I sat there for a while with Rei’s head cradled in my lap as she slept. I used that time to quickly open up my menu and check my stats. It looked like I had leveled up from fighting the Lindwyrm and I would be able to choose a new skill once we could get to Amoiraishe or a skill trainer back in Haven or the Fae Glade. “Damn that thing was worth a crap ton of XP,” I muttered.

“What do you mean Taelya?” Grell asked before his eyes glazed over for a moment and then widened in surprise. “Holy shit! You weren’t kidding. I was just a little over halfway to leveling, but now I have enough XP to choose a new skill and I’m a good quarter of the way toward reaching the next level.”

“Same here,” Lissany said after a brief check of her own stats page. “It must have been an area boss or something.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me, that thing was tough,” Venika agreed with a frown. “Well, at least we all got something out of it. So Daenyss, you’re one of the new players replacing Razor and those other jerks right? I didn’t think that the Nymphs were a playable race. Are you an employee of Pegasus Entertainment too? Moira mentioned that she had people in mind and it didn’t take you long to get into the game.”

“Umm… yes. They aren’t usually, but Moira chose this race and class specifically for me when she told me what my duties would be. She had the character all set up for me so that all I needed to do was swear my oath and receive my nasyr taka from her,” Daenyss replied. She considered the Sprite’s other question and a look of confusion and uncertainty briefly settled over her face before she shook her head as if to clear it. “I guess you could say that I have served Moira for as long as I can remember.”

“What class are you exactly?” Grell asked with a curious look at Daenyss. “What skills did you take?”

“I am an Attendant, trained to anticipate and serve all of Mistress’ needs, whatever they may be. Her Majesty wished to have her own attendant back, so I was given the choice to serve Mistress here. My skills were all taken to see to Mistress’s needs: Cooking, massage, cosmetology, hairstylist(Fae), fashion stylist, sewing, Fae Culture, Kurinshal, and Faerie Dance.”

A deep frown appeared on my sister’s face as Nishalle muttered, “Not a combat skill in the lot except for Kurinshal. You’re supposed to be accompanying Taelya all the time? How do you expect to protect her, or even yourself for that matter?”

“I will gain more skills later and Mistress may choose them as she sees fit. I believe that I had some talent with guns before entering Moira’s service though, and one of my nasyr taka will allow me to summon or dismiss weapons or other objects that are stored in a special chest in Mistress’s rooms at the manor,” the Nymph explained.

I frowned at her response and the Nymph seemed to shrink away from me as she caught the expression on my face. Her reactions to me and some of her answers had been concerning me so it was time to ask some questions of my own. “What do you mean that you ‘believe’ that you had some talent with guns Daenyss? And why are you so damn scared of me?”

“I… I don’t remember anything before meeting your mother in the real world, Mistress, and swearing my service,” the young Nymph admitted reluctantly before going on to relate everything that she could remember.

All that I knew at first was pain, Mistress, like it was my entire universe. The first thing that I remember clearly was that agony in my head, so terrible that when it finally left me that my existence seemed hollow without it there with me. When I first opened my eyes Moira was there, right in front of my face and she was furious, telling me how she was going to make me suffer for what I had done. I didn’t know who Moira was or what it was that I had done to anger her though, so after staring at her in confusion and listening to her constant barrage of threats for several minutes I started to cry. I couldn’t stop sobbing as I told her that I didn’t know what I had done and that I couldn’t remember anything. I didn’t know who I was, where I was, or why I was there. I was just so scared.

So she brought me to a big room with lots of huge devices with people inside that she called F.I.Ts and helped me inside one. She and another person attached a bunch of strange devices to me and explained that when I woke up that I would be inside a game. That I would be in a different place and a different body that would feel uncomfortable at first, but that I would get used to it over time. Then Moira said that she would join me soon and that she would show me what I needed to know, help me choose a name, and prepare me for what I was going to be doing by giving me new skills and knowledge that would help me to do my job.

As she finished her story Daenyss finally got around to explaining just why she was so skittish around me. “I chose to try to be a better person than I was before, I would do anything to make amends, but I fear that people may always hate me for the things that I did. Please know that I have willingly placed my fate in your hands' Mistress. With the Viyr Jhaith, I cannot refuse you anything and if you wished to punish me or make me suffer then you could easily do so. Her Majesty said that you are not that type of person, but I fear that many would not be so kind in your place. I do not think that I would be, at least not the person that I was before.”

Rei’s lightly snoring head very nearly fell from its current resting place in my lap as I half-jumped in surprise. I had my suspicions about who the Nymph was now, but I couldn’t be certain and it was the Fae term that she had used that had me shocked. “You swore the Viyr Jhaith?!”

