Blood of the Covenant
It had been nearly 10 minutes since Phup had started to break down and cry. This was certainly not Mikax's strong point, dealing with crying people made him extremely uncomfortable. Finally, he decided that he should delegate this task to someone else. Without explaining himself he simply got up and left the room.
Once he left Phup began to panic, she needed him, if her crying had made him abandon her she would fall completely into despair. She began to try and force herself off the bed to chase after him. It was then that Arlyne stepped forward to grab and restrain her. She was surprised when Phup began to earnestly fight to get past her. She was no match for Arlyne who was well trained and many levels above the former castle servant.
"LET ME GO! I NEED HIM! LET ME GO!" Phup repeatedly shouted at the top of her lungs.
Arlyne had enough and wrapped one of her arms around the young woman's body and another over her mouth. "This is his bedroom he will be back will you just calm down!" After Arlyne had done this and repeated herself a few times it finally started to get thru and Phup began to stop resisting.
Before Arlyne had released Phup the door opened again revealing Rotnam, Lyra and Mikax. "Did we decide to stop helping her Arlyne?" Mikax looked at her with a smirk on his face. He knew that it wasn't like that but it was funny to watch her get flustered over being caught in such a awkward position.
The moment that he said this Arlyne released the young lady and Phup immediately scampered over to Mikax and fell to her knees in from of him grabbing the front of his pants. "Please help me. I'll do anything just don't make me go back!" She was sobbing again, this time into his thighs.
"I don't care what you do, stay or go, it's your choice no one else's." Mikax said in a tone that seemed like he really didn't care what happened to her.
Phup looked up at him and began to beg, "if they realize I'm gone they will activate my slave bracelet and I'll die please help!"
Now Mikax really did look at her with a look of frustration. "Can you three find a room for her for the night I'm too tired to deal with this right now." He then moved to the side of the doorway and made an ushering motion out of the door.
Phup was looking at him with fear in her eyes. She couldn't wait until morning. She began to panic again and Mikax had finally reached his limit on patience. He bent down and with one hand grabbed her by the mouth forcing her head to look towards her feet and pointed at her now bare ankle. When he saw realization appear in her eyes he let her go.
"Please take her somewhere else now." This time Mikax didn't have any kindness in his tone. He really wanted to go back to sleep, this is the last way he wanted to be woken up. The others realizing this grabbed the girl who hadn't stopped staring at her bare ankle and whisked her out of the room closing the door behind them.
Once they had decided which room to let her stay in Arlyne left the room and returned to watching for any possible attacks from the army. She still had another hour till her guard duty was over and Eura would take her spot.
Lyra sat holding the young girl in her arms as she silently wept. Rotnam easily recognized Phup and had also guessed that her fate had changed drastically since he last saw her. Slowly the young girl began to calm down. Not long after she had fallen asleep, completely exhausted with the events that she had endured for the night. Rotnam returned to his own room to get a little more rest and Lyra had laid down in the bed with Phup and fell asleep beside her.
In the morning everyone was surprised not to see Lyra out and about helping with the breakfast crowd that had started showing up. Orion and his nephew Onas were all alone until Hesa had offered to give them a hand. They had all been informed of what happened the night before so they knew there was good reason. However, none of them were surprised to find out that Mikax had decided to sleep in much later than usual.
Once it had neared 10 in the morning Lyra appeared out of the spare room that they had put Phup into. She made her way to Mr. Akkar's office knocking before entering to speak with him.
"Good morning Lyra what can I help you with?" Mr Akkar and Lyra had become quite close since he was running the financial side of the guild.
"I'll need some money to buy the young woman who came to us last night some clothing. She came with nothing and what she was wearing reveals almost everything." Lyra was giving a forced smile because she felt so terrible for her, Phup only looked to be around 15 years old and she had been through so much already.
Mr. Akkar stood up and went to the wall safe that Mikax had installed, after opening it he removed a small pouch of coins and handed it to Lyra. "This should be more than enough but let me know if you need anything else."
