Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Let me set the scene!
It’s been several boring hours filled with very important lessons, all ignored from the beautiful classrooms that this academy had to offer.
But now, as the bell finally rings, it is time. For lunch.

Miss Claaiireee~!” I rush packing up both her as well as my own books so I can head to lunch with her. Claire ignores me with that beautiful nonchalance that I love her for. “Waait up!” I ask as I dramatically run over to where Misha and Claire are walking now.
I nearly trip when I hear the roof creak above us. Loudly.
They call it a 'history rich magic academy' but I'm pretty sure that it's just an excuse to explain the building being old.

Right as I’m about to make a clear attempt at hugging Claire that the beautiful angel will dodge, Rodd comes up next to me.

“Rae, Misha, Claire. Are you three available during lunch?” He asks with a smile that is charming I’m sure.

Claire thinks for a moment and I struggle not to boop her on the nose. “I believe I and Rae are, why, Prince Rodd?” She asks as we turn a corner, my multitasking Queen is unmatched!

Misha nods with her. “Whatever you need, Prince Rodd.”
Rodd smiles. “Great! I’ve been asked for knight business and I’ve asked but my siblings are busy.” He explains.

“And what do we need to do for this task?” Claire asks ever gracefully as I try my hardest not to complain about missing lunch.
Rodd dramatically points at the ceiling as he exclaims “We need to goooo… To the slums!!”

At this point I openly mourned my stomachs daily deliciousness getting cancelled.
At least I won’t be able to throw up due to the smell..

We got a carriage ride over and before I could think out the full process of making tiramisu, we had already arrived at the slums. Funny, traffic is substantially less during lunch, who could have thought?
Rodd was a bit more eager than literally everyone else and shot out of the carriage the moment it came to a stop. He instantly spins around to face us and points at me as I calmly exit the carriage.

“Rae!” He yells.

I help Claire out of the carriage without looking his way. “Prince Rodd.” I say as I help Misha despite her not being my employer.
“I want to have a bet!” Rodd continues to say. I close the carriage door slower than usual, mostly to stall answering him. Unfortunately there is no denying the first Prince of the country.

“I’d love to have a friendly competition with Miss Claire~.” I sigh dreamily.
Claire huffs and crosses her arms, making my heart flutter. “Prince Rodd can play for me.” She answers easily. “D’awh!” I have been defeated by the love of my life in a matter of words. Woe is me!

Rodd makes a small jump. “Alright! Here’s the gig, according to the rapport, people have been getting sick with unusual symptoms. We need to figure out how.”
He smiles devilishly. “If you can find the source before me, I’ll owe you a favour, if I win, you have regular chess sessions with me.” 

He’s smiling with so much joy, part of me wants to see how long I have to wait with answering before it fades. But that’d displease Claire.
“What if I don’t agree to the terms?” I ask, feigning to inspect my nails.
“Then you better win!” Comes Rodd ever energetic response.

I sigh and start walking past him, I hear Claire Squawk in indignity on Rodd’s behalf while Misha shakes her head. “I accept.” I tell him with a pat on the shoulder as I continue walking.
I feel him jump in celebration before he passes me running into the slums.

I stop and sigh, Misha catches up to me.
“You want me to use wind magic?”
Looking over at her I smile gratefully. “Thanks Misha.”

As she starts casting, Claire angrily taps me on the shoulder.
I turn to face her. “Yes Miss Claire? What can I do for you my love?”
She cringes in the adorable way she does. “Stop that. Also you cannot be treating Prince Rodd like that.” She tells me as she crosses her arms, unknowingly copying one of my favourite poses of hers, the one best seen on a rare alternate poster. It’s also a sprite in the game, which always shows up when you successfully thwart her plans. It’s so CUUUTEEE~.

“Are you mad with me~?” I ask, probably far too pleased for her taste. “If I say yes, will you cheer?” Before I can confirm that, Misha walks over. “Found the source of the sickness.” She tells us curtly before walking off into the presumed direction of the source.
Ahh, Misha. Always so reliable! I platonically love her so much, if Yuu ever hurts her even slightly then the Church gets a new angel~.

Claire and I, gosh look at that we sound like a couple, follow Misha through some streets and alleyways before arriving at a well. A smelly well.
“Oh this is just swell.” I comment with a grimace.
Claire groans and Misha turns to face me. “Is that a pun or sarcasm?” She asks with her usual poker face. “Double pun served with a heavy helping of sarcasm!” I happily inform her. She lifts an eyebrow but says nothing.

Claire stomps up to the well like an angel and looks down.
Misha sighs. “At least I won you the bet. You owe me one.” I nod feverishly. “Oh yeah, definitely.”

“Guys this water smells bad.” Claire observes.
Me and Misha walk up to the well and we both check for ourselves.

Phewie! Smells like molten rubber mixed with a pile of rotting garbage. It's not even helped with Claire standing next to it, it's that bad.
"Yikes, think we found the source huh?" I ask rhetorically. Misha nods with me.
"Well, you know what to do, go fix it Rae." Claire tells me before walking a good few steps away from the smelly well.
I'm about to complain about Claire walking away from me when Rodd arrives.

"Ha-oww... You found it before me?" His happiness wilting looks quite good. That should do me for healing this mess.
"What? Like it was hard?" I quote as I get my wand ready to start healing.

Which, by the way, healing one poison takes a good few minutes even with full concentration if the body of it is the size of a well.
And this well has.. Ooh I dunno. Fifty??

Something in that direction.
So anyway, I started blasting my magic energy on it.

"Are you healing it Rae?" Rodd asks as he looks over my shoulder at the well, before cringing away at the smell.
"Not if you distract me, I need focus for this Rodd." I tell him crudely. Royalty.
Rodd walks away without another word, to join Claire in standing at the side, I presume.
Right as I get done with.. I dunno, maybe 4 poisons, Misha starts casting a wind spell almost breaking my focus completely.

After another few poisons later and Misha ends the spell and calls Claire and Rodd over.
"I can sense a lot of sick people around here, it'd be more efficient if we have more healers than just Rae, maybe you two can go get some more people to help?" Misha asks.
"Why not you and Prince Rodd?"
"Because I can use wind magic to find them and guide them all to a singular building and you two have the status needed to get healers to follow you over here." She makes an excellent point. Oh shoot, the well.

Rodd and Claire think over her logic for a moment before agreeing that it's a pretty good plan, and beat me to death with a pogo stick but I think Claire sounded a little disappointed about having to leave me~! I push to heal the well faster to make her proud, even if she can't tell.

"Fine." Claire huffs as she starts heading back to the direction we came.
"Yeah sure, let's go!" Rodd enthusiastically shouts as he happily bounces after Claire. He's in my spot.

I sigh and heal more poison with as much pace as I can handle. There's a lot of the stuff in here actually. Like, a lot a lot.
As in, this amount of poison wouldn't really make a person sick as much as it would just kill them.
And another thing, how stupid does a person have to be to drink from a well that smells this rank?

Misha starts heading off, presumably to get the sick people situated in the same space, like she mentioned she would.

But real quick? The poisons I'm healing go in order from easiest/one's I know to hardest/ones I don't. And so far this stuff would kill a person in less than 10 seconds. If Misha isn't carrying dead bodies I'd be surprised.
And how would it even get to this? What fell into the well? A dead assassin with a tasting's worth of exclusive poisons?? It certainly feels icky enough for it!

Another few down, I feel uncomfortable. My whole body feels jumpy and shaky like I've been getting poisoned myself, but I know that that's not the case. I'm not touching it after all.
By the end and after a recovery period, my mana is going to go through the roof!

Some bushes rustle and my whole body is so on edge that I almost stop healing the well, but I persevere! I will prove to Claire that I can keep my focus! I just choose to focus on her whenever she's around!

Right as I finish another couple poisons and reconsider checking out what made the noise, Misha comes back carrying a very pale child, followed by what I thought was a zombie for a second, but is probably the kid's mother. Is Misha fast or am I just that focused right now?

"Follow me, we'll be basing here for now." And Misha points at one of the many houses that look like they're about to sneeze an OSHA violation, but I suppose their odds of dying won't get any bigger from that.
I wisely don't comment on Misha's decisions and valiantly continue my healing duties in silence.

Another few poisons down and I’m getting pretty close to the most dangerous of the poisons. I'm also bored out of my mind and a little tired. Don't tell Claire.
Where is Miss Claire? What's taking her so long?? Going so long without my Claireium is agony!
Though, I do have to admit that it's pretty nice and quiet here without Prince Meddly.
How long is a ride to the capital anyway? Like.. 15 minutes?

I'd start naming prime numbers but I might mess up my healing if I do that. So I guess I have no choice but to just power through the aching boredom and do my job. No matter how much my brain tells me to focus on anything else. And no matter how much my arms ache from being outstretched like this and no matter how much I can feel my mana start to strain.

Just to spite myself I push myself to start healing faster than I already was, I want to let my arms down!
Misha leaves the house again, to get more victims if I were to guess. She'd tell me if she wasn't worried about my casting getting compromised.

She's barely gone long enough for me to finish healing a poison before I hear movement to the direction from which she left. Strange, the previous sick were further away than that. But before I can even consider asking Misha about it, A man in robes clutching something walks up to the well and drops it in. In the brief flash where it falls, I can tell that it's a young girl.

Splash!

I can tell the instant she touches the water before the sound even reaches my ears, I switch from healing the well to healing her to keep her from dying on the spot before I can even think.
It costs so much focus that I can't even tell just who is standing right next to me, let alone comprehend what they just did.

I continue to heal the little girl even though I'm starting to feel a little close to my limit, a small part of me hoping furiously that Misha is on her way back and can deal with the madman who just dropped a small human being down a pretty deep well. The fact that she only broke two ribs is a miracle. One I can easily heal too!

The man walks closer to me, I can tell, but I still can't see him, he's in my range of vision but if I take a moment to take in how he looks then I'll have a dead body on my hands.
He leans into my ear but I don't even blink, I can't.
"You're amazing, Rae Taylor." His voice purrs softly. I struggle to keep my focus, I can't afford to slip, I need that little girl out of the well because I can't fight the poisoned mess she's in while she's in there.

And because if this keeps up then I won't be able to fight much of anything.

The man continues like I'm a statue, though between my lack of blinking and not-having-moved since I started, that's only accurate.
"A heavily poisoned well isn't enough to keep all your focus, and even now, with a child to fight for, you can still hear me, can't you?" He says with unrestrained glee.
Hey Misha, now would be great.

Actually, scrap that, Claire would be great!
Aaand we're gonna focus again, my thoughts of Claire just nearly killed the girl.
Guess you're a beauty of mass destruction in more ways than- NO!

Okay, gotta stop doing that.
"Now, if you come with me peacefully, the girl will be fine, I promise."

Huh..?
Is he, trying to blackmail me??

By the way, none of this is in the game, the game has a minigame where you help the kingdom for brownie points and that includes a poisoned well, but there's no one trying to do anything like this.

I can't break focus, I can't attack him and heal the girl, I can't heal the well before the girl dies.
Buuuuutt-

Right as the man puts a hand on my shoulder to presumably take my silence as agreement, I turn and look him dead in the- mask??

Oh, right.. Him.. Doucebag extraordinaire.

Anyway, I grab his arm and use my leg to pull him over, effectively tripping him onto the ground.
As he lays there like the pathetic little dirtbag that he is, I summon my earth magic and turn it into a fine dust before throwing it at him, with the full intent of burying him then and there.
Outta sight, outta mind!

Right, the girl. I had braked from healing her to throw her up using water magic, followed immediately by a slab of earth magic catching her from falling back down. Then I went back to healing the little things despite how tired I felt. Specifically so I had my hands and mind free to throw some hands to Mr. Miserable.
Am I starting to sound like Miss Claire?

Oh my goodness I AM!! WE'RE THE PERFECT LOVERS EAT YOUR HEART OUT TWILIGHT!

Yes, I did a little happy dance.
Right after that I went to go get the girl out of the well, promise.

"Very impressive indeed." Wait-

I can hear him walking over but before I can turn around he already has his arms snaked around me.
How did he get out of the dirt pile?? That was supposed to bury him alive!

He holds me down and pulls me back, forcing me to drop the little girl back into the well, not as far down as last time, luckily. I am about to cast another spell, tiredness be damned, when he tears my wand away from me and throws it into some bushes. Before I can curse over losing arguably my only weapon, my priorities change as I hear the tell-tale sound of a cork getting popped and feel a bottle put to my lips.
Instantly I shut my mouth to keep anything from entering my system, but he simply uses his legs to force me to the ground, straddles me, which by the way, only Claire gets to do that! And uses his free hand to cut off my air until I have to open my mouth.
"You're about to turn from a thorn in my side, into the biggest boon I could ask for~." He whispers huskily into my ear.
I flinch, but even that is already feeling muted under whatever this fast acting liquid is.
If only I hadn't been healing before this, I'd kick his ass so easily.

My last thought before lights-out is hoping that Miss Claire comes back before anything bad can happen.

Convincing the academy to let the first Prince borrow 10 healers is more difficult than I had anticipated, but possible none the less.
In less than an hour since our arrival, Prince Rodd and I left with 10 healers to assist Rae in healing the commoners affected by the poisonous well.

After another 20 ish minutes from travelling back, we're not having lunch by the way, Prince Rodd, 10 healers and myself are back in the slums, headed straight for the well.
We come across Misha carrying some very sick kids in the same direction we were headed.

"How's everything coming along?" Prince Rodd asks her as we continue our walk, with both me and Rodd having taken one child from Misha to ease her burden.
"Slowly, but now with these healers it should all be a lot easier. I presume that Rae is also nearly done with healing the well." Right as she says that, we arrive at said well, and Rae is nowhere to be seen.
"Guess she's faster than we thought, makes sense. It's Rae after all." Prince Rodd grins as we continue moving towards wherever Misha had set up for the healers.

Once inside the building, we got to ordering the healers around. But I still couldn't find Rae.
I had assumed she'd be inside, but I suppose I was wrong.

I sigh. "It looks like Rae is slacking off again, I'll go find her." I tell everyone, but before I can head for the door, Misha stops me.
"She's probably tired from all the healing so I don't think she'll be able to do very much here without causing herself harm. I think it's better we leave her be and focus on gathering more sick instead." She explains calmly.
Part of me doesn't sit right with the idea of leaving Rae unsupervised. Because I'm her master! But I can't argue with Misha's logic, so I nod and follow her outside as she shows me more houses with sick we can move.

There weren't nearly as many sick people as we had previously thought, some of the people we healed at the start also told us that everyone here were the people who had eaten from an abandoned carriage of cabbages a few days ago, so not the well.
Which begs the question, why was the well poisonous?

Also, it's been a good hour, where's Rae?

"Maybe she went back to the academy?" Prince Rodd proposed, though he didn't seem to believe that himself either.
"On foot? Unlikely." I huffed, the carriage hadn't left without us after all.
Misha looked around, clearly also uncomfortable with not knowing.

Wait..

"Misha, can you look for Rae with wind magic?" I ask maybe a touch more hopeful than I really should be. What? I simply cannot wait to get back to class!
Misha doesn't look me in the eyes as she shakes her head softly. "I already have, I can't find her anywhere near, though it's very difficult to tell people apart like this."
Hm.. Well that makes things more complicated.
I'm considering asking all the healers to go help us look for Rae, but they're completely drained after healing for roughly half an hour. Fair enough, constant casting like that, even for simple healing, would take a toll on anyone.

After another sweep of the surrounding area, confirming what Misha had already said, we agreed to go check if Rae hadn't decided to head back already, and take off.

She's not there.

She's NOT there.

SHE'S NOT HERE!

After not finding Rae at classes, the nurses office or her own room, I ran through every hall I could find looking for her.
Prince Rodd was kind enough to ask the Headmaster about if he might know anything regarding the well, and Misha handled the paperwork for the healers. And while that was supposed to leave me free and clear to go yell at Rae for heading off without us, I can't find her.

And it's freaking me out.