“Yes, Mistress,” Daenyss replied, gesturing of the long string of turquoise-hued elvish sigils encircling her throat like a collar.

“What’s the veer jayith?” Lissany asked in confusion.

I let out a long sigh and then attempted to explain. “It’s like your Guardian’s Oath but on magical steroids. It translates to ‘Soul Binding’ and it’s the most powerful magically binding oath that there is among the Fae. Not even death releases the person from the vow that they made. Because it’s so binding and there is no release from it, not even by the one who has been sworn to, the Viyr Jhaith only takes if the person honestly and truly wishes to abide by that vow to the deepest recesses of their heart. Once sworn, the person who took the oath can’t do anything against that oath, the magick of the oath will prevent them from doing so. What exactly did you swear?”

“I decided on the wording of my oath myself, Mistress. I swore that I, Daenyss, daughter of Naerysse and Nymph of the Hawthorne Clan and the Autumn Court, will serve Taelya, daughter of Amoiraishe and Yseil'dhraí of the Autumn Court for all time. I will not do anything to harm her or cause her to come to harm in any way through either action or inaction. I will protect her with my life, anticipate and serve all of her needs to the best of my ability, follow any orders given to me by her, never lie to her, and support her and her allies however I can,” the Nymph recited obediently.

“That sounds very specific and restrictive,” Nishalle pointed out with a frown. “You’ll have no choice but to serve Taelya, at least until the closed beta is over and we’re out of the game. Did you have any idea how binding this oath was before you took it?”

Daenyss nodded with a serious expression on her face. “Of course, the oath cannot be sworn unless the person swearing it is both willing and fully aware of the power of the oath and what they are swearing to. I will do everything that I can to serve you faithfully so that I can make amends and possibly earn forgiveness.”

I looked away from her. In my head, I strongly suspected that this was Razor. But was she really? Even if she had started out as him, and I couldn’t be certain yet that that was indeed the case, she was now in a different body and had no memories of being that person or the wrongs that he had committed in the game. She was like a completely different person now; vulnerable, confused, and scared but willing to make amends for crimes that she didn’t even remember without being told about them second hand. The way that she couldn’t look at her body for long made me suspect that she was having major dysphoria issues too. She needed my help, not to be stuck serving me but now she was bound to that promise whether either of us liked it or not. I also couldn’t believe that Amoiraishe would stick me with Razor.

“You don’t need to earn my forgiveness Daenyss, I don’t think that you are that person anymore, at least you’re not anymore if you could honestly swear that and be bound by your words. I have to be honest with you, I don’t like this, it feels like slavery to me and I can’t even free you from this oath. I’m not really sure how to handle this,” I admitted after a long silence.

“I do not consider myself a slave Mistress,” she told me after considering my words. “A slave has no choice but to serve. I had options available to me but I chose to serve you. I give of myself freely and, even if I can’t remember it, I have done wrong and I must make amends. Please do not think of me as a mere slave. I am your attendant, your companion, and I hope that someday you can learn to accept and tolerate my presence at your side.”

I shook my head sadly. “It isn’t your presence that bothers me Daenyss, it’s that you are giving up your free will for me.”

“Your concern is for me and not yourself?” the Nymph asked with a confused look. Once I had nodded she actually smiled, tears in her eyes as she seemed to lose some of that fear and uncertainty in the way that she looked at me. “Your mother told me that you would not treat me cruelly and, to my shame, I did not believe her. She said that though my mother was serving as your attendant that you treated her as a friend. I hope that I can someday earn your friendship as well. Please rest assured though, Mistress. I exercised my free will in giving you my service and I can still exercise it in how I serve you. My oath just prevents me from making the wrong choices and, given what little I know of my old self, that is a relief to me. Aside from that, I am no different from any other Fae with a will and desire to serve my Court and the Yseil'dhraí.”

I wasn’t completely reassured, but it wasn’t like I could do anything to change the situation. Or maybe I could. I may not have been able to release her from the oath, but I could try to make it easier, for both of us. I tried to give her a friendly smile as I said, “Daenyss, you seem uncomfortable. Close your eyes and use your focusing exercises to push the discomfort of your body to the back of your mind. You should do this whenever you start to feel like your new body is wrong. I was feeling similar discomfort when I first came into the game and it has been lessening with time, but I know how difficult it can be at first. When you are feeling more comfortable why don’t you tell us what each of those nasyr taka on your arms are for?”

