“Val! What are you doing!!” screamed Bastian, grabbing a saddle blanket from the nearby rack. Desperately, he beat the smoldering hay to no avail as the smoke grew. The wet dung in the hay pile was the only thing keeping the flames from growing.

  The poignant song of the Vigil house played, carrying through the midday air throughout the town. The chorus of the organ sang with reverential beauty for their detached gods.

  Val was backing up against the stall wall, her eyes wide and tears streaming down her cheeks. Her dress was stained with dirt and mud, her leggings ripped at the knee. She wore a long shawl of muted blue around her shoulders, hiding her oddly shaped shoulders and figure. Her bare, ashen forearms were lean and muscled unnaturally for a teen her age.

  “I can’t put it out,” she wailed in reply, one hand brushed at the wrist of her other, fingers clawing at her skin. Her chin horns were short stumps giving her face a width that was homely, and there were two bumps under her hair where some odd deformity was hidden by her braids.

  Bastian beat at the fire, and quickly realizing his futility, discarded the blanket. His pony tail of red curls bobbed as he instead grabbed a pitchfork, and began shoveling the smoking hay and refuse into the nearby water trough. The surface hissed as the embers were extinguished within. He barely came up to Val’s head and shoulders, and had a boys softness to his features still.

  “Why are you here? I thought you were training with the apprentices?”

  Val rubbed her eyes, ignorant of the filth she smeared on her face. Following his lead, she ran into the next stall, the fell beast within pulling on her ropes nervous at the smell of smoke.

  “I ran away,” was all she meekly replied as she worked.

  Val went to lift the bucket of water, and as she leaned back she stumbled uncoordinated as the weight was lighter than expected, sloshing the water out of the bucket and across the floor of the stall. She gasped with exasperation, her tears starting again in her panic, and went to the next stall.

  There was no bucket in this one, and she instead grabbed the entire barrel of water within on each edge, and lifted it. The water poured down her front as she did so, but there was still enough for her to stumble back with what remained to the smoking hay and tip the contents over with a reassuring hiss.

  They both stood panting for a moment, the smell of smoke and burning dung in the air. The cows in the stalls shifted with panic, and the Vigil chorus still played. Raised voices shook them into movement.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Hide me,” begged Val.

  Bastian grabbed her hand, springing into action as he dragged her between the stalls, Val stumbling along behind almost physically twice his size. They rushed out the back entrance straight into the chest of a burly man in Company leathers followed by several others. Bastian was scooped up into arms, kicking and yelling, and Val dragged by one arm apart from him. She tripped and fell into the mud as they were separated.

  “There you are. Think you can escape punishment? You broke his arm!” yelled the man, lifting her to her feet again by the arm he held.

  Val’s tears sprung to her eyes again, “I didn’t mean to!” she cried.

  The man raised his arm and bought an open palm down across her cheek. The force of the blow would have been excessive for a grown man but Val’s face did not turn as it hit her. Instead, it was the man who yelped in pain as his fingers caught on her chin horn in the slap.

  Shaking out his hand he swore, “Watcher damn you, Fae-cow!”

  Val recoiled. Dimly, she was aware of the other men dragging Bastian away, screaming to be let go.

  “You’re no better young Sebastian, running away from your reading lessons!” said one of the men, far gentler with him than with Val and chuckling as the boy flailed uselessly against a man’s strength.

  “Foxface! Turnip-Head! Fuck reading! Let me go!”

  Val held a hand out desperately after him, and instead was dragged back by someone's hand around her shawl. The fabric unraveled, revealing her broad shoulders and budding breasts, tight against the fabric of a dress too small and stretched misshapen on her growing form. Val grabbed after the shawl, trying to drag it back to cover herself.

  One of the men laughed at her distress, “Hart got no money to clothe you?” he cajoled.

  Sudden calm composed Val. She bundled her fists and punched her tormentor, the man spinning wildly and tumbling to the ground, knocked completely out cold. Bastian barked with laughter at the stunned men.

  “I grow too quick for the tailor,” muttered Val, her face steely although she still sniffed holding back her tears. There was a sudden stillness about the group. It seemed three grown men were seriously considering breaking into a physical brawl with this girl that, despite her age, was approaching the same size and weight as many of them.

  “Hart’s coming!” yelled Bastian, breaking free of his captor in the sudden stillness. The men suddenly shifted, heads swinging wildly.

  Laughing gleefully at his prank, Bastian grabbed Val’s hands and tugged her after him, running towards the side of the S’dias estate to lose themselves in the orchards at the back.