AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes and no.”
“Oh?” he asked, unzipping the bag and removing the contents.
She walked to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer, pulling out her socks and undergarments and transferring them to the second drawer so he could have a place to put his things.
“Well, I like being here, of course; it’s the realm where I grew up, but I also really like Wilde Creek. After a week, it feels more like home to me there than it does here.”
He smiled. “I’m glad. Where you are is home for me.”
“Me too.”
After he unpacked, they went for a walk so she could check on her garden. The square of land she’d set aside for her special flower and herb garden had a short, white fence to keep creatures from nibbling on her precious plants. She stepped over the fence and walked down the center path, explaining the names of the plants to Ren and their uses.
“Fairy roses?” he asked as he stopped next to the blooms.
“Yeah. I don’t know where the name came from, but they’re one of my favorites.”
A pixie made a little squeaking noise from high above the tree and Kismet looked up until she spotted the sparkling little creature.
“Hello there,” she said.
“Who are you talking to?” Ren asked.
She pointed to the pixie. The little creature was no bigger than Kismet’s hand and had a blue sheen to her skin and hair. “That’s a pixie.”
He squinted and then said, “Oh. Hi.”
The pixie made another squeaking noise and flew off. Kismet laughed. “I think you frightened her. She knows you’re not fae, but she wasn’t sure what type of creature you are.”
“Does she live here?”
“Pixies live in groups in the woods, so she has a home somewhere but probably stopped here for some nectar from the honeysuckle,” she said, pointing to the blossoms. “They’re like bees and move around from flower to flower.”
“Huh.”
She elbowed him in the side. “Now you can say you’ve seen a pixie. Not a lot of people from your realm can say that.”
“I’m not sure anyone would believe me, honestly,” he said.
“What? You don’t think your friends would believe that you saw a tiny winged creature staring at us from the trees?” She pshawed and he laughed.
They left her yard and walked down the road toward town. The market was bustling, with fae buying and selling their wares from wooden booths. Beyond the market was the military training compound, where her father worked.
She and Ren walked up to the compound. The ten-foot walls that surrounded the compound were made of smooth, gray stone with a set of wrought-iron gates. They were open, allowing anyone to come and go as they pleased. They walked through the gates and she pointed to a square building off to the right.
“The unmated males in the military live in the barracks. When a military male finds his mate, he’ll be given a small home outside of the compound for as long as he’s in the military.”
“Your father is still in the service, though, and his house is hardly small,” Ren said.
“Well, he’s high ranked, so he’s allowed to live where he wants.”
A training area sat in the center of the compound, a large square of dirt and sand where males whacked at each other with wooden swords. Around the perimeter, the trainers watched the males and shouted out corrections. She and Ren stopped and watched the training. Wooden swords thudded onto shields as the soldiers shouted playful banter at each other.
“Is military service mandatory?”
“Yes. At sixteen, males enter what we call a ‘pre-service,’ where they spend two years learning how to control their power and wings. They’re tested at age eighteen, and those with special skills or more power than usual are fast tracked into officer training and the others join the ranks of what you’d call the infantry, or the general army.”
“What would be special skills?”
