Lukas is very quiet today.

Not because he's sick or anything. No, the backlash of treasured, seriously do not eat, food poisoning all mostly better after a week of careful rest. Mostly. There are some...permanent side effects. But nothing to do with his voice or anything. He's just feeling very... down, oh ho ho.

That bedrest grounding time did force us to spend even longer trapped in a very honestly boring military outpost.

Nothing much to do there, especially for so long as Mother and Grampa were apparently busy getting pulled away. Nothing for me to do other than sneaking out and grilling my own yakitori skewers. I sold them for a pretty penny and got all the free labor from hungry desperate soldiers.

Ah, poor things. To be so crazy over plain at wild onion and meat skewers....

Really glad to be getting out of there. In fact, today is a day for celebration. We're riding back home today. Huzzah!

While the untraditional field trip of a leprosarium of all places was very informative, and a real eye-opener, I am very glad to get out of there. Perhaps when I'm older and not as restricted will I be able to make better use of my time and presence there.

For now, I can only tackle what I can reach.

That and I miss my rich girl's life, work, and conveniences. Surrounded by servants. Catering to my every order and demand. Soft beds, soft comforts, and decadent food.

The military ration life is not for me!

The mess hall was not a kid-friendly dining establishment. Meals sucked. The first place I visited when I figured out how to break out of the inner keep was the mass kitchens. Too dry. Too salty. Too hard? All dried and preserved, even the veggies. There was so much meat. Full protein of hunted game to keep all those muscles running.

I understand food is hard to transport but seriously? Anything? I think I lost quite a bit of weight.

Of course, a problem is that no one can even touch let alone bring over produce from the leprosarium valley for fear of contamination. Very inconvenient.

How can anyone survive out there, let alone keep training, when their tongues are dying? Well, I suppose they don't know any better. Another thing to do when I get back to my home 'office'. Send food aid. No, not 'food, but aid and things to start some better self-contained sufficiency out there. Plant more onions and herbs in the empty badlands! Anything! Trees to block off some of that erosion! Buckwheat? Lentils? That can survive out there? It's colder out here, brrr. Do people like potatoes despite them being relatively new and strange? Will that work?

The tastiest thing there were the fresh eggs, which I'm pretty sure they're raising a pack of dino chickens for. Only those things can survive out in the badlands, and feed themselves by hunting.

I sure hope Georgie has fun for the rest of his...run.

It's fine. Grampa promised he'll be marched back by the harvest season. I can totally trust my crazy muscle-headed grampa not to get my weak little civilian Jr. chef killed in there, probably. Do good Georgie, please help fix the new outpost menu while you're at it. May you march back stronger.

We however have the balloon, so chop chop. Fly and park this thing down, I'm feeling woozy!

But really now, Lukas is so much nicer and quieter. What a good little boy in the balloon. Such a good minion when put in his place. Why?

For a few reasons really.

One, he's grounded. Lots of trouble with Gable, no more freedoms. Only recovery and kiddy leashes. Not that it really matters when he spent most of the week rolling around in food poisoning-like pain.

Two, the forced bed rest was a perfect time to shave his head. After all, you can only put me and a weakened Lukas in the same room for so long, with no babysitters, before I reach for the razor. That boy sleeps like the dead. It's somehow a little uneven but who can tell?

My own grounding was so worth it. After all, there's nothing to do in the military outpost.

Three. He shrunk.

I lost weight?

Lukas lost weight, height, and time. He officially shrunk from the effects of eating that damn peach?....

Ahahahahahahhahaha!!!

"Only about 5 centimeters kiddo, aww come on Luky-poo. Don't cry. Pumpkin pie, stop rubbing salt in the open wound! There, there Lukas, you'll grow back that weight and height in no time! Or 8 months given what you ate...." Grampa tries comforting the shocked silent boy from the driver's seat.

The now slightly smaller boy makes the sound of a kicked piglet, a loud hiccup bringing forth the hint of tears. Which prompts Gable to not only slap Grampa upside the head but change Lukas's kiddy seat to his lap.

What a blessing. Sheesh, some kids get all the luck. Grow a couple of months younger and sit in Gable's lap!

"My awesome shrunk..." Lukas sniffles through his sadness.

"Heeehee funny big bruder. Stooopid." my sister laughs.

"You're stupid stinky..." Lukas yells back, much weaker than usual.

"Heeehehahaha big bruder get smaller and smaller to be little bruder! Smaller than Lily!" she cackles menacingly.

Oh, critical hit Lilyanne. Big sister is so proud.

"Noooo, wah Gable! Cap! I don't wanna. I'm never eating not bacon again." he weeps pitifully into Gable's tired but comforting hold.

Ah, that is not the sort of lesson we should be walking away from here. Please eat your fruit and vegetables, everyone. Moderation is key.

But oh well, Lukas has even more time to learn them apparently, practically aging backward. What a dangerous fruit. Information about it can never leak. Not that it's at any risk? At least from my own memory, hell even I didn't know!

The breeze from the balloon is quite refreshing after all this time. The lure of heading homebound is even sweeter. All is well.

I'm not ignoring my own mother or anything.

"DAAAAAAAAAAARLLIIIIIING~!!!!!"

"Butters, you are a grown woman and I will not have you disgracefully jumping out this balloon midair. Am I understood?"

"Yes, Gabbey."

Can you blame me?

At Gable's seemingly psychic turn and scolding, Mother sniffs back to her seat and all is well in the balloon.

Down below the bird's eye view, I can spot what Mother must be aiming for. A little spot of dark red, a drop of blood against all the.... in all the...hey wait...is my house bigger?

Oh my god, it is?! How did the property get so much larger?!

A whole outer wall has been added much further down and out, concaving the property majestically. You might as well put a giant moat in there!

But instead, in between the old and new walls are not just the decorated lawns, hedges, and hidden safety features but actual buildings. A brand new annex, no multiple of them. With their own courtyards and paved pathways.

Did we build a lake? Oh my god is that a whole glass palace? What the hell?!

Sure, we've built new annexes and additions before in my memory, perhaps improved extra living quarters for the servants or my own stables. But nothing to this extent?! Not even half of this!

It's down in front of the said manmade lake and crystalline structure, a greenhouse glass palace still in construction, that the balloon aims and dives at. More specifically the safe green lawn in front of it.

