Prologue

“Hey, gorgeous, our mugs are empty again!”

Molly cursed under her breath. Not even fifteen minutes had passed and those annoying knights were ordering beer again. At that rate they were going to run out of it sooner than expected. The good news was that it was pretty late already, and probably those knights could not allow themselves to come back to their barracks too late. So she just had to stand that noisy group for just a little longer.

“I’ll be there in a minute!” she said tiredly, not even bothering to show a fake smile.

She picked the dirtiest mugs she could find and turned around to fill them from the almost empty barrel. The liquid was still filling the first mug when she saw out of the corner of her eye an energetic hand rising in the air to call for her attention.

“Excuse me, could you please tell me how much I owe you?”

Molly turned towards the young woman that had formulated that question, with a politeness she didn’t use to hear very often. It was the same woman that had arrived half-an-hour ago, dressed in a long, hooded cloak that concealed both the entirety of her clothes and the top of her face.

The moment that woman entered the tavern, Molly thought that she was the kind of person who wanted to go unnoticed. And she had been almost 100% sure that the woman would pick the farthest, most solitary table of the place in order to drink alone, with an aura of secrecy surrounding her.

The barmaid’s first impression soon proved to be completely off, since the woman barely looked around before shouting a loud, cheery ‘ Good evening, everyone!! Hope you are having a great night! ’ that rapidly turned heads in her direction. Luckily, those knights arrived later than her, or for sure they would have addressed their ‘wonderful compliments’ to her.

She was debating between giving that poor, naive girl a couple of warnings about avoiding certain people when her eyes snapped open.

“Wait, have you finished all by yourself?!” Molly asked while staring at the several empty plates the woman had in front of her.

She had been so skeptical when the woman ordered so much food that she demanded to see the money beforehand. Once again, she had judged the book by the cover, because there wasn't even a crumb left on the woman’s plate.

“Yes, it was pretty good overall! The only problem was the potatoes which were a tiny bit undercooked, and maybe the stew could use a few more condiments to make it tastier. If you want, I can give you my father's recipe, because his stew is the best of– OUCH !”

Molly frowned with confusion as the young woman suddenly rubbed the back of her head. “You okay?”

“Eh? Ah, yes, yes, all good, thank you for asking. I just have…uhm…sudden headaches occasionally.”

Molly blinked a couple of times. She wondered if she had just imagined the small shadow that had appeared behind the girl’s head. She hoped it was not a fairy. She had had enough with that entire week she and her father spent scaring away a dozen of those little pests, after they tried to nest in the tavern’s basement.

“Gooor-geusss!! Where is my beer?!”

‘And speaking about pests’, she thought while suppressing an exasperated sight. She devoutly prayed to Enutrof every night, and even gave Him offerings, so it would be nice that luck smiled at her one day,

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” she tiredly said towards the young woman, who simply nodded while offering her an amiable smile.

She finished filling the mugs, put them on a tray, and walked towards the noisy table. She made the most of the knights bursting out laughing about a bad joke in order to leave the tray there, and rapidly turned around to leave.

However, she wasn’t fast enough, and one of the knights grabbed her wrist when she was about to walk away,

“Hey, don’t leave so fast, sweetie! Have fun with us a little~”

“Sorry, sir, but I’m still working.”

The annoyance that she had been feeling was replaced by light nervousness when the knight’s expression stopped being joking and acquired harshness while standing up.

“So you dare to reject the invitation of a Knight of the Pink Daisy?”

Molly’s throat went dry. Shit, she had failed to notice the characteristic flower symbol that adorned the Knights’ breastplate.

Definitely she was not going to pray to Enutrof ever again .

“N-No, it’s not that, sir,” Molly rapidly said, feeling her heart pounding with fear when the knight increased the grip on her wrist. “My apologies if I offended you.”

“Oh, you did, gorgeous. But I’m merciful, so I’ll forget about it if you stay still.”

Molly realized that the knight was reaching for one of the mugs, which caused the others at the table to start laughing.

