"Teerom! Jurie!" Madella called out.
"We're up here!" The two children returned as loudly as they could.
"How did you get up there?"
"A plant thingy caught Jurie!"
"Don't tell me the boy climbed up there," Yilba mumbled to herself.
"And I climbed up!"
Yilba's jaw dropped.
"We should go to the city and get help," Yilba said, still looking up in astonishment at the huge height Teerom climbed. She glanced at the tree trunk and saw Madella gripping onto the gigantic rough wood.
"Madella, are you insane!?"
Madella didn't listen to Yilba's worried shouts and spent the next ten minutes climbing up the tree, using Strength Magic in intervals. She kicked a huge thick vine that wrapped multiple times around the branch, unwrapping it and making it fall to the ground. The two children held on to her tightly as she slid down on it.
"You a monster hunter or something?" Yilba asked.
"Used to be." Madella grinned, ruffling Teerom and Jurie's heads, "Now I'm a full-time mother."
At night, Teerom and Jurie rested on the singular bed upstairs, Teerom lying as far from Jurie as possible in case she was still mad at him. An uncomfortable absence of words, further emphasized by the chatter of Madella and Yilba downstairs, filled the room. Until Jurie spoke, still facing away from Teerom.
"Thank you," She mumbled.
Teerom took a few moments to analyze the situation. Was she genuinely grateful to him? If so, then he should take this chance to become friends with her again. On the other hand, she could be feeling obliged to thank him despite still being annoyed. Maybe she was just trying to clear the air of silence, in which case, he should just act casual. He wanted to just say 'Don't sweat it,' in a cool badass tone and began preparing, thinking of how Jiggan would've said it in his deep yet gentle voice.
"I'm sorry," he said shakily and in falsetto. As if he'd been teleported to Anarctia, his body froze stiff from the cringe.
Jurie laughed quietly, "I forgave you a long time ago."
"What?" He suddenly sat up and she turned to face him, "Then what was all that for?"
She smiled cheekily and pulled him back down, lightly slapping his cheek, "Sleep, idiot," To her surprise, he had already conked out the moment he hit the pillow. "Not that fast!" She found herself watching his chest rise and fall and the peaceful expression on his face. Shaking thoughts from her head, she turned away from him and tried to catch some sleep herself. A moment later, she'd turned back toward him and held him as she fell asleep.
Madella and Yilba had quietly made their way upstairs and relished in the sight of the two kids.
"She finally forgave him, eh?" Yilba said.
Madella sighed and looked at her, "She forgave him a long time ago," her gaze returned to them, "You're living your story, aren't you?"
"What story?" Yilba's question received a cryptic, humored huff from Madella as she returned downstairs, "Madella, what story? Is this another one of your aunt's fairy tales? Madella!"
The next day, the next orphan would join the orphanage, though only temporarily. While Madella and Yilba walked down the cold streets of Gouon in search of prawns and salmon, they happened upon a scene where a boy was desperately trying to fight a lesser knight for a piece of expensive bread he'd stolen. The clerk whom he'd taken from had just arrived at the scene and began punching the boy repeatedly.
Madella couldn't see his face as the knight was holding him in the air toward himself, but his black hair and pale skin made her feel a strange sense of familiarity - warmth almost - toward him.
"Let go of me!" The boy demanded.
Yilba produced an expression of pity, "A crime's a crime. I can't blame that clerk for beating that boy so badly. Let's keep going, Madel-" Before she knew it, Madella was at the scene, trying to calm the clerk down and have him gift forgiveness to the boy.
"Who are you?" The clerk asked.
"I'm Madella. I run the orphanage South of here."
"A nun?"
"No, no. Just let the boy go. I'm sure he was just hungry."
"If he was hungry he could've stolen some cheaper bread. Besides, he seems perfectly healthy to me." The clerk gave another hateful punch into the boy's stomach, this one made him burst out into tears, screaming for his parents.
"Mommy! Daddy!" He wailed. When the knight let him go and Madella saw his face, her heart sank.
Red.
Red eyes. There was something off about the boy. He seemed familiar yet she had never met him.
"Hi, what's your name?" Madella crouched to his level.
"Get away from me!" The boy tried to run but his legs gave out.
"I'm Madella." She offered her hand, but he didn't take it, staying on the floor.
"I want food," The boy said, his stomach grumbling.
"Where are your parents?" Madella asked.
"I don't know."
"Come with me. I'm making prawns for dinner. Do you like prawns?"
The boy nodded pridefully.
"You gonna tell me your name?"
"Feed me!"
"Name,"
"…Theedev. Sir Theedev Ilsef to you."
Madella tried to help him up, "Okay, Sir Theedev let's-"
"Don't touch me!" He swatted her away and with great struggle got up on his own.
"Madella," Yilba tried to talk some sense into Madella before she adopted a noble boy, but she shushed her and continued shopping.
