(From Leandro's Perspective)
It was already nine at night. She still had not come back. What if someone took her? What if they hurt her or used her for...?
I could not stay still any longer. I got out of the cave and went out of the forest. I waited at the same spot where I had left her earlier in the day. I did not understand why I was feeling this way towards her. For some inexplicable reason, I was drawn to her.
Almost half an hour later, I saw a tiny figure coming this way. She always placed her left foot slightly curved. Even from a distance, I knew it was her. Besides, I could smell her as well.
She smiled broadly as she approached closer and found me standing here. My heart began to beat strangely in response to the sight. I noticed she was holding two large packets in each hand.
"I thought you wouldn't come," she said. "Good that you've come. It would be weird to walk through the forest alone."
"I've come to see if you are alive or not," I muttered coldly.
"Yeah, yeah. I've got good news," she said grinning. "I can start working as a servant from tomorrow."
I could not believe she truly managed to get the job. She knew nothing or no one here. Still, here she was saying that she had found a way to get inside the castle and also had two bags full of steaks, which I recognized by the smell even though she did not have any money.
"Let's go home then. I've brought food for us," she said, her smile fixed on her face.
She gave one of the packets in my hand and started walking. I let out a sigh and followed her. "How did you do it?"
"Well, I met Edrich. He said that I got the job and told me to meet him at the hut where we talked tomorrow at 6 in the morning," she said.
"You met Edrich?"
"He was talking to an old man. I overheard him, saying that the king needed servants and slaves. So I told him I wanted to work as a servant."
"Didn't he ask you anything about yourself and your family?"
"He did. I said that my name is... um... oh yeah, Leora Edrei. And I told him that I don't have a family. My father died before my birth and my mother died right after giving me birth. So I needed to earn money. He seems like a good guy, you know. I mean, he warned me. He said that, well, if the king or his father saw me, they might want to take me as their sex slave. So I requested him to give me work where I would not have to face them. He said he will try. But I still don't understand why they would want me as their sex slave. It's not like I have a curvy body. Well, my breasts are indeed kind of big as per my body, but still... other things are not perfect," she muttered, looking down at her. "You know him, don't you?"
"Yes."
"He was saying to the old man that there are rumors about your brother betraying you. But not everyone believes it. Some do and some don't. That's what happens in the case of rumors. Well, at least, they have the slightest suspicion that your brother might have betrayed you. It's a good thing, right? They'll know the truth eventually. But the thing that I don't understand... well, did they never see you? They talk as if they haven't seen you or your brother."
"Royals don't get out of the castle much," I replied.
"Oh ok. By the way, your father is not a good person. He fucked the old man's wife at the cost of two hundred silvers and his wife is sick now. The old man did not seem to care about it much. So are all of the royals like this? They take whoever they want?" she asked.
"They do."
"You used to do it too? You used to fuck a lot of women? You used to use them for your sexual pleasure?"
"That's..."
I was about to say that's none of your business. But I did not want her to get the wrong impression of me, especially in this case. I found myself saying, "Well, I used to fuck whores only, not married women and young girls. They would take the money and then leave. I never had a slave or something like that."
"Oh. How many women did you sleep with?" she asked, but then added, "No, you don't have to tell me."
For a brief moment, I thought I detected a hint of melancholy in her tone. Was she sad hearing that I had fucked women before? Or what did she expect me to be? A virgin saint?
She quickly fixed her face, probably not to let me show her sadness, or was it something else? Jealousy? Was she attracted to me? Maybe a smidgeon. But I felt a rush of excitement at the thought.
"So I'm not an adult. I'm not even eighteen yet. Do you think they will want to take me as a slave?"
"If a girl has her...," I was trying to find the right word to describe.
"Satan's sacrificial waterfall? Fall of stinky and sometimes clogged blood? When you feel like you're dying, when you stand up after a while and feel a waterfall down there, then when you go to the toilet in the morning and it looks like a huge bowl of tomato soup, when you want to stab everyone and everything that gets in your way, when you wish you weren't a girl, when you want to kill everyone at least six times, when everyone is annoying, when you have to go to the bathroom, when you have to go the toilet multiple times to make sure your body is not letting others know that you have blood inside of you?" she breathed out the words with clear annoyance.
I could not help but smile. Even I was surprised that she managed to make me smile. "Yes, that. Then any girl can be a slave, at least they think so."
"Oh ok. Then I'm free."
"You did not have your period?" I asked, shocked.
"No, no, no. I've had my period. But how will they know? It's not like if I have my period, I'll go around walking as if there is a stick stuck between my legs," she said pouting.
"They can smell blood," I said.
"What? Oh, I thought they can't smell. I mean, those creatures did not have a nose."
"When they are in their Orgade form, they can't smell. But when they are in their human forms, they can smell," I explained, and her countenance clouded. "Kind of like the way predators can smell blood."
"God, that sucks. Hope I'm so ugly and stinky that people won't look at me twice," she said and I was thinking that it was something that was never going to happen. "By the way, you like steaks, don't you?"
"Where did you get them? You didn't have any money."
"I don't need money to get food," she said as if it was something anyone would understand. "A woman gifted them to me."
"Why would someone gift you for no reason?"
"I just helped her a bit. It took so long. So, she gave me those as a thank you."
"What did you help her with?"
"Well, she has six children. Two of them are very little. Her three-year-old son was throwing a tantrum for no apparent reason. I had to calm him down. It took a very long time. But then after he calmed down, he requested me to read a book with him. I like books too. So I did not refuse. It took so long. We did not even notice how long it has been," she explained.
I looked at her, surprised. With everything she did, she was surprising me even more. She had no idea how different I was when it came to her. I had never talked to anyone like this. I had never behaved well with anyone. But she... she brought out this form of me.
We reached the cave. She was kind of excited. As we went inside the kitchen, she got comfortable on a stool. I washed plates for us. I had never done this for anyone else before. She was the first to witness almost everything unusual that I did.
The steaks were big, very big. I was sure that the three years old boy of the woman was surely very hard to control. That was why the woman was very grateful to her for calming him down. She might not think that it was a big deal, but to the woman, it surely was.
Ella was now eating her steak and telling me about how she had almost tripped over a chair and pebbles several times. But I was mostly looking at her. She was not looking at me while keeping up with her talking which I was grateful for. Because now I could take all of her features, without having to worry that she saw me observing her.