Oh, thank god. Grampa, please don't drive me down a pool of water, wrought iron, and glass shards oh please.

"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRLLLIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGG~!!!"

It's like watching a loose cannon being shot out. Barely touching down is apparently good enough, and Gable does nothing but sigh, smacking at Grampa to stop laughing as Mother quite literally dives out. Giving up entirely as she shamelessly runs past the shimmering lakeside.

Flower petals float through the air as she breezes through them, the long edges of her dress blowing dramatically. The soft swaying grass, softer reflections of the nearby water, and sparkling glass make the scenes all the hazier. All the more wonderfully romantic and she runs headfirst, right into the waiting arms of...

...Alfonso.

"DARLING!?! So mean, so cruel! Don't you miss me terribly too? Oh, you don't love me anymore do you!?!!" Mother sobs in our butler's gentle hold.

Gentle in that he is literally holding a pile of very soft and bouncy-looking duvets. Folded over and wrapped, they partly restrain Mother from immediately jumping off and clawing my father's clothes off. Or eat his face whole. Or whatever it is that humans do when they're stupidly lovey-dovey.

Her aim was honestly pretty spot on if not for Father, who had merely stepped aside and smoothly avoided the incoming danger. The red-headed fiend, previously focused on the plans in his hands, moves to roll them up, snapping for a pair of workers to take them away. Oh hey, isn't that the fake blacksmith who gave me my last proper haircut?

But the fake blacksmith, along with the rest of them, clear the premise, taking along with them all more delicate breakable items before it can be properly installed.

"Apologies my beloved. A force of habit." Father barely keeps out of the danger zone. I suppose he means keeping his life and dignity.

In Alfonso's restrained bundle of blankets, Mother somehow cries even harder, looking hurt as she wriggles around, making an ugly fishie face.

"Keeper of my maiden heart, greatest grief of my soul, your old habit is to get away from me?!!"

"Yes," he answers too bluntly.

"And pray tell, why would you, my one and only, do such a horrible thing?" Mother rightfully asks.

"I knew you like the setting sun, even without looking. Your presence too burned under my skin. In case you ever forget, I have never forgotten and I am never not thinking of you.... even low-level organisms have the instinct to flee and survive."

"...."

Yeah, I don't know the correct procedure for getting mauled by one's own wife either. That was certainly what was going to happen if things had proceeded naturally. But thank goodness, Father still has some sense of shame and propriety. Not letting himself get suffocated under kisses and glomps in public in front of all the Ventrella employees and troops members roaming about doing work.

"Boo hoo hoo, awful. You're simply awful! I had very good reasons! I would never treat you in such a manner..." she plops over, tearful and supposedly heartbroken.

Bleh.

The oldies should unbuckle and release us children so we no longer are strapped in and forced to watch this torturous show. I however seem to have the worst timing for anything. Not being able to look away fast enough.

With a light chuckle, Father shakes his head, undoing one of the brown leather gloves to gently caress the side of Mother's funny fishy face. He laughs and denies her pleas of affection in the very worst kind of way.

"Will you behave for me? My Maria? Can you show me how good you can be?"

Excuse me, currently finding my jaw. Mother is not doing much better. Either having a heat-induced stroke or silently trying to hold in her screaming kyaaaas. Floating hearts and flowers already radiating everywhere.

I think I'm going to be sick.

There are many things to be doing first, now that I'm back on home soil. Perhaps finally seeing Abigail and my soap room. Looking over the research left behind in the kitchen. Checking in on my own employees and systems? Maybe have a rest like the little lady I am. I could even ask what the hell all these new additions to my family's property are. Interrogate the apparent shady source of all this trouble.

The answer is none of that. Blurg.

"Pumpkin no! Not in the balloon!" Grampa's voice booms.

Five minutes later and a terrible dunking face wash in the new fake lake, courtesy of Grampa, I feel much emptier and more refreshed. What a fresh clean water system we have there, how lovely. And no, I did not vomit in the balloon.

Grampa carried me off quickly enough to defile a random bush. My apologies.

"Today, you can be the stinky baby, Rosa." the little pinhead calls, hiding under Gable's protection so I can't recover enough to throw him in the new lake.

Let's test out how deep that thing goes shall we?

Boooo no, Gable don't go. How did they disappear into the lake like that? Wait no, I'll be nice and stop bullying Lukas, for now. Nooooooo don't leave me here with just the Ventrella's!

"Paaaaaaaaaaaaapaaaaaa~" runs off Lilyanne, released from her seatbelt.

She runs with much less speed and grace but no less enthusiasm compared to Mother. Right into Alfonso's very padded arms. Judging by her giggles and happy tugs on Alfonso's mustache, that was exactly where she meant to aim. Hmmm, a very concerning copycat of a child.

"Oh! That's right," Mother seems to recall.

She wiggles herself half out of Alfonso's safety net, handing our butler a peach. No, not my baby sister, but a literal flat peach.

Ah. That.

"Thank you very much, my Lady. I see I am not up for retirement anytime soon."

The head butler of my household does not seem to have aged one bit in all the years I've known him. But that is most likely because he's already very old and grey, not because of some secret treasured fruit. As he silently puts away the curious little thing, I can't seem to recall seeing Alfonso look any older than he already does.

I don't wonder if he knows. He serves my father first and foremost, of course, he knows. Of course, he never told me a thing either.

"Hmmpf" I turn away from the happy family scene.

Gable, adopt me already. I'll even put up with Lukas. I'm more used to having a brother anyways. Problems solved if I just get away from all this shady drama in the first place.

Not that Gable would tell me anything either. No one does. They just avoid it or say it's not my time or place. Well fine. I can play that game too for all the time I'm still stuck here.

A shiny light reflects and aims for my eyes.

Something that glitters with the money of an expensive crystal or gem, making my mouth instinctively water at the beautiful value of it.

But I am stronger than that.

"Hmmph," I turn away even further, walking off my wobbly legs. Doing my very best to be visibly uninterested in all the proceedings.

There's plenty to do and see. I can figure out plenty on my own. Hmmm now let's see....how do I get past that wall and into my own house...

Another shiny flies its way partly to me, so easily in arm's reach if I just bend down. I admit, it halts me. Tempts me greatly. Shiny gem...must be worth at least 10 silvers, so shiny.

