No one told me I was supposed to prep the carriage.
So there I was—scrambling like a half-starved stray, chasing down a coachman who, naturally, was nowhere to be found. Probably drunk in a haystack, snoring with a wine bottle for a pillow, or napping under a tree while the world burned. Everyone else in camp moved with calm efficiency—squires oiling gear, knights checking straps, servants carrying trays with the grim purpose of ants.
And Regina? She waited all of two minutes before declaring:
"We'll go on foot."
Just like that, my morning became a forced march.
Beside me walked a contradiction wrapped in lace: a small noble girl with paint-stained fingers, the gaze of an executioner, and heterochromatic eyes buzzing with a darkness that felt caged—but never contained.
---
The walk itself was… surreal.
The town unfolded before us like a waking beast—alive, raw, pressing its heartbeat against my senses.
Smiths hammered iron into sparks that leapt like fireflies. Bakers flung shutters open and shouted their wares to the rising sun—yeast, cinnamon, honey-smeared bread. Street hawkers called prices like badly-tuned birds, voices cracking and colliding in a marketplace symphony. The air was thick with smoke, spice, and the musk of sweat that clung to early risers.
It was just shy of nine. A liminal hour—the world still damp from night but already alive with labor.
Regina tilted her head whenever a butterfly passed, as if she was watching a message only she could read. She didn't smile. Didn't frown. She simply… absorbed. Observing everything, logging it, filing it away with the same care she used when layering brushstrokes.
We stopped in front of a hulking timber building—half-inn, half-restaurant, all wood-smoked permanence. She gave me a look, the kind you give a puppy you forgot to feed.
"We'll eat here."
---
Inside, the air turned to glass.
The moment we crossed the threshold, chatter died. Conversation guttered out like a candle choked by wind. Dozens of eyes tilted our way, heavy as stones.
Whispers slithered through the silence. "Witch spawn." "Heretic's daughter." "Curse walker."
They didn't even bother to hide it.
Regina ignored them. She floated to the counter like a girl in a dream. The thing was a monster—tall enough to eclipse her view, barely manageable even for me in my thick-heeled boots. Yet she didn't flinch.
"Lamb soup. Grilled chicken. Bread," she said. A pause, a flick of her mismatched eyes my way. "Make that two."
Like she was indulging a cat because it happened to meow at the right time.
The woman behind the counter—a strong, broad-shouldered redhead with eyes full of quiet sympathy—smiled in that way people do when they pity you but don't want you to see it. She took the coin without comment, sliding the order along.
Regina produced her own pouch—soft leather, worn at the corners.
"This is personal money," she murmured, almost bored. "I sell things sometimes."
She didn't need to say what. I already knew.
The raven painting. The one of the black wings against forest green. It hadn't been on her wall this morning.
Of course she'd sold it.
She ate quietly, movements precise. I forced the food down, though my stomach wasn't sure if it wanted bread or bile.
---
Afterward, we drifted toward an old art shop pressed between taller buildings. The door creaked like bones as we entered. A wrinkled man with a face carved from stone handed her pencils, brushes, parchment—essentials, nothing more. She thanked him in a tone that sounded like she'd rehearsed gratitude but never quite believed in it.
And then—
We took a quieter alley back.
The world narrowed.
Stone walls rising on both sides, shadows pooled in corners. The air thick with the stink of damp moss and piss. My skin prickled the way it does when the theater lights dim and you know the curtain's about to rise.
That's when it happened.
"Die, devil! In the Goddess' name!"
The words tore the silence like glass shattering. A man burst from the gloom—ragged cloak, dagger flashing, desperation burning in his eyes.
But before I could think, before instinct could even spark—
My body moved.
Not mine. Not me.
A pull. Subtle but inexorable, like hands on puppet strings. My mind shunted sideways while my muscles obeyed another will.
In my left hand—a dagger. Regina's dagger. It was there as if it had always been, slipped into my grasp with the sleight-of-hand grace of someone passing bread across a table.
Her fingertips still shimmered with faint black tendrils—Darkness Affinity, coiling like smoke. She didn't shout. Didn't order. Didn't panic. She simply conducted.
And I played.
My legs lunged forward, efficient. My torso twisted, controlled. The man's blade still cut me—a line of fire across my forearm—but the pain barely registered. My dagger plunged, precise, alien.
Through his ribs. Clean.
His eyes widened. He coughed blood. No scream. Just the wet collapse of a sack of meat.
And then—
The strings cut.
I staggered back into myself, gasping, shaking. Regina stepped forward calmly, plucked the dagger from my trembling hand, and poured a healing potion across my wound with all the ceremony of watering a potted plant.
Then she turned.
And we kept walking.
As if nothing had happened.
---
Ten steps later, she spoke. Dreamy. Almost amused.
"I like you, Poochie."
Her finger tapped her lips, thoughtful, as though naming a pet.
"You need a name. Can't just call you 'maid' forever… Luna. Yes. You're Luna now."
She smiled—not at me, but inward, like she'd solved a private riddle.
And just like that, I became hers.
---
Luna's Thoughts
The System remained silent.
No battle log. No skill gained. Not even a patronizing "Congratulations."
And the fight? That control? That precision?
It wasn't fantasy.
It was military. Structured. Taught. Like something drilled into soldiers on Earth.
The morning drills. The cadence calls. The commander barking "By numbers!" before each pivot.
This place bore fingerprints that didn't belong.
And I wasn't the first one to leave mine.