SOMD Ch35: A Tough Choice (Patreon)

Alice regretted sending her dragons away almost from the moment they disappeared out the door. Never in her life had she felt so instantly alone. It took all her willpower not to call them back.

Perhaps she was fooling herself and had been more defenseless when she had been a simple General Laborer – though at the moment it didn’t feel that way. More importantly, when she was a low class, she had been careful not to put herself in a position of danger.

She felt armorless and terribly exposed.

Despite her spiked anxiety, she forced herself to calm down. She grit her teeth, clenched her fists, and refused to allow herself to call the dragons back. The fact that she could feel them growing further and further away did not help.

So, instead of wallowing and allowing her fears to overcome her, she busied herself by rechecking the shutters over the windows.

The once-distant whistles from the oncoming mining grew were becoming quite loud now. She would have to hide soon.

“It’s good that I can feel them flying away,” she told herself aloud because there was no one around to listen. “They are obeying me. I had half-feared that they wouldn’t – especially Iggy. He takes his duty at protecting me so very, very seriously…”

Her dragons were so good to her, probably better than she deserved, and Alice was grateful to them.

The shutters were as closed as they could be. Moving onto the front door, she rechecked the locks. After that, there wasn’t much to do. So, Alice hunkered down into a dark corner between the stairway up to the second level and the still broken counters. She pulled her knees close in and rested her forehead against them, closing her eyes.

But she could not shut out the sounds. The whistling grew louder and louder, the creak of cart wheels, and the thudding of many feet. Soon, it sounded like there was an army outside her door.

Matilda had suggested that she shut her ears, too. Alice supposed she could put her hands over them and hum, but not knowing was even worse than knowing.

Suddenly, there was some kind of excitement: outraged yells, the crack of a splitting wooden beam, and someone babbling apologies. From what she picked up, a man had indeed been caught spying and was begging for mercy.

“Put him in with the rest,” she heard.

Alice shivered, though she realized that now they were here, most of the visceral fear had faded.

Instead, she found herself amazed that the townspeople here took this interruption to their lives without fighting back. Not all of them were low classers who just had to put up with this sort of treatment. There were some mid-classer tradesfolk who could speak up.

Yet everyone had tucked tail and ran the moment that the mining company had come to town.

It spoke of the strength of the company in a way she did not like.

But above all the noises and the growing indignation, Alice became aware of a sensation tugging at her heart – a voiceless voice whispering in her ear. Though she was unable to understand what it was trying to tell her.

It all felt a little like when she had encountered the young wood dragon in the forest. And the moment Alice’s mind seized upon that she knew without a doubt that there were dragons outside which were not her own.

The fear returned and once again she nearly called Iggy back – she knew the moment she whispered any of her dragon’s names that they would hear her.

But she steeled her will and stayed firmly in place.

Someone rattled at the door, making her jump. Thankfully, the locks held. She heard murmurs on the other side, and it was all too easy to imagine that they were checking through the gaps in the shutters to make sure no one was peeking back out at them.

Then, finally, she heard a ‘thwonk’ and the splinter of wood. Someone had taken an ax to the long table Alice had left outside.

It wasn’t good enough that they required total obedience. These people of the mining company were looking for a reason to harass and punch. They wanted to show their strength.

That was unsettling but not all together a surprise. After all, Alice had lived her entire life under the shadows of nobles. They were certainly not above setting an example of someone.

Finally, the footsteps and noise and the sense of the dragons-not-her-own faded. The mining company had passed her store and moved on.

Still, Alice hid. She was determined not to make any undue noise until she heard other people again. Then she would know for certain that all was clear.

Everyone else must have had the same idea because it remained silent outside for a long time.

Only when she heard the sound of clopping hooves and the roll of cartwheels against soil did she know that at last, she was safe. No one had picked up signs of her dragons.

However, there was no conversation outside. Everyone seemed subdued and Alice certainly wasn’t in the mood to go out and have a chat… and see what was left of her table.

She felt, too, that her dragons were returning.

Muscles that had been stiff with tension unknotted. Alice finally uncurled from her hiding place and went to the back door. Opening it, she looked around anxiously to see if anyone had hidden behind one of the buildings and therefore would be in a position to see her dragons. All was clear.

Soon, her dragons swept in in quick streaks of color.

Alice stifled a little glad sound, and a moment later Prim, Iggy, and Numi were clinging onto her, all speaking at once. Spark flew to the rafters to watch for any danger. Meanwhile, Fixie peeled off from Numi the second they were inside and fluttered to one of her newest projects.

They could not have been apart for more than an hour, but it already felt like a lifetime.

“Are you all okay?” Alice demanded, even though she could feel that they were. She still had to hear it from them. “Were you spotted? What of the sorcerers?”

