Mia didn’t know what to expect. Chaos maybe, wild panic with refugees streaming through looking pale and grim. Maybe even the goblins already being right outside the gates, slaughtering the refugees that’d been a bit too slow to evacuate. Instead, what she found once laying her eyes on the street housing the barricade was quite the opposite.

  The soldiers hurried about, sure, but they wore grim faces filled with resolve as officers shouted orders left and right. The refugees, in turn, looked more annoyed than anything as they were nudged through a large opening in the barricade. No goblins in sight, only a few metallic birds cawing up above, sending shivers down the spine of anyone familiar with the sound.

  They didn’t dare to dive down though.

  “It’s for your safety ma’am,” one soldier calmly explained to a red-faced woman looking ready to rip his head off. “The nearby districts on this side of the city are overrun with monsters and Andritz is the most defensible location. Please, move along, there are refugees behind you.”

  “What’s the damned point?” The woman shouted and Mia could hear at least a dozen other people shouting or murmuring similar things throughout the thousands strong crowd. “The monsters will get through anyway. We are all dead. At least you could have let us spend our last days in our damned homes!”

  The soldier talking to her took in all her hate with admirable stoicism as Mia’s group passed him by.

  The woman’s opinion wasn’t shared by everyone, though. Some were similarly grim, listless, while others even shouted about this all being a conspiracy and that monsters weren’t even real. Supposedly, the soldiers just wanted their homes and valuables that they left behind and were no better than bandits.

  But there were some that just silently thanked the soldiers for their service and for putting themselves between them and monsters. Those were likely the people who’d seen a monster with their own two eyes.

  “Zeigler’s beaten his soldiers into shape it seems,” Brent said under his breath, eying the happenings around them with a hand on the pommel of his sword. “Let’s go and find where we can make ourselves useful.”

  Mark heaved a deep sigh, eying the handful of Earth mages working around the barricade. Pillars of earth were rising out of the ground across the length of it, or dirt flowing up and over the haphazard pile of furniture before hardening.

  Soldiers followed after the dead-tired looking mages and handed them potions every so often. Mana potions, and they had backpacks filled with the stuff.

  Mia even caught some druid or Nature mage near the woods guiding roots up from the earth and making them wrap around the barricade, strengthening its structure.

  “That’s quite something,” Mia mumbled in awe. The last she’d seen this place, the barricade was barely holding together and a single angry Fire mage could blow a hole into it.

  Now it was five metres tall at the lowest and as thick as a castle’s walls. Maybe just as tough too, though that was still in doubt. With magic being in the equation, it was hard to make accurate guesses.

  “It seems those guys busted their balls to make it, so it better be,” Mark said, looking towards his fellow Earth mages wobbling down the length of the barricade. Out of the five Mia could see from where they were, four had been dwarves and the fifth what looked to be a man made out of living stone. No humans. Did Earth Affinity like dwarves more, or was it a coincidence?

  There was that old man back at Jeff’s too. He was a pretty good Earth mage … or Elementalist, or whatever. Hmmm. Guess there would be exceptions.

  “Will Carmilla be able to find us?” Brent asked, his hawkish gaze keeping track of every moving form surrounding them like one might pounce on him.

  “Of course,” Mia said, not too worried about that. “She has a good nose and has our scent. She’s like a bloodhound, she’ll find us.”

  “Alright,” the older man said, and for a moment Mia compared him to the easygoing man poking fun at everyone who’d been booted out of Jeff’s building along with her. When was the last time he made a joke? Before Sam left, or am I forgetting something? Did that hurt him that deeply? “Mark, can you help them tighten up this … thing? I’m sure you can do a better job than these lots, especially if you can have them give you some of those mana potions.”

  “Sure can do,” the dwarf said, grinning as he rubbed his hands together. Mia caught him murmuring about finally getting to go all out without having to worry about mana.

  “The rest of us should probably head up to the top of this thing to make sure no monster takes potshots at the refugees,” Brent said, then glanced around the place. “But I suppose we should ask whoever’s in charge here so we don’t waste our time doing something someone else’s already doing.”

  “Seconded,” Helene said, eyes up in the sky, her gaze flickering between the silvery dots flying by. “And get that Colonel to give us potions if we’re to risk our lives here. Healing primarily, but I’m sure there are others too we could use.”

  “Yeah,” Mia piped in. “I get the feeling he is pulling out all stops, distributing all the stuff they’d kept in reserve for that Marshal of theirs.”

  “I could use a few bucketfuls of mana potions,” Lina mused, playing with a small sphere of air that she made to zigzag between her fingers. “Think we could ask him to give us some Natural Treasures too? I’m sure he confiscated those too from his soldiers.”