Daenyss closed her eyes, her breathing slowed, and after a moment she visibly relaxed. “Thank you for the suggestion, Mistress. It was kind of you to think of my comfort like that.” She smiled at me and then gestured to each of the three turquoise marks on her right arm in turn. “This first one allows me to teleport to you at any time Mistress, while this one allows me to hear it when you call my name, no matter where either of us is. These are so I can be there for you whenever you require my services. This other one allows me to summon or dismiss weapons or other objects that are stored in a special chest in your rooms, as I explained earlier, though I haven not stored anything there yet.”

“Okay, those sound pretty useful, especially that last one,” Grell opined. “What about the ones on your left arm?”

“Those allow me to cast some minor spells. One is a small healing spell, one is a light spell, and the last is a heat spell that will allow me to keep Mistress warm if she needs it or to dry her hair after a bath. My mother said that she uses that one often before Her Majesty placed the marks on me and sent me to join you.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “That light spell should be useful in our current situation. Rei’s out cold and I haven’t really come up with any light spells yet. So with your help Daenyss, we should be able to do what we need to do now.”

“What do we need to do, Your Highness?” Lissany inquired, starting to get to her feet.

Once I had managed to extract my fiancée from my lap and settle her somewhat comfortably I turned to the others, giving my Beastkin Guardian a stern look. “Lissany, you need to rest your arm. So I want you to watch over Pete and Rei, you should all be safe in here with the barrier that Rei put up. Don’t give me that look, Liss, I’ll have Nishalle and Daenyss with me and I’m sure that they’ll both keep a good eye on me. Everyone else, we’re going to check for any lingering blighted in the store and see about scavenging some things. We’ll need things to make sleeping here for the night more comfortable, something for us to eat tonight and when we wake up in the morning, and anything else on that list that Amoiraishe had Naerysse give me.”

“I’d like to see if I can find a couple of large thermoses as well,” Nishalle said with a pensive expression. “You said that the Lindwyrm’s poison is lethal and I’d like to milk it’s venom sacs to gather as much as I can. It could be useful for an assassin like me, especially if we need to fight something big again. I’m going to have to go back in that thing’s mouth anyway to retrieve Pete’s sword.”

I considered that for a moment and nodded. “That’s not a bad idea, you could coat your weapons with it, just be extremely careful with that stuff, Sis.”

“I plan on it, I’m going to see about getting some good gloves and a mask for while I’m milking it too. I figure that I’ll need to toss or burn them after I’m done, and I might need some small paintbrushes to apply it to weapons,” my sister replied.

With that, I asked Daenyss to cast her light spell and we ventured deeper inside the Walmart with a large globe of white light floating above the Nymph and providing illumination for us. Before we went looking for anything in particular we searched the entire store for any more blighted so that we could be sure to do our shopping and sleeping in relative safety. We ran across several of the undead creatures as we carefully searched the aisles, though we only encountered one or two at a time so they were easily taken care of.

I had offered Daenyss the use of one of my Colt 45’s but neither she nor Grell had to expend any of our precious ammunition. Mostly it was easily taken care of with a quick spell by myself or Venika, or Nishalle using her shadow shift to slip in behind and drop them with her katana. By the time we had made certain that things were all clear, an hour had passed and Nishalle was starting to get a bit tired from using her new ability so much. It wasn’t like Venika or I were doing any better though, we had used a lot of magic throughout the evening and the strain was starting to show with all of us.

Daenyss seemed to be just as tired as we were, but at the same time, she regarded nearly everything around us in the store with the wide-eyed wonder of a child, as if she were seeing them for the first time. Occasionally we would have to stop when she had taken an interest in objects and explain what they were, their purpose, and how they worked. Still, Daenyss didn’t allow herself to be completely distracted by the wonders around her. She would keep casting glances in my direction, watching me and our companions in concern as we started searching for the items on our list. “You look, tired Mistress, I think that you and your friends should rest. Please, I can gather the items on the list for you, and then perhaps when I return a massage would help you to feel better?”

“We’ll be fine, and it will be done quicker if we all chip in,” I told her with a sigh. “You really don’t need to call me Mistress though Daenyss.”

“Would you prefer that I call you Your Highness?” the Nymph asked uncertainly.

“No, it’s bad enough that I can’t get the others to stop calling me that,” I said waving my hands in frustration. “Please just call me by my name.”

