A New Life, Reborn A Master

Headlights, A horn, Impact and Then

you wake to weight crushing across your legs and the wet sound of steel sliding through flesh.

A goblin convulses above you, its rusted blade buried in its own chest. It must have tripped. Over you. Over your body lying helpless in the grass.

It gurgles once.

Then goes still.

You blink at the open sky, mind spinning, lungs struggling to remember how to breathe to remember who you are, where are you?

Footsteps rush toward you.

Two girls drop to their knees at your side. One with warm brown eyes and steady hands. The other younger, clinging close to her sister.

“Are you alright?” “Are you hurt?”

Your vision swims. The world tilts.

And then, softly, reverently

“Thank you for saving us M....Master” “We belong to you now.”

The words barely register before darkness takes you again.

When you wake, it is not to grass and blood—

—but silk.

Soft sheets beneath you. Curtains drawn against golden light. A grand room.

The two sisters sit close at your bedside, and behind them stand rows of silent servants with lowered heads.

Waiting.

For you.

In this world, it is known as surely as the rising sun: when a life is saved, that life becomes bound. The rescuer becomes master. The saved owe their breath, their loyalty, their lives. Estate, title, wealth, bodies everything follows the bond.

"S...Sammie I think our master is awake"