Jurie woke up slowly to the sound of Teerom humming as he bathed and the gentle battering of rain on the window behind her. He came out shortly after in a new change of clothes, releasing into the bedroom all the steam he'd let build up in the bathroom – he didn't want to open the window as the cold winter air would've frozen him to death.
"Wanna play hide and seek?" Jurie asked, to which he agreed and they spent the next half an hour on round 1 as Teerom could never have hoped to find Jurie hiding in a gap behind the fireplace. When Madella had returned home, she bought Theedev back with her, who saw Jurie covered in dust and grime and pretended to vomit.
"Get that peasant creature out of my sight," He commanded.
"Theedev, rule number one: be kind, okay?" Madella scolded. Yilba had a terrible feeling about Theedev backed by experience
Theedev tried to behave that night and ate with everyone, taking more than his fair share and in turn, pissing Teerom and Jurie off greatly.
Since they had three children in the orphanage now, Madella decided to make it an official establishment and departed for Gouon again the next day to talk to the Lord. She left Yilba behind to look after the kids and ensure Theedev behaves.
That did not happen. Theedev kept commanding Jurie to strip for him and for Teerom to be his slave. Yilba attempted to reprimand him, but instead, she got a furious onslaught of screaming swearing, and a shove into the wall. Her back, being frail from old age, was injured and made an audible crack in this ordeal. Theedev panicked. He began apologizing, not from genuine guilt but fear he'd be punished by Madella with no dinner.
"Theedev!" Teerom lunged at him and pinned him against the ground. Theedev glared back at him, about to make some pompous remark about how he was committing a sin by touching him. But he froze, all of his hair standing. "Touch her again and you'll pay for it," Teerom's usual failure to act cool had vanished. Perhaps it was due to genuine rage.
Madella returned home that moment and gasped.
"Teerom! What're you doing!?" She pried Teerom off Theedev.
"He pushed Mrs. Yilba!" Teerom defended himself.
"Madella. I told you. The nobility are nothing but scum!" Yilba shouted.
"Watch your mouth!" Theedev clenched his fists and threw them at Yilba. Madella got in the way of his attack, being knocked down to the ground, and in the blindness of rage, Theedev jumped on top of her and began choking her.
But the next moment, he was in the air. He opened his eyes properly and saw Teerom holding him by the neck.
"Let me down!" He demanded.
"Shut the fuck up!" Teerom hurled him into the ground onto his back. Theedev sprung to his feet, panting to regain the air punched from his lungs. He lurched at Teerom, knocking him down on one knee from a good punch in the stomach.
"How's that, you peasa-" Theedev froze. Like a tsunami, pure terror flooded him.
"You scared? Are your instincts telling you that I'm just awesome? That I am a Dark Conjurer!?" Teerom showed his right hand, "I will call a demon here. And it will eat you!"
"Teerom!" Madella held Teerom in place.
Yilba stood in sheer confusion, "What in Luneia's name is going on…" She asked herself.
"I fucking hate all of you! I'm leaving!" Theedev stormed out of the house.
"Yeah! Go on!" Teerom and Jurie shouted, making sure from their glares he knew how much they hated him.
"Theedev!" Madella chased after him, but he turned and kicked her away.
"Leave me alone!" He continued walking toward the city in the dead of night.
"Mother!" "Mom!" Jurie and Teerom came outside with Yilba.
"Theedev, come back!" Madella yelled, but the boy continued walking.
"Madella, just let him go! The kid's a piece of shit, why do you want him to come back!?" Yilba shouted at her.
"Because I've met him before!" Madella tried to catch her breath. Everyone fell silent as she continued, "I don't know where. I don't know when. But I've definitely met him before. No, I- I don't even know anymore… That black hair, those red eyes, that pale skin, I've seen them before. Maybe it was... but I get this feeling that he's someone special!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I felt like that too," Teerom said suddenly. He looked at them all before continuing, "Just like mom, the black hair and red eyes, I've seen them before. Or… I don't know. I don't remember it, but it feels like it. I'm sorry," He trailed off, unable to explain how he remembers something he doesn't remember.
They spent that night in melancholy. Madella and Jurie used their weak Healing Magic to treat the injured as best as they could.
Madella had apologized a while back, saying she had no idea why she acted like that. Teerom too apologized, mostly for swearing though. The dreary atmosphere was broken when they heard the adorable yet strangely hearty laughter of a baby. Madella walked outside with the others trailing behind her, shivering from the cold night.
The baby suddenly began crying and they followed the sound to the river just a minute away. In a roughed-up basket, covered in wet towels was a brown-skinned baby with black hair. Once he saw Madella's face come into view, he began laughing again, cute and full of life.
"Why's it laughing so much?" Teerom and Jurie couldn't help but smile too.
Madella lifted a ripped tag dangling behind the baby's head, it read,
'Amasha'