  “Maybe as a reward,” Brent said, grunting as his eyes landed on a half-blown apart building at the corner of the intersection. It looked like it might have been a pastry shop once, but now it was teeming with important looking soldiers running in and out of it with resolute looks on their faces. “Let’s head over there and let’s hope they put someone competent in charge.”

  They didn’t even get close before an exhausted-looking woman in a soldier’s uniform ran up to them. She had dark circles under her eyes and her hair was all over the place, but she still pushed on.

  She looked down at a notebook in her hand, then up at their group twice before she cleared her throat and finally addressed them.

  “You are Miss Maria Vexley, Mister Brent Steiner and their group?” The woman asked, then looked around a bit like she was searching for someone. “I see two people opted out, alright, if you are here to help head over that way and look for Major Waters. Old man with one eye, got grey skin. Any questions?”

  “Carmilla is coming too,” Mia said, drawing the woman’s attention. I don’t want them to cheap out on rewards just because she’s a bit late. “And Mark’s already helping out with the walls.”

  The woman glanced over at where Mia pointed and saw the dwarf having requisitioned a squad of soldiers and two packs full of mana potions. He had also built up about twenty metres of the barricade to look like a castle’s palisades.

  “Oh,” the woman stared for a few seconds, then shook her head and scribbled something down. “Alright. Noted both of them as present. Questions?”

  “Will we get rewarded once this is all done?” Lina asked before anyone else could say a thing. The blonde had her arms crossed for added effect too.

  “Yes,” the woman said, her voice going colder at what she no doubt saw as opportunistic mercantile behaviour. “If we survive this, yes, you will be rewarded from what remains in our ‘vault’. Questions? No? Great. Goodbye.”

  Lina huffed at the woman’s quick departure, looking at her retreating form with a hint of derision. She shook her head.

  “Let’s go,” Lina said, and the rest just shrugged and followed her prompting.

  Mia watched Mark build a tower out of earth in the distance, with a stairwell and all. Then she giggled at the horrified look on the soldiers’ faces as he drank down two mana potions at once before continuing his work.

  There were spikes on the walls' outer sides, she could see that now from a sideways angle. He really was going all out and it was quite something to see.

  “Hey,” an unfamiliar voice said, and something about it drew Mia’s attention. It was soft, melodious and gentle like a warm breeze on the skin. The others hadn’t noticed, so they only stopped and looked back when Mia stopped to look around for the source. Then the voice spoke again, right into her ears. “Are they forcing you to fight for them? Tell me, I can get you out I promise.”

  “They aren’t though?” Mia asked, a confused frown on her face as she gave up on looking around. There was no point, whatever they were doing was projecting the voice right into her ears. “Who are-“

  “Who are you talking to?” Helene asked, looking at Mia in worry while Lina had a curious look on her face as she stared at nothing in particular.

  “Someone is talking right into my ears,” Mia said under her breath, frowning. Was anyone using some far-speak magic on her? Violent arcane mana surged up her energy channels, flowing into her ears, ready to boot out any foreign influence but found nothing.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Ohhhh,” Lina sounded intrigued, she leaned closer to Mia’s ears and held her fingers just a hint above them. “That’s some sort of Air magic. Maybe vibrating the air in your ears?”

  “Why do you fight for them?” The voice asked again, sounding smaller and confused, betrayed. “Don’t you know what they did? What they did to our kind?”

  “No?” Mia said, now confused as hell and starting to get weirded out by the strange conversation. “What did they do? Who are they? And what do you mean ‘our kind’?”

  “Oh, thank God,” the voice whispered. “At least you don’t know. Ignorance is good, better than … yes. Good luck in your fight, however misguided it may be. But be careful of the unchanged humans, their jealousy and depravity knows no bounds. Especially now, with laws and rules no longer being enforced. Be careful and stay safe.”

  “Oh, it’s gone,” Lina said, stepping away from Mia with a hint of disappointment. “That was some intricate piece of magic. You had some weird clump of air mana in your ear.”

  “That was likely a Skill,” Mia said, her frown deepening. She shook her head after a moment though. “Whatever. Whoever it was thought I was getting forced into fighting, then questioned me about why I’d ever fight with ‘them’.”

  “‘Them’?” Lina raised an eyebrow, then pointed at herself. “Meaning us?”

  “I think she was speaking of the soldiers,” Mia said. “Specifically the human ones. She … I don’t know. Doesn’t matter anyway, we have something to do, don’t we?”