It's cold, it's dark, it's damp.
The classic trio for a second location, to the point where one could argue it's almost a checklist for any trying supervillain.
Unfortunately, unless it's Claire's dungeon, I'm not interested in being chained up here.
And yet, here we are.

I woke up to screaming, which really set the theme, and also gave me a headache.
That might also be due to skipping lunch and maybe more and then casting for anywhere between 1 to 2 hours straight at full throttle. Considering my stomach pain, this is a conservative estimate on all counts.

The screaming sounds to be coming from a boy roughly my age if I were to guess, behind shady door number #1 at the far end on my left. To be fair, it's also the only door here.

These chains suck by the way, I can't quite sit but letting my arms hang is also not comfortable. I'm just stuck either holding my arms up or letting my wrists get cut off from circulation.
It's tiring. And painful!

The screaming stopped, or.. Well. This time it just didn't start back up again. I'm not sure if it was the same person the whole time, I mean.. Probably, right?

The door opens and I get a brief look of what's behind it before some weirdo in a lab coat that looks a little out of place here comes through. I try to grab for my wand out of instinct, but my arms do not cooperate due to being chained up, and my wand is not here with me anyway.
He squeals in joy and happily walks over to me, which snaps me back to him, if only to look at him in disgust.
He looks at me like I'm a display case and he softly touches my cheek. Yuck.

"Oh yes, you will do splendidly, I can smell the scent of a dual-caster on you." He mutters under his breath as his eyes hurry to scan me. His breath smells.
The masked man from earlier knocks on the shady door, from the sound it makes I'd guess it's made of metal. In his other hand he holds a dead snake that is faintly glowing. A snake from the mana family. I tell myself.

The masked man guides the weirdo back out, still holding the snake right under the head tight enough like he's trying to squeeze it right off.

There's a few types of snakes that can affect mana.
The least dangerous is the mana snake, can only drain a person of mana, this one can still kill you, but as long as it's removed on time, it's fine. Once upon a time it was used in medical procedures, but not anymore.

Then there's the elemental snake, it starts by draining mana and upon the death of the victim it will also drain the element of that person (should they have one), making it into a different kind of snake, an elemental snake.

Then there's the lure snake whose bite just instantly kills its victims and takes their element in its entirety, which it then converted to mana and uses it to lure new victims. Part of the danger is that it can also move elements to another human, which overloads the body and causes them to either turn into a demon, or combust on the spot.

And finally there's the soul snake, whose bite isn't immediately lethal, but it'll tie the victim to the snake. The snake will leach mana off of the victim, the victim will slowly go insane from the poison in their system and if the snake is killed, every victim will go down with them.

The family of them are nearly extinct and are free to be hunted in every kingdom.

In the game these snakes show up three times, all of which are part of a game over screen. But two are quick time events.

…

I've never seen exactly what the ‘wrong choice!’ game over version meant, or how it would have to be triggered...

That's actually what I had started my latest playthrough for..

I had been expecting to get kidnapped, however that was supposed to be along with Prince-of-choice. And not for another two events. We've skipped a duel competition and a circus.
Then again, there is no Prince Boring with me, so I suppose I've succeeded at throwing the game off the rails at least.

The masked man looks in my general direction, can't tell anymore with that stupid looking mask in the way, and he grins. "Hope you're comfortable, we'll pick you up once we've set the table." He tells me before leaving. 'Set the table'? Am I finally getting lunch?? Or dinner at this point.. Or maybe breakfast….

Everything is fine.

Totally.

It's only just that Rae's been gone for a day and Prince Rodd has been quite obnoxious in trying to convince me to sign up for a set of duels.

"Come on! There'll be a prize pool and everything!" You've mentioned, Prince Rodd. Also do I look like I need things?

"I'm so sorry, but I will be continuing my search for Rae this afternoon." I tell him as I walk away.
"I can't let you do that, Claire." He tells me somberly. I consider stopping, it would be the better move when it comes to paying respect to royalty. But right now I couldn't be less concerned about etiquette.

"Claire." He calls after me, I don't stop. "I've already got search parties out, it wouldn't look good if you joined them." That makes me stop.

"What do you mean?" I ask, not turning around and instead focusing intently on a tile in the far distance.
"She's your maid, how would it look if a noble is looking for their missing servant in person?"
Not good. I know.

I sigh, he's got a point. It wouldn't do for a noble to be looking for a commoner, no matter what they are to them. "Where can I sign up for that duel competition?" I ask him before turning around and walking back over. Prince Rodd looks relieved and I resist the urge to glare at him for it. He means the best.

"Follow me! We can sign up together!" He cheers as he runs off.
That guy never changes..

It was not lunch, dinner or even breakfast.
They had indeed 'set' the table, an operation table to precise.
Without a wand, and pretty much no mana that I can find, they had zero issue with moving me onto it. Heck the bigger issue was helping me walk over.
I was stumbling like it was my first time on a dance floor.

Once on it, they made sure to strap me in, not sure why, certainly don't have much energy to move, have I mentioned how tired I am yet? I'm tired. I'm 'I could probably fall asleep right here, right now' levels of tired.

Anyway, the masked man brought another mana snake over, guess this is the game over screen then, I'm dying to one of the most preventable magic deaths ever. Cool.

The mad scientist takes the snake and positions it up to my neck, which would make the draining far more efficient than most other places, guess they do know their stuff, huh?
I try to move away, and as a result the masked nuisance makes sure to hold my head to keep me from doing anything.
I want to ask them not to do this, beg for my life, promise cooperation, anything to give me a chance. But much to surprise, my lips doesn't let pass a single word.
How long was I out for if my voice isn't working?

The mad scientist lets loose the snake on my neck and my body finds the energy to thrash around and my voice finds itself fast enough for me to scream. Wonderful.

A surprisingly large amount of me feels emotionally numb to all of this. I'd always imagined to be panicking hard if I'd ever get kidnapped. But so long without Claire makes the world go grey I suppose.
I wonder if that's really the reason.

Huh, I'm still screaming, weird.
I can feel my conscious fading away, slowly unlatching itself from this body that it has called home for this past while.

I think I should be sad about this, but I can't feel much of anything anymore.
Mostly I just feel grief, for leaving Claire alone again.

Right before I fade back to black, I feel a strong wave of fear, like my potential death only just caught up with me.
I fall into an uneasy void.

These duels are an insult to my capabilities.
I've been defeating opponent after opponent. None of them measure up to me.
At this point some of my challengers are starting to shake in their boots once they find that they've been paired up with me next.

Rae would have destroyed this. And she'd probably compliment me all the while too, completely ignoring her own abilities in favour of mine.

Gods I just want her back. I want to leave this place.
I'm going to beat these losers and then I don't care what Prince Rodd says, I'm going after her.

Chapter Text

I.. I'm alive. 

That's a surprise.
Not sure if it's a welcome one.

I feel, so tired. More tired than I thought possible.
I can't really think anymore? This is as deep as my thoughts can go. I feel like if I try to remember things my brain will just short out my whole body.
I can't move, but I can feel the cold of the table underneath me. Muted, like all my senses are asleep.

The only thing that is registering clearly is the pain from that stupid snake bite. But I get a headache just trying to find where it is. I know where it is. I can feel it. But I just can't find it.

I can vaguely hear voices next to me, but I can't figure out what they're saying.
I know every word they say, but I can't figure out how they relate to one another.

"And you're sure she's got nothing left? That girl has a big tank, if she has any mana left it'll mess with the transfer."

"Yes, I'm absolutely sure. I pushed that snake right to the limit and cut it off just before she could die."

"Wonderful, then tell me when you're done with her. I need a day's time to provide transport, so be sure to alert me as soon as you can."

"Naturally! What type of restraint were you thinking? I don't know what you'll be using her for, after all."

"You don't need to know, in a perfect world I'd ask for a Crucele potion, but for this matter I'd like a new variant of a Obedi potion. Thank you."

"Ha! You'd want to take her in as your own? You'd never get away with it, you know?"

"Hence why I request an Obedi potion. New variant, don't forget."

"Heh, sure. I'll make it extra strong, extra difficult!"

"Thank you, I will take my leave."

Pretty sure that that conversation was important.
Yet I can't do anything except float in and out of consciousness.

I've been getting weird looks in class.
Might be because I've been quite loud in chasing down the shadows of my maid.
Haven't found anything either.

Misha is joining me this afternoon. It's been three days since Rae's been gone.
We're in the carriage heading over right now.

"Claire, be honest with me." Misha says, we've been looking out the window in silence so far so it took me by surprise. "Have you found anything regarding Rae?" She asks, not taking her eyes off of the outside world.
I sigh.

The search party turned up nothing except for a discarded uniform from our school, making it very clear that Rae did indeed stumble onto trouble. It also means that Rae is most certainly not in the area anymore. However we have no idea where she went.
The guards at the gates have been questioned, the street kids around the place where the uniform was found were questioned. No one had any answers.
No one knows where Rae is.

"Nothing that can help us."

The rest of the ride was spent in silence.

The well is squeaky clean, the water in it is pristine, though it looks like the wall on the inside was messed with for some reason.
"Misha, can you cast a search spell?" I ask as I look down the well, part of me wants to drink the water. If only to be close to her in some way. But I resist, a lady of my stature cannot be seen drinking from a well in the slums.
"Well yes, I can. But we already know that Rae isn't here." Misha answers confused.

I nod before turning to look back at her. "Yes, but I want you to search for any item that looks like it might help us, not a person."
"Ah, I can certainly try."

Misha is quick to cast, but quicker to stop.
"Did you already find something?" I ask, but she doesn't answer. She walks over to some bushes close to the well. They're not big enough to hide much of anything, so I highly doub-

Misha pulls out what is unmistakably Rae's wand.
I stare at it while Misha softly begins to shake.

It takes another few moments of me staring dumbly at the proof that Rae has not been able to defend herself from whatever is happening to her before I realize that Misha is having a panic attack.

It hurts. Everything hurts. Every single nerve feels like a Christmas tree on the 25th.
I try to scream but nothing comes out. It feels like my heart has been ripped out, or like it's melting in my chest, making my bones hit their boiling point and killing me from the inside out.
I can focus on any part of my body but none of it helps. I can feel every fingertip touch the cold table, which feels impossibly cold under my probably feverish body.

I can't- I just.. It hurts. It hurts so bad! Make it stop!

Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop!

Help me please..

I'd rather be back in Tokyo than continue to go through this.

It feels like Dominator but if it were targeting my body instead of my magic.. I don't know how else to describe this.
I'd do just about anything to get away from this. I can't imagine a pain worse or more intense than this.

"You're perfect." A distorted voice says somewhere far, far away from here.

Or am I far away from them?

Where am I?

"Are you two with that one student that went missing?" A small girl asks, clearly uncomfortable with talking to them.
Since Misha is not really mentally available at the moment, I take charge and try my best to look nice and open and friendly. Which knowing me, I will inevitably mess up.

"Yes indeed we are! Can I help you with anything?" I try to ask kindly. I think it worked because she's smiling a little.
"I was hoping to help you guys actually!" She announces proudly. I bend down to her level and nod with a smile.
The little girl hesitates for only a moment before steeling her nerves. "I saw the clothes get dumped."

That.. Actually helps..

"Can you remember by who? What they looked like? Where they went?" I ask, probably a bit too quickly. The girl looks away as she shies away a little, fiddling with her hands awkwardly. "It was a masked man, he threw it out of a carriage before continuing towards the East gate."

In one sentence she just gave more information than a royal search party got in three days.

"Thank you, thank you so much." I stutter out as I struggle not to cry tears of hope.
I root around in my uniform until I find a spare gold coin and put it in her hands.
"Thank you for helping me save my-… maid." That last part is so awkward I consider confessing my feelings right here and now purely to get out of it.
But I was raised better than that!

After once again thanking the little girl, who couldn't stop staring at the coin with tears in her eyes, I grab a still shaking Misha and run for the carriage.
Now that we have a direction, we can get the search party moved for more effective results.

"Prince Rodd!" I yell as I jump out of the still moving carriage, I can't be bothered with anything besides finding my stupid maid. I faintly hear Misha follow but her steps are drowned out by my running.

I have not a clue where he is, but the moment I find him I will tell him everything.

My eyes are burning.
It's like I spilled chili on them a while ago or something.
My nails, nose, mouth and ears feel much the same actually.

Oh, wait. Now besides the soft burning I can feel little bolts of electricity running through my body. It wants to jolt and thrash at every sting, but I'm probably already pretty bruised all over. I wouldn't be surprised anyway.
I can't hear too well over the burning feeling, but my gut tells me someone is standing next to me.

"I'm so sorry my dear, but healing you now would be quite inefficient. Hate to get rid of the new elements, wouldn't you agree?"

They asked me a question, that much I can tell. But I can feel a headache bloom even without actively figuring out what they're saying.
My body feels far more heavy than I remember it being, yet it also feels lighter? Maybe I'm exactly who I was, but I just can't tell myself anymore? Ugh, this philosophical stuff is not making me feel better.

Strangely enough, the pain that I faintly remember from before I blacked out is completely gone. Like my body was healed with something stronger than water magic, as that tends to leave phantom pains at least.
If anything, my heart feels like it's never been better. Like nothing can keep it from beating on anymore.

It doesn't even squeeze in pain and longing when I think about Claire.
Oh, how worried she must be, how insulted she must feel that I left her alone.

I'm so sorry Miss Claire.

And I'm sorry that my heart isn't apologizing with me.

"WE FOUND OUT WHERE RAE WENT!!" I scream in Prince Rodd's general direction when I spot him talking to some students down the hall. He looks up with an emotion I cannot describe accurately.
"Where." He commands. I almost feel the need to do a double-take as this is the first time I've seen him behave like this.
"She was seen headed to the East gate." I tell him instantly, figuring that asking him to redirect the search party is wasted breath and wasted time.

He proves me right when he excuses himself from the conversation he was previously in and stoically walks in the direction I just came from.
"Claire, with me." He tells me curtly, I nod and follow.

His pace is fast, but I keep up just fine.

"Where did you get this info?" Prince Rodd asks in a tone I haven't heard from his mouth before.
It reminds me of father.

"From a little girl, I assume she was too shy to speak to the search party." I tell him, smiling a little despite the situation due to just how cute she was.
"And how did she come to know this?" Prince Rodd asks as we turn a corner, nearly bumping into some students before they make themselves scarce with one look from the Prince.

"She said she saw Rae's uniform get tossed out of a carriage before it headed East." I tell him, we see Misha walking over to us, was I running that fast? We turn another corner before she can reach us.
"And what was she like?" Prince Rodd asks. That question strikes me as odd.

"She was shy, grateful when I paid her for her info, not that she seemed to expect that." I say with a haunty laugh. It was more hollow than I'd like.
Prince Rodd swerves to look at me and his analytic gaze held plenty heat even without magic, I didn't flinch, but it was close.
"She didn't expect payment?" He asks slowly as he stops before a door, he opens it and gestures for me to enter first.
"No?" I tell him as I enter with a light curtsy.

Prince Rodd enters and closes the door behind him before grabbing a sheet of parchment and a pen.
I look over his shoulder as he writes out the orders for the search party.

"Change of orders due to new information.

Split the search party into two sections. One will search the East outside of the Capital walls.
The other the West.

Focus on buildings that can house a carriage, even if no carriage is present.
Mark off all searched location with a date.

By power of the King's Permission.

First Prince, Rodd Bauer of the Bauer Kingdom."

That's.. Such a waste of manpower..

Prince Rodd rolls up the parchment and whistles a tune, a pidgin flies over at his call. He ties the message to its feet and guides it to the window before letting it take off.

"Prince Rodd, that's not the order I expected." I tell him, my tone betraying my emotions.
He sighs, something that I didn't expect him to do.
"That little girl might have been placed there to throw you off track."

What?

"She might have been asked or even threatened to tell you false information. Think about it, three days after the fact? And remembering enough to paint a pretty picture? No. I think that she was told to give the opposite direction. But what if they accounted for our suspicion and had her tell the truth?"