Swallowing her pride, Molly gulped and closed her eyes, waiting for the sticky beer to drench her. She didn’t even think about asking for help. She doubted there was someone crazy enough to face the Order of the Pink Daisy, so she couldn’t blame the other customers as they looked away.

But the unwanted shower didn’t arrive. Instead, she heard the knight cursing as his companions’ laughs stopped abruptly.

“That’s not very nice.” When Molly opened her eyes, the naive woman was right next to them, with a hand placed on the knight’s arm to prevent him from raising the mug further. “My mother taught me that a gentleman must always accept a ‘no’ with class, especially if it comes from a woman.”

Molly thought that she just had to grab the woman’s other hand and they all could play Ring Around the Rosy. Was that an unnecessary thought? Absolutely. But doing that wouldn’t be weirder than the situation she was living in because no one in their right mind would dare to confront the Order of the Pink Daisy. No one who wanted to live another day, anyway.

“What the hell is wrong with the women of this tavern?" The knight said after the initial shock vanished. “It seems I will have to teach you a few extra lessons, brat.”

Despite the knight’s bravado, the man was struggling to liberate his arm from the woman’s grip, even if he was twice her size and weight. She also noticed that the woman’s cloak was behaving a little strangely, since it was suddenly stretched while floating in the air, as if something - or someone - was pulling at it to try to make the woman retreat.

But before she could think about fairies again, the knight finally released Molly’s wrist in order to reach for his sword, with the clear intention of attacking the young woman.

Molly’s eyes could barely believe the fight that ensued.

Or, to be more accurate, the one-sided beating that that young lady delivered to the Knights of the Order of the Pink Daisy without even using a weapon.

Perhaps the stress at work was affecting her more than she thought. Because there was no way that that supposedly average girl had raised a knight over her head, like it weighed nothing, to throw it against the rest of his colleagues. Although by the astonished stares of the rest of the customers, it seemed that she hadn’t imagined it.

“What the hell is happening here?!” The tavern owner, who was also the chef of the place and Molly’s father, stomped into the room after hearing the ruckus. His bushy moustache trembled uncontrollably while looking at his tavern floor covered in broken wooden pieces and knights groaning in pain.

“I’m so sorry!” The young woman bowed towards the short old man who was still in shock, the effusive gesture allowing Molly to see some kind of scar on the young woman’s forehead before her bangs covered it again. “Sometimes I don’t control my strength, but of course I will help fix all this mess– OUCH! ”

“Quit yapping already, you idiot. We have to leave NOW before they call for help again !”

Molly was still trying to pinpoint the origin of that irritated, high-pitched voice when one of the knights started moving with the intention of standing up, which prompted the young woman to leave the place, not without bowing apologetically in their direction once again.

As that mysterious voice had said, reinforcements came in no time. They interrogated everyone in the tavern to try to guess who that traveler was who had dared to humiliate the Order of the Pink Daisy like that - because apparently, it was not the first time that she had confronted them. However, no one knew the identity of that woman.

The next morning, Molly arrived at the tavern mentally prepared to deal with her grumpy father, who hadn’t stopped complaining the previous night about the damage done at his ‘poor, +150 years establishment that had been passed from generation to generation’.

She got her first surprise when she entered and found her father happily whistling while sweeping the floor; she got the second one when finding a set of perfectly crafted furniture in the place where the old one had been destroyed; and she got the final one when her father handed her a note, written in a childish, barely readable calligraphy full of cute drawings.

‘I’m so sorry for the trouble I caused last night :')))

I hope the table and chairs are enough to compensate for it  >.<

Also, I attach my father’s stew recipe in case you want to use it  :DDD

XOXO

Nona ;D

“She also left this with the note,” Molly’s father said, showing her a bright stone that was clearly weird and valuable, and that for sure could help them pay the bills for the following months. “It seems like all those offerings to Enutrof finally bore fruit.”

Molly exhaled an incredulous laugh while staring at the note as an astonished smile appeared on her lips. Certainly, the gods had their particular ways to answer to someone’s prayers.