"That's…" Meira visibly paled upon hearing Ilsa's requirement. "That's a bit much isn't it?"
"No Meira. It's not." She hissed and plunged the tip of her blade into the wood of her counter. With swift movements, she was already approaching the doorway to the backroom only to pause and look back with narrowed eyes at Meira. "Don't forget. You're coming to me. I don't want this, but I need it."
When Ilsa was gone, Noah watched as Meira hesitantly focused on the blade sticking like a spike up out of the counter.
"I'm going to guess this blood oath isn't anything good?" Noah already guessed as much. Whenever the words 'Blood' and 'Oath' were used in tandem rarely ever meant anything good.
"It's," Meira nibbled her lip hesitantly before letting out a surrendering sigh. "It's not entirely bad. It's more symbolic than anything. For my people, for the Rhegian's, a blood oath is… it's not something you can just ignore. For you humans it's nothing but an odd ritual, it has no danger, no threat to either party, unless of course, one has tainted blood. But…" she went still and gulped, her eyes darting all around the room as if seeking reprise. "For us, for me and my people, it is a highly, highly respected tradition. It can be considered a contract, much like the one I would like for you to sign. Except, the only place this will ever be written down is in our heads." She weakly indicated to her head.
"And I'm guessing failing it isn't a good thing?"
She nodded, "betraying a blood oath… I would be disowned by my father, persecuted by my people, even executed. Making something like this… It is like standing atop a crumbling ruin with a rope tied around my neck. A single wrong move could very well be the end of me."
Noah whistled lowly, "then just ignore it. We can go to a different store. A different person." Meira looked back to him, her eyes low and lips half amused.
"No, no. This blood oath. It will also be of use to us."
"How so?"
"For making sure Ilsa will never speak of your existence as anything other than a human of Minas."
"How? You just said it won't affect her." He added.
Meira scrunched her cheeks, head bobbing side to side as if to tell him he was only partially right. "It isn't as if there aren't any downsides to humans. It is just exceedingly limited in nature. The most Ilsa will have to worry about is perhaps the odd Rhegian Oathkeeper coming to capture her. But this is not Rhegia, and the Oathkeepers never leave Rhegia. The only other threat for her is that she will be banished from ever entering Rhegia itself."
In other words, as Noah was quickly surmising, nothing would happen to her. "This still sounds very one-sided Meira."
"Oh, it is. Very much so, but it gets us a second boon. Ilsa's help as well as her store if we're lucky."
Noah looked to her quizzically, "the store? You want to use this place to sell anything I make?" Meira nodded in response.
"If not for storing excess produce we can also begin building up a sort of brand you could say. Bring a name to your products, get it popular enough with the people and we will be bound to draw the eye of some nobleman. And once we have them, they will start talking to their friends, people who visit them will ask where they got their cherries for example and if they tell them here more business will come here which will not only bolster Tallmire's economy but will subsequently bolster our pockets with plenty of buckles."
"Isn't that what you were saying with the special orders? The requests?" Noah asked.
"Mmm, to a degree. While I may have a contact interested in some specialized resources otherwise not found freely in Morea, we, or well, you have no presence. You are a veritable nobody with nothing to your name."
Noah flinched, she was right, didn't mean he liked her being right.
"But say you become a supplier of high end produce to a well-known store in one of the larger trading hubs of Morea… well, I can only imagine how much face that will give you. Of course, getting to that point will take a while. Years even."
"We don't have years. We have months." He murmured.
"I'm aware." She huffed, "hence why I'll be focusing for the most part on the private requests. If we can use them, or heavens, find someone willing to pay off all the debt in one, this store will become a backbone to any excess you create. If we can't pay off that absurd debt, then this store will become your new golden goose once we find new land for you to do your ranching on."
He didn't enjoy the idea of moving land but he couldn't deny that should things go south it would be a much better plan than going to the street to become a beggar.
As Meira's whispered tones turned silent, Ilsa soon reappeared from the doorway, carrying with her various things, a bowl with a small spout on one end as well as a small thumb-sized vial that could stand on its own.
Noah eyed the objects as she set them down on the counter by her dagger, now seeing another item, a thin metal rod leaning inside the bowl.
"You go first." Ilsa hissed to Meira and Meira took a hesitant but stoic step closer. She eyed the bowl and the vial then sighed.
"You prepared for this." She said.
"I had a feeling you'd be back trying to get me into something. I was right."
Sighing, Meira rocked the dagger and pried it from the counter. She stared down at the tip and lifted her opposite hand glazed with a slight sheen of sweat which she quickly wiped off on her sari. With another nervous lick of her lips, Meira brought the knife to her palm and breathed in a cold and slow breath.