Prince Rodd looks about as desperate as she's been feeling. I suppose he also cares for Rae. But not in the way I do.
He glares ahead, fierce and determined. “I'm not playing mind games. This isn't Chess. This isn't a game. So I will divide and conquer."
Well, he certainly has a solution to the dilemma at least.

That also explains the weird questions.

The weird scientist is back. I can see him now. My sight is weirdly okay considering I couldn't even open my eyes the last time I was awake for.

"Hope you're well rested." Oh. I can hear him properly now too. I can even understand what exactly he's saying.
Wauw, my body is handling everything quite well for what should have been a game-over.

The scientist guy proceeds to undo the clasps for my legs, which brings my attention to how sore they are, or rather. To the fact that they are very much not.
Then the clasps for my hips, my stomach, my wrists, my arms and finally my head.
I can't remember getting strapped in anymore though. I know for a fact that I was, and that I would probably have been awake for it. It's a lot of movement after all. I feel like it would have woken me up if I was asleep. And yet, I can't remember.

I lay there for a time, the scientist eying me like he wants to cut me open for a second time, if only to see if I heal again.
Oh, another thing I don't remember.
I remember being in pain, I remember my chest burning like it could melt through anything, I remember having the cut. But I don't remember getting the actual injury.

I wonder if I had white hair before all of this, I don't think so. But I'm not sure.

That's probably concerning, but like before with my dearest Claire, my heart isn't reacting at all.
Just beating on. Like I'm not thinking anything.

I should try to get out of here.

The thought hits me harder than it should have, but then, it also hits me later than it should have.
Running should be my first priority. Being unstrapped from the table is enough motivation, isn't it?
But I don't move.

I'm not sure if I can, my body isn't responding to me.
It's telling me everything that's going on with my body, if it's hot or cold, if it's feeling a texture, everything.
But as if my mind has been put on mute, nothing I tell my body to do goes through.
It stays exactly where it is.

The door opens, and while my eyes flick over, my head stays where it is.
Still, I know who it is even if I can't quite see him.

"She's ready?" The voice of the masked man asks the scientist.
The scientist hums his approval happily.
"She's my best work! Excellent aptitude on all counts and greater temporary healing to boot!" He raves.

The masked man chuckles. "Wonderful, you will see her work eventually. When she's ready."
The scientist nods. "Can't wait to see it! Though I would have loved to keep her, oh, and the stress turned her hair white."
I feel myself get angry, but it doesn't feel like I'm properly angry. Like there's a cap on my emotions and I'm hitting my limit before I'm satisfied.
What did he do to me?

"That's fine, am I free to move her now, or does she still need to be prepared for the road?" The masked man asks, walking into my field of view. He seems surprised to see my eyes open and on him. I try to glare, but my face stays still.
The scientist joins him. "She's ready when you are. She can't move her body for another 16 hours."
Ah. Well, that explains that.

Makes me wonder what's gonna happen if I need to go to the bathroom in that time though. Eugh..

The masked man hands the scientist a seemingly pretty heavy bag of coins before walking over to me and tracing what I think are the bite marks the snake left on me. His grin fills me with a reserved disgust that feels disproportionate, but again, my heart gives no response.

He picks me up from the table like I weigh nothing to him, maybe I don't.
I never did eat well, in this life or the one before.

He says his goodbyes to the scientist and goes to leave with me in his arms.
Once outside I'm surprised to see buildings around us. I expected him to have hidden me away in a forest or something. Not a street where anyone can spot us.

"I don't think you were conscious when I brought you in." He comments with a smile in his tone.
He climbs into the carriage and lays me across one of the benches before strapping me in.

"You're probably hoping that someone will spot you here and call attention to this whole affair." He goes on to say as he lays a blanket over me, effectively hiding that I've been secured rather than laying here of my own free will.

"Well, keep dreaming if you wish. This is a ghost town." He says smugly.
I'd spit in his face if I could move.

This does give me an exact location though.
There's only two ghost towns with brick houses like that, and one is north of the capital and is surrounded on all sides by trees, as it was built in a clearing.

The other is a location is to the East and a place that the player can actually visit, a group of assassins temporarily house themselves here while they destroy evidence of the crime the player tracks them down for. They flee when you get too close and leave a swarm of undead monsters behind.
If all are slain then you can find some leftover evidence that helps intercept their next plan, ultimately putting a stop to their efforts.

Guess this is what was taking place before all of that happens.
~The More You Know!~

To finish off the look, the masked man puts a sleeping mask over my eyes.
My ears tell me he left after that to go drive. I hope he keeps his mask on while he's on the move, would be nice if he gets recognized and that's what does him in.

There's a lot of homework I missed. More than one would expect for a few days of not attending classes.
And while I would love to let it wait for longer, I should work so I can be sure that the school has zero reason to keep me here when Rae inevitably gets spotted.

Because she has to get spotted while someone is moving her.
There's simply no way that she slips away from me.
She's not leaving me.
She's not.

Catherine, my roommate, has been giving me sad looks. And while I'm used to the pity and disgust that I see in the halls, I don't need it from my own roommate thank you very much.
"Catherine, I would like to do my course work, so if you could please focus on yourself that would be much appreciated." I tell her in a tone that feels far more familiar than I'd like.

Strange to think that less than a year ago, with venom was almost the only way I knew how to speak.
Until Rae changed that.

I fight the urge to doodle her in my notebook, I need to focus.
Also there's no need for the teacher to see just what I was thinking of while I was doing their assignments.

Right, onto the next equation.

Just as I plan to write out my answer, the door slams open and I very nearly ruin half a page with how my hand goes flying.
"SHE'S BEEN SPOTTED!" Misha yells.

Misha?? Yelling???
Alright.

I stand up so fast that the chair falls to the ground, without looking twice I grab my wand and cross the room.
"Lead me." I tell her, she nods and runs off. I run and easily keep pace with her. Part of me wonders if she's using wind magic to support us both or if it's adrenaline, because I most certainly do not get tired.

We run out to the front of the school where Prince Rodd is just riding in with his siblings, each on horses.
"Wait!!" I yell and they turn towards us. Princess Yuu smiles kindly and Prince Thane looks surprised to see us before he chuckles.

Misha joins Princess Yuu's horse and I sit behind Prince Thane.
This won't be as comfortable as getting our own horse, but we simply don't have the time.

As we ride, Princess Yuu explains that they have some mana potions to make sure that Yuu can heal the horses whenever they get tired. So we can run full gallop over to where Rae had been seen.

But as we go, Prince Rodd doesn't say a single word. He just continuously scans the horizon.
I'm only dimly aware that there's another 5 knights on horseback behind us, though something tells me that they're there for the Royals, not for Rae.

I ask where exactly we're headed, Prince Thane explains that a carriage with a masked man was spotted leaving an abandoned village, headed North-East.
My heart beats faster knowing that I will likely have to fight to get her back.
I know what lies North-East of the Capital.

It's one of the three locations where a lot of human trafficking gets done.
If you lose a person there, you won't see them again.

It's not a place I plan to lose Rae to.

We ride for a good few hours, certainly faster than any carriage with horses that can get tired will ever be.
We pass the ghost town of a village, with houses of brick that we spot through the branches as we gallop past.

Then, after what feels like far too long, we see a carriage up in the distance.
We speed up.

Prince Rodd goes to get ahead of the carriage, Princess Yuu and Misha take the left, Prince Thane and I take the right, the knights stay behind. Together we box in the carriage with ease.

Show time.

The carriage stops and for a moment I fear that I'll fall onto the ground, but the bindings hold true and keep me on the bench.

I hear talking. And despite the fact that there's a door in between, I can actually make out the words.

"You have her?"
"Indeed, everything went well."
"Wonderful. Do you expect her to cooperate? Be honest."
"I'd give it a month, then? Yes, to the letter."
"A month is quite some time, she might already be Queen by then."
"Queen or not, she'll still be mortal, and now you'll have a quad-caster to match her with."
"Guess so, bring her in."

And the carriage door opens.

I don't know why, but part of me had hoped that the reason we stopped was because of Miss Claire.
It feels like a stupid thought now. He had warned me that no one would see us leave.
Should have known.

He takes off the blanket and undoes the bindings, I can hear and feel it.
He pulls me out of the carriage and carries me into what I presume is a building, it isn't until I hear the door close that he removes the mask. It's pretty easy to see here despite the lack of light.

My eyes wander around the stone carved halls, I guess we're underground or something then.
He carries me past quite some hallways and doors, easily navigating the place like he made it himself.
Eventually he stops and opens a door, there's several empty holding cells, and he places me in the one closest to the door. He lays me on the cot before closing the metal door that I presume is supposed to hold me here.

As he stands in the doorframe that leads back to the hallway, he looks back at me between the bars.
"Good luck, I expect you to be the top student." He tells me with a sick grin. I feel muted anger bubble up before bubbling away again.
And then he leaves me in silence.

I look at the masked man. He's holding on to the reigns of the horses despite them standing still.
"Take off your mask." Prince Rodd commands, glaring.

The man shakily does as he's told, but I already knew that he's not who we're looking for.
I've seen a man with a mask before, when he poisoned Prince Thane after setting loose a Chimera. If anyone with a mask would take interest in Rae, it would be him.

But this is not that man.
The man reveals a middle aged face, with terror written all over him.

"M-May I ask what you're here for, your Highness?" He asks politely.
Prince Thane sighs. "We're not here for you." He tells the man. Looking down at the muddy grass beneath his horse's hooves.

"I still insist I must search your carriage." Prince Rodd persists. A knight looks over at him.
"We will do that for you, Prince Rodd." They tell him kindly.
Prince Rodd nods before looking away as the knights search the carriage, with no protests of the owner.
"I'm sorry for the trouble kind sir, we're simply looking for someone dear to us." Princess Yuu tells him with a kind smile.
In all of her time around the Princess, Claire has never seen such a strained smile on Yuu's lips.

Before she knows it, the search is done and they confirm that this man does not have their missing classmate.
And so, they turn around to head back.

Knowing full well that the odds are that this is when Rae is getting moved, and that wherever she actually is, they'll be too late.
They ride back in a cold silence as the night falls.

Silently, they grieve the potential that tonight is the night they actually lose Rae.

Chapter Text

There's a routine here.
Every morning, I get collected from my cell. And I get walked over to one of two rooms.
Either I get a physical task, or I get a mental task.

The tests vary a lot,
But they're all in the same respective room.

Some of the physical tasks are that I get ordered to practice certain parts of etiquette. A few times I've been asked to perform maidly duties, or to clean out a stable, to cook various meals to various degrees of quality, to perform some tasks typically found in gardening. Basically all sorts of minor commoner jobs.
I also commonly get told to take someone out. Never to kill them, just making them tap out. Usually with magic, sometimes without.
I found out something interesting during these tests.

I don't know when it happened, but at some point, I have been granted the two other elements.
How I don't know, but I'm now a quad-caster.
My bet is that the scientist did it, but I really wouldn't know.
Is this what he meant with 'high aptitude on all counts'?

Anyway! The other room gives me a game.
Sometimes chess, or a puzzle such as 'How to break into this room' or 'color in all vital area's on the torso'.
Some days I get told to pick a lock without magic, sometimes with.
Or I get told to memorize the contents of a book in a certain amount of time.
One of those, or something else like that.

If I do well, I get breakfast.
If I do poorly, I get one particular game.

Two bottles are presented. One will feed me just as well as a breakfast would. The other changes.
The first few times it felt like I'd been poisoned. Eventually that stopped. Then it started all over again before slowly lessening again. I'm really not sure. I'd want to say poison, but it could very well be something else.

Anyway, after all of that, I get either hand to hand combat training, gymnastics or magic practice.
After that, same as before. If I do well I get a meal, which is easier to do in this section, if not, another set of bottles.
Usually, even if I do poorly, I guess right at least one of the two times. So I do get at least one meal per day.

I'd probably be a lot more grumpy about this situation if my emotions didn't still feel capped.
Instead I feel a lot more passive about everything. Like I'm a passenger in my own body.
I don't think I like this feeling.
I think I should hate it far more than I currently can.

In between locations and whatnot, they're suppressing my magic with some kind of choker that they can turn on and off from a distance. Pretty snazzy and most certainly handy, as I'd probably freeze someone if they had to do that manually.
I may not be able to feel hate properly right now, but I know what pisses me off and how I should react to such things.

It's been a good while of this.
I have no idea how long I've been gone for.
Personally, I want to say maybe three weeks, but it could very well be more.

Considering I'm having trouble dreaming of Miss Claire at night, it could very well be longer.
I don't know how to feel about the lack of feeling that I have towards Miss Claire.
If I didn't know better I'd almost say that my love for her is waning, but I will never admit to that.
My love for her is eternal.

Even if I can't feel it, I know it's there.

I trust that it's there.

Misha is looking more and more pale lately. Her scores have been at an all time high for her though, so no one is talking about it. Or, well. To her face.
Behind her back, everyone knows that she's been ignoring everything, throwing herself into course work in an effort to distract from Rae.

I wish I could say that I didn't do the same. That I continued to fight for her with every breath.
But there's nothing to fight.
All there is, is dead ends.

I've long since thrown away whatever pride I could find and have written to Sister asking for help.
My pleads went unheard as she struggled for her position as heir of the throne.
She promised to keep an eye and ear out when I explained the situation, but couldn't promise more than that.

Now I've grown tired of all the hopelessness in the search lately.
Nothing new is being found, we still don't even know where Rae was actually staying before she got moved.
In all of my life, even after the death of mother, I have never felt this hopeless.

The class bell rings and I pack up my own books. After Lene and Rae I have no further desire for a personal maid. If it's not them, it's not worth it.

I move through the school in a listless manner. My pacing slower than it normally is, my eyes unfocused and my bag gripped weakly. I just can't find it in me.

And not because I had grown to love Rae, but because she's just another person who left me.
She left me.

Or was it me who left her?

"I can sense a lot of sick people around here, it'd be more efficient if we have more healers than just Rae, maybe you two can go get some more people to help?" Misha asks.
"Why not you and Prince Rodd?" I ask, trying not to show my hesitancy to leave Rae alone like that.

"Because I can use wind magic to find them and guide them all to a singular building and you two have the status needed to get healers to follow you over here." Well she's not wrong, plus between Rae and Prince Rodd, Prince Rodd is more likely to get targeted and ergo needs more support.

"Fine." I huff out before turning around to head back to the carriage

"Yeah sure, let's go!" Prince Rodd exclaims before following and surpassing me.

I guess I left her, didn't I?

I find myself in front of my dorm room door. I had meant to go have tea in the garden.
Not wanting to bother walking even more, I head in and drop myself on the desk chair in a less than civilized manner.
Catherine looks up from her bed where she's reading one of the mandatory books. "That bad huh?"
I throw my head back and let it rest on the wooden frame of the chair. "I hate this. Things should go back to normal already." I bite out.
Catherine giggles softly.

"A letter came in for you." Catherine tells me, I pick my head up and look at the desk in front of me.
As promised, on the desk lays a letter addressed to me.

'Miss Claire Francois'

I turn it around, and the royal seal of the Sousse Kingdom greets me.

Sister!
I hurry to open it and greedily read the contents.

'Dear Claire,

A lot has been going on in my life as of late, but that does not excuse my tardiness in the writing of this letter.

I have much to discuss with you, and do not wish to burden our exchanges with travel time any more than necessary.

Due to this, I would like to invite you to come back to the Royal Sousse estate. Ideally in the upcoming vacation.

So we may catch up in all of our matters efficiently. Not to mention how much I have missed spending time with you.

I eagerly await your positive response.

Yours truly,

Crown Princess Manaria Sousse of the Sousse Kingdom.'

She.. Wants me to come visit?
And in the next vacation too! That's less than a month away.

I already had plans to stalk research Rae's heritage so I could surprise better understand her.
But I suppose those aren't very viable at the moment..

Might as well send back a letter to tell her I'll come visit. 

The training has been getting more and more brutal lately. It's like whatever they want me to do, it's happening soon.

