“You have quite the stock Mrs Thorne. Some of these are rare even in the capital.”

“Thank you very much,” Sandra was trying her best to be professional. While the man was extremely well mannered, he still intimidated her. He was clearly a fighter, his robe was not too thick to hide the definition of his muscles, and the authority he spoke with would make an onlooker question who the customer was.

He paused for a moment and turned towards her, “While this is a bit insensitive of me, I must ask. Who might your suppliers be?”

The question shocked Sandra. While she didn't see herself as a merchant, she was classified as one. Asking a merchant how they procured their products was a rather obvious no-no.

“Excuse me?”

The man lightly put his hands up, “I mean no offence," He then walked towards her, "I've been tasked to track the influence of the bandits just east of here. Some of the ingredients required for these potions can only be procured by people willing to take quite extreme levels of risk. Having surveyed this town, a group willing to do such does not exist here.”

“And?” Sandra looked at the man angrily, feeling incredibly insulted.

The man returned the look, but there was no anger in his eyes. He was merely judging her, analyzing her. They stayed staring at one another for a moment, but the man ultimately turned away.

“And nothing. Apologies.”

The man placed a dir coin on her counter, “I hope you will forgive my rudeness.”

Not waiting for a reply, he exited her shop. Sandra stood stunned. Moving to check the coin, she confirmed it was real. She went from stunned to baffled. That was one-eighth of her yearly income.

“What the—”

—————

Fuck.

Kain’s head fell into his free hand, suddenly remembering the other reason he started coming to the well early.

“Look here lads, ‘the special one’ has graced us with his presence.”

Kevin, the presumed leader of this little group, spoke first. He and Kain used to be in the same class at the local school. They even used to be something akin to friends.They were both exceeding bright kids. What had brought them together however, wasn’t their brains.

Kain was Imurian. His dark skin put him in the minority immediately. Thankfully, he lived on the eastern side of the Alden Empire. Their neighbors being the Imuru Republic, a country formed from and in his mother’s homeland. The good relations between the Alden Empire and the Imuru Republic meant that this area was no stranger to people with darker skin tones. Sadly for Kain, his dark skin seemed perfectly common when compared to his snow white hair. The kids picked on him to no end. By the time he thought to wear a hat to school, it was already too late. He would always be known as the freak with white hair.

Kevin had a very similar story. He was a gruelg. Gruelgs were a race of people not too dissimilar from humans. Visually, the only major differences were their huge pupils, their practically nonexistent noses, their clay like skin, and their short stature. They weren’t midgets by any stretch of the imagination, but an average height human in a crowd of gruelgs would see the top of quite a few heads.

Despite their similarities to humans, gruelgs stayed far away from them. They were the most technologically advanced race on the Lysken continent and they viewed humans, and most of the other races, as inferior. They were openly hated because of this. Kevin, unfortunately for him, was the adopted son of a human. Even though he was a child who shared few of the values of his people, most of the townsfolk still openly showed there distaste for him. Kain, while not disliked by the townsfolk, was shown a similar level of distaste in the classroom. There, they were both bullied equally. Were.

Five years ago Kevin’s adopted father became the right-hand man of the baron’s younger brother. The baron didn’t live in Bruyn, he lived in a city two weeks to the west. His younger brother was in charge of Bruyn in his place. This meant Kevin’s family had suddenly obtained power, substantial power. For Kevin, that meant the prey very quickly became the predator. He became the biggest bully in the class almost overnight.

One would assume Kevin wouldn’t forget his former ‘friend’ during his rise and that assumption would be correct, but not in a positive way. Kevin was the jealous type. Kain was by leaps and bounds the brightest in the class. He didn’t care about Kain’s appearance, but he did care about him out performing him. When he became the big bully in class, he made sure to target Kain especially.

The teachers at the school saw this and feared for the worse. When both Kain and Kevin were bullied it didn’t show in their performances. Since it wasn’t hampering their development, they could largely ignored it. When Kain was the lone victim, his grades slipped. It wasn’t a ridiculous slip he still came third on the particular test, but for a student that routinely got perfect scores to fall to third, it was a cause for concern. The teachers pulled out a drastic measure. They saw a very bright future for Kain and couldn’t have him stumble so soon. They moved him up two levels.

Five years had passed since then, Kain had since lost his tag as a freak. The fact that most people outside his original class had never seen his hair helped with that. It also helped that the area for his current classes and the building for his previous ones were separated. Today however, there was no separation.