No! I must not! There's a trap in there. I just know it.

"Hmmmf!!!" I scamper off as quickly as I can, avoiding the temptation. Though if I dared to peek back, it might have been an amusing sight.

"Oh see darling, she's been like this all week. I can't get her to even look at me for more than a few seconds..." Mother whines. As if tattling on me to the other half of the baby maker.

Yeah yeah, tattle all you want. As if I have anything to be afraid of. I'm a jaded adult that's been through two lifetimes of bullshit. I can even resist Mother's sticky suffocating hugs, it's just holding my breath practice.

I wonder if that has any adverse effects on my developing brain cells.

"Maybe she's looking for another bush? Nature calls! Here Rose bush, there's a good spot in that shrub right over -" Grampa brings up.

"Am not! I don't gotta go!" I break, yelling over Grampa's nonsense. Ah, the power of annoyances and false accusations.

"Honored Father, just what have you done to my daughter now?" the money-hoarding fiend asks blankly, expression dropped stiffly at my refusal to fall for his cheap schemes.

Ohohoho yes, despair that I no longer fall for such things. In this life, I am Rosalia Therese Ventrella. What sort of riches and crude old jewels haven't I seen with my current position? As a modern person, I also have more refined tastes. To think I've been selling my time and labor so cheaply every time Father presents a shiny. It's like pocket lint to him.

Though I am short on funds, my vision is clearer now. In the very worst-case scenario, I can survive by setting up shop, selling meat skewers.

I don't need his-

Oooohhhhhh shiny rock, very big rock. Where did the nerd get such a specimen shipped over? What beautiful marbling, such a gorgeous cut of aquamarine. Oh, how much money is in that uncut rock? Such a shape! So much potential. Oh, it's very cool to the touch.

Huh, when did I get back over here? Why is everyone sighing a breath of relief?

"Oh thank the goddess. I don't normally approve of such methods, oh but she always does listen to you best darling." Mother sniffs and swoons, deemed either docile or safe enough that she freely clings onto Father's scandalously exposed arms.

Oh, summer, you cruel beast. Forcing men into indecency by rolling their sleeves up! I must look away! Oh damn it, this rock is too big to put into my purse, I can't profit from this at all!

"To think she already recognizes precious stones in the raw material form. Or perhaps more so because of the natural breakage, highlighting the cut? Either way Chip's attraction to shiny currency is varied, so even building materials will do, hmm?"

"Darling....darling, please. You never properly responded to my letter, oh did it somehow get lost? Someone... let, ...that, slip to Rosalia. Now she's very upset. she won't give me the time of day on her own and I can't even begin to-"

"My love, breathe. That's my hellfire and holy water, good girl, it will all be fine. You'll have to be more specific my darling wife, for there are many 'that's' in our collectives, and I do greatly apologize for the kind I bring along to our lives..."

"Oh, Darling!!~"

"Is she upset because we named her Therese after my great grand aunt who was burned at the stake as a witch?"

YOU DID WHAT?! Excuse me?!!

"There we go, that's my terrible little criminal in the making. Here here." Father claps at my rage, prying me off the smooth construction material and into his arms. Such scandalous arms. I must hiss and fight it!

But I am three. I can't fight anything if it's by force. All my attempts are useless, like a wet kitten being picked off by the scruff of its neck.

"I just vomited. I will be sick on you." I threaten, feeling all 7 layers of petty.

"Of course, you will, we have a lovely selection of garden work to bury the evidence, should you choose to." Father answers, patting my back as he walks down from the glasswork.

"No fair mama!" I can hear Lilyanne's little voice growing further away, along with Mother's hushes and sweet talk. Alfonso's receptions with promises of snacks and tea for a rest, getting their lack of luggage.

Being carried on the ground like this, I can see things in much better detail than from the balloon or even by myself. I can see now how much things really are still in the process of being constructed. The courtyards and annexes are more filled out framework than anything actually liveable yet, but very important in long-term building than any fluff and frills. They are quality.

Though I do see some townhouses like buildings already showing signs of personalized touches. Little herb garden pots and loose laundry hung from the second floor. A young woman walks out with another basket of laundry, looking very domestic with the glow of a still newlywed.

"That's Barbara!" I can't help but exclaim at the sight of my kitchen maid already occupying one of these spaces.

"Yes, I suppose so. She is the wife of one of my more established accountants, of course, she would be living in his assigned housing. I can't have them keep rooming in the servants' quarters like before. Very inappropriate. I do believe many of my employees would revolt if we all made them bunk there like they were dorm children."

Hmm, yes that is fair and reasonable.

I recall additional annex buildings and living quarters being built for such reasons in my last lifetime. It's especially important in keeping the separation from the main house. They look very different from this though, but so are a lot of things. It's a lot livelier around here than I remember.

"Did you have a good trip my Chip? You are unreasonably fond of visiting the garrison grounds, how was the location change?"

Father does not do small talk. He makes inspections and evaluations.

"Horrible," I mutter out, still feeling petty but unable to actually ignore the man. Not under one of his inspections. That much I'm used to.

"How so? Did you not have your amusements? I even allowed one of those blasted little brats to infringe, seeing how it's your beloved sir Gable's charge. Were you so wonderfully amused at all the new sights, sounds, and tastes, as you often are?" Father follows up, sounding dishonestly interested.

"No. It was horrible. The leprosarium was alright but everything else, and everyone else, is horrible." I huff, refusing to give in.

"You do know then, my little gremlin, that most three-year-olds do not even understand the concept of a leper, let alone be able to pronounce leprosarium. Hmmm, wherever did you learn such a thing already I wonder."

Ah. I failed.

I failed the inspection already. I'm doomed. Just burn me at the stake like the witch I'm apparently named for already. I'm going to be interrogated and disposed of now. The fiend is going to bury me in the foundations and walls of one of these properties.

Maybe that big old barn-looking thing we're approaching. Yes, it is devoid of people and life, a perfect private spot for infanticide.

He attacks by pinching my cheek. Ow ow ow, my face. It is not made of dough or mochi ow ow ow, stop stretching it! Death by pulling and squishing my chubby cheeks is not the way I want to go! Where is the dignity in that?!

