62 Rebels (2)

"Here's some dinner," a rebel handed me a piece of hard burnt bread at her place.

Her place was modest but cozy. I sat down on a short wooden stool while my plate of bread was on the dark wooden table.

Three wax candles lit up her place in the living and dining room where the spaces weren't separated. There were no decorations to be seen and many items of furniture or small gimmicks were there more out of necessity than any other reason.

I hesitantly accepted the bread as I thought that these people were amazing for being able to thrive under such a nasty environment.

"You can stay at my house for a few days since you don't have a place to stay," the rebel suggested.

"What about the activities of the rebel group?" I asked carefully.

"We're meeting tomorrow night." The rebel showed me around her house.

When I yawned from being tired from sneaking out in the middle of the early night, the rebel showed me to the bedroom.

"My younger sister went to visit our parents at my home town, so you can stay here." The rebel left me alone thinking that I was greatly exhausted from my escape from the tyrannical nobles.

Once the rebel left, I dropped onto the bed with no hesitation as the exhaustion as taken a toll on me. I didn't care that the mattress was not the ones that I was used to. There was no white clean cloths nor the high quality stuffing of feathers filling the mattress.

That's how I woke up the next evening with a great lack of sleep with the mattress filled with straws. The dazzling warm rays of orange and red sun light drifted in from my window to display the sun setting down to transition deeper into the night.

'This is just like that medieval room I had to sleep in at the beginning of middle school,' I thought as my back ached from the lack of cushioning.

I couldn't stop waking up every hour due to the occasional straws poking me from the holes in the cloth that covered the mattress. I never thought I would become so spoiled by living with the elites in the first district. I was struggling to live as a commoner in the fifth district.

"I didn't think you'd wake up," the rebel handed me another piece of rotten looking bread.

The hard bread had slight colouring of green and black on its edges.

"Thank you, umm I don't know your name," I admitted while I placed the bread gently on the plate.

"My name is Jinny," Jinny looked tired with baggy eyes while she slouched onto the table.

"You look really tired today," I commented while wondering if she would notice if I put the bread back into her basket where other rotten bread were stored.

"I had to move carefully today because there were more knights and nobles in this particular neighborhood today to search for a spoiled runaway noble girl from the Suilett family," Jinny complained.

Jinny slumped down onto the table with frustration and exhaustion.

"That must have been hard," I avoided her eyes from my guilt as I remained ignorant that I was the runaway noble girl.

"It seems like that girl takes things for granted. If she knew that her family let her have great luxuries from their extravagant spending that commoners never be able to afford, she wouldn't be causing trouble for all of us," Jinny continued as she frowned.

"Maybe it isn't as good as you may think it is to be a noble, nobles have tons of restricted freedom. Especially young noble children," I added to unconsciously defend myself.

I recalled how Luke strict and limited my freedom in where I could go in terms of places that I could eat, shop, and spend my leisure time in. Occasionally, when Luke thought my behaviour was too 'unladylike of the Roselia family', he would lecture me for several hours.

"It's true that I have rarely seen young noble children," Jinny agreed that young noble children had restricted freedom in where they could go.

"Since, you're look very tired, I can help with the chores since you're letting me stay here for free," I offered Jinny as I tried to switch the topic.

"Thanks," Jinny groaned as she went to her bedroom to relax before the meeting with the other rebels started.

'What should I do first?' I thought.

I grabbed a broomstick to start getting rid of the huge amount of dust gathered on the floor. This made me recall the days where I helped make dinner with my mom before I started high school.

'Mom,' I sadly thought as the dust was arranged into a large pile to be swept outside.

'I'm sorry that I couldn't live a long life that you wanted me too,' I started to do the dishes by rinsing them in a buckle full of water of the well that Jinny had brought with her.

I scrubbed the dishes with a rag dishcloth and wiped the table with the remaining water. I wasn't surprised that there would be a group of rebels after seeing how poorly Jinny lived compared to the luxurious environment of Belle's castle.

