I was ready for the worst thing to happen when morning came. I couldn't have a wink of sleep that night. My head ached as if someone had hit me with something heavy all night long and I was starting to think about in what condition Spencer would be when he returned.
What if he was so drunk that he started a fight in the bar? What if he had fallen somewhere and couldn't get up? And what if he lost his way and froze to death in that cold?
I didn't know what to think first, no matter how much I tried to calm myself down and say that he would be fine, I couldn't stand still and wait alone in the house. I had to go by myself and see with my own eyes that he was ok.
The city was very beautiful. I had always seen it when I came to help Spencer when he had a lot to bring to market, but I had never come down in the winter, this made me a little sad.
The white roof and the icicles hanging on the ledges made me think of my house in the past. At that time my family and I would have decorated the house everywhere with Christmas decorations.
'It would be nice if we could try to celebrate Christmas here… Nah, Spencer would make fun of my choice because I can't afford to buy something that he likes. He is picky. And he would end up giving me the best gift anyway.'
"Get out of my way, I told you I didn't need help so leave me alone!"
'What are they doing so early in the morning in this cold weather, I see two men and a girl, are they bothering her? It's unusual for vagabonds to attack so early, so maybe it's just a little fight. I better not interfere in their affairs, is not my problem, and continue searching for Spencer.'
"What is such a pretty girl doing all alone? Do you want us to accompany you?"
Cold shivers run down my spine.
I slowly turned my head and I could see two men standing behind me. One was big with a formed body and the other shorter. They both looked like they didn't care about my answer but still, they were waiting.
'What the .. pretty, who is that idiot who is going to believe you? I was wrong to think that they wouldn't be going around at this hour.'
I am lucky that they can't see my hair because of the cape I am wearing and the snow gives me a kind of advantage of not being recognized as a Rapha.
"Thank you, but my house is right there. So I don't need your help."
Well, if I don't provoke them, they will just leave me alone. I just hope they believe the lie I told them, if they think well about it, they will not escape if someone sees them kidnapping someone in broad daylight. And this area is going to be filled with people after some minutes.
But they didn't look satisfied. The big guy grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me towards him. I objected and I used my other hand to hold into an iron pole and I tried as hard as I could to not let go.
While he was still pulling me, the other one came out in front of me and was trying to remove my fingers that were holding tightly to the pole.
"Hey, hey s-stop playing hard to g-get now. Remove the hand from the pole while we are still nice. And you, try harder to get her fingers off of it!"
Damn it, my body can't endure this for long. His strength and my strength are colliding with each other and it makes me feel like I am going to be cut in half at any moment.
They will not give up until the end and I can't buy more time for people to come and see them. And I still have to look for Spencer, so I need to act fast!
'What a nuisance… in these cases, it's good that I have another ace under my sleeves. It is not necessary for them to know what I am, just a small force so they can run away… just a punch or a maybe broken arm will do the job… '
"How dare you!"
"Huh !!! x2
"How dare you go after girls who alone and force them to do what you want! She told you clearly that she doesn't need your help and now you are using violence? Take your hands off her before I scream for help!"
At that time I didn't know what to do, I felt empty because the attack I had planned was thwarted and at the same time I was impressed that someone once stood up and defended me.
That person had a strong blinding light that radiated more than stars in a night sky. I found myself in the dark in front of her. That person had no special or supernatural powers, her body wasn't strong enough to defend itself or attack. She just had her words, and those made me feel protected and safe.
"You little girl are not bad either. If you are so worried about her, you can be a replacement. Hmmm, what do you think?"
I was dumbfounded. He let me go and went to grab her, they had both forgotten about me but my other hand still remained holding the pole.
"Huh, don't make me laugh! Take off your hand's disgusting man, let me go!"- she said trying to escape him pulling her. But she couldn't do anything, she had nowhere to go with one in the front and the other one pushing her from the back.
'I somehow wanted to reach that light. I want to have that star in front of me forever and push me forward. I feel like I have to defend her in any way! '
I stood frozen in place watching her move on and if I left her, she would disappear from my grasp.
