NOVEL WEB Chapter 13: You’re going to Curse Your Love Interest To Death If you Fall in Love? What’s that all about?
She watches from the tub when Soril drafts up a letter on the vanity table outside. He’s too far away for her to see the contents, but she’s just sight to notice the stamp he used to sign off. It’s of a black bird. The sigil of his family perhaps? Then he whistles out of the window. A large raven perches on his arm shortly after. It has a silver collar on its neck.
Myra, he tells her. A pet he’s kept since he was a child. Surreptitiously clever for an animal albeit a little feisty. Though, it’s hard to acknowledge Myra’s intelligence when the first thing she does is to insistently chew his hair. Attempting to preen. Then she darts her a glare followed by a loud unapproving caw, akin a shotgun wielding mother protective of her spawn. Something’s telling her Myra doesn’t like her. She’s getting provoked by a crow. But she simply giggles again when he strokes her feathers to calm her down. It’s quite an endearing sight. Soril's retrieving something from her leg. A green note. Correspondence from the Crown Prince if she had to guess. He looks immediately exhausted reading it. And when she asks, he wearily summarizes,
“He wrote to not come back to Lunarend until I’ve retaken Feror. The remaining garrison deployed at Feror is marching to Ryden. The information’s a fortnight too late, he’s going to pull his hair out once he learns we lost Ryden too.”
“Feror was where Lord Wascald’s son was captured?”
“Yeah. Rand Wascald was leading that front. The situation’s looking like absolute horse shit right now.” he’s drawing her a map midair, denoting a triangle, pointing towards the two base points,
“Feror’s here, and Ryden’s here. Estelis has both, they pincer trapped Kanra, in a position to attack at any time and the only back up we’re going to receive in a reasonable duration, is heading towards enemy territory to get slaughtered.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“I asked for more men to defend Kanra. This message won’t be delivered for another ten days. Aid from Astia’s inland can’t arrive for at least a month and a half.” he says slotting the note in before sending Myra away. Ah. From the sound of it, it seems, Astia’s on the losing side of the war. She’s making a mental list of the goals,
“In other words, for me to see the Crown Prince. First, I must find Bathory’s Jade Crest to prove my identity. Next, we must somehow recapture Ryden, and on top of that, Feror as well. Only then, you can start escorting me to Lunarend?”
“To ensure Kanra’s safety. Both Feror and Ryden needs to be reclaimed.” she’s starting to feel exhausted too. The list of things to do just keeps getting longer. Now it seems like eternity before she can meet up with the Crown Prince to even begin persuading him into talking things out with the Princess of Estelis.
Soril’s quickly slipping into the shower. Taking a quick rinse before getting dressed again. Heading for the door,
“I’ll pick you up later today. I need to go to Wascald. Have him send a squire to intercept the garrison. He probably didn’t do it because he was threatened, but he knows the situation in Feror far better than I do.” Why does that just sound like he’s going to torture Wascald into spilling the beans?
“Can’t I come with?”
“As long as you don’t have Bathory’s family crest, Wascald won’t take you seriously. Angel or otherwise. That lecherous coward will just use you as an opportunity to undermine me.” Goddammit.
It’s like this huh. If she wants to dip a toe into Astia’s politics, it's imperative for her to prove her identity first. She reluctantly bids him farewell. But she’s only able to get out of the bath after the water runs cold to shock her thighs into working.
Alright, alright. She gives herself a pep talk. At least she’s made good progress. She has one power back, and she’s gained a friend that can help her out in her mission. Step at a time is good. Step at a time. She should probably start heading out too to see if there’s anything she can assist with whilst she waits.
Making her way to the closet. She borrows a white gown with a leather closet to slip into. Taking some creative liberties to tear off the skirt so it now hems to her knees. It’ll be easier to maneuver around like this. Whoever it belongs to, she hopes the lady doesn’t mind. Still, she leaves a coin behind to pay for it.
She turns to the vanity table afterwards. Drying her hair. He didn’t take much from the length, but he’s created layers to alleviate the tangling. She ties it up into a tall ponytail to keep it out of the way. Checking the mirror to make sure she looks presentable, and she can’t help but remark, without the gaping hole in her face, Bathory is actually extremely attractive.
She has an innocent doll like look to her. Soft red hair, slightly wavy, almost pink, cascading like a waterfall down her back. Big round eyes, golden and dewy. A sharp little nose. Rosy, red lips all atop poreless, milk-white skin. Too bad she’s just as frail. Her limbs are basically twigs. Her core muscles are non-existent. Her waist is too tiny for her organs. And her fats, whatever little she has, all neatly distributed to her tits and ass with nothing else to cushion her from attacks. A quintessential prince’s damsel-in-distress, brittle as a rose vase in an earthquake. The rotten personality however, that Bathory skillfully keeps on the inside.
You could’ve simply stopped at the part where you thought of me as pretty without all the insults following. I skipped meals for this figure. Not everyone wants to look like a Godorian woman.
“Really? Thought you’d relate to them a lot more. They see men only as sex objects too.” That’s why it seems unbelievable that Godor and Estelis will join hands. There must be a missing link there. If anything, it’ll be more reasonable that they’re in direct conflict instead.
Stop throwing shade at me every opportunity you get. I’m nowhere remotely like those violent female gorillas. Besides, what’s so odd about two power-hungry Kingdoms that’re used to oppressing people weaker than them finding camaraderie? You’re overanalyzing things. Goes hand-in-hand in my opinion. Birds of the same feathers flock together.