Attempting to get the inevitable ridicule over with, Kain asked, “Hey. I haven’t seen you guys in a while. I hope everything is going well?”

David, the boy in the middle of Kevin and the face he didn’t recognize, scoffed, “The freak is trying to be a diplomat?”

That's an odd sentience, did you just learn what a diplomat was?

“Well, I would hope I could get along with the other boys my age, yes.” Kain feigned a smile.

David and Kevin laughed, the third boy soon followed suit. “You can’t even smile properly.” David scoffed again, “A freak like you wanting friends? No one even sees your around.”

Kain smiled again, this time genuine if a bit mocking, “Apologies, unlike you and Kevin there isn’t much wealth to my family’s name. I have to help my mother with her work whenever I’m not at school or studying.”

“The life of the poor must be tough. Why don’t we come over here and ‘help’ her out?” Kevin winked at Kain as his two buddies laughed some more.

Looking right into Kain’s eyes, David continued, “Yeah. We can ‘help’ her out. Her tits look like they could use a massage right Budd?”

Bud? Your name is Bud? Seriously?

That’s the part you're concerned about?

After a few more rounds of hysterical jokes, the boys eventually got told to leave by one of the adults in line. Kain waved them goodbye and continued waiting in line until it was his turn to use the well.

Looking up at the sun again, he could see it inching closer to its peak. With his bucket filled with water he carefully walked back home. When he arrived, as he expected, he saw his mother in the second bedroom working on some new clothes. She was so absorbed in her work she didn’t hear him come in. Seeing a plate with another plate covering it on the dining table, he was somewhat saddened. Putting the bucket down at the door, he grabbed a pair of utensils and sat down. As he took the cover plate off, he could hear steps coming from behind him.

“Did you say your prayers?” His mother inquired.

“I was just about to.” Kain smiled up at her.

“Good boy.” After kissing Kain’s cheek, she in the other seat across from him and continued, “So what took you so long? You rarely take that much time.”

“Riley was home alone. She begged me to play with her and I couldn’t say no”

Kain said a quick prayer and took a mouthful of the Ix and eggs before his mother could ask the next question.

She tilted her head slightly, somewhat confused, “That’s odd. Sandra’s shop doesn’t usually open this early. Did Riley tell you what she left for?”

“She said she left with her dad, I don’t know what for. She did say they’d come by to drop the basket around 12.”

“Oh. Okay, I see." She sat in silence for a moment watching Kain eagerly munch on his breakfast. She smiled lightly, "I’m going to go freshen up. I’ll be heading to the market right after.”

Kain looked at his mother surprised, “What? Don’t worry about, I’ll get them.”

His mother stood up, refusing his gesture, “You need to get ready for school. Here’s 4 dree to buy lunch.”

Before she could place the black coins on the table Kain stopped her, “We’ve been over this, I can pay for myself.”

“True. Think of this as payment for delivering the clothes for me.” She smiled brightly.

“That doesn’t make it feel any better”

“There’s no better feeling for a mother than being able to provide for her child.”

Kain frowned.

Chuckling, Kain’s mother put the coins on the table, “Take it. If you’re so against using it for lunch you can save it for something else.” She then walked into the room they shared.

Sigh.

Walking back out of the room with a towel and a change of clothes, she kissed Kain’s forehead, to his annoyance, and went to pick up the bucket of water. It was much heavier than she remembered it being. It had been many years since she was the one getting water for the both of them. Turning to ask Kain for help, she stopped herself. His face was wearing the largest of grins.

—————

Walking out of the blacksmith, Neia rolled her shoulders and handed Arleigh her sword.

“He did a really good job considering where we are.”

Neia and Arleigh were part of a scouting party that was heading back to the capital. Being the only two in the group that had used swords as their main weapon during the mission, no one else’s equipment required any maintenance they could not do themselves. Thankfully for them, Bruyn was on their path and its blacksmith was pretty well known. Convincing the rest of their group to camp next to the nearby lake, they came into town to search him out. Neia, rather satisfied with his service, was admiring her greatsword. Arleigh had something completely different on her mind.

“Hmm...have you ever seen a human with white hair before?”

Neia looked at Arleigh in confusion, “Alton has white hair?”

Arleigh shook her head, “No, not gray hair. White. Pure white. Like snow.”

“Come on Arleigh, only magical beasts have actual white hair.”

Arleigh had a bad feeling in her chest, “Yeah…”