Frey's Cake

... She opens the top box and finds a cake with fruit on it. "Ew." She flips it over and lets the contents fall on the floor. She tosses the box to the side and looks at the next box.

'Lemon Cake. That's Ok. I'll save you in case I don't find something better.' She gently sets it aside.

Just like that, the small tower of boxes gets smaller as most of the cake ends up on the floor. 'AHA!' She calls out in a soft voice. 'Chocolate!'

She turns to the pile of reserve cake. 'I don't need you anymore.' She tips her hand forward and lets the tower fall on the floor – smashing up the rest of the cake into a pastry mush on the dirty floor.

Of course, she didn't need to ruin the rest of the cake. However, watching it all fall was novel and interesting to her, so she did it out of impulse. (Haalfrin may think she's of sound mind, but that's not entirely true.)

"Well…," Frey mutters guiltily as she sits down in a corner behind the shelves and looks at the tray of chocolate cake on her lap. 'I'm not REALLY wasting time eating cake when I should be helping people escape. Yeah… It's because I have to refill my mana pool. Calorie-rich food is the fastest way to do that.'

With her conscience at ease, she looks down at the cake and wonders, 'How am I going to eat this?' She's never had this much uncut cake at her disposal before, and she's a little lost. 'I didn't know they came out with cake this big.'

'Meh,' she shrugs, 'Whatever.' She puts her finger on the cake, and she starts scooping up mouthfuls with her fingers – tearing chunks off the larger whole and getting her fingers covered in chocolate cream.

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"Ree, you're in a good mood today," one of the servant ladies smiles to the maid next to her.

"Eh heh, don't you remember?" Ree giddily responds, "It's cake day!"

"Really!?" the first maid gasps out, "We're underground all the time at this job, so I lost count of the days? Wow. What kind of flavor are you getting?"

"No, no," Ree scolds, "I'm telling you about cake day because we need to go down and fetch it. The senior officers get the first servings, and it's their turn right now."

"Ree… What flavor?"

"… Lemon. What about you?"

"Chocolate! I was too poor to afford chocolate growing up, and I heard it was delicious."

The two women laugh and joke with each other as they walk down the halls. Ree – the senior maid – opens the storage room door and gestures for her junior. "After you. I'll help you with the boxes."

While Ree is turning on all the installed mage-lights, she hears a sudden shriek come from the back of the storeroom. "REEE! COME HERE!"

The senior maid runs over in a panic just after she turns all the lights on, and she rounds the corner… to see a mini mountain of downed cake smashed on the floor.

Just behind the fallen cake is a little girl with tanned skin leaning against a sack of flour. On her lap is an open chocolate cake with uneven gouges in it. The chocolate cream is smeared all over the girl's face and arms. Her tunic and trousers (a gift from the death gods) is covered in brown crumbs.

"AAAH!" the younger maid screams out in fear and anger, "Look at her! What has she done!" Ree looks closer and sees the thief's eyes are rolled up and glazed over, as if she's struggling to stay awake.

… Most infuriating of all is that smug smile that seems to say, "I know I just did something wrong, but I'll 100% do it again."

Maybe it's because Frey had been malnourished most of her life growing up the first time, but she's far shorter than a typical "12-year-old". Her parents were also both very short people. So her short stature, coupled with her smooth skin that has effectively never seen the sun, makes her look closer to half her apparent age.

With this in mind, Ree leans forward and feels a bit of compassion well up in her heart looking at this "little, unattended child." So, the first thing she thinks of is, 'Where are her parents? Who could be so irresponsible as to leave a little 6 or 7-year-old without supervision? Aw. Poor baby.'

The other maid, on the other hand, is far less forgiving. "PUT THAT DOWN YOU LITTLE MONSTER!" she shrieks out as her hands shoot forward, taking hold of the box of chocolate cake.

"NOOOOO!" the little girl shrieks in her high-pitched voice. "#$#$&*#$*&!" she curses out in an unknown language.

"Speak a civilized tongue!" the maid yells out in anger, "And give me that!"

The maid tugs on the box again, and this time, the box jerks, sending part of the cake tumbling to the floor. "#(*&#$(*&*!!!!" the girl yells out as she reaches one hand forward and makes a gripping motion.

…The last thing Ree expected was to see her companion magically pushed back and lifted into the air. "A mage?!" she blurts out in shock.

Ree knows very well that all mages are high-ranking guards. They have uniforms they must wear at all times. 'Is this girl… not even supposed to be in the Pit? There's no way she's an escaped prisoner, right? I mean, her clothes look too new. No, no. Clothes can be changed.'

Fearing the worst, the senior maid tries running out the door before she's stopped too. Before she can protest, she's clobbered over the head by a fallen box, and she's knocked unconscious.

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'Aiyaa…,' Frey lets out a nervous breath, 'What do I do now? Best to get away from here.'

She picks up the last of the cake scraps that didn't fall out of the box, then she runs out the door.

"Eh, where to go, where to go," Frey mumbles under her breath as she runs down the carpeted halls. She's lived completely barefoot most of her life, so the bottom of her feet are abhorrently filthy. Thus, as she runs, she's leaving disgusting black footprints wherever she walks.

Almost immediately after exiting the storeroom and rounding her first corner, she sees another pair of servants walking down the hallway.

A servant's stay in the Pit can take up to a decade, depending on how long they sign up for. It's not uncommon for the servants to bear their children here and let their children help out around the place for their first couple of years.

So, it's not uncommon to see a child here.

What IS strange is that this child in particular is covered in cream and cake crumbs. She's absolutely filthy, and her blackened feet are ruining all their hard work spent cleaning the place!

"You!" one of the servants calls out. "Come here! Didn't your parents teach you better!? She reaches out and pinches the little girl's ears.

Frey looks around and sees the surveillance mirrors on the ceiling. She's seen similar (but broken) things on her own floor, and when she asked Haalfrin about them, he explained to her, "Those things let the big bad prison masters see you from far away." Later, during one of their magic lessons, he even had her put some surveillance mirrors back together – learning how they're built.

So, seeing the hallways lined with these mirrors, Frey looks down and clams up. 'Crap. I can't act up while these things can see me,' she realizes.

And so, even when her ear is pinched and lifted up painfully, Frey keeps her temper reigned in, and she does her best to act like a child. She even lets the tears she was holding back fall down her cheeks.

Immediately, the guards watching from the side soften their expressions. A little girl's tears seems to be very effective in erasing the adults' rationality.

"Oi," one of the other guards standing off to the side says, "I think that's enough. Just take her out back and get her cleaned up. I can talk to the Floor captain and see if we can find her parents."

"…Fine," the maid grumbles and releases Frey. "Just take her with you."

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Because of all the time she spent with Haalfrin in particular, Frey is now mostly fluent in Alastan. As for her Brancotte… Haalfrin tried reteaching her after she forgot how to speak it, but it was only halfway successful. She can understand most of what is said, but she can't speak it very clearly anymore.

So, Freyya hears most of the conversation between the maid and the guard. 'They're going to take me to a mini-boss and find my parents'" she gets nervous thinking. 'But… they're not going to find my parents! Are they going to throw me in a prison cell after that?'

She looks up at the tall man holding her hand. 'I have to get away from here FAST.'

As she's thinking of ways to escape, the guard bends down and conjures a bit of water to wash the bottom of the girl's feet. 'Hmm…,' Frey thinks, 'a 1st gate mage, huh? Is that the default up here? How lame…'

'…Still,' she thinks as she glances up at the surveillance mirrors, 'best not to clobber him over the head for now.'