Enslaved
Chapter Two
It reminded him of his own High School. Instead of an electronic bell, it was a set of heavy bells that rung, but the result was the same. The classes emptied, students trickling out after the professor. He remained uncomfortably tense with his back close to the wall, trying to disappear within it.
The students —nobles— stared at him for a second, maybe two, and then forgot of his existence and went on with their steady walks.
"You paid your commoner well, Zero," a sultry voice caught his attention. "He acts the part of the wallflower perfectly."
His gaze went up to meet those of a dark eyed girl with crimson hair and tanned skin. She looked like one of those Gankuro girls that also bleached their hairs for fashion reasons. Next to her was a small blue haired girl with glasses, holding a book in her right hand and a staff in her left.
The pink haired girl was his…master. He remained quiet, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead as the girl examined him intensively, while ignoring the other two.
"You look decent enough, for a commoner," Louise stated plainly. "Well, let's go. I'll have to talk with the Headmaster about this and write a letter home eventually, but that can wait until after dinner."
Saito's stomach took that moment to remind quietly the boy that he was still without dinner. He hadn't realized it until then, but time seemed to be on a different scale. The sun was setting while he was returning home, yet here there had still been hours of light.
This reinforced his idea that this was France or some sort of place like that. The time zone was different after all, so it was the only plausible answer… unless his Coma-induced dream simply followed no rules at all to begin with.
Saito remained quiet. He was a good head taller than the pink girl was —her name was Louise— and just with that he could see the top of her head. She really was strawberry blond to begin with. It was a natural colour. Really, were such dreams so vivid?
He could actually smell her light perfume, or the wax on the lit candles that shed light in the corridors. This couldn't be a dream, no matter how much he hoped it was.
"Now, listen here," said Louise, "You'll eat with the servants afterwards. Until then, just stay behind my chair and wait patiently."
"Y-yes?"
"You should consider yourself honoured," continued Louise. "I could have let you eat with the familiars in the stables, you know?"
She eyed him sharply. "You should thank my generosity, really."
"Thank you?" he hazarded back, slowly. "Milady?" he added then, letting the word roll out of his throat.
"Next time let it sound more natural," Louise huffed. "And you're my familiar, so it's 'master'."
"Yes, master."
Wasn't he a human being like her though? Why did he have to treat this as if he were in a maid café, acting the part of the welcoming buxom girl?
Didn't he have a say in the matter? A 'No thanks, I'd like to go back home'? Everyone accepted it as if it was a done deal, but really…Why couldn't he just leave?
"I'll have to buy you a sword too," Louise muttered. "At least you'll have something to protect me from harm."
Saito nodded with a grimace on his face. He wasn't going to wield a sword, much less was he going to use one to protect the girl, but was it worth it making a scene in his Coma-Dream? He just had to keep it at his hip and never use it.
Moreover, what harm did the girl expect to suffer from? Was there anything dangerous in this school to begin with?
He remained quiet as he stepped inside a magnificent hall filled with candles and long tables, where each student appeared to seat depending on their year of schooling. Louise sat without a hint of worry at her own place, while he remained standing behind her a few feet away.
An old man stood up from his spot and said crisply. "Let us pray, children of Brimir, for this dinner that the Founder brought to our tables."
So…they were religious nuts. His subconscious was perhaps trying to appeal to him, somewhat trying to tell him that he had to pray god in order to wake up from his nightmare? He didn't know who Brimir was, and he didn't know anything about the Holy Land the prayers spoke of one day reconquering. The only thing he knew of was that when the 'Blessed be the Founder' rang, he just mouthed the words for extra safety.
Then, the maids and butlers of the Academy entered the hall.
Siesta gave him an awkward smile —as did Jacqueline— when they saw him, entering as they did with trolleys filled with warm plates and steaming steaks. He tried to ignore it all, albeit the sound of clinking forks and knives grated on his nerves. He remained silent, trying to find some discrepancy in this dream. Wasn't there a saying that if you realized you were dreaming, you could influence the dream to begin with?
The saliva pooled on his tongue as he swallowed it down. How long could a dinner last? One hour? Two hours?
It was unnerving. Still, the steak soon left the place to some type of steamed vegetable ensemble, and then to a beautifully served dessert of sorts. A small yawn escaped his lips, before he quickly brought a hand up to his mouth and slowly began to close his eyes. He was tired from the entire ordeal too.
What if he fell asleep within the dream?
All the questions floated through his head, as he heard Louise call him. He opened his eyes blearily, but quickly enough not to be caught taking a moment of 'standing shut-eye'.
"I forgot to ask," the girl said. "What is your name, commoner?"
"Hiraga," Saito replied.
"Eeraga? That's a strange name for a commoner," Louise remarked. "Where are you from, Eeraga?"
"Tokyo," he answered.
"I don't care about the name of your backwater village," Louise stated quite plainly, huffing in displeasure. "I mean the country."