I'm not worried about what it'll be, though I know I should be. Over the last few days I've been feeling less and less. Another indicator that they're upping their game. I'm not sure if they're really numbing my emotions, or even how they'd be going about it, but if they have then it's working.

I'm finding myself going along with whatever they ask, though I think it's more out of habit than lack of determination to oppose them.

No matter what I tell myself, I'll sleep the same at night.
Sleep is up next after this match, if I've been keeping count correctly anyway.

My opponent is allowed to use magic, two elements. I'm allowed none.
If that had been asked of me before I had come here, I'd be in big trouble! Now?
All I can think of is how sloppy their form is. I just grab their elbow, force them to stumble, cut off their concentration and sweep their leg so I can pin them to the ground and have easy access to their throat.

Done.

There's clapping in the doorway of the practice room.
A woman dressed in a fine green dress, accented with golden leaves with a matching crown made of a pair of branches, is slow clapping at what I presume to be the fight.

"Well done Miss Taylor." She smiles and clasps her hands together, bringing it to her cheek fondly.
"Now finish it."

What?

My mind is struggling to comprehend this command but my body takes no issue with it.
Instantly, I release the person and help them up before dusting us both off.

Huh. Guess I'm against manslaughter even subconsciously!
Take that you white-haired fancy!
Ignore that I also have white hair, it's different!

The woman only tuts as she shakes her head, before snapping her fingers.
My sparring partner grasps for their throat, where a similar collar as mine rests snugly.
Maybe too snugly, because they start to choke.
I want to help them, try to unclasp the collar or maybe just attack the lady. But my body stays where it is, watching them fall to their knees.

I don't understand how they're commanding me, or what the limitations are. But I think I might have known more had I held on tighter to my determination and drive.
Unfortunately it appears that those are only allotted to me at certain times, now.

My sparring partner has stopped clawing at their neck, along with breathing.
Without intending to, my focus shifts back to the lady who must have commanded it. She smiles warmly at me.
"I was told that you are an odd one." She observes me, I think I should have a reaction. "I think you will serve me well."
Ah, great.

A Master.

Instead of my usual prison cell, I'm taken to her temporary quarters. Or, at least I assume it's temporary.
She orders a maid to help me get familiar with her wardrobe, and orders another to get her my records.
I think that would be interesting to read if I could get myself to care.
But, again, can't manage to bring myself to it.

As she sips wine, she observes me. I can tell. She's twice my age and yet I can't tell if it's just curiosity in her gaze or something more..

I'm told all the different outfits and each function that they are for. There's quite a lot of clothes for someone who I presume to be a travelling lady. But I can't find it in me to care.
The other maid comes back with a few documents, and despite not feeling any motivation to, I do my past/future self a favor by paying attention to what is said anyway.

"Oh! They bothered with 14 poisons? How they spoil me. And she can cast non-stop for at least 2 hours on high concentration? Manaria could never!" Manaria?

Is she the reason for all of this fuss or is that just a comparison? She is the only other quad-caster.
"She won't stand a chance against this monster! I can't wait to see my cousin's face when he finds out that he'll be ascending the throne after all!" Okay no yeah definitely murder.

Is that why she asked me to kill my sparring partner?
To get a preview of what she wants done to one of my friends?
Manaria and I may not exactly get along, but she agreed to back off from Claire which makes her alright in my book.
I know I'd be horribly upset if something happens to her.
Worse, I know that Miss Claire would be devastated.

Claire. It's a long shot but she might be visiting Manaria, especially if she's still looking for me.
If I see Claire, should I go up to her? Would my heart stay as still as it has been, or finally wake up?
Do I want to know?

I don't particularly care, but that's not true. I can't particularly care.
If I see Claire, I think I should test my heart. If it reacts then my love is true, and if it doesn't. Then my love is still true, I'm only getting denied from feeling it.

I'm snapped out of my thoughts when the collar around my neck pulses and tightens just a little. I didn't hear her words but my body listens anyway and walks over to her.
The lady caresses my cheek and I don't feel violated, but I know I am.
"You will do your best for me, won't you?"

Now, for as much as I've been powerless here, my voice is one thing they have not been able to take control of.

"I'll do my best to fail you." I say, numbness in every syllable, but I think I've conveyed my silent rage well.
I expected her to get mad with me, but instead she only smiles and leans in closer to whisper.
"Your best won't be good enough. You will do my bidding whether you want to or not." And she licks my ear before retaking her previous pose.

I didn't see that coming, yet my body refuses to flinch. I've been robbed of even that.

She lazily waves a hand. "You are dismissed." And without specifying who, my body obeys and leaves the room.
I think I will hate this if I can ever get my emotions back.

The carriage ride to Sousse is long but not by any means boring. Instead it's just annoying since Prince Rodd had to tag along.

"I really think that this chess strat is going to wreck Princess Manaria! And Rae too, once she's back and up for it!" He says excitedly as he proudly looks at the board he arranged. I have to admit, it's a strong strategy.

"Prince Rodd, may I ask why you decided to visit the kingdom of Sousse this school break?" I ask, my tone more frayed than it normally is.
He slouches back into his side of the couch. "Thane is visiting a potential ally overseas, Yuu is upkeeping duties with the church. Me and Thane actually did fire-air-water-earth for it." He grins slyly. "Though if he had agreed with me, we would've dueled for it." I scoff, boys.

The carriage stops, and I help him clean up the chess pieces before we get out.
The head butler opens the carriage door to greet us and to help us disembark. "Welcome your Highness, my Lady." She offers her hand. "Thank you on the behalf of the Royal Family for the honor of letting us host you for the duration of your stay."

Prince Rodd smiles gently. "Thank you and the Royal Family for their generosity in letting us stay at this marvelous palace." He says with sincerity.
"It is indeed quite the honor, we humbly thank you for this kindness." I say with my heart on my sleeve.
Part of me feels like this is coming home, after all.

After the initial thanking, our bags are taken to our rooms while we are escorted to go have lunch with Crown Princess Manaria. I can't wait to hear about all of the latest of what has been going on in her life, as she's been quite busy.

Only, it feels a little wrong to be here with Prince Rodd, rather than my Rae.

The palace looks mostly the same as it always has, rich decorations line the hallways and while the walls have plenty of decoration, it's not an obnoxious amount.

We follow the head butler as she guides us through a few rooms, to where I know one of the smaller lunch rooms is.

As I had guessed, we ended up in one of the smaller lunch rooms, this one can only seat up to 8 people.
On the table is a nice generous lunch set up for a total of 3 guests.

"Ah you two have finally arrived! Sit down, sit down. You must be starving!" Sister says, beaming at the two of us from her seat, and since it's clear that there'll be no need for formalities, we do as she asks.

"So, I assume we'll be meeting with the king in a moment to thank him?" I ask, cutting straight to the chase.
Quite frankly I haven't felt like mincing words lately.

Manaria pauses for a moment, taken by surprise at my tone and posture no doubt, before giving a short laugh and folding out her napkin over her lap. "You're tense! Uh no, you two will be skipping the king today."
Both me and Prince Rodd are rather surprised by that. "That's.. Very unlike him, is something keeping him?" Prince Rodd asks as he raises his glass for the butler to pour water into.
Sister grimaces. "Nothing serious. But I also didn't exactly tell anyone that you two were coming."
I stare at her. "Then did you have ghosts greet us at the door?" I deadpan.

Sister laughs again, it feels a touch more strained. "Staff doesn't count. And even then, it's only my personal staff."
Rodd awkwardly moves a slice of fresh beef to his plate to position onto the fresh bread. "Do Lady Claire and I need to lay low?" He dips the beef sandwich into his soup. "Cause that might be at odds with my orders to strengthen relations between our nations." He explains before stuffing his face.

Both Manaria and I watch him in detached fascination as Rodd attempts to eat his sandwich as it drips soup, trying not to spill any onto his blouse. He fails, of course.

"No you're both free to go wherever you'd like, it's just that between all of the studying I've had to do to conduct myself properly, the uprisings that have been springing up both for and against me, my family being here and the seemingly never ending supply of assassins that have been frothing at the sight of my neck. I've been a bit busy."

Right as I go to comment on this being a bad time for us to show up and pester her, Prince Rodd beats me to it.
"Yeah, why is the race for the crown so hype at the moment anyway?"
I am starting to understand why Rae tends to forget Prince Rodd's title, it's because he's not gallant enough to warrant it.

Manaria sighs as she sets down the sandwich she was about to bite into.
"Mostly because the end of the year is coming up, so everyone's gunning for favors to reduce their taxes."
"Oh."

The rest of the meal was in mostly silence.
Well, until Prince Rodd challenged Manaria to a chess match.

The only issue I have with that explanation, is the fact that there was no such war last year.

I haven't practiced riding horseback, but with an actually muscular body it was easy to do.
Just clutch onto the back of the horse using your legs as you make sure you absorb whatever happens with the rest of your body to make it as easy as possible for the horse to move you along. That and holding onto the reigns so that you can make it stop or turn if it has to.

I mean really, the horse shows you what to do.
Just let it take you on their terms and be gentle.

Up ahead I see what I think is most likely the building I've been seeing maps of during my tests. The windows match up well with the sets of floorplans that I have seen come by.

The Lady that took me out here is in a carriage a few hours behind me, she should be comfortable until we arrive.
She made sure to help me understand just how this weekend is going to go.

"You will listen to me, every word I say. Got it?" I try to talk back to her, snark or anything sarcastic. But my tongue fails me and as she shoots a look over my shoulder, the help dunks my head back underwater before I can spit at her.

If she said anything while I was underwater then I would not have heard her, though she is still talking by the time she lets me back up. "Don't get me wrong, I've already made up my mind. You won't fail me no matter how hard you try."

I cough up some water. "Hope you bring your A game because I won't-" She snaps her finger before I can continue, and I am pushed back down.

I have guesses at what I'll be asked to do. The most likely is to assassinate Manaria, which implies that this is the kingdom of Sousse. But we didn't cross any border patrol, does that mean that we were in the kingdom of Sousse this whole time? Or did we have to dodge them for some reason?

I hope I can manage to not kill Manaria and get out of here alive.

I want to kill Manaria.

And Prince Rodd too. They dragged me over to the city to partake in the games that are being hosted by the faire.
As if those rudimentary games weren't insult enough, Sister keeps dodging my questions about what she can do for Rae, Rodd keeps dodging my questions on what the latest updates on the search are, and they're bOTH JUST THRISTING OVER MY MAID.

Sister I can understand, she'd been playing mind-games like she was toying with her dessert ever since she met Rae, but Prince Rodd knows she's gay and still happily expands on whatever fantasy Sister speaks of.
Not to mention he said, straight to my face, that he plans to propose to her when we get her back.

MAYBE WE'D GET HER BACK FASTER IF YOU'D TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW, RODD!!

But what can I do? Between the three of us, I have the least amount of rank, magic and influence.
I can raise hell, sure. But it wouldn't feel the same without Rae.

Prince Rodd and Manaria are walking back from the latest attraction they were on, they're laughing and clearly had a good time. Maybe, I should let myself have fun?
They've both been having a blast and relaxing, something they can both use. And I've been winding myself up over something that I can't do anything about at the moment.
So maybe, I should just let it rest for now, and join in on the fun.

Just for now.
"You wanna join us for this next one Claire?" Prince Rodd asks, pointing crudely at a set of moving tea cups.
"Yes, I think I will."
He smiles and Sister takes my hand as she starts running towards them. "Then let's go!"

I laugh as I let myself get dragged over, the ride is fun and dizzying, it feels a bit like getting blasted with wind magic, except I'm the one moving, as if I'm on the back of a horse gone wild and just spinning in circles!

Speaking of which, I saw a ridable bull somewhere, and part of me wants to know what the deal with it is.
"Can I make a suggestion of what to do next?" I ask, but the wind must carry my voice away. Prince Rodd and Sister lean in closer. "CAN I MAKE A SUGGESTION OF WHAT TO DO NEXT?" I ask more loudly.

The two exchange a glance before cupping their hand around their ear.
"CAN I RIDE THE BULL?" I yell instead, as it is shorter.

The two giggle amongst themselves like children for a moment before they give me a thumbs-up. Their synchrony is scaring me a little.

The tea cups finish up faster than I expected, but I have a bull to look forward to, so I don't mind too much.
The line however, is rather long.

"So, you're finally loosening up?" Prince Rodd teases as we wait.
"Maybe, no need to push your luck though." I tell him before he can ruin my happy mood.
"Well I'm glad to see it, I was a little worried y'know." Sister confides in me, my heart gives a small flutter at her words. She cares!
"Yes, well. I think we can all do with a little fun."
"That we all agree on!"

When the line finally clears up, I climb onto the bull.
The help manning the controls flicks a button and the bull whirrs to life.
"Try to hold on for as long as you can, if you fall, you're out." They explain.
"Easy!"

It's easier said than done. That bull hates being taken for a ride.
I think Rae would enjoy this, maybe more than is appropriate.

After maybe 3 minutes I'm finally flung off, having tired out both my arms as well as my legs and frankly my whole body in my effort to cling on.

Manaria pats me on the shoulder once I join them. "Great job! You beat the record!" I look over to where she's pointing, and indeed they apparently have a scoreboard, and I just beat out the previous top score by 34 seconds. Huh.

This faire is fun.

It's late in the afternoon when she arrives, as instructed I had spent the extra time circling the estate twice while my Mistress and her staff catches up with me. She told me to refer to her as Master, but she has no control over my thoughts and I think I should keep it clear to myself that she's not supposed to be the boss of me.

It's difficult to keep my opinions in line when there's no emotion to color them for me. Everything just starts looking the same. I keep having to ask myself what my opinion would have been just so I have something to hold onto.
I think in a few months time, it won't be accurate anymore.
I think that should scare me.

The estate does in fact match the floorplans that I've been studying the past while, I could conclude that as soon as I had the building on the horizon. But the extra details I could take note of as I made my rounds were nice. The gardens are larger than the plans made out to be. There's roughly 300 yards before a person reaches the gate that weren't included on the plans. Possibly because it would be over the edge of the paper and the map was at a nice round scale number.

Besides that, there's an outdoor sitting area that was probably confused with a statue, since the positions are switched. The windows facing the forest behind the estate on the second, third and fourth floor are hinged on the side, not the top as was suggested by the descriptions I was instructed to read. The ones on the first floor are.
The building is slanted, this was also not mentioned. I can tell because the doors on the left side are roughly 20cm higher than that of the ones on the right side. It's not very noticeable.

I don't see any errors that might interfere with my plans of execution, but this information is valuable to consider.
The building as a whole is in a strange plus shape, with the front and back seeming cut off before they could reach the same distance as the sides. There's 26 exits on the ground floor sans windows. 5 of them are hatches, 12 are small doors for servants. The rest are normal doors.
Using magic, every window no matter the floor can be counted as an exit, besides the small windows in storage spaces and built-in closets, as those are too small for a teen-girl to fit through.
Considering this, the total amount of exits should be around 2372. I plan on only using two at most.

The sun tells me that my Mistress should be arriving any moment now, so it's time for me to leave the garden and come assist her.

My horse is calm and quick to bring me to the front of the palace and I see that she has already arrived. She's glaring at me.

My Mistress snaps her fingers and I dismount the horse I was given to borrow, instantly I head over to her and help her out of the carriage. I decide to test my free will by telling my body to tap my index finger to my thumb, and find myself able. That's good, I think.

As my Lady's luggage is carried off by the Palace staff, I hear another carriage approach on the gravel driveway.
I keep an ear out for any hint that there's danger facing my Mistress as I wait for her to head inside. Since that would entail me to follow.

My Mistress unexpectedly turns to the approaching carriage and waits for it to arrive.
Once it stops, I see the occupants get out.
And I recognize all three.

Prince Rodd, Crown Princess, Lady Manaria of Sousse.
Also known, as my target, and-

I feel my cheeks heat up as my eyes land on painfully familiar golden curls.
She turns towards me, but her piercing gaze is on my Master, not me.

