The Servant Queen

That Sugary Past

Ani

I was seated at the end of the long table with Walter on the other side. He sipped at his wine glass while his butlers placed a plate of steak in front of us.

"What's with that face, kid?" Walter said.

He smiled and bit a small piece of steak off his fork. I stared at my plate. I never thought I'll be ever able to live in this type of place or even to eat this type of thing.

"You're...you're filthy rich," I said.

"One of the richest of all the regions," he said, with a laugh.

I started eating.

"You're a son of nobleman. So of course," I said, quietly.

"Hey, Ani." His voice became serious. "Wealth and the social status are completely unrelated to one another. You know that family with that Oliver guy? Even though they're all nobles, they're downright dirt poor. Merchants can start from the bottom and reach to the top."

He raised both hands in the air. "I made all of this money out of my own sweat and blood! It feels better than receiving anything from that idiot debt-ridden, drunkard father of mine. People who work for something should always get something equivalent out of it. So, in that case, my father shouldn't have deserve anything since all the money he had was from his father's will."

I picked up my plate and walked over besides him.

"And...why are you coming here?" Walter said.

"It's hard to hear you from the other side of the room." I sat down on the chair besides him.

He raised his eyebrows and laughed while wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.

"So what did you do to become so rich?" I asked. "Do you sell illegal drugs or...people?"

"Do I seem like that type of person to you? I'm one of the few sugar suppliers in the entire continent!"

"Sugar?" I said.

Walter looked at me eating my food for a brief second and continued cutting his steak.

"Yeah. The climate of all of the three regions aren't suitable for sugar canes. However, it isn't exactly impossible to grow them, but it's extremely difficult. In that case, all of those suppliers except me had lots of money beforehand to make even more money."

"You didn't mention the climate of the Forbidden Land," I said.

He pointed his fork at me. "I'm surprised that you're listening closely, Ani. I actually go there for the crops."

"What! Isn't that dangerous, Walter?"

"Not as much as you think. Demi-humans are not so much different than us. They're demonized to look like monsters in drawings and paintings and stories. But they're called demi-humans for a reason. It's because they look and act similar to humans. When I was a kid, I ran away and accidentally crossed over to the Forbidden Land from the Western Region. Days passed by, I felt hottest of heat and heaviest rain. Starving and sick, I came upon a field of sugar canes—"

"Did you meet a demi human?!"

"Oi. I'm getting there, Ani," he said. "I met three demi-humans personally, an elf girl and her parents. They lived beside the field. At first glance, I thought they were just normal farmers. But, when I met with them up close, I noticed that they all had strange ears, pointy and long. Their eyes were yellow with a black pupil, like an eclipse."

"So all those stories of how they eat humans and have pointy horns on top of their heads were lies?"

"Ani, you ask so many questions... I don't know. Okay? I only saw one race of demi-humans, the elven race. And also, the phrase of how 'everyone is different' applies to other beings too. Not all elves or demi humans are good just how not all humans are good."

"True..."

"They treated me well. Fed me and made me feel at home despite me being a human. When, I told them how sugar canes were a luxury in the human regions, they said that I can take some to sell when I leave to go back. Hell, but I didn't want to go back. It was like I had a family I never had. A father who wasn't a drunk, violent bastard, and a mother who could stand on her own feet and could take care of me and not the opposite. And not to mention a hot older sister."

He sighed.

"But I ended up going back to the human region anyways. I knew my mother would be worried to death," he said. "I went to the marketplace first and sold the dozen of sugar canes. I didn't wait for that idiot father to come home from the bar. With my money, I ran away with my sickly mother to an abandoned cottage house closer to the border of the Forbidden Land beside the Cavil Mountains, you know...the mountains that separate the Western Region and the Forbidden Land."

"After a while, I snuck back into the Forbidden Land to the same family, the Plum family, to get more sugar canes. That was when I realized that to receive something, one must earn it. The Plums told me that I could take their sugar canes to sell only if I plant more, tend the crops, and give them 30% of my profits. Free never means free, Ani. I went there everyday to cut and plant sugar canes, and chop down trees to expand the area."

"You're not doing manual work anymore. Are you?" I said.

"I'm not. With the profit I made, I gave the Plums enough gold coins to hire other elves to work on their sugar cane farm. We stopped expanding, because the land was big enough. I bribed some Guards to let me passed between the two lands. Also, I have another sugar cane farm in the Eastern Region which isn't as profitable, but it's good coverup for people who wonder where I get my canes from."

"That's kind of amazing, Walter."

Walter laughed.

"I know," he said with a smile. "What's up with you still looking stiff. It's okay, kid. You don't need to feel trapped anymore."

I accidentally dropped my fork on my plate, and it made a loud sound.

"Ani?" Walter said. He stood up.

My hand trembled. Walter said the exact thing "he" said. I understood why he was emerging in my mind more and more frequently. It's because I've been around him recently.

You don't need to feel trapped anymore.

My childhood friend, my first friend, Kei said that too. And now, I finally remember. I can't believe I didn't realize it earlier.

"Ani, are you okay?" Walter said. He touched my shoulder.

I looked up at him. "Walter, that Guard who saved us, Keith Plizge. I need to see him."

A/N: Hey, Fa-lling here. (• -)v If you don't remember, in the first chapter, Kei said that same line and in the chapter named Keith, he also said that.