“I couldn’t possibly do that Mistress, it would be disrespectful for someone like me to address one of the Yseil'dhraí without a proper title. Y… you could order me to and I would of course have to comply Mistress.” The fear and uncertainty on the Nymph’s face told me just how uncomfortable that option made her feel. As horrid as the option was to her personally though, she had still brought it dutifully to my attention. As much as I hated the titles though, I couldn’t do that to her. Not only would it be an abuse of her oath but it would make her uncomfortable each time she did it and any Fae who saw her addressing me by my name would see her as being disrespectful. It would only earn her the animosity of other Fae.

“To be fair, we only do that when someone may be watching Taelya, well mostly,” Nishalle pointed out with a shrug, interrupting my thoughts. “In public, you need to be treated according to your rank but we usually try to call you by your name when it’s just us around.”

I placed my hands on my new attendant’s shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “You should call me whatever you feel comfortable with Daenyss. I will never order you to do something that will make you uncomfortable or that would make others look down on you just for my own comfort. I refuse to treat you like an object with no feelings of your own. If something makes you uncomfortable I want you to tell me. I won’t even make that an order, but I will ask that you please do so, for both our sakes.”

She bowed her head, and I thought I could see tears in her eyes as she answered. “Yes, Mistress. Thank you, you are far kinder than I probably deserve.”

“You need to stop putting yourself down like that Daenyss,” I told her sternly. “You have a chance to start anew and the person that you’ve chosen to be, taking responsibility and trying to make amends for things that you don’t even remember, I think that is a person worthy of respect. Now let’s get what we need so we can figure out something for dinner and get comfortable for the night.”

It took us over another hour going back and forth to bring back everything that we wanted. First, we gathered enough pillows and comforters to make everyone comfortable for the night. That was of course after we managed to find some that wouldn’t cause an allergic reaction in the Fae amongst our group. Next, we searched for food for the night and the following morning. We managed to gather some cereal, granola bars, snack foods, soda, and a case of bottled water. A lot of it wasn’t very healthy, but it wouldn’t require cooking and we just really wanted to settle in for the night as soon as possible.

Daenyss offered to cook something, but she was looking tired herself and I didn’t want her to have to put out the extra effort for all of us, even if we did manage to find a camp stove to cook dinner on. I certainly wasn’t going to send anyone out in that rain again to cross the parking lot and get what we would need for a proper meal. Most of us were ready to fall over and I wasn’t willing to send anyone out there alone or make them do something that I wasn’t prepared to do myself.

It was as we were passing the electronics section and a cell phone display that Daenyss stopped to stare and then squealed excitedly. “Moira had one of these in the real world! It played music and then she used it to talk to someone far away.” Her enthusiastic grin faded to a thoughtful and slightly confused expression though as she admitted, “I didn’t really understand most of what she was saying though. I think she may have been speaking another language for part of the conversation because it didn’t make much sense to me. Something about transforming spock stares I think.”

“Transferring stock shares?” Venika suggested gently.

“Oh! Yes! That was it!” the Nymph exclaimed, her head bobbing up and down excitedly. “She was asking the other person to transfer stock shares to her and said that the others had already approved it and transferred theirs. She also said something about moving to a sanctuary and then she thanked the person and said that she would see them at the tournament.”

“It sounds like Moira is trying to get enough shares to get a controlling interest in the company so she can get control of the board,” Nishalle stated pensively.

“Yeah,” I agreed as we continued along our way again. “I figure that she was talking to someone from the branch in Japan, the States, or Britain. It was probably whoever she has in charge there if they were talking about the tournament at the end of closed beta.” I couldn’t help but wonder what the whole ‘moving to a sanctuary’ was about though as we continued our search.

We managed to find a pair of large stainless steel coffee thermoses for Nishalle’s poison-milking in the kitchen wares section, and a trip to home improvements landed her some paintbrushes, a boxcutter thick leather work gloves, and a rubber respirator mask for painting. We also took the opportunity to scavenge a few heavy-duty flashlights for the night and some batteries to power them in case Daenyss started to tire from the light spell. With all of that done, all that I really wanted to look for was the plants that were on the list for the Fae Glade. We headed over toward the garden center with Daenyss’s light spell guiding us and as (bad) luck would have it, the cosmetics aisle was directly in our path. Of course, it was. Why wouldn’t it be? It was after all the one section of the store I was hoping we could avoid so that I could honestly tell Amoiraishe that we hadn’t happened upon any.

Sometimes I’m too honest for my own good so since we were blatantly passing through the section anyway I told the others, “We might as well have a look here, they may have a few things on the list that I was given.” I silently hoped that we wouldn’t find any of the brands and colors that my Fae ‘mother’ had suggested. I figured, “What are the odds that this store will have exactly the brands and colors that she sent me for? Even if they have some of them they probably wouldn’t have all of the things on the list.”