"Hmmm, oh I apologize there, Chippy. Did you perhaps feel sensations of physical, mental, and or emotional pain and discontent?"

"Of course not Father. I am merely practicing my screaming."

He pinches again at the other cheek, ow ow ow ow.

"Yes, ow. Yes Father, Please stop making my face uneven. Ow." I continue to be abused like a raw ball of dough by the villainy fiend.

Though I can admit, he could certainly make me suffer much more should he so wish. This, however, hurts my pride, greatly.

"Then you have no talent for that whatsoever and shall put your fears, and your Mother's worries, to rest." he chides me.

"No talent for what? All you do is smush my face." I complain through what I can, oh my little cheeks and lips. I am made of solid, not gas. I cannot form into the shapes you mold me.

Father readjusts his hold on me, and gives me pause for breath though I know this torture is far from ending. Especially from what he says next.

"I can accept your language skills and learning comprehension levels. After all, you are still somehow a product of the blurry science of human reproduction, and of my lineage. Still, there are limits long passed, unexplained by the vast potential of a human brain untainted by the skewed world."

"....."

"I do not expect much of you nor your sister, but then again my personal expectations are skewed. It would be enough if you could both somehow survive well in this cruel world. Far stranger than even I can begin to fathom. It is in this grand unknown, that a man of your honorable grandfather's standing was made. I shall take your silence, and increasing tension, again as part of your unreasonably advanced comprehension?"

".... no?"

I'm doomed. I don't know what the crazy old man has told him, or what my shady shady honestly quite scary Father has figured out on his own. But either way, I'm doomed. Perhaps that is why, of all the places to take me for a 'walk', it is to this isolated barnyard.

"I had to invest quite the amount of my own spirits and brandies to even get you and your mother's oh so beloved Gable, which unfathomably borderline manic worship I honestly I do not understand but cannot oppose, to even lower his guard enough to get any sense out of."

"....you got Gable drunk?" is all I can make out of that.

Oh, the forbidden image, the horrors, the wonders. Those two drinking? Together? I can't even imagine such a scene. It would be like putting the devil himself and a gorgeous God in the same room. That's too much.

Oh my nose, oh my blood pressure. Is this the last thing I shall imagine before I perish?

"Of course, that strange little brat was far easier to bribe, it responds to any cooked meat product? So easily? If I knew then, I could have saved a few bottles. Bacon and steak are far cheaper." Father oddly complains.

Yes, Lukas is not meant to be captured and interrogated. He cracks faster than an already broken egg. I don't think that boy knows the definition of secrets. It's quite useful if you can decipher through the nonsense, but not if someone else gets him.

But I don't really understand what Father is going on about now, or how that relates to me, and whatever it is I don't have the talent for or should put to rest. I think this family has too much drama hidden away for us to even make sense of. Perhaps it's because every single Ventrella is certified batshit insane. Even Father, who married in. It's the only way he could have survived in the first place.

A chamber door creaks and unfolds open. Dark coolness lies beyond inside the construction, sheltering against the harsh summer sun and all possible witnesses.

"The order was very specific," Father says ominously, forcing the both of us in. His steps were silent on the floor.

"...What sort of orders?" I gulp.

Orders for a torture chamber? An interrogation lab? A holding for misunderstood and falsely accused baby witches?

"Too specific ones, it made it all the more suspicious, but easier." Father vaguely answers, causing the hammering in my little chest to increase.

Anxiety streams and pours uncomfortably inside me. I can only brace myself for what truths, and horrors that may be to come.

A soft neighing sounds out from one of the ominous doorways.

Wait what?

"A filly of about the same age as my little girls, slightly older, golden coat with black hooves and mane. Located Northwest of the territory, but not beyond the midway lands. Working breed but this one turned out as an outlier."

It can't be. The door knocks and unlocks, and by the general rule of common sense it really shouldn't be.

"Is this your horse?" Father unveils the contents of the stall, much to my shock and surprise.

"Adorita!"

He releases me since I can only clamor as far as the first gate, unable to really get up close. But I know her. Those strong but still awkward limbs, thicker and stouter than the average riding breed due to her wrong lineage. That soft comforting rumble and neigh to her voice. Those calming big brown eyes. That's my Adorita! My first baby, Adorita!

But whatever is she doing here?! I didn't even find her yet?

"Hmm looks like you already have names in mind. As suspected. Are you satisfied?" Father bends down to pick me right back up, giving me that vantage point over my lounging little filly, still too young to be called a mare.

He found her. Father found the exact right horse, the same one he got me the very first time.

"I don't know how you do it, but I know it's not something so simple as merely seeing visions in dreams, visions of the future. If it was as easy as that, you wouldn't be like this." Father's voice cuts through any joy or pleasantries I feel at getting my pet.

I knew I had been pushing it. I knew I couldn't keep getting away so easily. However the confrontation is still much harder, and much more unexpected than I ever thought it would go.

"Your younger sister wouldn't react like that. She cries or laughs, but she shows everything on her mind. Much like your mother, frustratingly so. It will be a problem in the future. You, however, Rosalia, so young, yet you already force yourself to hold back. It could be part nature..., " Father compares, playing with the short locks of my hair.

It is. Rosalia knew how to hold back since very young. She knew how to shout and scream to be served. And she knew when to retreat, for safety.

The soft action makes me nervous like I don't know what to expect. Because I really don't. Not with this person. This part of me and Rosalia seems to have stayed exactly the same. We freeze when it's time for evaluations, never knowing how much we pass or fail. But knowing it's not going to be enough. It's never enough. Yet we still hold our breaths, hoping for nothing.

"Could be. As I often found it easier to stay silent. Let actions and results speak for me far louder than any words, both in my youth and even to now." Father continues to contemplate.

"...just what did they say...about me?" they could mean anyone. Anyone you interrogate. The crazy old man. Gable. Anyone really.

But more importantly...what do you think of me....and what does that mean?

Those are the kind of questions I cut off, swallowing down the rest. Maybe I should have just stayed this way from the start.

"Nothing I don't already know. That you're a very large headache and quite possibly a freak of nature. As expected. Why? Does it disappoint you to hear your Gable call you a headache? For you very much are so. At least your grandfather says freak of nature like it was a compliment, something of pride."

I do not know how to react to that. Plenty to unpack there. So the line of my mouth must have a very funny-looking line.

