WHAT UP!
Hey, you guys, well here we are chapter 11! I can't believe this story has already reached double digits and so many hits, as well. You guys have no idea how happy this makes me!
By the way, go check out R5 Closet because it is so freaking awesome! I have a shirt from Ratliff, Rocky and Ross and a dress and sweater from Rydel. All I need is something from Riker and I'm good. Maybe…
Anyway, this chapter will basically be an entire flashback to when Austin gave the potion to Lester, to Ally's birth and then her growing up, all under Austin's 'watchful gaze'. You will also learn a little bit about Austin's past and how he became a king.
Chapter 11
At The Beginning…
After much persisting and pleading, Austin had finally agreed to give the fertility potion to young Lord Dawson, but didn't tell him the exact price of said potion. He decided to give Lord Dawson time to either find something of greater value or he would take the child after he or she was born. Now some would call that being beyond cruel, but warlocks never do things for free and the price had to match the product.
After the young Lord had left, Austin returned to his task at hand until Dez had walked through the door. He could the look of distain on his familiars face.
"Dez, I know what you're going to say, so let me stop you there. You know that's a very challenging and expensive potion to make, so it requires a very expensive price." He tried to at least sound convincing, but, despite how he dressed, Dez was no fool.
"Austin, you didn't even tell him face to face that you plan to take his child. The child that's the reason he came to even see you and now you want to take it away from him and his wife. Don't you think that's taking it a little too far?" To say that Dez was being a little defiant was taking it lightly.
A familiar never went against their master, be it by words or actions, and Dez was beginning to overstep his boundaries. Now Austin and Dez didn't have the standard familiar-master relationship by any standards, in fact, Dez was more of Austin's friend than anything else. Austin looked back at Dez with a bored expression before leaving his workshop and walking into the forest. The outline of Lord Dawson could be seen retreating from the entrance to Eldarin and returning to his own world.
He understood Dez's advice, but he didn't give a rat's ass how it might affect the recipients of his work. Payment was payment and it would always be paid in full. He turned back to face before speaking,
"I have a task for you Dez." Dez's eyebrows rose up in response. He knew that look on Austin's face never meant anything good. "You will go to Lord Dawson's manor and watch over the child, bringing me back information as it grows and matures. As it grows older I will see what it can do and how it can function as a part of this world." Dez eyes widened comically, but fear was evident in them.
"What exactly do you have planned for this child? It is a human; it would not survive in this world even when it's fully mature." Had his master finally lost his mind?!
"Even a human can be taught to do magic. If the baby is a boy, I will make him my apprentice and then maybe send him back to his parents. However, if it is a girl, well, there's much more I could do with her." That scared Dez the most.
He knew Austin could have any woman he wanted. As king, it kind of came with the job, but Dez knew the truth.
"When do I need to depart?" He asked. Austin didn't take long to answer,
"That potion should only take a few weeks to take full effect, so I suggest you leave now. When nine moons have passed and the child is born, return here and tell me what it is. Once I know that I will go from there." Dez nodded in understanding and walked past Austin into the forest. He turned back, second guessing his decision, and saw that Austin had disappeared. He heaved a sigh and transformed into his bird form. Even though he didn't feel it was right, Dez listened to Austin and took off after Lord Dawson to his manor.
He managed to find a nice tree just outside the couple's bedroom, make a nice nest for himself and watched as summer turned into fall and the young lord's wish had finally come true. A midwife had come to the Dawson manor and confirmed that Penny was indeed with child. Dez watched in sadness at the happiness and joy the couple felt after the news. Years and years of waiting for this moment, only to have it ripped out from under you months later.
Just as the seasons changed so did Penny's stomach and Dez's anxiety. Penny was into the final month of her pregnancy and everything seemed to be going well. When the final month came, Penny went into labor. Dez was awoken in the middle of the night by her screams of pain and flew to rest on the nearby window and watched as the child appeared. Dez had never been more happy, yet disgusted in his life.
"It's a girl!" The midwife had shouted. Dez felt his stomach drop to the ground below.