I feel my heart skip a beat.

I think I'm happy.

It's Miss Claire François.

Chapter Text

The faire was fun, but nighttime is a dangerous time for any noble, and for a noble with two royals it's even more so.
Upon arrival however, we find that there's already another carriage facing the front entrance.
"Suppose we have another visitor." Sister comments casually as the carriage stops a little short of the usual spot.

We step out and see who is most likely the owner of the carriage.
A gorgeous tall lady with bone white hair and maroon red eyes, almost too pale skin and a warm green dress with gold detailing.
It contrasts wonderfully with the red gems encrusted in her gold jewelry.
Her help stands a few feet away, seeming almost indifferent to their arrival.
For a moment my focus halts on the girl behind the noble, though I don't understand why.

Her maid outfit is tasteful, with a deep green base, a white apron and ruffles with golden detailing stitched along the edges. It makes the black choker look a touch off, but it's not uncommon for maids to wear chokers to mark them as staff.

Though her outfit is not what should be catching my eye.
Her white hair and deep red eyes are less vibrant than that of her mistress, but by no means any less beautiful.
She's about as pale as her mistress, and while she looks a little malnourished for a personal maid, her hair is long and suggests frequent care.
For a moment I think of Rae, and feel ashamed of feeling anything for another. Especially since I know nothing about her.

The lady introduces herself as a Countess from across the country, she congrats Sister on her title and explains that she'll be here to discuss some plans with her father before getting on with her way, as she's only stopping here for a moment before she continues to Bauer so she can cross the ocean.

We walk over to the palace with the lady and her personal maid before separating at the foyer.
I struggle to keep my eyes off of her, but I wouldn't be much of a noble if I ogled every girl or boy that caught my eye! So I only glance at her twice as the royals converse with the noble.

"I wonder what her exact business is with my father." Sister says as they make their way towards the library so they can play chess until dinner.
"I don't." Prince Rodd cringes. "I know I'll be in his shoes someday, albeit a different kingdom, and I don't look forward to it." Sister laughs at his confession.

I feel odd about the whole exchange, part of me feels like I failed some hidden test, like some sort of quick-time event, the kind that Rae used to mention from time to time. But I wouldn't even be able to tell who was conducting it if that were the case. Much less what exactly I was supposed to do to succeed.

We joke about the lady being here to suck the king's blood, due to both her and her servant having pristine white hair and red eyes, not to mention a scar that Prince Rodd noticed on the servant's neck that looked like two puncture wounds.

"I'm telling you! She's totally under her mistress's spell and being forced to do her bidding! It'd be so funny!" Prince Rodd exclaims as we approach the library doors.
I scoff. "You can't honestly argue for them being vampires. Maybe zombies with how dead inside she looked." I banter back.
Sister is sure to quiet her voice, because a library is a library. "I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that servant was under some sort of spell though, there certainly wasn't a whole lot of emotion on her face." She says with a smile.
"Well, except for when she looked at you, Claire." Sister teases.

I'm about to respond with a sassy remark, to let this conversation stay light, and beat around the Rae shaped hole in my heart.

But the situation isn't actually at all that funny.
It's a sad truth that plenty of nobles use slaves. With mind control if they need to be kept in line.
Quite frankly it's an open secret, and while it is frowned upon now, it's still accepted and unless there's some bigger crime to convict them of, they get away with it too.

I look at the rows and rows of books as the two royals go about setting up their chess board, but every title I read has me thinking of that servant.
For some reason I can't tear my mind away from her.
Beyond her lack of reaction to anything at all and her basically looking like a brick wall, because I refuse to believe Sister, there wasn't anything peculiar about her.

And yet my heart is telling me to find her, hug her and never let go.
Is this the effect of living without Rae?

Am I having Rae withdrawals?

Wait..

AM I?!?

The sky is cloudy as the night rolls in, the life in the palace is ever bustling for the staff, but not nearly so much for the guests. Or for me.
The Crown Princess, Lady Manaria may be royalty. Still, I stay awake feeling like a servant. Unable to even drag myself away from my desk and to bed. My too big, too soft bed.

Maybe that's because I am expected to serve the people someday? Maybe that's because I've never behaved quite like other royals would.
Maybe because unlike my two personal guests, I'm a bastard. Born outside of lawful relations.
I wish I could be more like Claire, the confidence she has inspires such faith. I can't help but be jealous. And that Rae loves her so deeply must also be quite nice.

I've tried a lot of things to fit in. Like mocking my servants, I've tried ignoring them, I've tried playing with them and even messing around with them. In the end, I find myself unable to do anything but to take them as an equal.
Does that make me a bad canidate for ruling this country?

There's a knock on my door, so I get up from the desk where I was doing my best at catching up on paperwork.

When I answer, however, there's no one there.
I hear another sound behind me and instantly turn around to spot one of my windows having swung open. Strange, it was closed a moment ago. A soft rain is starting to wet the windowsill. But again, there's no one there.

I feel the wind behind me shift and as I try to face the hall again, seeing a blur as I do, my shoulder is hit by a harsh blow, knocking me off balance.
I instantly summon air to blow my enemy away and gain some distance but they must be made of stone or something, as they don't move no matter how I increase the force.

But them not moving towards me is still an opening for me to get away.

I up my wind magic before suddenly dropping it as to knock the assailant off balance so I can run for the open window and jump through, happy that this convenient path to a better position was left open like this.
After softening my landing with wind magic, I grab my wand to set up a fire spell just a bit below the point where it would damage the palace.

My assailant follows me and as they fall I struggle to keep my eye on them, their dark navy outfit blends in well with the night and it covers almost all of their body, it only leaves a strip open for too pale skin and blood red eyes. They also soften their landing with wind magic, which tells me everything I'll need to take them out.

It makes sense now why they tried to push for hand to hand combat, and it also explains how they could open the window. But one element can't take me down.

I start my barrage of fire, setting up more as I fire them to create a nigh infinite supply.
For a few moments the assassin prevents getting hit by making an air ball around them, but they push their sphere of protection out further and further which prevents me of draining it of air like I had hoped.

I decide to simply increase the amount of projectiles headed their way but their casting doesn't slow down. As a matter of fact, I think they might have just used another two spells, one to stop the rain from falling on us and one to prevent the palace from hearing anything, despite all of this happening right in the garden. Simultaneous casting, this is no small threat.

"So! Who sent you?" I try to ask casually as I set up another spell to create a rock platform to send them flying.
They say nothing, so I just cast the spell.
As I had expected, they went out of the boundary of their air sphere due to the unexpected lift, which left them open to my fire.

But right as I plan to engulf them in flames, they summon up another sphere, this one made of water.
A Dual-Caster, whoever sent them is serious.

It travels back down with them and they redirect the water to grab me, most likely planning to turn it into ice. I stop this by forcibly taking control of it once it gets in my range, but I get thrown back out of control.
We struggle, each trying to force the water to obey to our will, until-

"End it already!"

I make the mistake of looking over and feel an ice cold burn around my wrists and ankles. But I did spot who said it.
The lady who arrived just this afternoon.

Which means this assassin is most likely her personal maid.

She walks over to the two of us, probably because she's not getting murdered at the moment despite being in a prime position for it if I wasn't too busy fighting for control over the ice incasing me.
"What's taking you so long?!" She yells, clearly upset.

I laugh as I try to redirect my efforts and attempt to enclose both in rock, but I find my spell unable to work. Did she block me??
Is this maid.. A Quad-Caster?

No, she's able to control wind, water and rock, but there's been no evidence of fire. So that will have to be my play.

The lady is closing in on us now, and I try to set up some flame troops, but once again find myself unable to cast.
That.. Should not be possible.
There's no way to break a spell comprised of an element that isn't shared between the caster and the opponent.

"You are such a disappointment, can't kill a sparring partner, can't kill your target. What good are you?!"
"Well she's saved your life twice now." I comment calmly, I feel the grip of control on the ice slack a little.
"What are you blabbering about?" She snarls before bending down and pulling out a knife from what I hope was an ankle holder on her.

"I've been trying to barbeque both of you and she's been blocking it quite well. How did you get your hands on a Quad-Caster my age? Could have sworn I was the only one." I ask, pretending to be hurt about it. I need info, how did she do that?

"Oh I've waited to rub this in your face! This little darling." And she pulls down part of the mask to caress the maid's cheek, I feel the ice slack more.
"Is an ex-Dual-Caster. Freshly made into a Quad-Caster with some operations." She purrs, pulling the mask even further down and pressing two nails into the bite marks on her neck that Prince Rodd had mentioned earlier today. She presses down three times, and I feel the ice slack accordingly.

"That is very impressive, can I ask where that was?" I ask with a smile.
Nope, pushed it too far. The illusion breaks and pulls her back. "No. I'll be sending you to a place you'll never see it from anyway." And she heaves up the knife.

And I heave myself out of the ice. Taking control of it and forcing it to let me go before this maid can take over again.
Upon release I try to use wind magic to move away faster but find that blocked. They trained her well.

My next plan is getting the attention of whoever I can manage, so I start running normally.

However, I think I've grown complacent with my magic over the years, as the maid catches up to me with ease.
Without my magic, I really have nothing on her. So I get tripped and pinned onto the ground.

Then as I turn around to try and gain an advantage I notice the choker she has on. I figured that it was part of the maid outfit when we saw her this afternoon, it looked like a poor addition but black goes well with most things.
But here? Hidden underneath her stealth suit?

Maybe Prince Rodd was onto something.. Not that I'll ever tell him that.
She's been trying to get my legs under control so I try to grab her neck.

Before I can get close enough with my hands, she takes the opportunity to grab both of my wrists with a single hand, allowing her to pin me down even more efficiently.

Her Mistress is catching up with our new position, but I'm hearing two sets of footsteps.
"Sister!!" Ah, well. That'll be the cavalry.

Have you ever been in a ballroom during a ball?
The constant chatter, the clinking of jewelry, cutlery, glasses and plates. The fabrics brushing one another, the music, the never ending steps of shoes and clicks of heels. It's all noise.
Imagine you are attending one of them, and you step out into the hall. All of the noise fades as the door closes.
It's jarring. The difference.

I was sleeping a moment ago. But then something happened, and it woke me up.
It took me a few minutes to figure out just what had awoken me.

All the noise from outside, the owls, the trees, the wind, the bugs. It was all gone.

I got up and walked over to the closest window. I looked outside and saw what was most likely the reason.
My Sister is fighting what looks like an assassin to me. Being dressed in pure navy doesn't leave a lot of options.
Recognizing the spectator to be the lady that arrived just before we came back earlier today standing to the side lets me think of a few motivations for this predicament.

My next step is obvious, I hastily rush out the door to try and assist her in fighting off an assassination attempt.
And potentially rid this kingdom of another sleazy noble if the opportunity arises.

I'm not afraid of the dark, but the palace does look quite different at night. I don't get lost exactly, I just had to double check a few of my turns. That's all. I'm not scared.

Soon enough I'm outside, albeit not from the door I had wanted. I rush over and find that the fighting has actually moved closer to where I am anyway.

"Sister!!" I shout out as I prepare some fire magic to scare off the assassin. Since I have no intention of killing them just yet.
They both look over and for a moment I think to recognize the blood red eyes of the assassin, but I fail to pin it to a face and the moment passes.

"Claire! She's a Quad-Caster!" Sister shouts out before her head is knocked into the dirt in a quick move.
I feel myself hesitate in casting my fire. "Surely you jest Sister? There's no way!" I laugh with dread in my stomach.

The mistress walks towards me. "Finish the job, I'll take care of the straggler." She bites at the assassin.
I cast the fire and let it take shape into maybe 15 projectiles aimed directly at the noble. "No chance."
She merely looks mildly annoyed at the threat and snaps her fingers.

The assassin looks up and makes direct eye contact with me before my fire disappears.

Did.. Did she just use Spell-Breaker? With that little time to analyze? What? Does she know me or something?!

The noble continues towards me, and without my magic I feel oddly violated, vulnerable.
"Don't worry, this will be mostly painless. As long as I save the other side of the knife for your friend over there." And she gives a nod back at Sister.

Before she can get close enough a stone wall erects itself between us.

I breathe a sigh of relief. "Thanks Sister."
"That wasn't me."

What?

"You worthless runt! I thought I knocked the last of your defiance out of you after this afternoon!" The lady shouts out at the assassin. She grabs hold of what looks like a red gem, previously hidden in her pocket, and holds it up.
"Lower. It." She commands.

Slowly, the wall lowers. The assassin looks to be in pain as she moves to hold Sister down with only one hand, the other held up to help with her casting.
When Sister and I make it out of this, we are not telling Prince Rodd that he was right.

Manaria takes the opportunity to wriggle herself out of the grasp of her attacker but I am unable to pay attention to what she does next as my own opponent approaches me with a murderous glint in her eyes.

I take cautious steps backwards and try to glance at where I left the palace doors behind me so I can make a break for it.
Not that I'll admit to it out loud, but I misjudged the situation, we need backup. We need swords.
As I try to steal another glance behind me the noble breaks out into a sprint with the knife raised high to strike, but a strong gust of wind knocks her away. I look over and see that again, the servant/assassin has prevented an attack on my life.

The lady growls and grabs hold of the gem again as she forces the assassin to block the palace doors with impromptu walls of rock, before she attempts to grab ahold of me. I struggle.
"Hold still or I'll kill you on accident." She snarls at me as I try to grab hold of the hand that's holding the knife.
If what she insinuated before is true, then odds are that the blade is poisoned.

"Like you're not trying to kill me right now!" I yell back at her, she kicks my shin and in my surprise she frees herself up to grab me in a chokehold. I feel like a failure but I'm not about to give up.
"Rae! You worthless failure! If you don't kill Manaria in the next 10 seconds, this little lady will die." The noble tells the assassin sternly.

What did she just call her?

"Rae?" I ask softly, I forget everything else and look at the assassin again, while I was distracted there must have been a clear struggle between her and Sister, because her face is now completely visible. Long powder white hair, too pale skin and blood red eyes. I can still recognize my Rae, but I wonder if she could.

"Kill the Crown Princess." The lady commands as I am harshly reminded of my current situation, the blade hovering over my neck has me fearing to breathe.

Rae looks at the chokehold I'm in, her face doesn't move, but it doesn't have to. I can see the pain and fear in her eyes.
Rae grabs hold of a stunned Manaria, her having been caught off guard by the reveal of Rae's identity.
"Rae wait! Please, she's my Sister!" I shout out in panic.
"Stop moving or you'll be a corpse!" The noble yells at me.

Rae just pauses, she has Sister dead to rights, all she has to do is use any of the four elements at her disposal, or even a weapon should she have one.
Then, Sister snaps out of it and quickly moves to get away a little and starts to summon up magic. Though I can tell she's tired.

"What are you waiting for?! Fry that brat to a crisp!" The lady shouts as Rae starts to back up towards the two of us.
It's only now that I notice that Rae doesn't have a wand at the ready, yet when Sister throws fireballs at her, she easily takes them out with water.

Then, it happens in a flash. Rae was taking small steps back, towards us, and from one moment to the other, she stops attacking Sister and redirects the water to attack and restrain the noble.

Starting with where she held the knife, I could feel the air hit me with how fast and precise the water moves. It turns into ice once it's around the noble's hands and she screams out and tries to move her hand towards her chest. I quickly move away but Rae clearly isn't done as she makes sure to freeze her feet to the ground next. But before she can go about securing her other hand, the lady puts her authority to the test again, and it must be with quite some force as Rae flat out drops to the ground.

"Rae!" I yell out in alarm. I consider getting close but it would mean passing that lady, so instead I stay where I am.
To my surprise, Rae gets up in a manner unlike her. It looks more like as if she were a wooden puppet having her strings get pulled rather than if she herself did.

In the corner of my eye I see the lady grin maniacally as Rae begins to walk towards me with stiff steps.
"Rae?" I look her in the eyes but struggle to recognize the girl. Her face is a numb as ever today but her eyes finally match.
Sister seems to understand the situation right as Rae is forced to summon up a spear of ice.