She winced as she pressed it down and dragged it across her palm, cutting a shallow slit in her hand that oozed thick red nectar that she ensures all collected in the wood of the bowl. Filling it just barely a fifth of the way up before quickly bandaging the cut with a towelette Ilsa had brought out from beneath the countertop.
"I hate this, I hope you know that." Meira glanced up to Ilsa and handed the dagger to the girl.
"I don't care. You came back, I want to make sure you stay." Just as with Meira, Ilsa stared down at the blade, its edge tipped in red and frowned as she cut it thinly through the skin of her palm, adding another fifth to the bowl before patching it up. As she lowered her hand, Noah could see her trembling.
The two kept silent as Ilsa reached for a long metal rod reminiscent of a scoop used for matcha tea powder back on earth and slowly stirred the blending of their blood until it was homogenous. Tapping the rod a few times on the edge, she laid it to the side, staining a small red dot on her counter in the process.
Looking down to the blood-filled bowl and up to Ilsa, Meira said, "let's make the terms of this clear." Ilsa met her gaze with a swift nod.
"I will stay silent about your friend's true nature and sponsor him for any equipment he may need."
"And I will provide my unlimited assistance to you in any manner I can as well as a direct percentage of all successful sales."
Ilsa's eyes sparkled for a second before she said, "is there anything else? I presume you also want use of my store if you're planning on setting him up as a halfway decent rancher?"
"I do. Is that acceptable to you?" Meira asked hopefully.
Ilsa pursed her lips and looked to Noah, eyes narrowing she glanced over his body, lanky and decently dressed. Far from perfect and handsome, especially with that horrible rat's ass of a beard, he had stuck on his face. Soon letting out a sigh Ilsa shook her head. "Not while he looks like a beggar who stuffed their face in a werewolves ass. Get him cleaned up then yeah. I'll accept that."
Meira turned back to Noah with a tilt upwards of her lips, "looks like you're going to the barber after this Noah."
He chuckled and scratched his thin tawny beard. "I don't think I'm going to complain about that."
She bobbed her brows and turned back to Ilsa, she was staring at the bowl with a twitching cheek and a green hue to her skin. When she noticed Meira was looking her way she forced away from the green and steadied herself staunchly.
Meeting her nod, Meira puffed her cheek letting out a hiss of air through her pursed lips and lifted the bowl with two hands. Staring down at the conglomeration of red she soon shook her head and brought the edge to her lip and smelling the revolting metallic scent, tipped back her head and downed a slim mouthful of the fluid. As she lowered the bowl her expression contorted at the taste and her throat rolled as she downed it.
Barely holding herself back from gagging, Meira held out the bowl to Ilsa and she took it with slow, almost mechanical motions. Soon copying Meira's actions to take a mouthful and swallow. Though, unlike Meira, Ilsa nearly keeled over and threw up. She would have had she not set the bowl down and slammed her fist down so hard the dagger and the vial bounced.
"Oh, that's sick." Ilsa groaned.
"You wanted this."
"Need Meira. Not want. Just, finish it off now." Stroking her undamaged hand over her face, she waved Meira onwards with her other.
Giving a nod, Meira once more lifted the bowl and placed the spout over the lip of the vial and poured what remained into it. Corking it once the final drop was in and holding it in her hand, paled at it. "I'll send this off in the morning." She said with no small amount of trepidation.
Curious as to why Noah kept silent. Knowing now was far from the right time to question her about why and where she'd be sending a vial of blood. If anything he guessed it had something to do with those Oathkeepers she'd mentioned. 'But what could they do with blood? It's not like they can sense if an oath's been broken… right?' thinking that, the atmosphere in the store turned silent as the girls stared at the vial and each other.
"So," Ilsa was the first to finally break the ice, "considering I'm now his sponsor, what does he need?" she said crossing her arms.
Meira chuckled lowly, "quite a bit actually."
***
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Yeah, so I've been seeing comments, at least, in the previous chapter (the only comments I've read in months) about Noah being too sub. yeah, no, I agree. He'll be getting out of that soon, and It'll definitely get some reworking if I ever get to rewriting/reworking earlier chapters.
My main reasoning though, if you'll let me explain myself, is that Noah's still dealing with the 'new world' pangs and needs to get rid of old world sensibilities. Which shouldn't be much longer considering a ranch is uh, going to be dealing a lot with 'breeding' the monsters.
Basically, Noah won't be as much of a wuss soon.