"There there Chippy, one of my greatest headaches, if you admit your papa is the superior figure, I just may forgive you for running off all the time. Just perhaps."

Is he...bribing me with my horse? To say he is better? How did we get from his shady secrets to my deep dark secrets, to this petty jealousy nonsense?

"What kind of freak of nature? ...Papa? Was I really named after a witch? How come I've never heard of that? Are you going to burn me at the stake?" I bluntly let out.

I would hope not. While I don't think presenting me with a young horse is a very threatening gesture, you can never tell with my father.

"Heavens to hell no, you're far too delicate to withstand candlelight, let alone survive being set in flames whole. There will be none of that playing around nonsense, none. I don't care if you're your grandfather's lineage or even if you somehow manage to improve your dismal talent and weak constitution." he speaks to me as if I were a stupid little thing that would quite literally be tempted to do something so dangerous.

"Papa...what are you talking about?" I feel the long-simmering frustration in me start to rise. This thing I've been kept in the mysterious dark for over a week, no, a lifetime.

Once again, Father tries to distract me by uselessly pinching my cheek. How annoying.

"Does it hurt my little Rosalia?" he asks me once again, a wry smile to his frustrating face.

Blowing out a breath, I nod to his question.

"Well then, do your worst." he offers, gesturing to himself.

"Whatever do you mean? Just say it out, Father. I don't understand your riddles or tests. I can't actually see into the future or anything, I know Grampa told you. I'm sorry I don't know! That's Lilyanne at best! I don't know anything near enough and no one helps with telling me anything!"  I shout in frustration, smacking him in with my tiny fists in the chest.

I can feel the discomfort bubbling up in me. The beginning of angry tears are already forming in the corner of my eyes.

"You're so inadequate and delicate, it's marvelous." he chuckles, feeling no effect to my attacks whatsoever. Of course, he doesn't. I'm so pathetically weak and I think there's something seriously messed up in the villainy central HQ that's his head.

"There there, doesn't it hurt so marvelously? Your heart is capable of feeling so much, isn't that wonderful?" Father brushes away my increasing tears, rubbing his own face too close to mine.

"No! No, it's not. It feels very horrible." I cough and sniff.

"That's alright." Father assures, "My little girl can more than afford that. You don't have to force yourself, you don't need such a disgusting thing from me."

I stare up at him, as confused as ever. He looks at me with a melancholy expression, one that is more tired than his years should allow.

My father is still a young nobleman in his biological prime,  and yet there are calluses on his hands and a scar hidden on his temple, much more probably hidden under his clothes. Something a man of his standing should be able to afford to prevent or completely do away with the power of money and magic.

"It doesn't hurt," he says oddly, tone almost breaking when I reach up.

It's all just to push him and his stupid face away. That's all. But my hands are too weak and clumsy, so they push only his hair, a dark but more horrifyingly vibrant shade than mine. Mother doesn't exaggerate when she compares them to rose petals. It's unfair how a man's hair can be so soft, and I understand every tear Mother must have screamed in frustration at the injustice of comparison.

The scar at the side of his temple is not a very large one, nor very noticeable let alone ugly. Dare I say it, it gives this fiend all the more dashing and dangerous of an impression, should you pull away the hints of his bangs. Lighter on pale skin, it looks like the streak from a shooting star, falling down to earth in sparks.

It's from a bullet. I know. I've always known.

"It doesn't hurt, my Rosalia. Not if I don't want it to," he tells me in soft whispers, eyes closed from where I play.

Is that it then? This whole big secret. How underwhelming and overly sensitive I am. I know there's another implication, can reasonably see it, but I don't know how to feel. Only that there's this gaping crumbling going on in the hollow of my chest, and the inside of my cheek goes a bit numb from me chewing on it.

"...The thing that you can turn off and on?" I brush at his temple.

"But it's nothing good, nothing but a parlor trick, a play of the senses and the mind. The human body can only withstand so much damage, and that is what pain is for. To warn you of danger, to tell you you're alive. Without it, you can't feel. It's a terribly useless thing." Father's voice rumbles softly, reaching like the pretty strumming notes of vibrating strings on an instrument.

It makes my fingers twitch. Muscle memory playing at ivory and obsidian keys. Nothing but old songs left.

"Can I do that?" I tentatively ask, tasting bitter bile in the back of my throat still.

"No darling, you haven't the talent for it."

"I didn't ask if I had the talents for it. The dreams say I am a very untalented sort of girl, especially compared to Lilyanne. I only asked if I can, or have the ability to do so."

His silent pause is all the confirmation I need.

"Father. I'd like you to know, I am not actually a three-year-old girl. That's how I know so much. That's how I knew you were going to arrange to marry me off, or all the little things. I know too much for my age and can't do anything about them. That's the problem."

"Of course my dear, you're three and a half. As you've told me many times before."

"...."

That's not what I meant. But that must be all the truth that he can accept at this point in time.

"No amount of silly visions can change that, Rosalia. You can't reach your own harness, you cry for your mother when you get motion sick, your penmanship is horrendously messy and you lisp around your every other word. You may think you have something more, thanks to this strangeness, a blessing as much as it's a curse. You must be very frustrated with it. But you're three and a half."

I won't push it.

If that's the explanation for the strangeness I exhibit. If that's the excuse Grampa so readily gave out, and Mother and Father so easily want to believe. Then so be it.

They can believe that their silly daughters have occasional psychic visions into the future and that really really really messed one of them up. Well, it's technically true. I know what will happen, and I died for it. I'm messed up.

Or well, Rosalia. This is confusing enough. I certainly won't try explaining, nor revealing, the fact that I'm not even their original daughter. That I'm someone else entirely trapped along for the ride. I just barely escaped torture as it is!

So be it.

"Actually, I'm a little over three and a half at this point." I pout, still biting at my lip.

"Of course dear. You count your months and years very well." he plays along, oddly allowing this spoiled behavior.

"I don't terrify you?"

I ask again because by all common sense a thing like me should. Once more of the truth comes out perhaps.

If it ever does.

"Of course you do Chippy. But no more than your youngster sister does. Please do not take it as a competition my girls, your mother is quite terrifying enough." he answers plainly, finally straightening ourselves out from that very awkward closeness and seriousness.