The spear races for me, I try to put up a wall of fire to melt it but it doesn't get beyond a few flickers before it's disabled.
I close my eyes and hold my breath for the inevitable injury, but it doesn't seem to register. Is this adrenaline?

No, I don't feel anything different, except for a slight chill in front of my heart.

I open my eyes and see the shard hover above my heart, aggressively trying to pierce it, but clearly unable to follow through.
The lady, still stuck in ice, squawks indignantly. "How DARE you disobey me?! Kill her!" The shard hovers a little closer before retreating again. It never even touches my nightgown. 
I look at Rae, I can't see any thought or emotion anywhere on her, but either she's still fighting hard to keep control, or even without any control, Rae will never hurt me.

The noble screams in frustration and part of me wonders if the sound is still muted, since reinforcements would be great.
"Fine! If you won't kill your little crush, I have no use for you!" And she holds up the gem with her free arm.

To my relief, the spear of ice moves away from me. To my horror, however, Rae slowly lifts it to her own throat.
"NO!" I  try to tug it away and feel my hands scream at the sheer cold. How did she get it this cold? It wasn't this cold a moment ago!

Instantly the shard melts and my hands are healed. I feel hope surge and search her eyes, but they're still empty.
I lean onto her, nestling my head under her chin, I don't hug her, but it's close.
The noble hits her own head with the heals of her hands in anger. "Kill yourself! Kill yourself! Just Kill Yourself Already!"

I consider walking over to hit her myself, but I refuse to leave my Rae alone again. Then I feel something cold and wet hit my head. I check what it is with my hand, and find water. I take a step back and see that my dear emotionless Rae, is crying.

Before I can reconsider my priorities, Sister is already walking over and I move my focus back to Rae.
"Remove the choker." Manaria whispers with wind magic. To keep the still screaming noble from catching on, I presume.

Slowly, delicately, I move my fingers up towards her neck. I flick my eyes upwards to unthinkingly ask for permission. But I'm met with dull, hollow eyes that are staring straight ahead, with never ending streams of silent tears. So instead I silently ask for forgiveness instead, before looking down to her neck, and unclasping the choker.

The reaction is immediate.

Rae's knees buckle and she falls to the ground.
I lower myself down with her.

"Thank you." Rae whispers with a hoarse voice.
Her face is still far more blank than I'm comfortable with, but her blinks are less stiff. I know that sounds weird but trust me there's a difference. A difference that anyone would notice if they cared. If they cared a normal amount!

Sister comes to sit down next to us, I look behind me at the noble and see that the noble is now silent, but glaring at all of us with a swelling eye and cheek. I decide that that's good enough for me for now.

"It's over, Rae." I tell her softly.
Sister nods in agreement, but Rae stays still.
She might be in shock. I think to myself. That would be more than understandable, and that's only considering what I know of what happened to her.

After another few minutes of us sitting in the grass, unwinding of all the adrenaline, it finally hits me.

Rae is back.

I got Rae back.

She's safe, safe and with me.
She won't get hurt again, I get to take her back home with me, back to the academy. Where she'll be able to have more chess sessions with Prince Rodd, more banter with Misha, where she'll do my hair, cook my meals, carry my books.
Where she'll graduate with me, guard me as I move through politics, reassure me about everything I do.

Because I just got her back.

Eventually Sister gets up, and I follow and help Rae up. It's late, it's been time for bed for a while now.

"Sister, the help has surely retired to bed by now, correct?" Before she can answer I continue. "So there'll be no way for them to prepare a room for Rae. I suppose you can stay in my room. The bed is big enough for two." Manaria opens and then closes her mouth, and shoots me a saucy grin. I close my eyes and move my head away.

I start walking for the palace doors, which are still forced shut with earth walls. Right..
Before I can even ask Rae to please undo that, Sister is already on it.

As I pass the noble, I hear her whisper something.

'You're disgusting if you can love such a pathetic f*ggot piece of filth.'
Before she can continue trying to talk past her swollen cheek, I heat up my body with magic to the point where it should hurt her to be near me. I step closer and with every step she flinches at the overwhelming power. It feels right.

Face to face, inches apart, I whisper something right back. 'I can see nothing of worth for me to insult.'
And I turn to pass her.

But..

She grabs me?
She was unable to move almost anything just moments ago due to being encased in ice, where did that go??
I can't see what happens next, it goes too fast for me to really be able to tell. A navy blue shield slides in between me and the noble. My head gets knocked down and I notice my shoes are wet, as is the noble her dress.

I hear Rae grunt and hear more than see her elbow the noble against the ribs, knocking her to her ass. Then Rae traps her with earth. "One m-" Her voice breaks due to lack of use. So instead she points at the noble, makes a 'walking' motion with her fingers and then slides one finger past her neck.

That also works.

She turns around to face me and I see that she has a small cut right underneath her collarbone.
"Rae." I put my hands to my chest. She takes my hands and smiles a little at me, then softly shakes her head.
I almost burst into tears.

Maybe I really have been deprived of my Raeium..

Sister opens the palace doors from the.. The inside.. And out march five soldiers who instantly go to arrest the noble.
I'll be honest I have no idea when she went to go get help, but she looks surprised to see Rae injured.

She rushes over to us.

"Rae! Oh, here, I'll go treat you right away." Sister says with a slight seductive smirk that betrays some of her motivations. Rae softly shakes her head. "I have great-r healing." She manages to say.

The knights are trying to restrain the noblewoman without giving her any opportunity to escape, but it's difficult considering she's sort of half buried in such a manner that they can't tie her up without first freeing her limbs.
I decide that it's not my problem and use my hands (Which Rae is still holding onto by the way!) to guide her inside. Sister follows us, because of course she does.

"I can't believe I got you back! You're back with me!" I'm about to exclaim how happy I am about the situation when I remember myself. "About time! Do you have any idea how hard it's been? I've been having to carry my own books!"
I can't see Rae's face from behind me as I drag her along, but I hear the soft apology she mutters and it makes my heart squeeze in concern. What did they do to her?

It doesn't matter now, I'll fix it.
Everything will be fine.

"It's like my body is getting lighter, how many more turns are we going to take?" Rae asks after a while of walking.
Something about her way of talking feels different from how it used to be. But I can't figure out what.
"Yeah we're getting close." I answer right as Sister opens her mouth. After all the things Sister has confessed her desires to when concerning Rae, I don't feel entirely comfortable with having her near my Rae- maid.

And yet, Sister persists. "Rae, I really do feel that I should heal your injury. Please?" Oh, Sister is not one to say please.
She's serious.

"Really, everything is fine." Her assurance fails to ease my concern, and looking over towards Sister, I see she feels the same way. Frankly, I was more certain she was well before she tried to tell us so.
But we're getting close to my room, it's only two more corridors.

Still, we must've been pushing our luck, as Rae starts lagging behind a little, and then a little more, and then more, and then even more.
Right as I make the last turn, Rae lets go of my hands and stops to pant.
I turn around and notice that Rae is sweating. It's mostly strange considering the whole of the fight earlier didn't get her winded at all. Something is wrong.

Sister doesn't even say anything as she starts healing Rae. She seems to be able to tell instantly as she shakes her head as she leans her shoulder against a wall. She's not resisting at least.
Sister's eyes widen and I wonder what it is that she found to be ailing Rae. Could the bastards who took her have put in a failsafe?

"Rae.. How are you still standing?" Sister asks, her wand starts glowing a lot brighter, telling me that she's struggling to match whatever is going on.

I've seen a lot of healing over the years. Most were scrapes and bruises that I got while exploring, playing or practicing. The only one that was very serious was when I had broken two bones falling from a set of slippery nature-formed stairs set in the side of a cliff edge. When that got healed, the wand burned significantly brighter than normal. But it's nothing like Manaria's wand right now.

"I think the noble used a poisoned knife." Sister concludes before seemingly redoubling her efforts.
It honestly reminds me a little of the last time I saw Rae before all this. She had also been fighting poison, albeit from a well instead. She had also been giving it everything she had. I could tell.

"Yes, now that you mention it, she did insinuate something like that to me when she held me at knife point."
Manaria whips her head over to look at me, particularly my neck, before nodding and turning back to Rae.
Rae is softly glaring at Sister.

After another few moments, Sister slowly lowers her wand.
"I've healed some older wounds and gotten rid of most of the poison, though your system was doing a good job of fighting it off, your healing is indeed impeccable."
Rae clicks her tongue, not something I've ever heard her do before.

"I was under the impression I had already informed you of that. And it better be good at fighting poison. It's certainly had enough practice." She snarks before pushing herself off of the wall to continue the walk to my room.
I'm not sure what to think of Rae's current behavior, or that last comment and the implications.

All I can do for now, is follow her.

My heart has not been racing since getting rid of that collar.
I'm unsure of what that means. All this time I have been pushing myself forward under the assumption that everything would be okay again once the collar was removed.

That I would be able to once again have my cheeks heat up when looking or even just thinking of Claire.
But, the last time that happened, was when I had the collar on. Which begs the question, should I put it back on?

Logically I know that the answer is no. It made me miserable, cold, numb, and it let my Masters have control over me to some degree. No, I'm better without the collar.

But I want to be back to normal.
And it's not happening right now.

The only emotions I'm feeling are the bad ones. I'm feeling angry, hurt, confused, irritated and sad in a way I cannot describe. And even then, I'm not sure if it's really there, but I can almost swear that there's still a cap on them.
That I still can't feel quite as much as I'm supposed to.

I hate all of this.

I feel sick in my own skin, like my head is filled with sludge and every thought is like trying to push all of its mass through a tiny little hoop. It makes me want to cry out incoherently and just throw things and pretend they're all the confusing feelings and then maybe I can convince them to leave my head alone.

It's like my body is begging me to wash what is under my skin. In a place I can't reach nor flee, because it's in the joints and muscles I'd use to run with.
I think my breath should hitch in panic, my whole body should be rebelling against me, refusing to let me do anything except for sitting still as everything comes crashing down. But none of it happens.

Instead, I'm calm in a way that is intimately familiar, and as comforting as it is terrifying. Though this is the first time I'm anything close to as scared as I've always thought I should be.

I zone back into the room as Miss Claire comes out of the bathroom, changed into fresh pajamas with her having taken a short bath.
"I've left the water in the tub, I'm sure you'd enjoy that." Miss Claire says in a suggestive tone.
I shouldn't be negative to her, in any way. So I decide to lock up all emotions once again, since none of them are very useful at the moment.

"Thank you, I'll be quick so I can get to brushing your hair, Miss Claire." I tell her politely as I head over to the door.
I can tell I still hurt her from the corner of my eye, since she frowns. I'm sorry. It's just that I can't stand looking at you if I don't feel anything when I do.

The bathroom is tasteful, more luxurious than the ones at the academy. I wouldn't be able to judge accurately between the François estate and the Sousse palace.
I look at the bath. It smells like Claire. She must have brought her toiletries along with her.

Wait.

Miss Claire is here.

Miss Claire is here, in Sousse.

What are those odds?
What are the odds that Miss Claire is here, I'm here, Manaria keeps her life and my Master is taken down?

What are the odds that all of this happens, and that masked man isn't aware of it?

He might come back for me.

I undress myself at a quick pace and make quicker work of washing.
Even if he comes back, I might still not be able to feel everything quite the way I should, but I know that I won't go back quietly.

Before I know it, I'm drying myself off and.. Well.. There's only one toothbrush here..
The logical thing is to just take it and rinse it first, but I don't think Miss Claire would be any too happy about it.
I think I should be.

I should brush my teeth. It's important to do, and in this life I've always had the energy to do so as well.
Yet I find myself leaving the bathroom, to ask for permission.

"Miss Claire?" I call softly into the dark room. I hear and see the blankets shift as Miss Claire lets out a small "Hm?" Of acknowledgement.
"There's only one toothbrush, are you okay with me using it?"

There's a long silence. To the point I'd think she had fallen back asleep, if I couldn't hear her breathing pick up so clearly.
"Yes, just make sure to clean it with a dry towel the best you can afterwards, okay?"

"I will, thank you."
And I went to do just that.

As I brush my teeth, I feel panic creeping up my spine. If it's because of reality settling in, seeing Miss Claire again or the way I just behaved to her, I'm not sure.
I try to push the panic away, but find it to be stubborn. Like trying to stop a large boulder from rolling down a cliff with just a small little body to do it.
Still, the more I feel the panic, the less scared I am.

It's more just adrenaline than anything else.
As if my body is expecting for something to happen any moment now.

Oh.

That's probably it.
It's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Waiting for that last moment of peace before we go back to our regularly scheduled horrors.
I stop brushing, spit and rinse.

I leave the bathroom and join Miss Claire in the warm bed, she's awake, but I pretend to be unaware.
Just like all the nights before, I don't dream.

And I can't help but be utterly unconvinced, that this rescue wasn't a dream itself.

Chapter Text

The next week is a bit of a blur. Word was sent back home that I was found, security was raised, the collar was looked into. That noble was found mysteriously dead after two days and I'm unsure if that was someone covering their tracks, or if it was Manaria, Miss Claire or maybe even Prince Rodd enacting revenge.

Despite Manaria's protests, Miss Claire, Prince Rodd and I went back to the Bauer Kingdom after one week of bedrest for me. Which wasn't necessary by the way, I would have been fine.
I was walking around the estate by day 2, but never without someone by my side.

And now, the carriage we've been stuck in for the past 18 hours finally comes to a standstill, in my hometown.
I had figured that Miss Claire and Prince Rodd would have gone home, but both are still here with me.

The first person I see when the door opens, after Prince Rodd has stepped out to make sure everything is safe, is Misha.
She helps me step out, completely ignoring the royal glaring at her for it, and hugs me the moment I'm standing on solid ground.
I pause in slight surprise for a moment before hugging her back.

"I missed you so much." She cries into my shoulder.
I pat her back and try to smile.

"I'm here."

I wish I could cry with her. Or tell her I missed her, and how I have always cherished the friendship we share.
But even after a week, I'm struggling to feel much at all, and even when I do, it's never for long.

I'm so sorry.

I know I am.

Rae's showing me through her hometown today. I've never wanted to visit such a backwater town before, but I've been viewing life in a different light ever since Rae forced herself in it.
Which makes it all the more sad that she's no longer acting quite the way she used to.

I've noticed that she hasn't been sharing her personal opinions on things anymore. Or describe things in any other way than factly.

It feels a bit like when Sister forced Rae away from me, she lost her emotions and appetite then too.
This feels a lot like that, except this time I know how much I care about her.

This time I know I want her back.

Rae and I pass a church, it's nothing big, but it's a nice size for a village like this one.
"This is where we hold sermons and pray. There's only time for confessionals on the weekends." Rae tells me with all the depth of an underpaid tour-guide.

"Rae." I grab her hand and she turns to face me, I put my other hand to her cheek and look her in the eyes.
"Are you okay?" I search her face for anything at all, but it remains terribly blank. "You've not been acting like yourself. What did they do to you?"

There's nothing on her face, no trace that anything I ask is getting through to her.
She doesn't say anything for a while. She just stands there, unmoving. But so do I.

She opens her mouth, but she struggles to say anything at all.
Then..

"Can.. Can we do this some other time?"

"I.. Yeah."

While I do feel a little disappointed that Rae isn't opening up to me, I can understand feeling uncomfortable to just talk about.. That.. On the middle of the street.
So instead we continue the tour.

"That is where kids would get told fairytales with morals." She says with a small smile that doesn't reach her eyes, as she points to a little strip of grass behind an old abandoned building.
"Is that safe?" I ask. Rae's smile falls and I try not to react to it.
"Probably not, but the old lady who lived there could not go outside anymore, so the window was the best option since the floors were rotten."
I decide not to point out how out of character Rae was being at the moment. So uncaring and flat.