The dragons all replied, but they were speaking over one another—breaking off to bicker and correct each other-- and it was almost impossible to decipher what they were trying to say.

At least, until Alice caught the import of Prim's words.

She staggered back, and Numi and Iggy dropped from her. Prim, of course, took her customary position on her shoulder.

Alice turned to her, wide eyed. “Was it truly Dolly? You’re certain she was with the mining company?”

Prim bobbed her thin head in a nod. “I will never forget her sneaky face.”

Iggy added. “That woman was one of many. The mining company wasn’t bringing in supplies, they were bringing in people…”

And the more he sketched out what he had seen, with Numi and Prim’s help with the details, the worse Alice felt.

“Did you see anyone with those Worker class tags?” she asked. “You remember them, back in the city?”

The dragons all shook their heads, but Alice was certain they had to be connected.

“And you said you saw children in the carts? Were any of them Tom or Mabel?”

“No, we would have told you at once,” Iggy said, but then he paused. “Though I could not have accounted for every child. We were very, very high up and most children do look the same. Nevertheless, they were all surrounded by many guards and two dragons.”

“I felt the dragons,” Alice said. “Tell me about them.”

Iggy went on to explain that they were wood dragons, each much larger than the young one they had seen in the forest.

Alice swallowed and nodded. Perhaps they had someone who had dragon aspects as well… or a dark classer who had managed to tame wild dragons.

“Back to Dolly. How did she look?”

“Sneaky,” Prim said.

“I meant, overall. Is she… is she well?” Alice asked hesitantly. To say she had mixed feelings about Dolly would be an understatement, but she would hate to hear that she had been covered with bruises or something else horrible.

“I suppose she was healthy enough,” Prim said offhandedly. “She was in one piece.”

Alice nodded and sat Prim down on a piece of shelving before he started to pace the length of the store.

“Alice? What are you thinking?” Prim asked, after a bit.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m worried… and to tell the truth, I’m distressed.”

Prim flicked her wings in irritation. “But she is not worth it!”

“She knows about you,” Alice said. “So, I can’t help but worry that it may be partially my fault she’s in the position.”

Numi sat up on her hind legs, her bugged yellow eyes fixed on Alice. “What do you mean?”

Alice shrugged. “I know it doesn’t make sense. But the last time I saw her, she had alerted the guards about… about Prim and I.” The dragons started to speak, but Alice shook her head and held up a hand to stop them. “No, I refuse to feel guilty about that. It was a betrayal. But also, how many times had I warned her not to mess with the nobles? And after it looked like I disappeared, they may have turned on her for… for issuing a false report or some such.”

The dragons looked at one another, but it was Iggy who spoke. “That does not seem very fair. She was a snake and betrayed you, but she was telling the truth.”

“Nobles don’t care about fairness,” Alice said bitterly. “She may have brought attention to herself, which would be more than enough for some to toss her out in the streets. Prim, did you see if her class was still listed as General Laborer?”

Prim nodded and despite everything, Alice felt a stab of fierce vindication followed by such a mix of emotions she had trouble naming them… except there was guilt and anger mixed in there, too.

Dolly had been her friend from the moment Alice had entered the General Laborer workforce. Being at the bottom of the barrel was not an easy existence, but Dolly’s steadfast friendship had made it bearable.

But she had also taken advantage of that friendship and stolen from Alice while taking terrible, stupid risks that no General Laborer in their right mind should take. Someone in that class should be quiet and nearly always at work. Dolly, however, had dared to tryst with a noble boy.

At the same time, Alice knew that her disapproval made her a terrible hypocrite. After all, she had also reached above the boundaries of her class and had no regrets about it.

She could have easily been worse off than Dolly if the class seed had changed her to something worse, if she had not had her beautiful dragons…

Alice was pacing around the shop again before she realized it was happening. She clenched her fists, shook her head, and ignored her dragon’s increasingly agitated questions.

She could not escape the simple truth.

Finally, she stopped and looked back at them.

Prim must have read her expression because she drew herself up in an affronted hiss. “You want to rescue the girl.”

“Well, it’s only logical,” Numi said. “If she does know about you, Prim, she could spill the secret.”

Alice shook her head. “Even if she did, she’s only a General Laborer. No one would listen to her. No,” she said. “I won’t pretend like it’s not entirely for her sake. She was my friend, once. But what concerns me the most are those wood dragons. I felt them as they walked by. And I think, if they were to pass by the store enough times, they may feel me too.”

“One was sniffing around your store,” Iggy said. “It did not act, so I did not fight him off. Though I was fully prepared to do so.”

“Of course you were.” Alice smiled at her fiercest dragon, but that smile didn’t linger long. “We will go tonight.”