"Who is it?" I asked when I heard the loud knocks on the door of the house.

"It's me," the leader of the rebels replied back.

The leader wore a similar outfit as Mill. Did all commoners wear the same thing? It was almost like a uniform since everyone had the same patches on the elbows and stains causing the original colour to fade away.

I hesitantly opened the door to find all the rebels waiting to conduct their meeting in Jinny's house. The rebels came into the house as I secretly sulked that the floors would get messy again from the mud on their boots.

My satisfaction from turning the house into a somewhat livable place shattered as the floor was now littered with dust from their coats.

"Jinny is still sleeping," I ran to Jinny's bedroom to wake her up.

However, Jinny opened her door loudly as she rubbed her eyes.

"I'm up," Jinny came out of her bedroom while scratching her head.

We gathered around the dining room table as Jinny got out more wooden stools.

"It's confirmed that the empire is preparing for a war," the leader solemnly announced.

'They were still in their negotiation stages so technically they weren't really preparing for a war yet,' I couldn't tell them.

"What should we do now?" Another member asked with bit of fear.

The room was filled with fearful people from the announcement as some trembled and others tried to encourage their fellow members that it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

"We start taking things seriously?" A member suggested.

"At this rate, the empire may start mandatory conscription of our young children!" Another member agreed with a hint of anger.

"How about we start off with that donation idea first?" I gave out my best business smile.

I became the centre of attention as the leader waved his hand to indicate for me to continue.

"There are three aspects to this plan," I started off confidently.

'Time to utilize few things I've learned in the first district,' I thought.

"The first one is to spread the message that we need and are accepting donations for our cause."

"And how are we going to do that?" The leader asked me as if to prove my worth.

"You can just tell your family members and ask them to pass them to their relatives and their relatives can pass it onto more people. But you do need to careful that you don't tell anyone that works near the nobles as they can tell the news to the nobles they work for."

"But how do we know that?" The leader crossed his arms as he demanded a more concrete plan.

"Make a subtle message when asking for donations such that people that work for nobles will never understand it even if they get the message. Like something that only people who live like you would understand," I finished presenting the first aspect of my plan.

"Like what?" Another member asked me with disbelief.

"Like please donate for better bread-"

"Are we beggars?" A rebel interrupted as he slammed his fists onto the table.

"You don't seem like a commoner at all! You speak like a noble and insult the life we live!" The rebel revealed my faults.

The other rebels started to whisper among themselves as they became more suspicious of me.

I guessed that Luke's constant naggings did work to a certain extent. I was unconsciously acting like the lady of the Roselia family as I acted the same as I did in school.

I pulled out my most innocent face as I pretended to be the most clueless person in the world.

"My master have educated me in the past," I revealed as if I had no idea that commoners didn't speak this way.

"I never got to interact with my fellow commoners so I thought we all spoke this way," I explained my long isolation has caused me to turn out this way.

My explanation clearly didn't work as most of the rebels looked at me with clear disbelief.

"If our bread seemed so bad to you, why did you leave your master in the first place?" Another rebel mockingly asked me.

'The bread was essentially not edible with mold growing on the edges,' I contained my rage.

"I wanted freedom." I revealed my true intentions.

I wanted to be out of that damn castle where the maids and the knights reported back to Cillian and Luke almost every minute. I was rarely left alone as I even had a guard outside my door throughout the entire night.

"I wanted to wear the clothes I wanted to wear and eat the food I wanted to eat. I also wanted to go where I wanted to go," I almost yelled with determination.

My face was drenched with tears streaming down from my anger and frustration.

"You don't understand. You never not had the freedom where you were restricted in doing almost everything," I complained to the rebels.

"I understand," Jinny tried to calm me down as she rubbed my back.

The rebels no longer accused me of being a noble from my sincere tears as they stopped with the whispering. They didn't know or couldn't understand what I would trade for in exchange for more freedom in what I could do.

"Then what about the second aspect of your plan?" The leader tried to change the subject.