I wanted to move but my body was not responding.
'Is my body tired from before?'
My heart was beating faster, I was out of breath and I was in agony not knowing what to do. I tried to calm down, raised my head, and saw how she was being dragged, and I started hearing her cries for help again.
At that moment I couldn't feel anything. My heart stopped. I couldn't hear her crying and even my own heartbeat, except for one thing, a raged voice in my head was saying consistently: "I want that light to be mine, they can't have her. It's mine!"
!Thud!!
One of the street lights overturned on the ground. Her noise frightened the men who were pulling the girl away. They turned their heads to see what had happened.
"What the hell was that!"
[My light...you can't take her. That is mine!]
"W-w-what!! She wasn't like that two minutes ago, what happened? I'm scared!
"Shut up you fool! It's nothing you will see."
[She said to let her! I'm being nice and I'm leaving you time to let go of her and get out of my sign before I do the same thing to you as I did to this pole!]
That day was weird from the start. Somehow I managed to get them to run away and Spencer was not too far from me.
Mireya was the one who helped me discover something else about myself and I fainted there in an instant. She also helped Spencer get out of his miserable condition that had plagued the bar that night and the two of them took me home where she later joined us.
According to her, she had gone to ask for help about a wild animal that moved at night in the forest where she was sheltered. In a way, she hoped that someone seeking danger and fame for hunting wild beasts would have taken the trouble to help the inhabitants of that place from that creature, but fate was not on her side.
"Such things only happen in fairy tales!"
"I know! B-but I had nothing else to do, I was scared."
No one took the trouble to help her and she had no choice but to go where she had come from and find for herself a solution to that problem.
Then, she met Spencer who was barely able to walk in front of the nightclub. She offered her help to him who was totally drunk and tried to take him home by himself. But it was hard to get information from him, he didn't want to say where his house was and then those two hooligans showed up.
So we happen to meet before the Nirvana soldiers found her and the prince came to the rescue. Because the place where she was sheltered was too far and also there was a beast which could do something bad to her, we decided to together.
Everything here seems beautiful to me, probably because I was used to always seeing the dark side of things, but being with people where trust is mutual puts the soul and mind at ease.
The thing that caught my attention from the beginning was this open meadow from behind the house which is limited only by the corner of the hill. I don't often go down to the city so I spend most of the time here. Anyway, I was not alone!
Mireya stayed with me and she was not afraid of the fact that I was a Rapha. At first, she didn't know the meaning, I also didn't have information about my ancestors, so I couldn't give her any explanation. Only Spencer knew, but he didn't say a word, and so that remained a secret from Mireya and me.
We made breakfast together, took care of the garden and also the only man in what we could now call a family, and spent the rest of the day on the lawn behind.
She told me about her life story and what she had gone through in trying to escape the soldiers who were looking for her. Her truth made me think long and hard about the original story, and how confusing her information was.
It was said that Mireya had escaped from her Nirvana kingdom for a crime she had committed against the newly appointed king, but in fact, her story was darker. Her parents were expecting to lose everything from the many debts they had and her father sold her to an old duke to pay off the debt.
He saw her and it seems he liked her appearance. Duke was an elderly man who was known to have a hobby of buying young girls in the market. But she was different from them in rank, beauty, and ethics. So he immediately sends her to the palace as a concubine and as a gift to the new emperor.
Mireya stayed there for a long time and saw with her own eyes what a man the new king was, he was cruel and could stain his hands with someone's blood just because his wishes were not fulfilled.
She escaped spending the night with him several times, and he started threatening her with her family life if she didn't do as she was told. He acted childish in front of her and was totally psychopathic.
So on the night it was scheduled for her to go to his chamber, she decided to run away. She didn't care about her parents' lives even though she felt bad for her mother who wasn't part of her father's decision and that they had to sacrifice their life for her fault. But still, they sold her and she had suffered enough in the palace.
What happened next is the beginning of the adventure in the original story, the angry emperor ordered his soldiers to capture Mireya. If she were to be caught, he would either lock her up somewhere and she would continue to be his concubine or she would be hanged for betrayal.