Lyra thanked Mr. Akkar before leaving the room and guild to go get some clothing for her. While Lyra did this, Phup was curled up in her bed, wrapped in one of the most comfortable blankets that she had ever felt. The slaves quarters in the castle were less than desirable and the room she was in now made her feel like one of the important guests she regularly would have looked after. She didn't even want to think of how she was forced to live after being sold off.
Once Lyra returned she made her way to Phup's room to give her the things she had bought her. None of it was meant to fit perfectly, she merely bought some shorts, pants, and shirts till they could find the time to get something that was meant for her size. Phup was in tears as Lyra gave her the items. It wasn't that the clothing was overly nice,in fact it was more plain than she was used to, it was that they had already done so much for her and had expected nothing in return.
Once she had gotten dressed Lyra asked Phup to follow her to speak with Mikax. This had caused the young Fox beastkin's heart to race. She had only had a few interactions with the man so far and all of them had changed her life significantly.
After making their way to the third floor Lyra entered the room without knocking. Sitting on the floor was Kydorzia who was still training her mana flow and Mikax standing at the window like usual.
"She's awake and decent what is the plan?" Lyra spoke to Mikax as if they were equals, this action surprised Phup greatly since she had seen how domineering he could be.
Finally turning around Mikax looked at them before speaking, "that's up to her, she's free to go wherever she pleases, we aren't in the business of holding people captive."
"Did you forget about the demonic fox dangling over our guild hall already?" Lyra had put on her motherly tone while poking her thumb over her shoulder towards the door, "you know he hasn't eaten in almost 2 full days now. Are we starving him to death?"
Phup had noticed the cube being suspended with the body inside but she couldn't tell much about it in her brief walk to this room. To know a demonic fox was being held prisoner was very surprising to her.
"If you want to feed him be my guest, until he barks like a dog though I'm not going to consider releasing him." Mikax crossed his arms and put on a very stern face. Everyone was used to dealing with how stubborn Mikax could be by now. Lyra was just happy that she didn't have to watch Zed starve.
Lyra then turned to Phup, "Do you have anywhere to go or anyone to go to? If you don't would you like to join our guild?"
Phup's mouth was hanging open. Join them? She had nothing to offer them at all, in fact she was considerably in debt at this point. Mikax was about to speak when Lyra put her finger over her mouth and shushed him. He wanted to protest excpet he had made everyone equals among the founding 9 members, he couldn't stop the recruitment if Lyra thought it was in the best interest of The Misfit Toys.
Before anyone else could speak a surge of mana exploded out from Kydorzia's body and she slumped backwards onto the floor with labored breathing.
Ignoring the recruitment going on Mikax basically skipped over to where Kydorzia laid and sat on the floor next to her. "You have officially completed your mana control lesson! How does it feel?"
"My entire body feels like something hot is flowing thru me right now. Is this normal?" Kydorzia forced the words out as she had an uncomfortable look on her face.
"Oh yeah that just means you broke the final blockade holding your mana back. It will go away after your body acclimates to it." Mikax had a genuine smile on his face right now, a bard was one of the best group supports one could hope for, that tied with the fact that there appeared to be none in Bedel meant that her effect on a battlefield would be priceless.
"Lady Ryb is that you?" Phup put a name to the face of the woman laying on the floor.
"Um…who are you?" Kydorzia couldn't remember ever seeing this young beastkin before but she didn't confirm that she was 'Lady Ryb' because the truth was that she wasn't.
Phup clearly blushed in embarrassment for not being recognized. "I had seen you around the castle back in the capital a few times. Everyone was told you were murdered after someone attacked you and your father when you returned home."
Phup could feel Kydorzia's sadness and see the look of hurt in her eyes from that sentence.
"I'm only dead in my former family's eyes because I chose to be here." The conviction in Kydorzia's voice was sounding thru as she continued, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. I have a new family now and am being reborn."