That's enough progress from the month. Please give me another half a year to recover before I can intake anymore. I can only handle so much at a time apparently, it's not good for my heart. At three and a half, it's a very small organ.

"....Can I pet my Adorita now?" I poke, trying to figure out a bit better where I stand.

This man still thinks I'm his Rosalia, albeit with some extra abilities. He and Mother could accept that Lilyanne was born with the magical blessings of the dawn, breaking through limits and sense of this world. Why not some of that rubbed off on me? Right. I can work with this.

"Perhaps after you're closer to three and three-fourths. You both still need a lot of training."

Father does, however, allow me one last wave and lingering look. He holds me up high, given my height, and rights me on his shoulders. All before leaving the temporary stable. Back to the mess we have waiting for us outside in the daylight.

This doesn't fix things. These people still kept a lot from me, they still led to Rosalia's sad and tragic end. I know there's plenty more they keep secret, as I do mine.

But maybe like me, there's only so much we can take at once. So I'll allow that much.

"So how do I turn my pain receptors on and off? I feel like that is extremely useful. Lilyanne can't do that, definitely not. How do I-"

"Chip. Absolutely not." Father shoots me down instantly.

"But!!!"

"No."

I think I have a long way to go.

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Bonus: E. Europe Road Trip (of Doom) part 3.

Still Skippable. Just the drone camera on what kiddy #3 is doing.

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"I'm saying, there's no way 'goblins' exist in the first place. Let alone hunt this road, it's gotta be a scam." Yuna argued with all the vigor of a young teenager.

"Shush! Don't jinx it! Never underestimate the fae-" Vincent, in the wagon's driver seat, was interrupted from screaming out his warning by a seemingly dainty-looking but shoulder-cracking hand.

A young woman with a dead serious face slowly peered out from behind them. Fairer and more traditionally feminine than Tamera, like he was used to, but as Vincent was learning the hard way no less frightening.

"If you wake him up with your wailing... I will make steamed pudding out of your blood and innards. Then sew the rest of you into a scarecrow. Do I make myself plain enough for you?" Cass warned without a trace of humor.

"Yes ma'am" Vincent paled and whimpered, much to Yuna's snickers.

Who cared about the possible doings of evil spirits and beings on this shortcut road, traversing through isolated mountains and forests. There was a much more frightening presence with them.

A woman.

Vincent cries and wonders why the hell every single female he knows is terrifying as fuck.

Cass however looked gentle as any, sewing in the light and smiling softly when she looked back under the caravan wagon, satisfied with the sight of a small slumbering child.

Bundled and cushioned in down and cooling silk, the little lump in the bunk slept on. His little breaths were even and steady. Still thankfully out like a light.

She closes the curtains and lets him be.

Amar hasn't been sleeping well on the road. For reasons, Cass would rather not think about, nor remember at this point in time. The same reasons why it can't be her, but someone else, someone who wasn't there, that wakes the boy from his occasional night terrors. Usually, that job fell onto Yuna, the young teenager doing so without prompting or order. As if he was long used to it.

Nights were the worst, and the schedule couldn't afford them to camp all the time. It had become an unhealthy routine on the road where the boy sat awake at night, often keeping whoever was driving company, while he slept in the day.

"If only we didn't stop by all those villages, or waste five days at the sea. Five days. Then we wouldn't have to take this way." Vincent whimpers, complaining to himself.

"Goblin smoglin, they don't exist outside underground dungeons and even then those are some messed up mutated hoards. And It was the damn sea, how could we not? That place was like paradise." Yuna remarked, marking off the worn map.

"The water was extremely beautiful. A lovely town. Best I've seen here in these lands." Cass agreed, deftly doing her needlework. Supplies were greatly refilled from all their choice stopovers.

They weren't exactly the most prepared when thrown over here on the other side of the portal. Vincent for all this carefulness, concerns, and self-induced stress, was not the best at thinking or packing realistically.

He didn't even bring a spare wheel?

At first, Cass was grateful beyond words hearing about Vincent, that he has cared over and watched out for her young master where she could not.

But after all this time of personally seeing them interact up close, she thinks it's the other way around. Amar was the one reminding the irresponsible elder to sleep or handing him pre-prepared food to eat. Coaxing him to get out of a mud pit or tear ball. It was utterly messed up. When she caught Amar patching up a cloak that Vincent, the useless gloomy scholar Cass now labels, ripped from falling off a cliff, well she couldn't take it anymore.

With a stiff smile, she stabs the cloak repeatedly with her needle, stitches perfect and tight, imagining it was the gloomy scholar.

Vincent does not dare peep another word, not even to compliment.

"Right. Like were you really gonna tell the brat straight to his sad-ass kicked puppy face, 'look at that! But you can't go swimming because of MY own stupid schedule'. Huh? Were you really gonna do that to Amar? Huh?!" Yuna goes on, the only one unworried and unrushed.

Yuna remembers the sea fondly in the way youth does. Sun, swimming, and bonfire grilled freshly caught seafood. His mood even better improved from some good trades he got there for pelts and trinkets caught in missions afar. A perk of being a sort of traveler.

This was the reason, or reasons, that the schedule was messed up and needed to be made up. Quickly. Excluding that first middle-of-nowhere market town they made the wagon repairs at, they had stopped and fooled around at not just one but three other places.

Three.

Vincent can admit it feels nice to not drive through the night or sleep somewhere nice and solidly still.

He can admit it was nice to eat fresh foods and not just jerky rations and nutrient jellies.

He'll even admit the various sightseeing was kinda nice. A strange new break from both the follow-up mess of the last few months and the usual routines of his dark damp miserable research. Kind of relaxing even.

But the schedule!?!

He can feel the looming anxiety of the eventual day he faces his employer again. It made him want to jump off the wagon and roll over on the side of the road to die.

"What did your Lord or officer even say was the schedule? Is it really so strict?" Cass asked, eyes uninterested but for her needlework. She doesn't mess around with that.

"As much nonsense as his fear of old goblin road here." Yuna pulls out a fish jerky to chew on it lazily.

There wasn't much to do when driving on the road. As it should be. A smooth boring ride is the best kind of ride, boring as it is. It meant safety.

Vincent shivered in the thought alone. It was with a great too dramatic breath before he could even begin to articulate words.

