes Adetta has ever seen.

“It’s alright now,” she tells the child softly, smoothing her features as much as she can. Her hands still shake with rage and her magic still writhes right under the surface, but she stomps it down. Not now. “It’s going to be fine. We will help, okay?”

She keeps softly speaking to the child as Elijah uses his magic with the water from his flask, and whatever he does works, to a degree at least, because the whimpering lessens and some of the smaller bruises on the child’s body seem to age and heal from angry red to ugly purple and even rotten greenish-yellow right before their eyes.

Elijah starts breathing harder, and then she stops him.

“It’s okay. You’ve done enough, you can rest now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It was really helpful.”

Elijah takes a deep breath and smiles, as Adetta turns back to the beastfolk child. He’s looking at them, scared but somewhat hopeful, and she sighs.

“Can you stand?” she asks the child slowly, and it sits up slowly.

“Miss?” the coach asks from where the guards have tied the whimpering thugs down. “Uh, I-“

“Take the bandits to the carriage for now, I will deal with them later,” she tells him coldly.

“Might I ask what will happen to them?”

“They will be dealt with,” she says, and those of the thugs who are still aware yell at her that no, they won’t, who the hell she thinks she is anyway, and some choice racial slurs directed at the child they were kicking. Adetta closes her eyes, takes a fortifying breath when her magic threatens to surge and decapitate the idiot on the spot and says; “if they think that murdering a defenseless child, just because he has animal ears and tail, is perfectly okay, then when will they turn towards everyone else? They don’t respect intelligent life, and therefore theirs should not be respected either. Do you understand?”

“Milady-“

“I want them treated like the rabid animals they are and put down,” she growls, and the coach and guards both shiver and nod, taking the men away without any further arguing. They have never saw their little lady angry before, let alone furious, and it frightened them.

Adetta, on the other hand, sighs and paws at her eyes, suddenly very weary and exhausted.

What a mess. What a fucking mess.

But she’s glad she’s here anyway, as it enabled her saving this child. She also knew the law of the land—as an Archduchess, she was only a step down from the Royalty, and so attacking her was basically a death sentence all on its own.

She helps the tiny beastfolk child—it’s a boy, she later realizes—stand up and allows him to lean on her for support. He’s skinny, good head shorter than her and weights almost nothing. She allows Elijah to support himself on her other side, as he’s exhausted after using his magic, and they slowly make their way to the carriage.

In the end, it’s pure stubbornness on her part that they even get there, as her magic finally recedes back under control, leaving her also physically exhausted on top of mentally worn out.

It’s just one of those days.

She pushes both Elijah and the child into the carriage before climbing in herself, and gives the coach a stink eye when he tries to say anything. Yes, he might’ve flown to the rescue first, but her patience is in really short supply right now, especially for prejudice- and racism-fueled quips.

“We’re going to the city hall to see my father, now. Have those rabid beasts follow the carriage,” she tells the coach and the guards before closing the door. She’ll apologize to them later—for now, she’s still mad. She does a one-eighty, though, or tries to, when she speaks to the beastfolk boy in the carriage, trying not to startle him any more than he already is; “are you better now?”

The carriage lurches and he startles, whining pitifully and latching onto Elijah’s sleeve. Her stepbrother wordlessly asks her for help, but doesn’t push the boy away, the same way she didn’t push him away that first thunderstorm, or any other time he was upset or scared.

It feels like a personal development.

Adetta instead goes for the basket that the cook prepared for them for the road and pulls out some sandwiches and a bottle of water. She considers just giving the sandwich to the boy, but with how hungrily he’s looking at it, she opts to instead rip it and feed him piece by piece, afraid of what might happen if he scarfs it down too fast. They’re halfway through the sandwich when the carriage stops and the coach knocks.

“We’re by the city hall, Milady”

“Go fetch my father, then,” she replies, not stopping what she’s doing. The coach says something affirmative and walks into the city hall. Her father comes out, Mayor in tow, just when she’s done feeding the beastfolk boy.

It’s the Mayor who speaks first.

“Melvin, my boy, what happened to you!” he shrieks, and it’s one of the thugs who answer. Adetta growls and all but pounces at the door, pretty much just kicking it open.

“Justice happened, that’s what!” she snarls, jumping down and foregoing the steps, landing gracefully on the paved road. Elijah and, subsequently, the beastfolk boy, scramble after her, and she sees in the corner of her eye Elijah helping the smaller child down.

“Milady!” the Mayor, a short, stout man, startles when she, a tiny child with a newly-sparked fury, glares at him with nothing short of contempt.