I hear and recognize the footsteps approach us from behind and disregard them. "Wait, why does it matter that the floor is rotten?" I ask, because surely kids aren't heavy enough to fall through, are they?
Rae looks at me blankly. But I can still feel that she's confused that I ask. "Well, kids don't wear shoes, so they might get hurt, sick or worse." Oh.
Misha taps me on the shoulder. "Hey you two, is this the tour?" It's a little weird to hear Misha have more emotion in her tone than Rae.
Rae nods slowly.

"Misha, why are the kids here being told fairytales by an old lady instead of their parents or a teacher or something?" I ask, one part because I want to know, two parts because it hurts to hear Rae speak.
Misha looks caught off guard by the question, but answers nonetheless.
"Because the parents are at work and there's no one to teach them except for the old lady who used to sing the praises of those tales as she traveled the land."
I can't understand that.

"No one to teach them? That can't be right." I feel my chest squeeze tightly. How long have the kids here gone without proper tutoring? How did Rae qualify for the Academy?
"No, there's some folk here who will teach their craft for a fee, plenty of them who are with a guild. But no teachers for kids." Misha explains easily. Seemingly as unconcerned about the situation as Rae.

"It's not that big of an issue, most people here will get jobs in whatever the village has need in, so besides coughing up the fee to join a guild and intern under a craftsman, it's fine." Rae adds on, her tone suggesting that she's not open to even thinking about a different system. That's not something I ever expected to hear from her, but then again, she also didn't care for the commoner movement.

But I do care for a different system. "How big is this fee?" I ask the two of them. Misha tries to share a glance with Rae, but Rae looks at the ruined building behind me. "Differs per profession, the lowest costs 12 silver for an enrollment, 6 silver per month of being put on the listing board for an internship and then 2 silver per year to stay with the Guild. Then another 2 gold for the officiation test and then 3 gold per 5 years to keep the license." Rae lists casually.

I'd ask her how she knows all of this, but I've been trying to keep from asking since I've noticed a pattern. Particularly the fact that Rae just kind of knows everything and that her answers for where she got the info are always vague. "Which profession is this for?"

Misha chimes in. "I know that this is the cost for Tailors."
Rae nods. "Also for carpenters and brewers."

I nod and try my hardest to replicate the exact expression that has made Rae squeal in the past, I must fail as I see and hear no reaction. "And how much do they earn on average per year?"

Again Misha tries to share a glance with Rae, but Rae is deep in concentration.
"I'd guess the average to be around 22 gold." Yikes. For reference, Prince Rodd, Manaria and I brought 15 gold along with us to the faire.

"Our economy is shit!"

Rae, Misha and I walk back towards Rae's home, once at the door, Misha says a polite goodbye before heading back to her own house. Part of me wishes that she could stay, as I fear I might fail to protect Rae should someone try something.
Logically, I know that Rae will never struggle to defend herself again. But with her emotions still being finnicky, I don't feel comfortable unless she's in my direct line of sight.
Because I'm her master.

Once we're alone in her room, Rae waits for me to sit down, so I sit down in front of the desk.

"Rae, I'm here as your guest, not your master. There's no need to serve me at the moment." I tell her as I turn to face her. She gives no visible reaction and stays in the corner of the room, like a good servant would.
But Rae's not a good servant. She's my servant.

"My apologies." And she takes a half step to sit down on her bed.
"I still want to talk about your emotions." I tell her, briefly considering looking away, but I need to know her thoughts and rare as they are, her expressions are the easiest way to tell.
Part of me hates how easily she can read me, considering I can never tell what goes on in her head.

"Yes, I did agree to that." Rae says as she looks down, a slight crack of sadness leaking through her mask.
I try not to show anything in my tone. "What did they do to you, Rae?"

Rae looks away, seemingly in shame but there's no scrunching up her face. Her tells as broken as she seems to be.
"The whole thing?"

"Whatever you're willing to share with me. I won't ask questions unless you're okay with it." And I mean it.
Rae nods and breathes in and out, slowly.

"I was taken at the well, where you lost me. The.. The healing had taken a lot out of me, so I ended up unable to properly defend myself." Her head snaps over to look right at me and I succesfully keep from flinching. "It was the masked man who attempted to assassinate Prince Thane." And wow, it's strange to get confirmation. We already suspected this after all, but never got concrete confirmation.

"He took me to an abandoned town in the East of the country. There was some mad man, he.. ran experiments. I'm not sure what they did, but they did something to me. It's hazy now, but I remember pain that gives me a headache when I think about it. I think by the end of it, I was a quad-caster, but I'm not sure." Rae says in the same numb tone that I've been hearing the past week. It hurts to hear, but what she's saying offends me more.
They touched my maid. They hurt my Rae.
They will pay.

"After that, they made sure I couldn't move as they brought me towards the border that we share with Sousse. I'm not sure where exactly he took me, but I ended up in an underground slave training ring of sorts." Rae looks up at me with painfully empty eyes. "Underground both as in 'under the radar' as well as 'encased in rock on all sides'." I try to huff at what could have been a joke, a funny clarification to make light of these horrid events, but I find it fall flat. As most things tend to with her now.

Rae smiles, it looks wrong, but I appreciate her trying.
Then she looks down again, at her hands as she wrings them together.

"They trained me for a while, for all of the elements, martial arts, memorization and more. They were strict but not unreasonable on that front."

"But if I did poorly, they'd give me 50 percent odds of drinking poison instead of having a meal." Define 'not unreasonable for me, Rae.
"They kept my magic under control with a collar that they could turn on and off from a distance, they could also command me with it. But if it was off so I could use magic, they seemed to have less control." She frowns softly, like she's only making that connection just now.

"A new lady commanded me to kill my sparring partner, but I didn't. She didn't seem mad with that outcome." Rae looks up at me, and I find myself unable to look away. "She treated me like a challenge. A pair of shoes to break in. Something to break and mold to something of her own design." I consider giving her a hug, she looks like she needs it. Desperately. But it feels like if I move, she'll stop talking. I need to let her continue.

Rae lets out a small sigh, it wobbles.

"They had been keeping my emotions from me. At first it was just toned down, then they took them away completely." Rae stops talking for a moment, just staring into the middle distance. She continues in a whisper. "I couldn't tell if I still hated them, I couldn't tell if I still wanted to resist them, I couldn't tell if I had grown complacent or not. I couldn't tell if I still wanted to leave. I couldn't tell if I was still myself."
The horror of the situation finally hits me. I had figured all of this time that Rae was still in shock from having her free will taken away, but it’s so much worse.
Did she.. Did she forget how to feel?

"The lady took me to Sousse, to kill the Crown Princess, Lady Manaria." A hint of a smile crosses her face. "And there I saw you." She smiles softly, and I feel my heart skip a beat. "I felt something when I saw you, Miss Claire." Her face goes back to blank as she continues talking. "My Master made sure to beat that out of me the moment she had the chance."
Oh, that Bitch.

"By nightfall I had mostly healed, so I went to try and kill the Crown Princess, Lady Manaria. And I believe you know the rest."

Once I'm certain she's finished talking, I slowly stand up and softly walk over to her.
As I sit down I tell her. "I'm sorry that this happened. You deserve better."
Rae looks at me with sad eyes. "What was my hair color? Was it always white?"

I try not to look surprised at the question. "Uh, no. It used to be shorter, and brown. But your eyes have always been red."
Rae nods her head. "Thanks, I. I struggled to recall. My memory from events before the surgery are spotty." And that's a worrying thing to hear considering how much her knowledge has helped me.
At my expression, Rae is quick to reassure me. "It comes back more when I see familiar locations, I just. Don't have any pictures of what I used to look like." Right, because Rae grew up less fortunate than me.

I look around the room and notice that it indeed has no pictures, not even more than two books, and both are for school.
"How- How are you feeling now?" I ask, hoping that talking about it might relieve her burden just a little.
Rae looks away, breaking my heart as she does so.
"Rae?"

"I don't feel much of anything." She says softly, like she's afraid a harsher tone might hurt me more. I feel my chest constrict anyway.
"How is that possible?! Was it not connected to the choker? Do we have to wait longer? Did they make you ingest some sort of potion? Or put a curse on you?" I ramble, I feel fear wash over me like a crude bath, cold and sticky.

Rae hurries to put her hands up and clearly tries to calm me down.
"I can feel! Just not much. Nothing good."
I cross my arms and tilt my head, it's a bad habit. "What do you feel?"
"Mostly just sadness, and anger. A lot of fear, but that's mostly of going back." I'm about to reassure her nothing like that will ever happen again when she interrupts me. "I know that I won't go back, ever. But my emotions aren't being reasonable. It's why I haven't been letting them out much." Rae says as she stands up and dusts herself off, but before she can finish, I grab hold of her skirt and keep her from standing up proper.

"Rae. Letting out y-" Before I can continue, Rae tries to step away, but my grip holds true and I keep her there.
"Don't."
"Rae."
"Don't." Her voice wobbles and while I can't see, I can hear her tears fall.

I take a deep breath. And push on anyway.
"Rae, expressing your feelings is okay. As a matter of fact, it's necessary to heal." I try to tell her, but Rae shakes her head, flinging a stray tear onto my hand. It feels cold to the touch.
"I refuse to be weak in front of you, Miss Claire. Silly? Sure, anytime. But never weak."
I decide to keep from mentioning the only time she's ever been anything approaching weak. When Manaria had beaten her, and she accepted it.

I clear my throat and shake my head. "Rae. As your Master, I order you to be honest with your feelings and keep from hiding them around me."
Despite the fact that I really should know better by now, I expect her to jump in joy at an order and make a flirtatious comment that wouldn't be appropriate in public.
But instead her gaze turns painfully numb for a few moments, and then she blinks hard and gives a small, empty smile.
"Fine. If it's an order from you, I'll try my best."
In an attempt to mimic our old dynamic, I scoff and do a hair flip before speaking to her in my old haughty tone. "Your best won't be good enough! I demand that you-" I trail off as I notice that Rae isn't really.. Here.. Her face has gone mostly slack although it's steadily turning into horror as tears well up in her eyes.

I take her hands into my own as I guide her to sit back down on the bed, she flinches when I touch her like she's been burned but doesn't pull away or even resist.

It isn't until she's sitting that she flinches back harshly. At first I think she's back here with me, but she hits her head on the headboard and her breathing is picking up as she whimpers.

Just what did she leave out in her story?

"Fine," I huff. "if it's an order from you, I'll try my best." I'll concede for her. Though mostly because I think I should.
It's strange how I still have not much of a clue as to what I'm supposed to feel.

Miss Claire does some of her old moves and I feel my chest squeeze when my heart refuses to acknowledge her effort.
"Your best won't be good enough." Says Claire my Master as she leans in closer. "You will do my bidding whether you want to or not." And I feel my hands get held my ear get licked as I flinch try to flinch away.
I expect her to dismiss me, since this feels like the end of the conversation, but she smiles more and more, to an inhuman degree as her tongue slithers out like a snake robbed of its fangs, but I look again and it has fangs again, gunning for my neck. I try to move away but am only rewarded with a dull throb in the back of my head.
I try to scream but my mouth starts to feel too heavy to move, my body too tired to lift. My head too numb to feel.

"..ae?"
 

"..ae?"

"Rae!" Miss Claire slowly appears in my vision. When did things go dark?
"Hmm?" I  hum as I try to sit up straight, finding my back to be in an awkward position. But a hand holds me down.
"Rae, you hit your head. You might have a concussion."

Due to the training I've received, and the injuries as practice, I can immediately tell that I do not have a concussion, but that I did hit my head pretty hard. Somehow.
So, I heal it. Easy as pie.

"I've healed myself, everything is fine now."
Despite the fact that I literally just gave good news, Miss Claire frowns and looks at me with worry.
"Rae, promise me you'll express your feelings." She says, in a smaller voice than I'm used to. It catches me off guard, I'll be honest.
"I did, I agreed to do that." I tell her gently. She takes my hand and I let her, watching her pull it close to her.
She then shakes her head in small movements. "No, you agreed, but you didn't promise."
She looks up at me and I could almost swear those are puppy eyes. She looks cuter then she tends to.
"Promise?"

I look away and try to gather the determination to follow through with my next words.
Then I look her dead in the eyes.

"Promise."

Since I can't spend the rest of the vacation at Rae's house without rumors spreading, I had to leave at the end of the weekend. But I made sure to tell her childhood best friend that she needs support and that, should he fail, he'll pay.
And should he succeed, consider it a free favor from the Francois family. He immediately cashed it in to get his mother treated for some disease, which was not what I expected, but whatever. Fine.
 

I was content to spend the rest of my vacation studying ahead for what's to come and strengthening my magic to keep from having to depend too much on Rae.
Though I found it harder to concentrate without Rae's treats. Don't tell her I said that.

Naturally, Prince Rodd just had to drop by and be annoying, so I was deprived of both sweets and studies.

"Prince Rodd, it's an honor to have you here." I greet him with a curtsy. He appears to be biting back a smile, which makes it look closer to a cringe.
"Yes, well. I'm not too sure you'll still think that when you hear what I have to say." He says as he rubs his neck awkwardly. I try not to think of any reasons of why he might upset me.
Hitting royals is still illegal after all.

I've been a little on edge, can you tell?

I guide Prince Rodd through the halls of the estate, making sure that we aren't being followed by any member of staff.
Of course I trust my staff completely. However, just because I trust them, doesn't make them trustworthy. So best to be safe.

Once we're both in a secluded room that I deemed good enough and have closed the door behind us, I wait for him to speak.
Prince Rodd looks like he's about to talk, but then changes his mind and walks over to a window on the other side of the room.
After a few moments, he thoughtfully looks to the carpeted floor, after which he lets his eyes wander from the floor to a bookshelf, then past some of the books and the memorabilia on the shelves, down to one of the chairs stood infront of it. When he started staring at the third painting my patience had reached its limit.

"What is it that you wanted to tell me, Prince Rodd?" I ask, my tone firmer than it'd normally be with royalty.
Prince Rodd flinched as if awoken from a trance, and his head flicks to me with a guilty expression.

"Right! I, I.." He trails off as his eyes move to once again look to the floor. Before he can make another tour around the room, I surge to get him to continue. "You?" I ask with a motion for him to keep talking.

Prince Rodd clears his throat and scratches his neck. The sound of his nails against skin irritates me more than it normally would.
"I.. I still want to propose to Rae.."


And my world stood still.

All at once my mind floods with questions, most screaming to be released into the air with enough ferocity to make me blink tears into my eyes.

'Why does he want to marry Rae?' 'That was a joke, right?' 'But Rae has been so perverted in the past! She's not fit for royalty! So why?' 'He can't! He can't! Prince Rodd can't marry a commoner! Why would he?'

But the strongest of them all, is the only one I wish I could ignore.

'But Rae is mine..'

Ever since Sister made things difficult between me and Rae, I've been forced to confront the idea that maybe I like Rae for who she is. A notion so preposterous that I've never gotten far with it.

But faced with the idea that Prince Rodd might sweep her away in a political situation that would lock up her hand in marriage, I- It makes my blood run cold.

I don't want Rae to leave me.
I can't bear to be without her any more than I absolutely have to.

I don't want Prince Rodd to marry Rae.
Because..

Because I want to be the one to marry her.


I might need to call a healer..
I may be going crazy..


"Claire? Are you still listening?" Prince Rodd calls my attention back to him. I look at his hazy figure and blink thoughtfully. My vision does not clear.

"Yes, could you repeat that?" I ask as I stumble over to a chair and sit down with a tight grip, like the floor might tilt just to bully me.
Prince Rodd nods stoically. "I know that Rae isn't entirely herself at the moment," My eyes widen as an idea forms in my head. "but I know that she'd do a great job to protect this kingdom, and that I can trust her to help me. So I still want to propose to her. If only so that she has the option."
I pause with my response, knowing that I'll have to play this well if I want to convince Prince Rodd not to offer his hand in marriage.
It feels morally wrong, to try to sabotage such an opportunity for both Rae and Prince Rodd. But it feels even more wrong to just let this happen.

"I think you are right." I say, looking at the painting hung next to the door, and sternly avoiding his gaze.
Still, I can see his eyebrows rise from the corner of my eye. "You do?"