"Japan," he replied. He didn't want to correct the girl about just how much of a 'backwater village' Tokyo was. This was a dream to begin with.
"Can't you give a more satisfactory answer?" Louise grumbled, shooting him a sharp glare. "Very well, you'll go without dinner then," she added nodding to herself. "It will teach you manners."
His tongue rasped against the back of his throat.
"I'm sorry, master," he said then, "It won't happen again."
"Uhm…" the girl turned thoughtful. "Fine," she huffed once more, "But only because you apologized so fast. Now, don't tell me the name of the region you come from, tell me the country."
"I…don't know, master," he said then. "I only know the name of my village and the name of…the countryside nearby."
"Oh," Louise turned her eyes back on her plate. "Way to go, Louise," the girl mumbled to herself softly. "You had to summon a washed off peon from a farmstead."
Saito remained silent.
"You don't even know how to read or write, right?" Louise asked.
"No, master," the 'master' was weighing down on him as a word the more he spoke it. It felt wrong. He belonged to the proud Japanese race for the love of god; it was supposed to count for something. They would never break, they would never yield, and they would never cease to fight! That lasted until two nuclear bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but still…
They were the ones who invented Kamikaze attacks.
"That is something we will correct as soon as possible," Louise said plainly, before slowly standing up. She actually left half of her dessert in her plate, before marching off.
During the entire time…no one had talked to her. It felt slightly off, but Saito didn't say a word more. "You have any brothers at home?" that question caught him unprepared.
"No," he replied, warily watching the girl as she stilled for a moment.
"Family?"
Why was she asking?
"Yes, my parents."
The girl's mood appeared to drop further —if it ever dropped in the first place— before she huffed. "Very well, you can go and eat with the servants now. I will wait for you tomorrow at breakfast. Afterwards, we will have the entire day to get you accustomed with what serving nobility means."
Saito was actually a quick sport, and it didn't take him long to say exactly what the girl wanted to hear.
"I understand. Thank you, master."
Smiling smugly to herself, Louise went her own way.
He, on the other hand, found himself following a maid —Rebecca was her name, and she was from Romalia— all the way to the kitchens.
"Sacre bleu, it's the noble's familiar!" the chef was a portly man with a heavy laugh and a stocky build. His meaty hand clapped on Saito's back, before a bowl of soup dropped in his hands. "Eat away! You're skinny boy; put some meat on your bones before the wind carries you away!"
He was forcefully 'sat' down on a wooden stool, before a hard chuck of bread ended up right in front of him. The cook sat down with a heavy sigh on a stool to his side, a mug of something in one hand, and then chuckled as he handed over another mug to him.
"Tis good ale," Marteau commented, "Brewed by me, with no meddling from anyone else. Have a chug, it's tradition around here."
"Ah, but…I don't dr—"
Slowly, he grabbed the mug and took a sip. The look coming from the chef changed from 'you better drink it' to 'good lad!' once more.
The ale tasted bitter. It felt like…it wasn't good at all. He grimaced lightly, scrunching his nose, before swallowing it all the same.
"So, how is it? Good stuff eh?"
"G—Yeah," Saito replied with a strained smile. "Good stuff…"
Marteau laughed. "No need to act precious with me, lad! Eat away! What an affront to my delicious cooking!"
Saito dug in. The bread was hard, but the soup was warm and there to soften it up in a mush to eat together. He avidly finished the bowl, scarfing it down. He nearly choked halfway, taking thus a good sip from the mug in front of him and coughing afterwards.
"There's no greater compliment for a cook then to have someone eat their food fast, but don't you die choking on it!" Marteau laughed. He was quite the happy cook, if the number of times he laughed were of any indication. He seemed genuinely to enjoy working in the kitchen.
"T-Thanks for the meal;" Saito said then, sheepishly looking down at the empty bowl.
"Want some more?" Marteau asked with a bright smile. "It's not like there isn't more to eat. It's always the same soup after all. Trust me, after a few weeks you'll be whining like the others of how we always have soup for dinner."
"I…no, thanks," he shook his head softly.
"Well, how about we chat a bit?" Marteau smiled warmly, "I've got just the thing. I usually keep this as a treat to myself after a long day of work, but you look too downcast to let it be," with that said, the Chef wobbled off towards the back of the kitchen, before returning a few minutes later with a small square of a brown cake and a cup of milk.
"I always make people buy me more ingredients than usual, so when the desserts come out I make a bit more and no one's the wiser," he laughed. His laugh was actually starting to sound soothing. It was just…happy. Saito supposed that being happy made others nearby happy too.
Still, the man was kind. That, more than anything else, was what made Saito's wariness finally melt away.
He began to sniffle.
Marteau apparently had expected that, because he just patted his shoulder as Saito cried.
He cried because he was away from home.
He cried because he wasn't eating dinner with his family.
He cried because he was somewhere where he was a slave in all but name.
