Sarafune Monster Preserve Vol. 1 Read online

  She then did a small, awkward curtsy, though surprisingly stable, something that Charles guessed was probably due to her larger feet. "I-I'm very sorry about earlier. It was wrong of me, and I hope, if you become the next caretaker, you won't think less of me for it."

  Charles blushed a bit at the gesture, scratching the back of his head as he gave her a gentle smile. "Um, of course I won't. You and Mr. Sarafune probably are just used to living together after all, and you didn't see me come in. A simple misunderstanding."

  Dari shook her head, her eyes looking away from him as one of her claws gripped into her thigh. "No. I knew you were here. That's why I didn't have this on, as I'm far enough along in my studies to be getting used to clothes, and should even be trying to get used to having more on, not less. No, I did it for... other reasons."

  For a moment, the two were silent, Charles slowly taking in the information as Dari lowered her head even more. He still didn't have the whole picture obviously, but there were a dozen reasons for that, such as the fact that he didn't know enough about her, her race, the ru-

  'No'.

  Charles slowly took in a breath, forcing the mental block in front of the train that was running rampant in his head. He didn't want to entertain it while there was a girl like this, especially one who may come under his charge, right in front of him.

  He slowly put his hand on her shoulder, causing her to finally look up at his face, where his smile had wavered to a more nervous smirk. "Look, I don't understand what’s going on. I can't, not now at least, but I can understand that you’re in a rough spot too. Trying to learn while you may get a new teacher, especially in such a hard subject? I know I'd tried to get my teacher's attention some way too, but the important thing is that you now know that that was the wrong way."

  Dari stared at him with wide eyes, before charging forward, almost putting him onto the ground with the sheer force of her charge. Her arms quickly were around him in a grip that could almost crack ribs, while just as distracting were her ample breasts against his chest, squeezed tightly by him, finished with her nipples reminding him of just how naked she still was.

  She didn't seem to think about any of this as he felt her body shake and quiver against him. He could feel drops of water fall onto the side of his neck, exactly where her head was. Just how scared was she? Did she think she would be kicked off the preserve? Did he-

  He took in a deep breath and brought his arms around her, being very conscious of where they were at all times. Too far down, he was a pervert. Too far up, he was just weird. Wherever he ended up on the spectrum, she didn't seem to mind, as she only snuggled in tighter as he hugged her back. "There there, it's okay."

  Dari moved her head, one of her eyes, now red around the iris too from the tears, looking straight at him. She said something, muffled and quiet, and luckily seemed to understand what Charles pursing his lips meant.

  She came away from him, just a little, whispering, "Thank you, sir," before he was thrown.

  And in this moment, Charles found out firsthand why this part had been kept away from the applicants. It wasn't so much that the monsters he taught would hurt him, but they sure could, proven by how he was thrown almost ten feet back and landed right on his shoulder, easily bruising it as the sound of her claws echoed down the corridor.

  Despite this, Charles couldn't help but smile. He doubted the push was meant to be mean, but more a nervous reaction to needing to end the hug, along with some excitement. If she was bad at controlling her strength, it only made it all more reasonable. He was just lucky not to have hit anything on the way down.

  He did make a note to himself though. In the morning, he would be asking Mr. Sarafune some questions, and he really hoped to get some answers. Charles only hoped that they wouldn't also lose him the job.

  Time's Up

  Charles marched his way down the stairs. There would be no hiding today. No sitting back and just taking it all in. He would be involved, confident, and do what had to be done for him to be sure that this job was right for him, and he would not get distracted by cute, fascinating, sexy, ama- Did she hibernate in the winter, or just need a lot of- 'Stop it brain!'

  His brain, as was normal since he was about... twenty, conceded, even if it had plenty more conjecture ready. It could wait for the next time he saw her coming out of the shower or the like though. Then… then it would be back.

  He wouldn't be slowed by it this time. No small sets of drawers outside of the rooms would make him look inside. Their framed pictures, even the one that looked like had been drawn by a five year old, was going to make him pause. No, even if it was cute, he would stay focused.

  After an embarrassingly long time, and finding out that the house was all hallway unless you opened a door, a feature he figure out when he found an exit for each side of the house but nothing else, he finally opened the door to the kitchen. It was surprisingly large, with two different full kitchen set ups, one in each corner. The floor was the tile that you would of course expect in a kitchen, and the table for everyone to eat at dominated the open, middle portion of it. And, at one end was Sarafune, reading his paper, so Charles marched forward, opened his mouth, and-

  “Dari has never seen a male of any sort that was of her age before yesterday. That's why she reacted as she did. Or, at least, one of the reasons.”

  The words in Charles's mouth came out as a choked wheezing as he bent over, not having been ready to get something, in one line, that provocative to his mind. How had she never met a male her age? The preserves didn't usually have more than a handful of a species, at best, but to not have any males of her age seemed preposterous, which came out as a shouted, "How?"