He watched as the baby girl was cleaned, swaddled in a blanket and placed in her mother's arms and flew back to the forest. He could feel his heart beating against his chest as he thought about what he would tell Austin. Would he lie and say it was a boy, so Austin would leave him alone? No he couldn't do that. For one he was bound by his familiar contract to not lie to Austin and two, it would only make Austin angrier than he would probably already be.
After flying for an hour, Dez flew through the entrance of the forest and walked back to Austin's little tree workhouse. He found him standing against the frame of the door and smoking his pipe. He removed the pipe from his mouth, blew out the smoke and looked to Dez.
"Well, what is it?" He asked.
"It's a girl." Dez replied back.
Austin felt his face break out into a smile, not a nice smile, more of creepy smile at the news. He got off the door frame and began walking away from the treehouse. Dez, becoming scared and worried, followed his master.
"Where are you going, Austin?!" Dez yelled, "You can't seriously be thinking of taking the child now, not right after she was born?!" Dez pleaded to his master to see reason and continued to follow Austin until he stopped right outside the forest.
Austin turned back to face Dez,
"Of course not, what do I know of taking care of a baby? Nothing, I'am simply going to pay the child a visit and see what it is I'll be dealing with in the future." He said and began walking again, Dez not far behind. "If the girl takes after her mother, she will certainly be a looker when she's older."
That night, Austin had snuck into the nursery of the newborn Dawson and saw a small room filled with toys, small instruments, a bookcase filled with children's stories, and finally, a small white and pink basinet with a sheer canopy hanging over it. He heard the cooing of a baby coming from it and peered inside.
She was a small creature with big brown doe eyes, chubby arms and legs and toothless gums. The baby girl was dressed in a light pink baby gown with a matching frilly lace bonnet that was covering a head of brown hair. She seemed intrigued by the visitor in her room because she just kept staring at him. However, that wasn't the only thing that he found odd.
The more he kept staring at this child, the more he felt a strange aura coming from her. It wasn't the normal aura a human gave off. It seemed more, for a lack of better word, magical. Surprised, Austin reached his hand into the basinet to try and touch the child only for the baby to burst out crying.
Her cries must have alerted her parents, who were next door, as her mother rushed into the room, followed by a maid holding a rag in her hand. Penny reached into the basinet and brought her daughter close to her.
"It's alright, sweetie, mother's here. Shh, it's alright." Penny said, trying to calm her daughter down as she bounced her in her arms. She turned back to the maid who handed the rag to her and walked over to the nearby rocking chair to sit.
She stopped, however, to see that a nearby window was thrown wide open. But, Penny knew that the window had been locked shut the last time she was in here and now it was open? Not only that the lock had been completely busted and was now broken. She decided to ignore it for now and returned to caring for her infant daughter.
Meanwhile, Austin stood outside the small window, a million thoughts were running through his head. Why would a human born child have a magical aura? Yeah, warlocks and witches started from humans, but not every human can handle the toll that magic can have on the body. Well, looks like he'll be looking into the Dawson family tree for a possible link to his world.
For the next six years, Austin sent Dez to watch over the girl, who he learned was named Ally, while he did research on her family tree. So far, he had found nothing on her mother's side, but when he came to her father's side that was where he found it. That girl turned out to the descendant of one of the six warlock clans in his world. That explained the aura he felt when he got near her.
This changed everything for Austin. Instead of just using her as a pleasure slave, he could teach her magic and revive the missing link in the magical world, maybe more than that. He wouldn't know until she got older and started showing some signs of magical potential. So for now it would just be a waiting game.
His first actual look of Ally was when she was 8 years old. Nothing seemed different from when he had last saw; she was still short, same brown hair and big doe eyes. The only difference was that she had some teeth missing from her mouth.
Austin had decided to give Dez a break and observe her himself, so he stood at the edge of the forest watching as she moved about the flower field. She was also being watched from a far by another woman and a young girl who was the same age as Ally. He watched as she picked flower after flower and wove them together to make a flower crown which she placed on her head. All the while the smile never left her face. It must have been infectious because Austin found himself smiling the longer he stared at her.
When she was 11, Austin became careless and Ally had managed to stumble upon him. He was once again sitting in the flower field, waiting for her to show up, when he felt a presence behind him. He turned around and came face to face with her smiling face.