“Father!” she says forcefully, and even Crawforde startles, so used to calm, collected Adetta who always spoke softly, if with a bite. “These four animals would have very nearly murdered a child had Elijah and I not stopped them!”

Crawforde looks at her then, and at Elijah and the little child that unlatches himself from the boy only to latch to Adetta’s dress, at all the bruises and ragged clothes, bare, bruised feet, split lip, dog ears pressed to his skull and tail between his legs. What he sees, Adetta isn’t sure, but his attitude changes as if with a snap of fingers.

Her father looks between the little beastfolk boy and the rapidly paling mayor, something changing gradually in his face and demeanor when he realizes just exactly what has happened. His face morphs into something ugly, saturated with the very same brand of rage she felt not so long ago. The smell of ozone fills the air in his immediate vicinity, his hair and clothes begin to swat on a wind that isn’t there, and lightning begins to surge up and down his body.

Adetta might have inherited her mother’s looks, but the fury is the exact mirror of her father, right to the magic, previously under ironclad control, suddenly free and lashing out.

It’s the first time she sees her father angry, and she’s infinitely glad it’s not directed at her.

“I have told you, Mayor Hurley, over and over again, that any kind of discrimination against non-humans will not be tolerated anywhere within my territory, have I not?” he says, voice hard and deceptively level, but his eyes speak for him, scream even. They resemble storm clouds now, and not at all the sea on a clear day.

“Y-yes, my liege, I-“ the Mayor stumbles in his words.

“Then why, pray tell, Mayor Hurley, is there a starved, homeless, beastfolk child on your streets, nearly murdered by your citizens?” Crawforde looms over the man, who starts to sweat and squeak. “Why was this child, younger than my own, nearly murdered by your son? Why was he not taken in by the orphanage and cared for, like a child should be?”

Before the Mayor can answer, his son does so for him.

“Because it’s a filthy animal, that’s why!”

And that, Adetta thinks without pity, is how you sign your own death sentence.

Crawforde straightens his spine, takes a deep breath and seemingly calms down-

Only to lash his hand out, and with it a mixture of wind and lightning, striking the man in the left leg, quite probably shattering the bones in and frying the muscle. The Mayor’s son howls in agony, but Crawforde’s eyes are on the Mayor.

“All four of them will be executed today, before dawn,” he says, voice low, sharp and very dangerous. “I am the owner of this land, and I make the rules. If the rules are broken, there are consequences. And if those rabid creatures think that they’re justified in killing an innocent child just because he has animal ears and tail, then they don’t deserve to live.”

It’s not word for word what Adetta said, but it’s exceptionally close and she can’t help a small smile. She might have been someone else entirely, a whole life away, but as much as she’s her mother’s miniature, she’s also her father’s daughter through and through.

He leaves no room for the argument, and whatever begging tactic Mayor had in mind dies before it’s let out with just one hard glare. The city guards drag the thugs, kicking and screaming, to the jail under the city hall.

“It’s okay,” she tells the small child quivering behind her, latched onto her dress. “It’s going to be okay. I will take care of you?”

He looks up at her with something that’s almost hope.

Of course Elijah takes that moment to latch onto her other arm with a jealous huff. Wonderful.

“Father, I want to go home,” she says tiredly.

“Oh,” Crawforde blinks at her. “Did you get the book you wanted?”

“You think I had time?” she asks him, trying to telepathically shove at him all the tiredness and weariness she’s feeling, so that he understands. He sighs, kneeling in front of her.

“What are we supposed to give you for your birthday then? Books are the only thing you like, and even then if you’re not the one to pick them we’re probably going to get it wrong.”

Is he criticizing my choices? Adetta thinks. Rude. They only seem random.

She looks down at the ragged child clinging to her.

“Let me take him to the manor instead then,” she says, motioning the boy with her head.

“I was going to do it anyway, it doesn’t count,” Crawforde answers, and she huffs.

“Is there a healer in the town?” she asks instead. She’s pretty ignorant as to the layout and residents—city hall and the bookstore, and that one inn they go to sometimes at central plaza are the only things she’s aware even exist in the town.

“Yes,” Crawforde answers, looking at the boy. “I’ll take you there.”

“Okay. We’ll just rest for a bit and then go shopping. Elijah and I are both tired, after all.”

“You I understand, but why Elijah?”

Elijah blushes. “I, um, I helped, too. With my healing magic.”

“He numbed the pain, and even healed some bruises,” Adetta clarifies.

“That- That is an exceedingly good starting level for healing power,” Crawforde praises, patting Elijah’s head. The boy blushes happily and buries his head in Adetta’s shoulder.