  The old man, who sipped his coffee as a small draft tugged at the last white wisps on his head, simply replied with, "This is an all-female preserve which has only ever had me and four other men on it. Of those four, the youngest one is forty, and they all run their own preserves."

  This time, luckily for Charles, Mr. Sarafune didn't wait for a response, already knowing that the poor boy would probably freak out if not told more. "See, while the species are capable of peace, they've also had hundreds of years of hiding, fighting, death, and fear. As such, their small communities had to make sure they could continue, even if the imbalance could be intimidating to one gender. The males who were in this situation were commonly fine, being made into kings, while women were..."

  He took another sip as Charles paled, neither needing to be reminded of what could happen to a girl if surrounded by males and having to make sure another woman would be around if she was gone. It was basic instinct after all, even if horrible.

  The silence was broken by Sarafune sighing, before going on to say, "That's why the ten reserves are four female, four male, one co-ed, and one for children. Eight for the adults, which their common, fast maturation helps with, one for helping the populations grow if the caretakers are unwilling to help in the process, and one for the kids that come of this, usually along with their mother. If we didn't do this, the different species in our care wouldn't be able to change to how society around them now works as they would go to their old ways, at least as far as relations with the opposite gender goes."

  Charles sighed as he hung his head down, a hand on his forehead. "And if you didn't separate the kids, there's no idea what would happen to them when mixed in with so many stronger monsters around them." He shut his eyes for a moment, remembering tales of the evidence presented for them just being monsters or animals, and these tendencies being a key part of that. "But why haven't I heard about this? I thought they were all just any monster in the region."

  "Because then the debates would start again."

  Charles and Sarafune looked up in surprise at Dari, who was standing in the doorway. She was in her shirt again, though both would have needed another moment to even register her transgression if she hadn't been. Not when they'd both heard the fear in her voice.

  Charles stood up, placing a hand on her shoul
der as he bit into his cheek. "That... that makes sense, as it would indicate that you felt the need for regulations like these. If their greatest champion needed to…”,

  Dari opened her mouth, seemingly to say something, before whispering something under her breath, looking down, and before Charles could worry, asking, "How old do you think I am?"

  A blink was the poor boy's first response, before terror ran through him. Regular women got pissed if you got their age wrong, but this was a hormonal teenager, he thought, who could throw him through a building before probably lighting him on fire. If he got this wrong, he might not get the position because he was in the hospital. "Um... sixteen?"

  From behind him, the first piece of dread came from Sarafune saying, "They have to be human age eighteen to come here, with few exceptions that happened thirty years ago, mostly so no laws on minors further complicate their habilitation."

  The next piece of bad news came from a bubbly Dari who stepped towards the cabinets in the large kitchen. "I suppose being in school doesn't help, but you really can't tell that I'm forty-two?"

  "Bullshit!" Charles's hands slapped over his mouth as fast as he said it, but Sarafune just laughed, before raising his coffee towards Dari. "Using comedy to change topics and lighten the mood. Very good, Da-"

  Crash!

  All three of them looked at the broken coffee mug on the floor, before to Sarafune's hand. The old, wrinkly, sun-kissed hand was shaking, violently. The old man reached up, grabbing it tightly to make it stop, before both arms began to shake.

  The only one who even considered speaking did so in a low, cold voice, and the tone was as harsh as steel. "Meet me outside, Charles. Dari, go to your room, please."

  Meet was a strong word, as Charles got the kitchen door for the poor man. It did give them time to talk, even before they were out of the house, and, despite the rough, jagged breaths that Sarafune was taking, he didn't let that slow him down. "You shouldn't have seen this. It gives you leverage, power-"

  "Sir, I'm not going to use this against you. No one should do that to a sick man."

  Sarafune looked up, seeing the genuine concern in the boy's eyes, but also just the slightest hint of anger. If he was going to actually make it here, that would be useful for the boy. "Dying, not sick. And a fool, not a man."

  Charles followed him onto the back, his face set in nothing more than a tight lipped frown outside of when he spoke. "No one would call you that. Not after all you've done."

  "Stop with the flattery, damnit!" The door had barely closed when Sarafune shouted, but the force seemed to weaken him further, forcing him to put a hand on the banister to keep him steady. Beside them was a large, rocky yard that soon yielded to long grass. It wasn't something Charles had noticed yesterday, but unlike what he'd expected of the preserve, the trees for it were surprisingly far back, probably so the students had room to do what they needed to without disturbing anyone. Not that Charles could put too much thought into it, having only looked away so he didn’t watch the old man catch his breath.

  "I knew I'd been dying for years now, all while letting this damn disease continue to eat at me and saying 'I'm fine.' I even ignored the doctor’s advice on what I should do about all of this. That's why this last year has been such a mess. First I had to send Dari back to the other dragon on the property because of how she might act with candidates, and then four, four times in a row the damned idiots mess something up!"

