83 The Newcomer - Part 1
"When can I stop?"
"Huh?"
"Swishing my tail back and forth. It's starting to hurt." Lyrika moaned from the back of the group.
"Once we leave the path you can probably stop. We've travelled quite far and hopefully, this should have stopped them from following us by then." Olivia responded.
All she got back as a response was a grumble of the word 'fine'.
…
Since they had started walking down the path they had travelled on before, those were the only words that had been spoken.
It wasn't like no one had any questions to bring up, as Olivia was sure there were a few spinning around everyone's heads. But right now, they all knew that silence, and getting out of this dense forest and back to Teagan's village was the highest priority.
The sweeping of the path should do its job well and keep them off their tracks. But if it hadn't having a conversation while on the run would definitely make it easy for them to be found if someone was pursuing them.
So far, as she looked over her shoulder down the path and into the forest, it didn't look like anyone was on their tail. There were no voices in amongst the bird calls, no flashes of movements amongst the trees, which meant it was possible they had eluded anyone that was following them, or no one had tried in the first case.
And with that thought and understanding rattling around in her head, they finally made it out of the dense section of forest.
…
"Finally."
As soon as they came out, Lyrika passed her tail around, unwrapped the vine and flung the branch with leaves on it, back into the forest. It was easy to see she had not enjoyed any of that.
After wagging and bending her tail in places, trying to get it feeling how it used to, she then let it down and gave a large sigh.
"We must have lost them. You know, if someone was following us, we would have lost them by now." Lyrika brought up with the group.
"With the state, you left those guards, they would be hard pressed, probably incapable even, of pursuing us. It's just a matter of whether the guards, assuming it had any, of the other carriage would leave their post to search for us." Ameril responded.
"Unlikely. A guard's job is to protect their client. They would first have to wake the guards that we knocked out, and then learn that it was an Orc, maybe even a group of Orcs that attacked them. Knowing that no group of guards would venture into a dense forest to find a group of Orcs that easily took out six guards. Their client wouldn't let them. For their own safety and the guards. It's not logical." Philly chimed in.
The way she said it, it made sense. If it was a merchant's carriage, or even someone similar to the first carriage that passed, would they have left their client for the possibility of finding and killing a group of Orcs to save a girl? Some might, sure. The heroes of the bunch. But not knowing how many Orcs there were, it could be a suicide mission, as even though Orcs had been culled, given people hadn't seen them for quite some time, who's to say they hadn't repopulated a fair amount?
If this was the case though, and they decided not to go after them, what would happen next?
Then it hit her.
"They are probably going to inform your parents though, right? The guards I mean," she asked Ameril. "Doesn't that mean they would send a lot more people after us to save you?"
How Olivia hadn't realised this before she decided to ambush the carriage, she had no idea. But it was quite a pressing matter. That is until Ameril laughed it away.
"Ha, that's not going to happen. You saw my parents before. We are not close by any means. When they learn I have been kidnapped by Orcs, all that will mean to them is they have lost out on a business deal. The coin and effort they would need to send people after and actually find me would far outweigh what they would have earned from my so-called marriage. They may send a few people to look into it, just to show they are seriously searching for their dear daughter, but it won't be thorough by any means. Besides, even if it was, you are but one Orc, and by the time they hire people, we will be far from where the ambush took place."
Everyone was stuck in thought as they listened to Ameril wondering if what she said was true. Lyrika and Philly didn't know her parents, but as she had said, Olivia did, in part. But even with the short moment she had seen between them, she could see there was hardly any love between them. From both sides.
Then there was what those guards had spoken of. How she had kept escaping from her home. If you had to 'escape' from your own home then surely things are not working out with your parents.
Given all that, what she said sounded like it could be true. Olivia had thought that Ameril, upon learning of her departure had panicked and saw having herself kidnapped on the journey as the only way out. But from the sounds of it, it seemed like she had thought it through.
Whether her parents would send a small group or a large force after her, or whether they would search day and night, or just for a short while, only time would tell. Time that they would need to use wisely in order to get far away from the scene of the crime.
…
As the journey continued and they headed to Teagan's village, things started to flow a little better between everyone. All of which started off with some much-needed introductions.
"It's been a while since we all actually met, but I think we should be quite safe now. So, as I'm sure you two know, this is Ameril." Olivia said beckoning to the new addition to their group. "And Ameril, this is Lyrika and Philly." she finished doing the same with them as well.
"It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for helping to rescue me." Ameril said with a curtsy.
"Err, yeah. It's nice to meet you too."
"Nice to meet you as well," Philly concluded.
"Thank you so much as well Olivia. I can't tell you how happy I am that I no longer have to go along with my parent's whims. I finally feel free."
"I'm just glad I could help. All that time ago when we first met and I saw what your parents were like. I had hoped I would be able to get you away from them."
Ameril blushed slightly at that, as she recalled their time together.
"You did in the end. I would have liked to have joined you then and there, but I needed to make some arrangements and business deals myself before I could leave. I even spent a great deal of time learning some new skills just for this escape."
"What deals?" "What skills?" Lyrika and Philly both asked at the same time.
"Well, if I had just run off, and succeeded unlike the first time, I would have been a noble's daughter with nothing. So, I made sure I had what was rightfully mine before I left. I purchased and sold a few items, and made some investments, all so I could make some coin. I mean, make some coin that is actually mine. I left everything that my parents had brought for me, including what I had used to start those deals, which meant everything I earnt was my own. More or less."
Possibly a grey area, Olivia realised, where if you made a profit using someone else's coin, did it then count as your own? Well, whether it did not, it's unlikely her parents would know about the deal anyway, so they would still have the same wealth as before.
"While I felt it was important to have my own coin, I also did not want to feel indebted to them, lest they use it in some way to force me to go back to them."
Olivia was sure there was more to it than just potentially being in debt to them. While not great parents, they were still her parents, so stealing from them was probably something she just couldn't bear to do.
"On the matter of skills, well, with my partially successful attempts to flee from my home, both the first time and when I met you again Olivia, my parents decided to take more drastic methods to keep me from leaving."
Olivia's mind went to shackles and chains, thinking they had turned her room into a prison cell or something. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as that, but still, it was pretty bad.
"They realised that during those escapes, I borrowed the key from one of the maids or attendants in the house, in order to leave. Because of that, they took keys from all of the staff in the house and handed them to a few select guards whom they had hired. They also brought more locks and started to keep doors in the house locked up as well. It felt like I was in jail."
All three of the girls looked at her with sympathy at what her situation had been like. Philly's sympathetic frown however also had a tinge of intrigue in there are well. Probably thinking she could add some of this to her book as well.
"So, on the rare occasions where I did leave the house, needing to make some form of appearance so others didn't think I was dead, I managed to escape the guards with me, and I brought a set of lock picks," Ameril said with glee as she held up the small leather bag she had grabbed from the carriage. "It took me quite a while to learn, but I eventually became quite proficient with them."
'A noble lady that can pick locks. You don't see that every day.' Olivia mused.
"Being able to leave the manor with ease, I had hoped to learn how to wield a sword or something. But before I could do so, my parents had brought up my journey to Caldaria… but enough about me, please tell me about yourselves. How did you all meet?" Ameril quickly brought up once she had finished her story, where she looked towards the two in question waiting for some answers.
Hi All, I hope you liked the next chapter. With the excitement of the ambush over, it looks like they have escaped and evaded any pursuers. With introductions underway, we shall have to see how everyoen gets along as they journey back to Teagan's village.
Braderzsz
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