Outside

The storm hadn't even stopped completely and a couple of soldiers, this time soldiers from Eneris' army, were knocking on the door of the old farmer.

"Excuse me, sir. We are looking for a middle-aged man carrying a baby. You know… The poor fellow was obliged to run from the castle in the middle of the enemy attack. The army is now tasked with tracking back the victims from inside the castle..."

"Oh, so he is a friend of yours, then?"

"Yes… You could say so. Then you have seen him?"

"For sure! In fact, I have been sheltering him right here. I and my spouse have been very kind to the visitor. She even baked a carrot cake for him, you know. He seemed like a nice fellow."

"Oh, that's nice of you. Emperor Eneris wants you to take this as gratitude." The soldier took a coin from inside his pocket.

"Oh, thanks a lot! I appreciate. Come in, he is right here in the…" The man started saying as he invited the soldiers to go inside his house. The entrance led to the dining room, where Josiah and the servant originally were.

When the old man looked again there was no one there.

"I might not be exactly smart, but even I can smell the danger, oh, little one." Thomas was whispering to Josiah as he resumed his escape from the extension of the realm.

The heavy rain had calmed down and turned to a serene drizzled, but as the skies announced the storm would begin again, there were not many people around the outsides. Even so, Thomas decided to take the route aside from the forest as a caution measure.

"I cannot believe they are already after the son of the emperor. Mirild is dead, isn't Eneris not even going to hold a proper funeral!?" Thomas muttered loud enough for Josiah to hear.

"Oh, sorry little one. Let's not keep bringing that up, okay?" Thomas apologized. "It's just… It's too much for this old man to bear, you see… Oh, what am I saying it's a lot for you too."

The forest was hundreds of meters down the city area, and it was very dense. It's very unlikely that Josiah and the servant would be pursued there, but on the other hand, there were other dangers around.

They heard a snarling sound almost as soon as they stepped in.

The wild animal (or was it?) didn't take too long to appear. It was covered in fur, shorter than a human, and walked on its four legs just like any wild beast. But what impressed Josiah was that its fur was all on shades of a luminous blue.

'So Pretty…' Josiah exclaimed in astonishment.

"Uh oh…" Thomas said. Not as astonished.

"We've been together for a long time, little master. But I'm going to have to set you aside for a moment." The loyal servant took care to make the less movement he could on putting the baby over the wet grass. After that, he took a weapon he had been hiding on his waist the whole time. It was a large knife with an ornamented hilt, the details resembled the ones engraved in the sword his mother was holding before her death, but this was a knife instead.

'Would you look at that. You had a weapon with you the whole time, old man' Josiah thought.

"Now come. Let's end this quickly before those friends of yours appear, hm?" Thomas said to the creature.

Thomas made a sudden feint movement, causing the beast to start running on his direction quickly and without making any noise. A silent murderous wild canine.

Thomas managed to avoid the jump by swinging his body to the side, while he did so, he tried to catch it with his knife on the air but missed.

'Well… Judging by that swing it seems Thomas knows something about weapons himself, as well. He could probably have helped mom back in the castle if he wasn't carrying me at the time… It should be easy to learn fighting if I stuck around.' Josiah observed.

A small sweat of worry ran over Thomas' forehead. After that exchange, he had his back to the beast and he knew it would try to jump on him again.

Josiah let out a loud baby scream, which grasped the attention of the blue doggish creature for a while.

Thomas took the chance to turn around and then stabbed the beast, who then ran away wounded.

"Phew." Thomas wiped his forehead with his sleeve. He looked to Josiah. The boy was already silent now.

Thomas caught him once again in his arms.

"Don't tell me you did that on purpose to attract the beast leaving me an opening…? Are you really a very smart boy like that…?"

The more time he spent with Josiah, the more he could feel the intelligence on the little baby's eyes.

Thomas looked around.

"Still… It's going to be hard carrying you around and fighting beast like that, we are going to have to invent a way I can carry you and have my hands free at the same time. Wait… I know…"

He went to some of the nearby trees and took off a vine-shaped thing, but not quite, that was attached to the trunk. He proceeded to spend the next twenty minutes or so trying to tie the baby tightly around his back.

Josiah cooperated by not moving the whole time.

"Yes. Good. This way you won't fall. You are such a good boy, aren't you? Well… Let's get going."

It was a long, tiresome journey until Thomas managed to cross the forest, get past the lake and reach a place Thomas referred to as 'Couche'. They had to fight several creatures like that, and Thomas did better on the later ones. It looked for Josiah that he was an adult fairly skilled in combat.

Couche was a shoreside town, full of very humble small houses with their roofs made by straw, resembling little huts.

"Now… We are going to have to invent some kind of story, little master… We cannot have anyone discovering I am the master of the once candidate to the emperor spouse, and that you are her son."

They crossed half of the town on their feet before Thomas found a large muddy road, full of farmsteads, one at the side of the other. Thomas shouted at the first person he believed was owning one of those:

"My good sir… Is there any work to do around?"

"Plenty of work to do, all around you look. Not much to pay for it…"

"Oh, an old man like me doesn't need much. What do you say? I and my son here could withstand a mere three Ores. We need to embrace every opportunity we can, you see?"

By the face the ranch owner did, it was less than he was expecting. He stopped to consider it at the spot.

'Hey, old man… I hope you are not selling your services for a pittance. I'm done with working for a wilted minimum wage, you know…' Josiah meant as he let out a baby noise.

"And who be this little fella?"

"My son."

"Your son, hm?"

The man stared right at Josiah then took a quick look at the tall, angular-faced man with the grizzly hair. They looked nothing like each other.

"He takes a lot over his deceased mother, yes." Thomas smiled.

"Come with me. I'm going to show you to the boys. I hope you don't mind starting immediately? Do you have someone to take care of him?"

"Oh, this… We will be fine, sir..."

In the next hours, Josiah was set above a wooden table in a room full of work tools. He laid there, listening to the soft wind blowing through the leaves, the slow steps of the herd minding their own business. It was a calm and uneventful rest of the evening.

"By the sacred heavens, my little master, are you all right?" Thomas' skin was all dirtied out as he finished his job, several hours later.

'Hehe.' Josiah did.

The servant took him in the arms again.

"We need to feed you some milk. There's plenty here, so Benson, the other guy, told me they wouldn't charge at last for that. Oh… Living the life of a farmer all once again, this brings me back some memories… Did you know I was a farm boy myself when I was young?"

He adjusted the boy better as he moved him from the table to his arms.

"You always stare at me with those huge green eyes of yours whenever I speak to you, heh? Is it that you can understand me, oh boy? Hoho… We are going to need a better place to let you for the day when I'm out. I'm going to spend the money I have with me to try and find a place for us both, so that we can leave a humble peaceful life, outside Central Bucoa. What do you say?"

Josiah didn't answer.

"But don't you worry… When you are old enough, I am going to tell you all about the significance of the royal bloodline. You bet. For the honor of Lady Mirild, we shall never let you forget who you truly are, young master."

The duo spent the next days without being discovered and free of major confront in that humble little remote farmstead. Thomas would work and get back to take care of the baby like he took care of his own son. He would always tell Josiah stories about the kingdom of Bucoa and his mother before bed.

Several years passed and Josiah was now a kid.