Stray

It's not an important letter, at least not in terms of content.

The lines are full of trivialities, the font is clumsy, and there are many smears and typos. There is no grammar whatsoever, as if the sender himself babbles on the paper, and those babbles are turned into words verbatim. But the witch held her breath, with a smile on the corner of her mouth, listening very seriously.

The letter was very short, and Nemo finished it in no time. The witch nodded gratefully at him, and she set up the thin frames of her spectacles and began to write her own letter.

"Where did you just say, oh yes, Mr. Lopez," she whispered as she wrote. "I have to write for a while, you two find a place to sit first. There is still a plate of candied fruit in the cupboard, you can try it."

Nimo sat down, while Oliver remained standing. The witch had eyes behind her back, she turned her head and sighed at him.

"If you're still thinking about stopping this," she said softly, "no need, really. You don't owe me anything. I can probably guess who the client is, they never Will change their minds, and now Horizon is obligated to protect them. You two are black chapters, aren't you? In case of conflict... Horizon can kill you according to the rules without any responsibility - my life is doomed to the end, but you still live a long time."

"I was just wondering...is there any other way." Oliver said dryly.

"Oli, I don't think the Head of Horizon will..." Nemo reminded carefully.

"I know, I have no position to negotiate with him." Oliver still didn't mean to sit down. "His news should be much better than mine. He will know about my relationship with him sooner or later - but blood doesn't mean friendship, and I don't think we have a good impression of each other. I mean another way, I..."

"I was very young when my father died." The witch spoke suddenly, interrupting Oliver's words. "He is not a good father. He is weak and incompetent. He is controlled by his mother. I think the two of you can probably guess the 'educational style' of the Eastern Witch. My mother wants me to wake up sooner, so that she can find the next prey, Make the next victim. I was trying to run away, and she was about to get a chain and put me on the wall."

Negative. distortion. insult. abuse. It may be that the body is too old, and the wounds in the memory no longer reveal the continuous pain, and become numb and fuzzy. There was no pause in the movement of the witch's hand to write the letter.

Her mother is a truly excellent eastern witch, a model of witches that humans hate. And her cowardly father only dared to watch from a distance, and if he protested a little, he would be sobbed by the vines. She tried to plead and scream, but no love was innate. Her mother patiently flooded with pain and despair, waiting for the day she would be transformed. And she didn't make her mother wait too long—the young girl's rough skin began to turn white and smooth, and her brown hair a brilliant blond.

The buds of hatred begin to grow.

Then one step, the last step. At that time, she already had a vague idea of ​​what was going to happen, that her mother would carry out the favorite ending of all the eastern witches - let her father be destroyed by humans and cut off her last attachment to humans.

And she lost him.

An ugly and weak human man, a father who secretly stuffs her with candy in the dark room. In just a few seconds, she tasted the sweetness of being treated as a living thing. That sweetness is like a hallucination.

Thorns began to travel under her skin.

As long as she takes the initiative to kill a person, as long as she sees blood, she can gain all the power suppressed in the blood. She could begin her revenge—to her mother, to her murderer, to a fate that had never been kind to her. Her mother had arranged the seeds of hatred, and she was so close to getting what she wanted.

"I'm sorry." Flint Lopez, the captain of the Tin Soldier Mercenary Corps, lifted his cape and squatted down. His tone was serious, and his eyes were wet and painful. "Although I know it doesn't change anything, sorry young lady."

The filthy outcast who was ignored by the soldiers choked and stared wide-eyed at the man in front of him. The stolen spellbook was still in her pocket, and the tiny thorns were secretly tangled in her fingertips. She could raise her hand at any time—with just one, she could let thorns penetrate the man's neck, and then...

She knew he was being used, so what? Hate always has a purpose.

But she didn't make a move, the thorns pierced her fingers and oozes little blood. It feels so good to be treated as a "human", and she wants to feel it for a few more seconds - as long as he shows a perfunctory expression, as long as she smells a little dangerous, she will act immediately. The young witch was so determined.

Minutes, hours.

"You have every reason to hate me, I can understand. I won't ask for your forgiveness." The head of the first mercenary regiment would always crouch down and look her in the eye when he spoke. "But please allow me to take this responsibility, I will not make you homeless."

Several days.

"I have acquaintances in Caleb Village—a good-natured old couple, they are very good mages, and you will be well taken care of." He said softly, "That is a very good Beautiful village, Miss Nadine."

She didn't respond to any of Flint Lopez's words, she just stared viciously into his eyes, then his throat, and finally back to his eyes. She sniffed hard like a wounded pup, looking for malice in every detail, but all she could smell was remorse.

The control she imagined did not come, nor did the captivity. Flint Lopez left, and the old couple were indeed gentle people to the core. With warm food and clean clothes, she could no longer find a reason to take action, so she poked gerbils with thorns in the yard. Overwhelmed by the sheer beauty, no one wants to approach this place—but it's not bad, she thought. At least she had someone to talk to and see the sun.

Only the memory of that day is particularly clear.

The witch stopped her pen, the tip of the pen trembling on the paper.

