"Hey!" A blurry image called out to her in a muffled-like voice. She partially opened her eyes before closing them again.
"Hey, wake up!" the voice said, much more clearly and louder this time.
"5 more minutes," Annabeth replied with a sleepy voice, turning her head slightly and using her red coat to cover herself.
"More bandits are coming," the voice said, which made her roll off her seat/bed and hit her head on the wagon's floor.
"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ow!" She screamed as she rolled on the floor in anguish.
"Come on, I would feel sorrier for the damaged wagon at this point but I'm glad you're finally up now. We have work to do."
"Ow, my head," Annabeth whined, sitting up and holding her head between her arms which felt like it would fall off. Ujarak really did a number on her.
"How did you move from being knocked out to actually sleeping?" Lord Canning asked, seemingly amused by his niece's antics.
"I hadn't slept for most of the night due to your stories. I woke up from my unconsciousness at some point, saw Menzine giving it to those bandits and decided to sleep. He seemed to have everything under control so I left everything to him hehe," She answered cheerfully.
"You little rascal," Lord Canning reached down and gave her a little knock on the part she hit her head.
"Ow! It hurts!" She said while holding her head in both arms and rolling on the floor again.
"Stop being dramatic Annabeth, we both know that doesn't hurt."
"Drama is life!" Annabeth replied, back to her cheerful attitude.
Canning closed his eyes and slapped his forehead. He knew she had probably gotten this always-playful attitude from him. Right now, he wasn't sure if he preferred the young strange Annabeth that acted like an adult or the physically grown Annabeth that acted like a kid at times.
"Just help me free up the slaves already, okay?" He finally said as he turned to walk away.
"By the way, don't let your guard down around the slaves," Annabeth warned with a serious expression this time.
Her mind went back to the moment she was saved in her first life but killed her savior still.
"What do you mean?"
"Uh… Nothing. I was thinking about something else," She replied.
"What am I even worried about?" She wondered.
"How strong does someone have to be to manage to land a finger on this guy?" She thought.
Lord Canning simply smiled at her and headed off.
Without realizing it, Annabeth had actually started caring for her uncle. The darkness inside her had sunk so deep inside that it was partly a forgotten memory. Although during the fight it started to rise due to so much killing, it didn't overcome her. The evidence was that she didn't even try to use darkness magic even when her situation got desperate.
***
"Hey!" A blurry image called out to her in a muffled-like voice. She partially opened her eyes before closing them again.
"Hey, wake up!" the voice said, much more clearly and louder this time.
"Don't hurt me, please I beg of you," the young girl said as tears started rolling from her eyes after fully waking up.
"I will not-" Menzine tried to comfort her.
"Please don't hurt-" She interrupted, not listening to anything he was saying.
Menzine realized they were not going to get anywhere like this as the girl was obviously traumatized so he held her mouth and gently stared at her. This is exactly what a bad guy would do too but he had no choice at this point.
"Hush, hush… It's okay now. Calm down please," Menzine tried to say in what he thought was a gentle voice. No matter how much he tried to tune it, his voice still didn't sound comforting.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he said, still trying to tune his voice some more.
"I'm here to rescue you so please calm down," he said after finding the right tone, comforting was really not his fortitude.
"I'm going to untie you so don't attack me when your hands are free, okay?" he said with a smile. He removed his hand from her mouth and reached for her tied hands after she nodded.
"Where are you from?" he asked, either trying to make conversation or genuinely interested.
"L-Liberdade City," she stammered. She was visibly shaken.
"Do you have someone you can go to when you're set free from this place?"
"No," she shook her head as she replied.
Her reply had a squeaky sound at the end as she broke down into tears. The bandit that captured her killed her mother, who was the only surviving relative she had at the time.
"Do any of you have where to go?" Menzine asked the 3 other girls in the room.
They all shook their heads but didn't immediately start sobbing.
"Help me free your friends," Menzine replied as he got up to leave the room.
He did not know what to do about the girls or any of the slaves they would free. He hoped his master had a solution.
"No matter what you hear outside or how long I take, don't leave this place until I come back for you," Menzine cautioned the girls.
They nodded in unison and sat silently hugging each other. Their struggles had created a bond among them even though they barely knew anything about each other.
Menzine walked out of the room and found Canning standing in the sun in the middle of the camp. Menzine walked up to him, the closer he got the more he could see how troubled his master was. When he got close enough, he heard him ask,
"What do you think I should do about the children?"
"That is a hard thing to decide sir," Menzine replied, not able to come up with a solution either.
"Yeah, I guess so. This feels like how it was after the war," Lord Canning said.
He had been thinking and relating this event to how the war was. Many people had died because his group was too late to arrive at one particular scene. Their enemies had gone mad with power and attacked a civilian compound.
By the time Canning and his 3 comrades arrived, many of the adults had been slain. Some children had died due to suffocation while others had been burned. The survivors were tied up and wagons were ready to take them as hostages.
Although Canning and his team managed to free them, what to do with them remained a problem. There were so many orphans and the adults that survived had their own children to take care of. While he and his teammates were debating on what to do, emergency orders arrived of them being needed elsewhere to intercept enemy reinforcements.
Without hesitating, Canning pointed the group to head to further places in the kingdom in search of refugee camps or the kingdom's military camps. Sadly, a lot of them died along the way and even those that reached the destination were only given scraps of food. In the end, they had to fend for themselves as the kingdom claimed it had too many people to take care of.
Having nowhere to even begin from, most of them wandered aimlessly around and became beggars. A notorious bandit from Liberdade City by the name of Sazar took advantage of the situation and captured them, turning them into slaves he would sell to whoever had the money.
Despite the atrociousness of such an act, the kingdom did not intervene. The kingdom that had started the war and left them in this predicament had finally neglected them to add salt to their fatal wounds.
These thoughts stirred up Lord Canning's emotions and unfortunately, Menzine was the one to feel the pressure they created. Menzine started sweating heavily and shivering at the same time as rage and power emitted from his master's body. Even though he knew this rage was not directed at him, he still felt the pressure the target would feel too.
"Master!" He called out, bringing Lord Canning back to his senses.
As if a switch was flipped, Lord Canning quickly controlled his emotions. He apologized to Menzine who calmed down too and laughed it off.
Lord Canning turned his head towards the campsite's gate as though something had appeared there suddenly.
"They're coming," he said with a grin, "Have you warmed up enough?"