"When a Ventrella says one thing....it must always mean another, no three, three different things?! So thus my last message regarding the matter was,  'as you can keep the brat away, in fact, don't ever return'. Meaning if we don't hurry the death up, we might as well never come back!"

The two others gave each other a look at the driver's power of deduction.

"Somehow...I don't think that's what was meant." Yuna says dully.

"You've never been personally threatened by the Lord!!!" Vincent cries, trying not to go down that mental road.

"What did I say about being loud?" Cass held up a needle, far finer than any common housewife's, and made from expensive metal. It would be a perfect medical grade for cutting through flesh like butter. From the angle she held, it let the sharp tip shine in the light.

"Yes, Ma'am." Vincent quickly holds his breath, shutting up.

"Oh. What. An. Honor. Shame for me to miss out." the teenager replies, leaving his seat and disappearing back behind in the wagon.

That was enough Vincent for the hour, at least for him. He tags out with Cass officially, signing that he was going to take a nap with the boy in the back.

See, the older girl wasn't mean to him because he didn't do anything that well deserved it. Duh. Don't get Yuna wrong. He'd rather deal with Vincent over most other people, but that's because he'd rather permanently shut up most others.

Yuna does not go anywhere without a weapon, even when it's not in his hands or seemingly obvious. Most commonly, he keeps a pair of blades under his armbands, well hidden, well disguised, but easy to access.

It's those that he immediately unsheaths from the sudden sense of fear and dread. The unwelcome surprise.

"God damn it brat, left the creepy ass doll out again." Yuna hisses quietly, calming his breathing and sheathing back in his short daggers.

He partly regrets encouraging Amar to get that thing already. If Lord Ventrella was going to kill them over any offense, it was going to be for scaring his treasured little princess silly.

What's worse was that the doll was positioned facing the front, its black stone button eyes gleaming at anyone who dared enter. Closed sewn mouth demurely stitched in an X with dyed red thread, as if holding back secrets. The hair layered back as if someone nicely brushed and placed it there.

Must have been Cass, he saw the woman fixing up the doll to be a little more presentable just the other day.

"You're going to give THIS to a little girl?!" she had nagged, washing out possibly a pondful of grime and something that smelled suspiciously of old dried blood.

Yeah, his mistake for letting Amar touch that thing in the first place, it could have been full of fleas.

Right now, it was as clean and fixed up as could be and then some. Cass working domestic magic apparently. Getting rid of the horrifying cracked porcelain face, "it's dangerous for children", and restuffing the thing with scented dried herbs and river plants fluff instead of "what's in here? Straw? Human hair? Is this a plaything or a shaman instrument of human resentment? Why is it covered in bite marks like fangs?".

Right. Domestic magic. Looks and smells much better.

Yuna picked the thing up, shrugged, and tucked it into Amar's sleeping arms, right where he curled on the bottom bunk. Then climbed over the space on top and fell promptly asleep himself. Knocking out quickly and easily, even without a promised alarm.

He does not see nor sense the smiling gleam from the doll's original eyes.

They ride on in that fashion for a comfortable enough amount of time. Safe and on schedule. The shortcut promised their speed and schedule, though the road got increasingly emptier and more run down. Free of any bothersome other travelers to share the road with or stop for any reason.

Cass even finished with redoing Vincent's cloak, even adding in a new secure set of clasps. No short cuts needed with her advanced skills. It was after all something she was very proud of, unlike say...digging.

"Alright, drink your jellies and rest your eyes for a bit. I can take it from here," she offers to switch out of the driver's seat. More concerned about Vincent collapsing on them than anything.

At this point, Vincent only nods, increasingly used to the driving routine. It was a lot easier having another adult on board, as frightening as she was. He hands her the reins easily, yawning his thanks as he heads back, grabs a flask of nutrient jelly and rests his senses for a bit.

It's with closed eyes that something smacks him in the face.

"By death's hold damn it!!! AAAAHHHH!!!!" he shrieks, falling back in an over comical manner.

Up in the front, Cass facepalms. Knowing that it was inevitable everyone would wake up after that. Oh well, she estimates from the sky that they had another 3 hours till sunset. She supposed now was a reasonable time to take a dinner meal anyways. Absolutely forbidding Amar, a sensitive growing little boy, from surviving on the same rations diet that Vincent seemed to find most convenient.

"Alright back there?" she threatens dryly to where Vincent tripped over himself.

"Like what the fuck?" Yuna groggily crawls down, leaning on the bunk. Grumpiness full force after that sort of wake-up.

"Um...are you alright?" even Amar peeks out, childishly soft eyes blinking from under sheets and covers. Once he identified where he was, and with who, he scooted out from the safety of the walls and blankets, over to where Vincent groaned on the wagon flooring.

Yuna lets him, watching with a slight sense of relief that there was no panic or traces of nightmares in the little boy. He hasn't seen that level of night terrors in over a year with Amar, resurged in just this one trip.

It's why, as reasonably bearable as Cass was, he definitely didn't trust her. No chance, no way.

"Oh? What are you doing out?" Amar pokes at the doll, a souvenir he picked up early on.

It lay there on the ground next to Vincent, its body splayed oddly. Tight and together, one single limb, a cloth stuffed arm, pointing.

For no reason at all, Amar looked up in that very direction, out from the coverings of the wagon merrily riding along. Towards the not quite yet setting sun, blurring one's sight normally.

"Ambush." the boy whispered to himself, then out loud to the others.

It's Yuna that acts first, already climbing out to the top of the wagon. Vulnerable but with the best vantage, confirming riders were far away but incoming, not just from the West but from the North. A planned ambush.

"Goblins! Only horrible things await travelers on this road!" Vincent cries, his warning and fears come true.

"Or, some bandits that know how to talk. Let's see if they know how to dodge?" grins Yuna from above, automatic crossbow already shooting off.

Safe and boring were preferred. But this was admittedly a lot more fun. They could use some exercise.

The flare to the arrow streaked and plumed across the part of the sky it covered, exploding on impact to a couple of very human screams. Down below the wagon, Amar had already popped up to hand Yuna refills of the outfitted arrows. Gas bombs for warnings, messy scrap metal explosives for mass range attacks, and fast-acting poison-tipped arrows for the close riders.