What is her life even, she’s supposed to be a loathsome villainess, not a cuddle-toy for sad children.

She doesn’t push any of them away, and Crawforde smiles knowingly at her, much calmer than a moment before.

♦►☼◄♦

The visit to the healer is… Weird. At first, the doctor tries to be cheeky and weasel out of treating a beastfolk child. Then, Crawforde comes down on him like a wrath of gods, and suddenly the old fart is perfectly polite and obedient.

Well, when you’re threatened with your whole livelihood being shut down by possibly the only person who actually can, you start singing a whole new song.

Normally, her father would never do this. Normally, her father isn’t so pissed off that standing next to him ends with a painful zap of magical electricity.

“Do you have anyone? Anywhere to go to?” Adetta asks him later, when he’s sitting in a chair looking at his bandaged hands in wonder. Thankfully he’s not too terribly hurt, just bruised, as beastfolk are generally far sturdier than humans.

“No,” he answers timidly. “It was me and mom, and mom is- Mom is-“

Is it bad that Adetta actually has experience dealing with those situations?

She opens her arms wordlessly, and the boy crashes into her chest and curls on her lap, bawling into the front of her dress and she hums softly, patting his head gently as running her hand through his hair is impossible with how matted it is.

“Can you tell us what happened to your mom?” Crawforde asks softly, kneeling by the two children. For a moment, he gets no answer, but the boy looks at him eventually. Adetta can’t see it with how they’re sitting, but her father looks as if he just got punched in the gut.

“They took her,” the boy says. “The bad men, they took her, and when I found her, she wouldn’t move anymore!”

“Fuck,” Adetta hisses, pressing her cheek to the top of his head. “Fucking- What the fuck is wrong with those pathetic excuses of people in this fucking rat-infested shithole.”

Nobody comments on her crude language.

“Child,” Crawfode says with a pained voice, “how old are you?”

“Um… Six summers.”

“Fuck,” he says in the exact same manner as Adetta had, and hides his face in his hands.

♦►☼◄♦

“What’s your name?” she asks the boy once he calmed down, because it just escaped her before. He blinks at her owlishly.

“Mom always called me Pup.”

“That’s not a name, though,” Adetta says. “That’s an endearment.”

“Then I don’t have a name.”

She sighs, pressing her forehead against the top of his head. Se can feel his ribs, even through her dress, and it’s not a pleasant sensation.

“How about you name him then,” Elijah proposes off-handedly, from where he’s sitting on one of the chairs. Adetta blinks up at him in question.

“I mean-“

“I want it,” the boy says before Elijah can finish his thought. “I want a name. Please?”

Look what you’ve done, she thinks, looking at a wholly unapologetic Elijah.

Except how and what is she supposed to name the boy? She closes her eyes in thought, rummaging through her memories. It seems more appropriate if she picks something from the time she was Mary, anyway. It takes her a moment, but she manages to come up with something coherent.

“Fenrir,” she declares. “From now on you’re Fenrir Grimm. How does that sound?”

“I like it,” Fenrir tells her, snuggling closer. Elijah squawks, jealous and red on the face, but she just sticks her tongue out at him.

♦►☼◄♦

She does get to go to the bookstore eventually, much later, with a freshly washed, barbered and clothed Fenrir and Elijah who, once he managed to latch onto her hand, didn’t let go.

He and Fenrir were already glaring at one another, and she felt a migraine coming.

“You two, either behave or stay in the carriage,” she admonishes eventually, before the bookstore’s door. “Do you understand?”

They both nod and, after a brief consideration, let go of her hands. Elijah knows that Adetta is not a person to make empty threats, and Fenrir maybe senses that she isn’t. They enter the store after her and the owner doesn’t even bat an eye at Fenrir, unlike most of the townsfolk. The boy is looking around as if he never seen a book before which, quite probably, is actually true.

He most definitely doesn’t know how to read either. She’ll probably teach him, if he’s to stay with them—and she’ll make sure he will. He’s six and completely alone.

The shopping goes without further incidents.

♦►☼◄♦

They stay to the execution, but the children are told by Crawforde to stay in the carriage, and Adetta doesn’t have energy left to complain, or to even stay awake. She falls asleep on Elijah’s shoulder, and he falls asleep, too, his head rolling to rest on top of hers. Fenrir curls with his head on her lap. If he falls asleep, she doesn’t know.

They don’t wake up until they’re back at the mansion.

“You’re telling mom,” she slurs at her father as he carries her inside, and falls back asleep.

16