“Cultures don’t change overnight just because of one broad similarity. Especially if Estelis is the same way about women. It’s sacrilegious to Godorian customs and vice versa. These types of estranged unions usually indicate, either there’s a power change at the top in either Kingdom that now falls in agreement with the other, or Estelis has something Godor wants.” but she doesn’t know enough nitty gritty details of this world to piece together the more intricate inner workings. This is far as she can speculate. What exactly might be the missing link? Does the redhead play a part in all this? Though, unlike Soril, it isn’t like she can just stroll up to him and ask. He appears the hotheaded type to converse with weapons rather than words.
Easy. Just deflect to the Estelian’s side. Then you can go coddle up to him for information. I’m attractive now. Use that to your advantage. That’s what I’ll do. You’d be surprised how weak men are to beauties.
“As if I’m going to do that. Have you even heard of pride and loyalty?” She can hear the eyeroll in Bathory’s voice.
Can it be eaten? Will it get me laid?
Then she realizes something,
“You can hear my thoughts the entire time?”
You never shut up. It’s just blah, war, blah, mission, blah, feed orphans, blah blah, insult me somehow. I’m almost going insane with how boring you are. Don’t you ever think about anything fun? Bathory changes the topic,
Scratch that. I did hear something fun. You’re going to curse Soril to death because you fell in love with him? What’s that all about? That’s so exciting, it’s like Romeo and Juliet!
“I didn’t. He’s a friend.” she repeats her mantra,
“I love him as a friend. Nothing more, nothing less. He’s not going to die. I won’t let it happen.” She leaves it at that. Concluding that she doesn’t have enough information to figure anything out right now so there’s no point brooding. She exits the door instead.
It’s messy outside. The soldiers are hastily rushing back and forth, carrying the wounded on stretchers towards a makeshift tent, lined with beds. In the distance, the gates are still tightly shut. The walls are being repaired. The civilians aren’t here anymore. The few remaining hundreds are gathered at the back. Waiting to be carted away to safety until further notice. They’re anticipating Estelis to eventually come back. Large scale sieges usually don’t end just because they successfully thwarted one attack especially when the opponents still have the numbers advantage.
She’s meandering through the chaos when Bathory interrupts again,
Come on, gossip with me a little, don’t be such a prude. Stop thinking about war. We can have a cute little girls talk bonding moment. You never know. Maybe we have more in common than you think. I have a feeling we’ll be together for a while. So, let’s try and get along.
“It’s hard to get along when you’re essentially blackmailing me and every word that comes out of your mouth reeks of coercion to your convenience.”
Pssh. It’s not blackmail if you liked it. Trust me. Everyone I pick is going to be a hottie with a huge cock and washboard abs. I have a talent for sensing stuff like that with just a few interactions.
“That’s not the fucking point. You’re like a perverted old geezer!”
Who knows. Maybe I am in a previous life. Bathory’s starting to get into character, deepening her voice, Ho, ho, come here little girlie, show me some breast meat.
She can’t win. She’s getting exhausted,
“Why are you so interested in my life to begin with. Didn’t you say you don’t care for the lovey-dovey shit?”
I don’t care about the lovey-dovey shit if it applies to me. But if I’m hearing about someone else’s lovey-dovey shit, it’s a different story. Especially one that’s so sappy. I’m a sucker for good angst.
“What do you want to know?”
The whole, you’ll curse someone to death if you fall in love premise. You can’t just drop a bomb like that and leave it without explanation. Come to think of it, you mentioned you haven’t fallen in love in centuries, does that mean, it happened before? Is that why you’re traumatized by it now?
That staggers her, “why are you unnecessarily sharp about useless things?”
Just answer me.
“It did. That’s just how it is. A mortal’s reverence for an Angel is understandable, but an Angel’s reciprocation to a mortal is inexcusable. God’s rule. Emotions sway actions. We’re not meant to interfere with the human realm more than we are tasked to and we’re not meant to value an individual soul more importantly than others. That’s why I got demoted to an Archangel in the first place.”
Stop speaking in code. You’re basically saying, you showed favoritism to a mortal, and he died, plus you got fucked over?
“Pretty much.”
Wait. For real? Who was he? What did he look like? Why did you fall in love? How did he die? When did this happen?
“Two centuries ago.” the feelings have already faded away with time. But the guilt remains like a festering wound that wouldn’t close. If Father was actually kind and benevolent, then he would’ve just ripped her heart out like he did himself.
Woah. Did you just throw shade at God too? Why? Was he also involved? Did he piss you off? By the way, is God hot?
“Don’t even go there. That’s fucking debauched.” She enters the armory, stopping before a rack and decides, she really doesn’t need to recount this to Bathory for free, so she instead deflects,
“Give me my powers back if you want me to elaborate.”
What the heck. You’re so stingy. I bet if Soril’s the one who asked, you’ll be blabbering like a moron to get his sympathy. Sisters before misters. Ever heard of it?
“Sisters won’t make me flip through barrels to get my powers back.” she says weighing the bracers she finds on a tabletop. Filtering out Bathory’s retorts of,
Yeah, yeah, sounds more to me you got dick whipped.
Just ignore, Lumeria. Ignore. She’ll tire eventually. She focuses on the task at hand instead. The ten kilograms ones are too heavy. She can hardly lift it. She settles for the three-kilogram ones, clasping it around her wrists and ankles. This should do the trick. Bathory does get distracted,
What are you doing?
“Helping you build muscle mass. I don’t know how long it’ll take for you to return my strength. But I can’t go around normally if even the wind threatens to blow you away.”
Ew. Take it off. You’re going to make me buffed and ugly.
“Don’t flatter yourself. It’ll take years for you to get a somewhat athletic build.”
Whatever, you’re no fun. Bathory’s gone silent. She’s given up finally. With that, she swipes a few more daggers off the shelf to tuck it into her corset. Alright. She slaps both sides of her cheeks to settle into the right mentality. Reminding herself what she had initially wanted to do. Help out. And she knows exactly where she can start now that she’s gotten her regenerative abilities back.