  “We do,” Brent said, frowning as he looked towards the nearest rooftops. “But keep the exact words she’d spoken in mind. We’ll look into this later … for now, finding this Major Waters should be our priority.”

  “Yeah,” Mia said, nodding in agreement. She shook off the lingering confusion about the stranger’s words and the ugly feelings they carried.

  Guess it was inevitable that not only would normal humans hate the changed ones, but that it would go both ways. Whoever that woman was clearly loathed normal humans.

  Mia frowned, thinking of just what could make someone who’d been a human themselves weeks ago grow to hate their previous species so very much?

  *****

  Mia stared out into the distance, swinging her legs back and forth as they hung down the side of the towering wall Mark had made.

  Her ears twitched again, distant sounds of goblinoid cackles and screams reaching them over the hustle and bustle down behind her.

  The evacuation was finishing up, apparently it was only possible to have the survivors of the two bordering districts down south come this way while the rest were hopefully herded out of the city by the soldiers remaining there.

  Major Waters didn’t seem to hold out much hope for that when she asked, but then again the man looked to have the emotional capacity of a washboard.

  Mia would hope for the best until proven otherwise. The western part of the city over the river was still in good order, only having to fight off the birds and keep the goblins back at the bridges. Andritz wasn’t the last part of the city with survivors, not yet.

  “I drank more mana potions in the last hour than water in my entire life,” Mark said as he ambled over and collapsed onto the walkway just behind Mia. “Fuck me in the ass, that was fucking tiring.”

  “I’d really rather not,” Mia said without looking back. “I don’t swing that way for one and two, I doubt your ass has any less hair on it than your face. So no thanks … by the way good job, you made a pretty cool wall.”

  “Yeah, well,” Mark said, hefting himself up, so he was leaning his back against the wall. “You could say it’s in my blood. The hair I mean, building the wall was a pain in the ass.”

  “Why would there be hair in your blood?” Mia hummed, a mirthful smile tugging at her lip. “That can’t be healthy.”

  “You talk a lot of shit for someone who can’t eat meat.”

  “I can eat meat!” Mia defended herself. “Just … it had to be done in a more natural way. Something a rock-nibbler like you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Hey!” Mark exclaimed in mock offence, not that he bothered to raise anything other than his voice off of the floor. That would have been too much effort. “You take that back, I only did that once!”

  “What?” Mia spun around and looked down at the dwarf. “Why? Why would you nibble a rock? It was a joke, you know. You aren’t a cow, you don’t need pebbles in your stomach to digest food … do you?”

  “Noooo,” Mark said, drawing the word out. “And it wasn’t as much a nibble as it was just a tiny little … lick.”

  “Ew,” Mia stated with a straight face, then reiterated for added effect in the same toneless voice. “Ewww.”

  “Come on now, don’t tell me you never tried out what grass tastes like?” Mark said, flopping a hand up to punch her ankle away.

  “That and licking rocks are two entirely different things!” Mia said indignantly. “And I was five when I did that … okay maybe twelve? It’s not the same.”

  “It is,” Mark chortled. “Knew you were a tree hugger from birth, the ears just stayed inside your skull till now.”

  “It is not!” Mia huffed, crossing her arms with a pout. Who didn’t try eating grass growing up? No one. That’s who. At least she didn’t eat sand or lick rocks or something. Hell, Gabe once ate a damned ant back when he was five.

  “Hmmmm,” Mark made a thoughtful sound as he supposedly stared up at her. “Damn, that Awakening really remade you from the ground up. You almost look cute pouting like that. Keep it up! Maybe you’ll actually find a girlfriend this way!”

  “Oh shut up, I already have one!” Mia kicked his head, which hurt her leg more than his big thick skull. “You should worry about who’d want to date you all hairy and midget-sized like that!”

  “Wait! What? Who?” Mark jumped up, entirely ignoring the kick that made Mia’s ankles ache. He stared at her, shock all over his face in a way that made Mia’s ears heat up. Why is it so surprising that I have a girlfriend? I do! … ‘Courting’ counts as being girlfriends! Why? Because I said so!

  “You’re serious,” he said, fingers running through his luscious brown beard. “Lina? No, that girl’s straighter than an arrow with how she’s drooling over Brent whenever he takes off his shirt … it’s the vampire isn’t it? You managed to seduce Miss sourpuss?”

  “That-“ Mia’s voice went up a pitch and cracked, halting, she cleared her throat before continuing. “That’s got nothing to do with you!”

  “Oh come on!” Mark whined. “I’ve been watching you brooding over not getting laid for the last five years, I deserve to know. Spit. Do you have a secondary Succubus bloodline or something? Did you feed her love potions?”