  The old man continued, almost as if not remembering that Charles was right there and listening to every word. "First there was the racist who I let slide past my checks somehow, though I bet he planned for that to happen. After all, what better way to get back at the preserves than to burn it down? I still don’t know what stopped him, though I told most of the students that one of them did it, instead of having found him with gasoline, lighters. All while I didn’t have any fire based monsters at home.”

  Tears began to fall down Sarafune's cheeks as he shook his head. "The second one was better at least. I didn’t need to lie to anyone about that one, as he was smart, military, and in his mid-forties, but he couldn't cut it. After a week of good work, he cracked and left, not able to handle all of it. Not being able to see these creatures as people, instead of as the impossible."

  Charles wanted to say something, anything as the man he knew was such a legend continued to sob, lost in his own world, just like he himself would do at times. To make matters worse, he hadn't heard what happened to the last two, and his brain was coming up with a half dozen reasons for why other potential candidates could fail.

  A flat, even toned voice from the garden helped clear that up. "The third one attempted to rape one of my friends, and then I killed the last one when he tried doing the same with me. I stopped him before he could lay a hand on me though, unlike the third one.”

  Sarafune didn't quite catch the words, but he did notice movement in the corner of his eye; a reminder that he still had his job to do. When he saw the small woman coming out of the flower bed, he had mixed opinions. "Sarah, I'm happy to see that you agreed to coming by."

  The girl, whose head probably reached Charles's shoulders at most, shrugged. She had pale, gray skin and white hair that looked like it was probably dead, so how it was on her head made no sense. To contrast, she had on a bright yellow shirt, and faded, light blue shorts on. "It's not like he could do anything to me, and I saw no reason to say no to you. Of course, he couldn't do anything to any of us if the others simply remembered to use their teeth or claws once in a while."

  All of which didn't help comfort Charles. He had never heard of the undead being a part of monster society, having always thought they were humans, so to see a zombie literally pop out of the ground had caused him to back into the wall of the house, which had been the movement Sarafune had seen. "Wh-what did she say?"

  The girl, Sarah, looked at him with dead, yellow eyes and said, "Teeth. Most of us at least have inhuman strength, if not fangs of some sort. One bite to a creeper's neck and the problem's gone."

  Sarafune groaned as he rubbed his eyes, before remembering that he needed his balance more than he needed to keep this headache away, especially while Charles wasn't thinking about his condition. "I think he meant about the candidates, which I do regret to say that she isn't lying about. The first took my best student, a naive, caring young girl, and tried to use her, only to be stopped and beaten half to death. The next tried doing it to the only student who was still in the main house and..."

  As casually as someone would say that they did the dishes, Sarah said flatly, "I bit him."

  Sarafune nodded, before gesturing towards the house. "Go inside and have breakfast with Dari. Charles should be there shortly."

  Charles couldn't see the hate that blossomed behind those flat eyes, but he did hear Sarah say, "So you brought her in. I bet she doesn't even know, not that you couldn't convince her anyways."

  The old man didn't even try to defend himself as Sarah walked back in, dirt coming off of her in clumps as she moved. It would end up being a lot of work for Charles later in the day, but in the moment he just whispered, “Sarafune..."

  "Like I said, I was a fool. I was limited on time, made mistakes, and then lost three months before I brought you here, and I was still uncertain. Even an academic star such as yourself had me worried that you may have had a second side to you. Even now, I still do."

  "However, if you want the job, I can tell you the nitty gritty, and then I will leave. I’m simply out of time to teach you unfortunately."

  Charles glanced at Sarafune, his stomach in knots. He wanted to help, especially with the old man's condition pressing him for time, but what if the man was right? What if he would become a monster when left alone with these girls? What if he snapped like the military man? How was he cut out for it, and what would happen if there was no caretaker then?

  Sarafune watched all of this, and cut through the questions with one simple one. "You said yesterday that someone would want to help t
hese people learn and survive if they applied here. Do you still believe in that?"

  Silence filled the space as Charles took in a sharp breath. The man was right, sure, but there were a hundred arguments against it, including the racist that had sneaked through. The thought of working with real monsters was terrifying in general, let alone ones that were going to look at him with memories of past sins now fueling their decisions. Or, for that matter, how hard it would be to control them when, from what he had seen so far, he was the only employee. None of these changed what he had always wanted to do, and what this may allow him to do.

  He could help them just like his teachers did him.

  Charles slowly nodded, whispering, "Yes, I do. To the question, and the job."

  Sarafune nodded one more time, before looking back to the plains that extended from his backyard. "There's one last thing I need to warn you about. The rest is in a book in the top drawer of my desk. How to run the facility, where to find lesson plans or materials, all of it. This isn’t though, because I couldn’t do it. Not at my age."