Chapter 3: Protect

Those eyes were filled with fear, hope, and hostility. She knew those eyes. She had possessed those eyes as a child. Those were the eyes of a child helpless against the world and yet willing to fight to the death against it. Those were the eyes that feared the world and yet despised it. A feeling that was embedded into the bones of people who had been abandoned to the mercy of a world that had none to spare.

Those eyes tugged at her heartstrings. She had been lucky. Her mother, though an absolute bitch, did not abandon her as a small child. And when she did, one of the very few kind people in the world found an eight years old Samaya in an abandoned alleyway when she was about to be abducted by what she knew now was a group of traffickers.

But this child… the child barely looked over two. But from the clarity in his eyes, he was probably 3 or 4 years old, if she had to guess. He couldn't have been left to fend for himself for long. The streets were vicious, no matter the era or region. A 3-year-old child would not have been able to survive for long, especially in this kind of place with no stable law enforcement or source of help. If it did, it had the luck of the devil.

Samaya peered at those wary eyes, her own eyes softening as she saw fear and hope warring in them. She smiled and then slowly took her hand off his head and kept it palm up in the air in front of him in a clear gesture of invitation. "It's alright. I won't hurt you." She spoke, keeping her voice soft and soothing, a huge contrast to how she talked to those bullies.

The boy looked down at the hand, still doubtful, and then looked up at her. She didn't do anything, just smiled and kept still, waiting for the boy to take the initiative to respond. The boy was like a cornered animal right now, the smallest of movement might startle him and put him in attack mode. The best way here was to be patient.

Sure enough, after staring at her as if he was trying to gauge her soul, he seemed to find whatever he was looking for. A small hand stretched out to press into hers and her smile widened just a bit. She didn't pull him closer, she didn't even wrap her own hand around his. Instead, she tilted her head and asked softly, "Do you want to come with me?" She peered down at him and kept speaking, regardless of whether the boy understood her. "I cannot promise it will be any better than this." She pointed at herself, "But I will protect…" she then pointed at the boy, "you."

Samaya would be lying if she said she did not know what made her do it, made her make the decision to take the child with her. She saw a shadow of herself within him. And with it came a fierce desire to protect. To shield this child from the horrors of the world. Those fearful yet hopeful eyes directly pierced the heart she had long thought suppressed. Kyle, her first trainer, had once said she was too soft and weak-willed for their line of work. She had shed blood and sweat to prove him wrong. Yet, at times like this, she wondered if he had been right all along.

She was brought out of her thoughts as those small fingers tightened around her hand. She looked at the boy only to find that the hope in his eyes was overwhelming the fear. She smiled lightly. It seemed that the boy understood at least some of her words. She beckoned him, still not taking the initiative. "Come here."

The boy hesitated for a moment before standing up and taking a step forward, only to stumble due to his weak legs. She immediately caught him and brought him close to her. The boy squirmed for a moment before burying his face into her neck.

An overwhelming sense of warmth enveloped her at the motion.

— — —

She sighed as she looked around the dilapidated room. According to the innkeeper, this was one of the better rooms. She wasn't surprised. This was an inn on the very outskirts of the town, just outside the shady parts of it.

The place where she had landed had been bustling with people and their trade. It looked like a typical prosperous town of history. But Samaya had noticed the shadows surrounding it. The dark alleys and slums and the cunning, ferocious eyes in them. The further she got from the center, the seedier it got. And this was…. The seediest it could get.

Samaya sighed and looked down at the boy in her arms and rubbed his head. "You okay, little bun?" The boy clutched her clothes and looked up at her with those wide eyes of his. She sighed softly. She did not know what she would do with the boy… especially with her having to go back to her world and whatnot… but that was a question for later. She needed to find a way back first. And for that, she needed information.

But before that… she sighed softly as the boy pulled at her clothes. She needed to deal with the little bun first. She would have to wash him and put him to sleep before doing anything, considering how clingy he was being.

"Alright, let's clean you up, little bun." She said softly as she set him down on the bed. Before she could get up to get some water for him, the boy clung to her tighter. She looked down at him with soft eyes and gently held his hands. "It's alright. I won't leave. I just need to get some water for both of us to clean up."

The boy, however, just shook his head and clung tighter. It wasn't a surprise that the boy had some serious abandonment issues. Who knew how long he had been left in the streets? It was probably his own mother that did so. She didn't try to argue, knowing that it would do more harm than good.

"Do you… want to come with me?" She asked softly, slowly so that the boy would understand.

Over the day, she got a bit better at understanding this version of Mandarin. It was like the difference between Sanskrit and Hindi or Middle English and Modern English. She was confident she would be able to speak it fluently within a year, at most. For now, however, she opted to speak in the modern, simplified version. It would sound broken to the people here but they should still be able to understand and communicate with her. Sure enough, the boy nodded. She smiled and lifted him up in her arms once again before proceeding to go down to the ground floor in order to talk to the owner.

The owner was a burly man who looked like he could snap your neck in a matter of seconds. He looked pretty surprised when what seemed like a petite girl and her little child entered his not-so-reputable establishment. Of course, he had tried to threaten her and scare her away because this was "not a place for young girls".

She had ignored those threats and thrown two silver coins from the pouch she had stolen onto the counter. "One room," she said softly, she raised one finger, before gesturing toward the keys hanging behind him to make him understand, and her voice carried none of the fear or apprehension a lone girl should have.

When the man seemed like he would protest, she put another coin on the counter and stared the man down. "Now." Her voice had been firm, leaving no room for argument. The owner must have seen that she was no naive lady with no idea what she was getting into. He had snapped his mouth shut and handed her the key to her room.

And now, she approached him again. With her relatively small build and a starved child in her arms, she looked quite out of place among these drunk, scarred, and burly men that seemed like they would be the ones to harass her in the back of an alley. She ignored the whispers around her and walked straight up to the owner.