  “No, of course not!” Mia said with a deep blush, only realising Mark had been pulling her leg when she saw his grin. She kicked him between the legs, gently. He kept standing and grinning. “How … ?”

  “Magic,” Mark said, his grin not dimming as he reached down and knocked on his crotch with a knuckle. It sounded just like when he knocked on his chest plate … which wasn’t on his chest at the moment.

  “Take it off so I can kick you properly,” Mia demanded petulantly.

  “Nope.” Mark grinned. “So? Gonna tell me or not?”

  “Fine,” Mia said, rolling her eyes a bit. “I just … managed to give her enough hints that she got it that I like her. Then we talked it out and we now kinda, sorta … courting.”

  “Courting?” Mark chortled, sitting back down with a smirk still tugging at his mouth. “What are you, some Victorian princess?”

  “That was the word she used,” Mia said defensively, a slight blush crawling back up her neck just as she calmed her heart down. “Since … well, she is worried about stuff. So we are just in a super initial phase for a bit.”

  “Stuff,” Mark stated, raising an eyebrow.

  “I’m not going to tell you the secret worries she shared with me in confidence,” Mia huffed, glaring at her hairy friend. “But the gist of it is that we … have to be pretty chaste until we get stronger.”

  “The big bad vampire is worried she’ll eat you, isn’t she?” Mark asked easily.

  Mia stiffened, mouth opening then closing with finality. She glared, not saying a word.

  “Bingo,” Mark said, his voice calming down. “Be careful, okay? Carmilla really might not want to hurt you, but we all have new … urges. You think I wanted to lick a damned rock? It was asking me to and I couldn’t resist!”

  “That’s really not the same thing,” Mia grumbled. But then she realised maybe it was. Everyone had new instincts, urges that either helped them or made their lives harder.

  Her hearing, flares of unnatural pride that got her into trouble at times, her utter revulsion at just breathing in the same air as monsters and even just her disgust at how the soldiers trampled over little saplings in the forest.

  Hers were pretty mild when compared to the ones Carmilla likely had to contend with. Fighting her own body, her nature to not do things she didn’t want to do.

  Mia bit her lower lips, staring down into her lap. That poor girl was still struggling so much. I promised to stay with her, so I will. I’ll help her through it … I trust her enough that I don’t think she’ll ever hurt me too badly. And the rest is just the price I have to pay for having a crush on a vampire, isn’t it? She’s like a rose, beautiful but has thorns that stab you when you get close.

  Mia snorted at that atrociously cliche metaphor, sure that it was something lingering in the back of her mind from a dark romance book with vampires in it.

  “I’ll be,” Mia said, letting out a soft sigh as she steeled her heart. She wasn’t getting down from the Carmilla train until booted off by the girl herself.

  “I’d hate to be the one to discourage you after finally getting into a relationship, but … “ Mark started uncertainly, wincing as Mia turned a mild glare his way. “Are you sure it’s not too dangerous? I mean, I know this is fucking weird, but she might really just lose control and kill you, no? That’s a possibility, isn’t it? Be honest.”

  “It might be,” Mia said slowly. “But a slim one, and I trust her to stop herself before going too far. I promised to stay with her.”

  “Oh, and you’re going to ‘fix her’?” Mark retorted snarkily, then winced again. “Sorry, that was uncalled for. Just … please make sure you put yourself first and that you are thinking with an organ above your waistline? I get that she’s pretty, well, fuck a blind man could tell you that just from hearing her voice, but-“

  “I know,” Mia said, feeling a little guilty that she really might have just jumped right into that fledgeling relationship without entirely thinking it through.

  Still, two facts remained. She trusted Carmilla, and she wanted her, neither was a lie. There were dangers she really didn’t take as seriously as she should have, but even now she wasn’t willing to back out.

  “Thanks, Mark. You’re a good friend.”

  Saying so, Mia hopped to her feet and kneeled down to give the dwarf a chaste hug.

  “If you really wanted to thank me you would have stayed on your feet,” the dwarf said with a grin once they separated and it took a moment for Mia to register his meaning.

  Her breasts were exactly face-height for him when they were both standing.

  “I’m going to throw you off this wall,” Mia said in a dead serious tone.

  “Please don’t,” Mark backed away, holding his hands up in surrender with a sheepish look on his face. “I surrender. Forgive me Lady for I have sinned against your person! What might this lowly dwarf do to earn your magnanimous forgiveness?”

  Mia narrowed her eyes, an evil grin tugging at her lips.