Oh My, I Messed Up the Story

That made sense. The people here took their traditions seriously and everyone adored Al and Katie.

Abby, as Katie's relative, had become surprisingly popular as well. Especially since she had become headmistress. Mothers everywhere were grateful for her taking their children off their hands for a while so they could get more chores done.

But she wasn't only popular with the mothers. Many of the young apprentices in town seemed to have a small crush on her because of her unique appearance. There were a few unmarried foreigners in Raisha but none here aside from her.

She simply smiled and inwardly rolled her eyes because none of them were over eighteen. They were babies in her eyes.

One of them, a seventeen-year-old son of the blacksmith, had even proposed. Abby was forced to let him down gently. After that anyone else was too afraid to do anything but admire her from afar.

There truly was a shortage of available men here. Sometimes she wondered if she would have to convince a traveling merchant to stay here and marry her if she ever wanted a family of her own. But that was a long way off. Right now she was enjoying being the favorite aunt she always dreamed of.

"Am I allowed to throw you a baby shower or not?" Abby asked before taking another bite of her sandwich.

Sandwiches here were much simpler than the ones back home because they lacked condiments. Right now hers was some goat cheese and a leafy green vegetable similar to lettuce stuffed inside a roll.

Katie shrugged. "Your call. But if you do intend to buy a cake for it, get me a lavender one with blackberry filling. It's Marcy's recipe and absolutely delicious."

"Deal," Abby said with a smile.

Marcy had generously sent along an entire cookbook of her recipes when Katie and Al left the palace. Sia, a woman in her thirties who had been a small child when the raids occurred, was a skilled baker who could replicate her recipes perfectly.

Her mother had died in childbirth and her father escaped with her and her younger brother, eventually settling in Rowenhilde and marrying the daughter of a baker. She had practically grown up inside a kitchen. It was natural for her family to set up shop here after moving back.

A lot of the refugees had reestablished their trades here. However, there were some people who all practiced the same trade and either had to set up shop together or decide who would take up something new.

Many people ended up becoming miners who had never held a pick before in their lives because there were mines scattered all over these mountains. When they first moved here, those minerals were the only export they had going for them.

Katie said it had been a mess getting everyone reestablished at first but it all settled down into a system after about a year. Despite their small numbers, everything was going great now.

Abby thought that the Kanta could benefit from having more people to help the innovations along but they were generally wary of outsiders. It was a bit ironic since nearly all of them had intermarried with people from all of the surrounding nations.

But she couldn't really blame them. Outsiders were the reason their family and friends had been killed and they were forced to flee for their lives.

The foreign husbands and wives were accepted because the Kanta were very family oriented but they were wary of anyone else until they got to know them. Even the merchants they traded with regularly weren't entirely considered trustworthy.

Abby's reputation here would have been a lot different if she wasn't related to one of the most beloved people in the village. Relatives of clansmen were readily welcomed but there wasn't a single non-Kanta in either settlement that wasn't directly related somehow. Blood was their bond.

There was an overwhelming sea of black hair anywhere you went. Only a handful of people had blonde or brown or silver tresses. And not a single child in this village didn't have the Kanta look.

In Raisha, there were two families from Rowenhilde who were in-laws with a Kanta woman. They had a couple of teenagers and a handful of younger children between them with blonde or brown hair. That was it.

Those children would likely grow up to marry Kanta in their age group and their children would have black hair and gray eyes as well. Within a few generations, all signs of intermarrying with other nations would be gone.

"Does it ever bother you that your kids will never look like you?" Abby asked curiously.

Katie laughed with her mouth full of raspberry tart. "Abby, I don't even look like me."

She had a point. Even if she had been in her original body and married Al, her children still wouldn't look like her unless they happened to have similar noses or something.

"Besides, I happened to marry a very handsome man. They're better off looking like him than the old me," she said casually.

Abby's heart lurched. She knew her sister had always been very self-conscious about her looks. Growing up people had constantly and cruelly compared the two of them saying things such as "how could they possibly be sisters? Abby is so pretty while Katie is so plain."

She never thought her sister was plain. Her personality had been so bright that it made her seem like the most beautiful person in the world.

"That's not true," she said fiercely. "Adam would have been just as cute if he looked like you."

Katie smiled contentedly at her sister and reached out to mock punch her shoulder. "Don't make me all sentimental when I'm already drowning in hormones."

Al plopped down beside his wife without warning, sighing heavily. "If you love me, give me a bite of that raspberry tart. I just had to help Ido's cow give birth and it was the most disgusting thing I've ever done."

She sniffed his shoulder and made a face. "Not until you take a bath. You smell like a barn."

They continued bickering even after Abby had to get back to the schoolhouse. They really were too cute. Sometimes staying with them made her wish she had someone to joke around with like that.

Thoughts of Blaise would kick in and she would always quickly dismiss them. He would never be able to pull that off.