"Little Kahk, be a dear." Cass requested, keeping her eyes still steady on the road.

"On it!" Amar popped up from behind her, handing her own troops' issued crossbow over, preloaded like a good little running boy. He even tucks her needlework basket under the seat.

"And you, the gloomy useless one, hurry to pull up the barricades then speed up your steeds," she commanded, despite being the technically lowest ranking member.

Vincent groans as he rolls over and up, making eye contact with a tiny little doll he's come to fear over the past few days. But no one takes him seriously, because he fears many things.

"Yes Ma'am," he shakily lets out, breathing deeply. In and out.

"Drink this first, it's okay Vincent. We can hold out until you can pull it up." Amar runs back over to him, water flask and nutrient jelly at the ready.

Vincent nearly cries in the taste of relief. That and he really is dehydrated.

"Well hurry it up, they got reinforcements a coming. Glad we got them early, it looks like a whole bloody clan out there." Yuna yells out under his pulled-up mask. He shoots out, pacing himself and keeping them a distance back with his 'warning' shots.

Meanwhile, Cass took down a few herself while maintaining the reins. But that's only because they didn't gather enough yet. She neither slowed nor sped up, knowing that only more of them would lie in wait up ahead. It was more important to keep stable and observe, before wasting any more energy or resources.

"Get on it Vincent!" she calls out, shooting a tip straight through a jumper's eye socket.

Amateurs, she huffs.

Well as annoying as it was, she's glad it's nothing they can't handle. Nothing that would give Amar further nightmares about. She can tell from the way he swings about energetically. Not a trace of tremors or fears as he supports everyone else at the forefront. The boy was smart enough to know not only how to help best but to not get in the way with his current skills and position. For that, she's grateful how he's such a sensible child.

"You can do it, Vincent, just drink it all down first and breathe. It's gonna be ok, I'll tell you a secret Vincent" Amar comforts, despite being in the hearing range of everyone.

"It's ok if they all die out there really quick. They're bad people that must have done this before. I wonder what they did to the people they ambushed and robbed before? The same they'll do to us? But they're pretty weak, so they can't have anything really scary or valuable." the boy smiles, sharing the good news he figured out all by themselves.

Anyone else in another world, in another position, might be aghast at the contrast between the beaming smiling face of a young boy, no older than six, and the ...sharp judgment that comes forth. But Vincent is not just anyone, and he takes an almost tearful encouragement to those words.

"Alright, real quick." Vincent nods, assuring the boy.

"There's a lot more, they have a den somewhere the smell is strongest.  You have to be quick here so we can sniff out that part? I wonder if there are more souvenirs in there?" Amar tilts his head.

As if he were merely suggesting a raid on the bandit's hideout. A question like if they could stay to swim at the sea, something that of course Vincent can't say no to. Not to those sad eyes. Yeah sure. Go waste another day or whatever. They can go to their own 'goblin cave' to raid.

"A few more scrap bombs up here, they're getting close. God damn, is it just me, or do these riders look inbred?!" Yuna muffles out.

"On it! Oh, Yuna, can you try this one out, I didn't test it yet. Can I see?" Amar pats Vincent in the head, like he's a big boy, and hops on over to supply Yuna with ammo.

"Yeah sure, keep your head down. Or Vincent can hurry the fuck up already!" the teen readjusts his balance, forcing Amar from climbing any higher than a mere peek onto the top of the running wagon.

"LEFT! And if any of you get him shot, I'm sewing your useless fingers together!" Cass warns, swerving slightly out the way of a trap.

Vincent finishes off his drink, feeling much calmer. Right. Real quick he tells himself. Pressing his bare hands down, he feels at the wagon, feels for all the things inside and underneath.

Then makes them come forth.

Slowly, like the shells of an insect, scales on a reptile, caprices grow to cover and bulk the entirety of the wagon. He allows the wings of support to grow out, carrying the layers of armor that grow around them, even covering the space on top to protect Yuna and Amar as they play about with the view.

Once that is done, he moves on to the beasts. His steeds. A pride and joy undead chimeras, oddly shaped like a handsome stallion. He supposed Lord Ventrella was right in that those would sell better, was much more covert. He focuses on transferring them more power, and more bones. Feels where the stones driving their power are, and feeds it with his will.

With the aid of some premade magical devices, Vincent would rather not pass out from all this work yes.

"Crap, they got some coming in behind us," shouts off Yuna, after watching a rather gratifying show of two riders get eaten by a seed shot that seemingly set out a killer vine. Yeah, that one was getting a pass.

"Okay dokey," Amar slips and slides down, rummaging through the trap door of stuff.

"Wait, what the hell are you using?" Cass screams, sensing trouble.

"Just the cooking oil" the boy replies innocently.

He didn't like that seed's flavor anyway, and Cass knew it. So it's with no surprise that he runs off with it since she's so damn occupied.

In fact, it comes to no one's surprise when the boy runs to the back with the jug, waiting till just the right moment the riders come up close, as if teasing them, pours the container in a splashing trail.

"Oh? Yuna? Can you help me?" Amar pleads, shaking the jug till it was empty.

The teenager sighs, but whatever. Aims an explosive arrow, then lets it go.

Yep, no surprise at all. But it was very satisfying watching them catch a literal line of fire.

"Think they're giving up yet?" Vincent asks, feeling less and less outside life around them from his spot.

"Just about." Yuna snickers, rubbing Amar's hair into a soft little bird's nest, getting a laugh from the boy. Whatever, he had bed hair anyways. It was cute Yuna can admit.

"Well then." Cass turns with the reins, driving them into a wide berth back around. Right where the biggest mess was and following the retreaters.

If anyone asks why they were not 'on schedule', upon their return to Ventrella lands, the party could easily claim many valid things. Repairs. Directions. Now even a robbery and attack. Really now, they had a lot of evidence and damage collected.

It couldn't hurt to gather up a few more. Say some criminal bounties and help themselves to any 'treasures' they could use to help out with those travel funds. No matter how much Lord Ventrella paid, Vincent's pockets were hurting from all these people that stuck around him, and dare say it, even might call 'friends'. Sure. The official story was how they investigated a 'goblin' sighting and survived the attack. Right.

"Ha! Told you they weren't goblins!" whoops Yuna, laughing into the night.

-Road Trip days till destination? (??/49)