"Mother did a great job, I woke up very early... And Flint Lopez was just the hapless one who just fell into her trap, but if he wanted to be arrogant, you guys Won't see me here anymore." The aging witch continued, staring into Oliver's green eyes that were the same as he remembered. "He killed my father, I can never forgive him, that won't change. But he sent me here and gave me a real world. For that, my deepest gratitude to him."

The weather in my memory was fine, and a little head, who was not at all beautiful, was struggling to reach over the railing. The girl's hair was short and messy, and her unremarkable round face was covered in mud. Nadine had just disemboweled a gerbil, and she moved cautiously, covering the **** gerbil carcass with her body.

"You are so beautiful!" exclaimed the strange human girl, "Wow, more beautiful than everything I've ever seen put together, would you be my friend?"

She glared at each other more warily.

"What's your name? My name is Lisa...hey, wait." The human girl's head disappeared from above the railing, and she ran away quickly. Just when Nadine was about to destroy the terribly dead gerbil, she came back—

"Look!" She tossed a pile of wildflowers into the front yard with only green lawns. "Is that right—although I can't find flowers that match you. Can I still see you?"

Nadine hurriedly covered the blood and internal organs with flowers, she nervously looked at the girl who claimed to be Lisa, and said nothing.

"...Well, I'll...well, look at you secretly!" Lisa lowered her voice aggrieved, "If you don't mind."

"...I don't mind." She responded in a low voice at that time, taking a step towards the girl carefully.

The witch can't write anymore. Aging itself took away most of her vision, and those memories made her vision even more blurred. Fortunately, this letter has been written to the end, and she will not delay too long on this matter.

"In the end, it's just me and Flint Lopez. This hatred doesn't extend to you, Mr. Ramon." She suppressed the small trembling in her voice , concluded as calmly as possible, carefully sealing the envelope. Withered thorns stretched out from her fingertips and slowly twisted into a thin lark. It picked up the envelope and rushed straight out the window. "Just do one more thing for me... After I'm done, I have to start dispensing the medicine. There are still many people whose prescriptions have not been prepared."

The witch tried to straighten her waist, peeled off the parchment rolls attached to the workbench, and put them away one by one. She stroked the writing and gave a vague little smile. Then she pulled out a glass bottle from a drawer on the edge of the workbench, which contained what looked like half a bottle of rocks.

"Mr. Wright, you...you should be able to control spells, right?"

"Yes." Nemo took two steps forward and helped the witch pick up the bottle that didn't look light. His intuition turned out to be accurate—it was surprisingly heavy.

"That's good, Lope... Mr. Ramon, can you get me a watering can?"

The two followed the witch to the backyard of the house.

It is different from a front yard full of life and flowers. The backyard is deserted, and the soil even shows signs of desertification. The witch waved her cane, and Nemo spit out the cork from the bottle in her hand. But as soon as the small stone inside flew up, it fell back into the bottle.

"...Sorry, it looks like you really have to do this, Mr. Wright." Nadine lowered her head, "Bury them in the soil, five centimeters deep...and pour a little water. , that's about it." She gestured in the air.

"What's this?" Nemo picked up a pebble, and the unnatural weight nearly let him go.

"They only grow in deserts."

“…But aren’t they extinct?” Nemo recalled the tome, where the author spent at least ten pages bemoaning the disappearance of this rare plant.

"Yeah, but there's still a bit of life left in these seeds. I'm a plant too, I know that," she said. "They barely germinate, but...not absolutely. I have collected a lot, and now there is only so much left, so let’s plant them all.”

And there was no green in the soil in front of them, apparently she never made it.

Nimo didn't say a word, the shadow spread out almost instantly, sending the heavy seeds to the designated location. And Oliver didn't bother with the watering can—the congealed **** of water poured the seeds with precision.

"Young people do things neatly, thank you very much." Nadine pouted, stood up straight, and carefully patted the dust on her skirt. "Don't look at this place like this, I almost succeeded a few times - two plants have sprouted, but unfortunately they still lacked the stamina and died soon... At least they can still sprout, I hope this time..."

She didn't say anything and sighed.

She really has no regrets. Nadine raised her head and looked at the scene in front of her that was still blurry through her glasses. The greenery in the distance blended into a hazy mass in her field of vision, and the sand in front of her melted into a golden patch. She tried her best, she thought. She managed to persevere until the last moment without ruining anyone's life.

The life drain of the previous generation will start when the offspring become adults, which means that the Eastern Witch who has no offspring will start to age soon after reaching adulthood, and it will age faster and faster.

"You're going on a trip?... That's amazing!" Seventeen-year-old Lisa still had an ordinary face, and she didn't miraculously turn into a beauty.

"...Do you want to come with me?" She failed to hold back the sentence.

"I can't, I can't do it. I have to inherit the family hotel - I'll wait for you to come back! Remember to write to me, Nadine." Lisa was still the same loud. "Want to take a photo together? Or I'll miss you."

"Good."

"When will you be back?"

"I don't know. Haven't I been looking for my relatives? I recently found my grandmother and she's fine." Her throat was sore. "Wait .

"That's good, I don't mind taking care of it for you, I-"

"I'll write to you." She interrupted, "I'll... always write to you."

…until the day it ends.

And that day is coming.

(m..=)