“Everyone has their own story to tell.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

It was not until late in the next morning that the woman woke up, as she gasped in surprise while jolting to a seated position, protectively clutching her blankets against her body. She still looked rather frantic and worried, mixed with understandable puzzlement from finding herself suddenly in a new, unfamiliar place, but at least she was not panicking and instinctively throwing around Void magic like the night before.

“Up already?” greeted Aideen in the local language of the Empire since she was uncertain that the girl speaks other languages or not. Aideen also did her best to make her tone as nonchalant and calming as possible, while she pointed with the spoon in her hand towards the small pot kept on a simmer over the campfire despite the late hour. “Would you like something warm to fill your stomach first? We kept it warm for you.”

When the young woman mutely nodded, Aideen calmly ladled a portion of the stew into a wooden bowl and slowly proffered it to the therian woman alongside a wooden spoon. She neither talked to the woman nor hurried her as she ate the meal quietly, just staying seated at a distance, occasionally watching, but making sure to keep herself more of a calming presence instead of being intrusive.

“You’re safe now,” said Aideen quietly as the young woman finished her meal. Aideen met the young woman’s purplish eyes with her own as the woman looked up at her words and gave her a reassuring, disarming smile. “I don’t know what happened to you before this, or how you got into the state we found you in, but rest assured, you’re safe with us. Whoever hurt you won’t be hurting you again, I promise.”

“Feeling better now?” asked Aideen as she slowly moved closer to collect the young woman into a comforting hug. The woman did not resist and just leaned her head against Aideen’s shoulder, as she was only around Celia’s height, not counting her ears, which was to say a good bit shorter than Aideen. “If you’re fine with it, I would like to hear more about you. What’s your name?”

“Kino…” muttered the woman quietly. “The old man called me that.”

“Right, Kino then, do you… remember what happened to you before this?” Aideen queried. When she saw how the girl instinctively made use of Void magic of all things while she was panicking the day before, a guess already came to her mind, but it was always better to have verifications on matters like these. Still, given the timing and Kino’s affinity, the Baron’s “injury” became noticeably more suspect to her. “How old are you?”

“I… don’t know,” replied Kino with a shake of her head. “I was always in my room all the time, unless the old man or the one with glasses paid me a visit. Old man hasn't visited me for a long while, I do not know why, maybe he no longer likes me?” continued the clearly sequestered girl. “He was always nice, always brought some sweets with him when he visited. Glasses just wanted to do boring things and made me sit for ages…”

“Hmm… May I?” said Aideen carefully while she tried to parse Kino’s words. The girl acted like she had never seen the world before, like a child who had been kept inside the house all her life, which was likely literally the case for her. Aideen gleaned a clue from her words though, about the old man who had not visited for a long while, and linked it with the previous Baron of Deyos.

After she asked for Kino’s permission Aideen gently used her magic to more thoroughly inspect the girl’s body for anything of note. In the end, other than a frankly ridiculous amount of Void-affinity mana – something Aideen felt could likely match her given time for growth – in the Kino’s soul there didn’t seem to be anything wrong. A close inspection on the structure of her bones did hint at her age and pretty much confirmed that she was at more in her early twenties, and probably still in her teenage years, though.

“Tell me more about the old man, if you like,” coaxed Aideen calmly. Celia had come over and took over the watch over the pot to prevent it from burning at the moment, now that Kino had calmed down. She also kept an ear open to curiously listen to what was being said even while she kept herself busy with the pot, though.

“Old man… he was… old, all wrinkly and stuff. Thin, too, but he was always kind and gentle. I used to sleep on his lap while he petted my hair when I was smaller,” replied Kino after some time. “He always brought me good food… cakes, sweets, candies… but he visited rarer and rarer as I grew bigger, until one day he just stopped coming. Nobody ever told me anything when I asked about him.”

“Recently, it was always a cranky man who visited instead. He was never nice, always angry, keeps yelling at everyone,” continued Kino with a suppressed shudder. “I think everyone was scared of him, even glasses. They kept doing more boring things and made me sit for ages while not being allowed to do anything… until that day.”

“What happened that day?”

“That day glasses brought me out to the big house. I was only there a few times before when the old man let me walk around, when I was smaller,” said Kino with some obvious dread at the memory she recalled. “Glasses brought me to the cranky man, and he kept yelling at me about things I don’t… understand. He hit me… I was afraid… Felt like something woke up inside me, then… then everything was dark and the next thing I knew, I woke up here in the night and if I don’t remember wrong… I saw you as well.”