He cried because, most of all, he didn't know what would happen to him the next day, or the day after that…and so he cried, because he was afraid.
He missed his mother, even though he had barely seen her that very morning, her back to him as he left the house. He remembered her chopping down the vegetables for dinner; he remembered her smile and her kind face. His father's face too was there, right next to hers. His father's serious expression when he came back from work at night, loosening his necktie and removing the white collared suit his mother would wash and then starch.
All of that, he remembered and because he did…
He cried.
"When I set out from home," Marteau said, "I barely had my arms and my wits with me. Wanted to make my parents proud —the city was filled with opportunities the countryside wasn't. I heard you're from a small village, so you don't have to worry. I'm sure your brothers will take care of your parents just fine, and…"
"I'm…I'm an only child," with that meek whisper, Saito stared back at Marteau. What was it with asking about his family and if he had any brothers?
"Well, the village will take care of them then," Marteau quickly corrected himself. "Really, your parents are going to be fine lad, and you'll have a nice life. Mind you, I became a cook because I couldn't stand nobles, but I'm sure if you work hard everything will be fine."
It was already the second time, or maybe even the third, that people told him the same things. Why? Why did they all have that air of finality as if he had to accept the deal as it was?
Why couldn't he just say no?
He gave a hesitant bite into the brown cake, slowly munching on the chocolate flavoured pastry before swallowing long gulps of milk together with it —it was incredibly dry. Afterwards, he began to walk back towards his cot.
The light of the twin moons, one pale rose and the other teal, illuminated the courtyard as he…
Saito's head slowly lifted upwards.
The two giant orbs remained there, fixed on the sky.
Two.
Giant.
Moons.
"Ah…" he exhaled. "Ahah…" his throat constricted. His voice cracked. "Ah…ahahah…" a nauseous feeling bubbled in his stomach.
Then, he retched falling on the ground, his hands gripping on the grass and the dirt as he emptied his stomach and his entire body trembled from the final, dawning realization that he wasn't home…
…he wasn't even sleeping…
…and he wasn't even on Earth anymore.
"Why me?" he moaned, slamming his right fist on the ground as he slowly stood up. "Why me?"
He felt the tears he had spent before reform in the corner of his eyes.
"I just want to go home," he whispered. "I just want that."
There was a flapping sound of wings, and he suddenly screamed in shock as he fell backwards. A giant blue-skinned lizard swooped down right in front of him, its giant blue eyes staring at him as its throat emitted a soft 'Kyuu'.
It was real.
No dream. No Coma-dream. No 'wake up, Saito! You'll be late for school' anymore.
This was reality.
"Homesick?" a small voice asked. He blinked as he stared at the dragon.
"T-Th…You talk?" Saito's eyes widened as he stared at the beast that widened its eyes and sharply shook its head quickly, before bringing down its paws to show a blue haired girl on its back.
The girl just looked at him. She couldn't be more than…he'd say thirteen. She looked so small, and the staff she had on her back was bigger than she was to begin with.
"Yes," the girl added then. Saito breathed in and out deeply, his eyes going from the tiny girl to the blue giant dragon that appeared to be peacefully gazing at him. As long as the gaze was 'peaceful' he was fine with it.
There was silence.
The wind picked up slowly.
"Yes," Saito finally whispered, deciding to break the 'silent' deadlock by answering the previous question. "I'm homesick."
"Go home," Tabitha replied simply.
"I don't know where it is," Saito said, looking downcast. "It could be," no, it definitively was, "far away."
"Look for it," Tabitha added softly.
It felt like a dream —a dragon with a girl on its back swooping down from the sky to answer his sadness and grief.
"It's easier said than done," Saito muttered. "I don't even know where I am now," he plainly looked up towards the sky. The two moons were still there, mockingly standing up in the firmament without a care for his plight.
"Tristain, three hours, horse-back," she locked eyes with him. "Work. Money. Three days, horse-back, La Rochelle. Ships depart to Albion, Germania, Romalia or Gallia." It was as if she had planned everything beforehand, as if she herself had thought the same thing.
"Alone, you can be free as long as you wish it," she whispered in the end, gazing at him hard.
"What if I don't have a horse?" Saito said then, perplexed.
"Walk."
Then just as she came, she was gone. It was…bizarre. It…it didn't make much sense to him, and neither was the reason for her appearing and then disappearing like that, without even waiting for him to ask anything more.
He glanced once more up at the sky, catching just a glimpse of the 'dragon rider' of whom he didn't even know the name. She made it sound so simple. Then again, she was a noble and rode a frigging dragon.
So…that thing about magic was real too?
He wondered what type of magic they did, these nobles.
He didn't feel so sick anymore. Maybe…maybe there was a magical spell to send him back home. He just had to find it. He clenched his fist.
He'd find it.
He'd find a way back home.
The runes on the back of his left hand glittered softly under the pale moonlight.
Author's notes
Everyone has a brain.