"Hi!" She said. Austin was perplexed by this as well. Didn't she know not to talk to strangers?
"Hi, what do you want?" He asked. He saw that she was wearing a bright yellow sundress with a denim vest and brown belt wrapped around her waist. A pair of ankle brown boots graced her small feet.
"You looked sad sitting all by yourself, so I decided to come and sit with you and cheer you up." She explained as she sat down next to him.
"Didn't your parents warn you about talking to strangers? I could be a psycho or a mass murderer for all you know." He was hoping that would freak her out and send her running, but she just continued to smile at him.
"You don't seem like that kind of person. You're too…too…adorkable."
What? This little girl seems to have officially lost her mind if she's calling him that. Yet, somewhere deep inside him, he actually found it to be cute. Wait, cute? Okay, now he had officially lost his mind.
She had suddenly turned her head when she heard her name being called in the distance. She huffed a sigh of annoyance as she got off the ground and looked back.
"Oh man, I thought I had lost her back at the book store." She said. She started to walk away before she looked back at Austin. "Since you're so worried about me meeting stranger, how about you tell me your name and then I'll tell you mine. Agreed?" She stuck her hand out at him, looking for a handshake of agreement. Austin stared at the outstretched hand before he too stood up and shook her hand.
"My name is Austin and yours is?" He asked, trying to seem oblivious to not knowing her name.
"My name's Ally." She said, followed by a cute, little giggle. Again with the cute thing, what was up with him thinking that way about her?
Letting go of his hand, she rushed up the hill, but not before turning around and shouting,
"Got to go now, but I hope to see you again tomorrow! Same time, same place!" And with that she ran off to meet up with her nanny. Austin watched as her small form retreated until she disappeared completely.
After that meeting Austin's entire demeanor towards Ally had slowly begun to change with time. The next three years showed Ally not only developing physically, but mentally as well. He saw that she had an affinity for learning everything and anything. She thrived at math, English, foreign languages, foreign politics and the like. She also seemed to have developed an early love for music, which really drew him to her.
Even at only thirteen she seemed to be older than that. She wasn't stuck up or prissy like most noble girls were. She didn't want to get married and be tied down to some man who just wanted her for her money or her looks. She was smart, willful, and strong; she was just…perfect. It was when she had turned 13, that Austin had decided that she would be more than some apprentice. She would be so much more.
Ally, in his eyes, was the only one fit to be his wife, queen and mother to his children. He would take no other than her, but he knew that getting her would be a task in itself. She would most likely be protected as most noble families are, but let's be honest. When it comes to magic verses human weaponry, there is no competition.
Austin also realized that marrying Ally would benefit a long standing problem that his ancestors have tried to fix multiple times. It can fix the rift between the human and magical world. He would teach her about this world and hopefully she would tell her world about it and that magical kind is not as scary as many believe them to be.
Everything would go according to this plan and hopefully, she would learn to love him back just as he loved her, hopefully.
"I left it entirely up to chance, hoping against all hope, that you could possibly feel the same way that I do." He finished, heaving a disgruntled sigh. "I guess I now have a long way to go before you actually trust me enough."
Ally just stared at him from the bed and couldn't help, but feel a little annoyed and yet sad by what he told her. It was annoying and creepy that he basically stalked her for the entirety of her life, but she guessed from what he told her, it was because he lived a life like she did. Surrounded by people who only saw you as a way to heighten their own wealth and prosperity without a single thought about how it will affect you.
Now, however, she didn't know whether to trust Austin or not. She wanted to because he had just spent what felt like an hour or two telling her why he took her, but maybe it was that reason as to why she couldn't trust him? Either way, it looked like she wasn't returning home any time soon or perhaps ever if she remembered the story correctly.
She seemed to have no choice and, while she might regret it, came to a decision. She sucked in a breath and turned to look at Austin.
"Alright, I want u to listen and I want you to listen well." She firmly stated. Austin was a little taken aback it, but nodded his head in understanding.
"I've come to a decision that may or may not favor us both."
OOOOHHHHH, CLIFFHANGER! Review for the next chapter!
Thanks and remember, stay Rossome!