It was just my luck that they had almost everything on the list, and what they didn’t have Daenyss was able to suggest suitable substitutions for with her cosmetology skill. She even selected some things that weren’t on the list that she thought would flatter me and were suitably environmentally conscious. “This color will look great on you if we ever need to give you an evening look for some reason Mistress,” the Nymph suggested as she showed me yet another shade of eyeshadow.

“I’m afraid that I don’t know much about that kind of thing Daenyss so I’ll put myself in your hands. Gather whatever you think would be best and a small case to put it in and then we’ll go check out the plants and see if they have anything useful,” I told her as I looked toward the garden center.

My new Nymph attendant quickly complied and then we all made our way into the garden center guided by her light spell. A lot of the plants were in pretty bad shape and I couldn’t find much of what was on the list. A lot of it was flowers that had seen better days and they didn’t seem to have any of the herbs at the top of the list like vervain. We did manage some aloe vera plants and some varieties of mint that Venika thought could be nursed back to good health with a little TLC. We also snatched up a large variety of vegetable seed packets. Those hadn’t been on our list, but they didn’t take up too much space and I thought that they would be useful for both Haven and the Fae Glade.

Pete and Rei were both still fast asleep when we returned to the front of the store where we had made camp. I was a bit worried about them both but their pulses seemed steady and strong so it seemed like they were just sleeping. In our absence, Lissany had arranged all of the pillows and comforters that we had brought earlier so that we could all rest comfortably. She had to ask Nishalle and Grell to help move Pete and Rei when we returned so that the pair would be comfortable and warm throughout the night though. She hadn’t wanted to attempt that using only one arm, especially with how big Pete is. It wasn’t that it still hurt, in fact, she said that it felt like it was fully healed, but she didn’t want me and her mother giving her crap for not taking it easy like we had told her to.

The rain had let up and the fire at the gas station was out by this time so Nishalle decided that she would go and retrieve Pete’s sword and get her poison. Before even entering the dead creature’s massive maw she donned her gloves and respirator mask for safety’s sake. It took her a while to work the sword free and then clean it with a towel that she had picked up in housewares for that purpose, but soon Grell was carrying it back inside to place it beside his best friend for when the large Human soldier awoke. While he did that Daenyss and I directed the beams of our flashlights to give my sister enough direct light to work on her second task.

Once the Tokh'dhraí found the venom sack on the right side of the mouth we held the lights in place while she made a careful incision with the box cutter and then placed the first opened thermos underneath, allowing the leaking toxin to flow inside. Then, once the first had been filled and tightly sealed, she repeated the process with the second. I was really glad I wasn’t inside that mouth with her, it stank badly enough from the outside. Finally, with both thermoses full, she made certain to carefully splash rainwater on the outsides of the thermoses to wash off any poison that may have gotten on the surface and ensure that nobody would accidentally touch any. Then she borrowed Rei’s sharpie to write “Poison: Do Not Drink” on the thermoses.

With that gruesome task done and all of our hands carefully washed afterward with some antibacterial hand soap and bottled water, just to be safe, we settled in for the night and feasted on snack foods and soda. Daenyss was like a kid as we ate, it was her first meal in the game, and since she had lost her memory, each thing that she tried was something amazing and new to her because she couldn’t remember ever trying them before. Watching her was both heartwarming and heart-wrenching at the same time and despite her wonder at everything she was trying, she was still focusing on me.

“Mistress, you look sad? Or are you just tired? Is there anything that you require? Maybe a massage or a foot rub?” I must have let my emotions show because she was all over me with concern.

I carefully shook my head. “I’m fine Daenyss, just a little tired and…I feel a bit worried about your situation. I realize that maybe you weren’t a great person before, but I never would have wished this on anybody. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you, knowing nothing about yourself, forgetting everything you know.”

A sad look crossed the Nymph’s face briefly before she shook her head. “My situation is my own doing Mistress, I am just paying the price for my own mistakes. Do not feel sorry for me, I may not know who I was, but that just allows me to explore who I would like to be and discover the wonders of the world around me. I think that I like who I’m becoming. I feel like I’m doing the right thing and that feels good.”

We continued to eat and talk for a while and planned on heading back to Haven first thing in the morning, as soon as we made sure that Pete and Rei were both able to travel. We were all weary though and eventually the long day and lack of sleep the night before caught up with us so I snuggled close to Rei, holding her tight under the comforter as drifted off to sleep. The last thing I recalled before falling asleep was Daenyss tucking the comforter gently around me and whispering, “Good night Mistress,” as she settled into her own sleeping arrangement behind me.