I nod while I move to hold my chin. "Yes, I think that Rae is currently not sound of mind." I turn to look at him. "I think she would not be able to form an honest answer, nor even an honest thought on the subject of marriage."

I see Prince Rodd's face crumble along with his hope. He trusts my judgement on anything concerning Rae, so I know he will respect my opinion in this.
After a moment of hesitation, Prince Rodd nods with an air of sadness to him that I don't think I have ever seen before.

"Yes, I think you're quite right."
He slowly starts heading for the door next to me.
"I'm sorry to have bothered you with this, but thank you for your insight. I appreciate it." He says, his voice feels more muddled. It reminds me of our fathers.
Of father's quiet evenings spent in the library with a lighted fireplace and scotch.
For some reason I associate it with father fiddling with his wedding ring most of all.

Prince Rodd is quick to leave the room, and I hear his strong footsteps echo and fade in the hall behind me.
I mentally apologize for meddling, and in the same moment I promise to make it worth the pain.

About six days after Claire had left, I had been deemed 'cooped up' in the house by my parents, so I got shipped off to spend the last 3 days of the vacation at the Francois estate.

Since my arrival, I've found that Claire must be getting sick.
There's no other explanation as to why she's been blushing this much.

The moment I arrived, Claire dragged me out of the carriage and proceeded to pull me along to a large kitchen. Where she then told me to cook her whatever I thought she'd like. New or old recipes.
So I put together a patty of beef with fries, mayonnaise and cheese dip.

It's more simple than I normally would make, but there wasn't much in the pantry to work with and I couldn't find the energy to go out and get the rest of the ingredients to make a proper burger.

Still, the moment I put everything together and presented the plate to Miss Claire, she smiled at me and it make my free hand shake a little.
It gives me hope.

I try to smile as she tastes what I made, but notice that it keeps slipping back off my face. It probably makes me look awkward, but Claire never says anything about it.

Miss Claire lets no reaction show as she eats, and I patiently wait with my hands in my lap. They itch to move, but I keep them right where they are. It's a waste of energy to let them-..

I let my hands play with the frills lining my apron.
For some reason, I can breathe more easily.


At the end, she gestures for me to do the dishes, and while her expression is the same, her composure is more relaxed. Like a weight has fallen off of her shoulders, or a particular itch has been scratched.

Before I can finish scrubbing her plate, I hear Miss Claire stand up from her seat and walk over. As I make sure to get the grease off of the plate, I surpress a flinch as I feel her hands snake around my waist and her face rests against my shoulder blade.
I pause in my work and try to make sense of this.
"Your cooking was lovely." She murmurs against my back. My skin gives a wave of goosebumps at the sensation.
"Thank you. That's good."

My response is wrong.
So I try again.

"I'm happy to hear it."

That's.. better.
I can tell that Miss Claire smiles against my back, for some reason it makes me want to put down the plate. So I do.
With my hands now free, it makes me want to hug Miss Claire back.
So I do.

She lets out a squeak in surprise, clearly caught off guard. But beyond that her only response is to reposition herself to snuggle better.
I let out a sigh as my shoulders drop.

I wasn't aware I'd been holding them up.

Claire clutches me a little tighter and I'm not sure what to do next.
So we stay like that. I can tell that the soap is drying out my skin a little, but I don't want to move.
I know that hugs used to bring me joy.

It'd make me feel safe, and make me feel a little loved.
The moment the hug ends, I'd always feel hollow and more sad than before.

I don't want to feel more hollow. And I don't want to feel more sad.
So we stay just like that.


Eventually Miss Claire softly pulls away, and I easily let her. Anything for her. No matter what it does to me.
She meets my eyes and she doesn't look happy or sad, but something in between. Content maybe?
"I missed you. A lot."

She doesn't have to specify just when she's referring to.
It's probably the whole time.

Every moment that I have failed to stand by her side.
My body feels icky about it. Like it's trying to shudder off the shame, only to find it persisting.

An apology is on the tip of my tongue but Claire's expression stops me.
She's smiling with glassy eyes. One blink and she'd be tearing up.
With a slow breath in and out, spent entirely on memorizing Claire's face. No longer limited by pixels on a screen, I try to respond.
"I.." She's still smiling, but now also at attention for whatever I might want to say.
She's so kind.

"I'm here now. I will never willingly leave you." I say at last. It feels like my heart beats stronger at the admission, like it was a task I forgot to do, finally fulfilled.

She nods. "I never want you to leave me again either."
I have an impulse to hug her fully again, so I slowly do so, to give her the opportunity to get away. She leans in.
For a moment I think that my heart skips a beat, but I'm unsure.

Still, I feel at peace in this moment.

School has started back up again, and they offered to let Rae teach a self defense class, since she's quite good at it now.
It's almost scary and strange to think back to the fight she had with Sister, since before then I've never seen her be particularly flexible. I know that she must have done some tricks for the Chimera that we fought, but I was too busy focusing on my casting to actually pay attention to Rae.

With a bit of encouragement from Misha, Prince Rodd and myself, Rae agreed to give it a shot.
It's bound to be interesting, so I've been looking forward to it all day. Not to mention, I heard that Rae is going to be wearing something special for the occasion..


And when I was told 'special', I wasn't thinking of her usual workout clothes, though I have to admit that those were made for when Rae wasn't nearly so.. Muscular..

That outfit would look small on anyone, since Rae used to be as thin as a beanstalk, but now it looks almost a little painful to wear clothes that tight, but Rae's goofy and spacy attitude would normally absorb most of the worries on her stature that anyone might have.
So with her face set like stone, her new appearance stands out that much more..

I walk up to her with smooth steps, making sure that her eyes are on me. For some reason Rae is more likely to look at me when I walk in a particular way. But it doesn't appear to work anymore. Add it to the list.

"Rae?" I ask and she looks over from the tree line she was previously focused on. "Yes Miss Claire?" She says in such a way that I can tell that half her attention is still with the tree line.
"Why are you wearing that?"
Her eyes drift back to the tree line, and at this point I'm looking with her. "Uh, I forgot to get new clothes for working out."
"Mhm?" I hum out as I scan the forest. I see nothing of note.
So I turn back to her, and she does the same, seemingly having come to the same conclusion. "Didn't ask Misha to help remind you?" I ask absentmindedly, because I know that Misha tends to help with her memory issues.
"Yes, I did, she-"

Before Rae can explain further, we're rudely interrupted by the teacher calling the class together and explaining that the lesson will be done by my Rae.
Rae walks over to stand next to the teacher at her cue and takes over when the introduction is finished.

"Good morning everyone! Today I want to teach you all what to do in the case that magic is not an option. Though I'd like to move the lesson to the field on the other side of the school." The field in question is where we also have duels. This one is the grass field typically reserved for picnics in the summer.

The teacher chuckles and shakes their head. "Sorry Rae, but this field will have to do." "Is the duel field taken?" Rae asks. The teacher scratches the back of their head. "No, but this is the field that we were assigned."
Rae's facial expression doesn't move, but I can still somehow tell that she's getting annoyed with the teacher. "Then move the class, please." I would've folded.
Wait, I shouldn't fold.

The teacher doesn't appear to have as many braincells as I do, as they simply shake their head with a small chuckle and walk off with a 'take it away' gesture. Rae huffs, which is the most emotion I've seen from her today, and resumes addressing everyone.

"After some discussion, we will be having the practice over here after all. I'd like for everyone to tuck away their wands and use no magic as of now."
The students grumble, but adhere and put away their wands.
"Please make two lines that face one another, whoever you're standing across will be your sparring partner for this activity." Rae instructs. It's.. Making me feel very happy to see her like that. I feel all warm inside watching her guide the students.
Once the lines were formed, I noticed that I am stood across from Misha, her eyes are on Rae, and mine are quick to follow.
Rae looks down the lines, seemingly judging the matchups. Then she nods and waves the teacher over.

"Next I am going to demonstrate how to pin someone without a weapon. Professor if you could please get into an attack stance." The teacher pulls out their wand and brandishes it against her. Rae shakes her head. "Please put your wand away, I need you to pull up your fists." The teacher reluctantly follows her instructions. "Higher, they need to protect your face." Again.

"Then, I'll throw a punch, and I need you to catch it and grab onto my arm." And she readies a punch and waits for the teacher to give her a signal.

Together the execute the move, and the teacher catches her very slow fist.
"The next step is to force me to bend my arm by turning and using your hands to pull me over your shoulder." They do that and now Rae is forced to basically stand right against the teachers back.
"If this was done at the proper speeds, you'd have the momentum to throw me over your shoulder and slam me into the ground. If we were to try that right now it'd be very dangerr-" The teacher attempts to do it anyway.

So I watch in horror as Rae's arm instead lets out a loud 'POP' and Rae tries to hurry along with the movement to keep her arm in one piece.
The teacher lets go in surprise, and Rae catches her own limp arm before it can carelessly hit anything and damage itself.
I expect to have to hold Rae back as she yells at the teacher, mostly because that would be my reaction.
But possessing a level of composure that I don't have, Rae keeps calm and takes a deep breath, before walking over to Misha.

"Misha, could you please hold my arm at this angle?" And she shows Misha something I can't see from here, though I'm quick to start moving forward. Disregarding the teacher for now.

I hear another 'POP' along with several students hissing in sympathy, once I finally get my maid in view, she looks to be totally fine, it isn't until she stands up and flexes her arm that her movements stutter, and it tells me all that I need to know.

"I'm going to give that teacher what's coming to them." I hiss at Rae, who doesn't smile at my comment and softly shakes her head instead. "It's fine, I could have worded it better." It's good to know that her capacity for blaming herself is still intact, but that's not really what I want here. "You really couldn't have." I bite back. I feel a little bad about that, since Rae doesn't deserve the brunt of my anger when she's not the one to have invoked it.

As I seethe overlooking the tree line, Rae makes her way back to the front of the class and gives the next set of instructions. Which is for everyone to pair up with who they were across from earlier and practice repeating the movements she'd previously shown in quick enough succession to throw the other person to the ground, specifically noting that everyone has to listen to their partner and stop if they ask.

Misha stands awkwardly for a while before approaching me, I can hear her footsteps behind me.
"So, wanna spar or not?" She asks, not appearing to care much one way or the other.
"I do. But I won't enjoy it." I tell her honestly. My mood has turned quite sour, and if I could do anything, I'd be biting off the teacher's head.
"Then why don't we show the class what you can do?" Misha asks with a sly smile. It reminds me of Rae. I can really see that those two grew up together. Something I can't have.


I am not good at this.
For the past 20 minutes, Misha and I have been struggling to make this work.
Rae made it look very easy to do, but clearly, it was not.
She's also been helping a lot of fellow students in getting it right, but the moment she walks away they tend to be unable to recreate it.

Maybe this is a little too advanced for us?

"Rae?" I ask as Misha lets go again, after not having been able to follow through with her movement. We used to switch roles every attempt, but right now we're hoping that staying in the same roles might help with figuring out what we need to change.
Rae is currently helping two pairs over, and the girl she's guiding into the correct stance looks entirely too smug about it.
"I'll be with you in a moment, Miss Claire." And she turns back to the pair, much to my annoyance. "Alright, now when you grab him, make sure that you grab his whole arm and not just the bicep so you don't pinch the skin or cause unnecessary injury." And she adjusts her fingers to properly grasp her partner's arm. The girl looks at Rae with what I'm choosing to believe is not desire. "I know that I shouldn't harm my sparring partner, but in practice, isn't that a good thing?" She asks in a voice that feels like an octave too high for me. Just my personal opinion.
Rae nods her head. "Yes, but doing that would also hurt you. If you don't grab hold of the whole arm, it leaves you open to them flailing and throwing you off balance, which would hurt you far worse than some pinched skin would hurt them." And the girl nods along and follows through with the motion. She succesfully throws her partner over her shoulder.

"Rae?" I ask again as Rae compliments the girl on her footwork, effectively interrupting their conversation.
Rae looks over and her body language feels more loose and fluid. Because she's looking at me and not some random girl.
"Yes, Miss Claire?"

I was about to ask for help in this exercise, but that girl is looking right at me, as if daring me to ask for help from a commoner.
"We've been doing this for 20 minutes and the class is an hour long, isn't it time for something else?" I ask instead. Rae's eyebrows twitch in surprise but she doesn’t show any other changes. After a moment, she nods with a small smile and walks to the front of the class again.
"Alright!" She calls attention to herself and almost everyone is quick to listen.
"Now, I'd like to demonstrate another useful move in self defense."
A student scoffs and mutters under their breath. I turn to glare at them. "Care to repeat that?" I ask.
The guy doesn't hesitate to scoff again. "I was saying that Taylor over there couldn't even keep herself from getting kidnapped. So I'm not sure how much use we'd have with learning self-defense from her."
I cock out a hip and cross my arms. "You did the previous exercise right? Surely you saw the use in that?"
He huffs and looks away before grinning at me. "I could do that in my sleep, no problem."

Before I can challenge him to prove his claim, Rae is already between us. "Are you two done chattering? Can we get back to the lesson?" She asks, looking from one of us to the other.
I nod silently, a little glad that she's interrupted us, as it wasn't getting me anywhere anyway.

The boy is less smart. "What's the point of a lesson if it's taught by someone lesser?"
Rae ignores the comment and walks back to resume her explanation, but again, the boy doesn't take his exit.

"Rae Taylor! I challenge you to a wandless duel!"
Rae looks like she's about to decline, but then she glances at the tree line.
"I accept."

She turns to the teacher. "We should move to the duel field for this, as it is a duel."
The teacher waves her away. "It's wandless and the field is due for a class in like.. 5 minutes. You're having it here."
Ah, so that's why she accepted.

Part of me thought that maybe she'd go back on her word, but I don't know why.
Rae nods to the stupid boy and they both walk over to an empty strip of grass, the class following like a peanut gallery.

Both of them get ready with a good bit of space in between them, and the teacher counts them down.
"3. 2. 1. GO!" Both of them race to meet in the middle and he instantly throws a punch, Rae catches it and uses it to leverage him over her shoulder like she had demonstrated earlier, but the prick uses air magic to stop himself from going all the way, instead forcing her to drop him arm first. He catches his fall and uses his descent to kick her side with his leg. While Rae doesn't fall down, she does stumble and he uses the time to get back up.
"Give it your best shot peasant! I'll take you down like a leaf in the wind!"

Rae responds by throwing her own punch, aiming for the stomach, he does indeed catch it and twists her arm to get her on her knees, Once there Rae willingly lays down on her back and then pushes off to slide head first towards him, making him let go of her arm as he knocks against his crotch trying to hold on. She then makes a quick move on the back of his left knee and he collapses on that side as he tries to turn towards her.
Rae however, keeps up and takes out his left shoulder, followed by his right shoulder before taking care of his right knee. Lastly she tries to reach for his neck but he turns fast enough to bite her hand.
"Twake thwat!" He cries out as he grinds his teeth on her hand, though he lets go after realizing that she hasn't been reacting to it at all.
She finishes her movement with her other hand, hitting his neck and lowering him to the ground.
"I.. I can't move." He cries out after a moment.

I look around myself and see that most of the student body is shocked and scared. Misha has no reaction and Prince Rodd looks oddly proud and a little angry. Feelings that I can relate to.

"I hit your pressure points, it will naturally go away." Rae informs him.
The teacher walks over and looks between them. "I'd say Rae wins." Then they turn to her. "I'll heal your hand." And before Rae can accept or decline they already start healing.

Rae strangely tries to pull away but the teacher grabs hold of her hand and keeps her there.
"No wait, don't heal it here-" And it's perfectly healed. Something to be expected of the teachers here.

I am about to ask her what's wrong for her to decline, when I hear a loud roar in the distance..


Rae's head snaps towards mine and before she can utter a single word I already know what she wants to ask, and the answer I'll give. "I'll tell Prince Rodd to evacuate, but then I'm there with you." I tell her and she bites her lip as she probably weighs trying to convince me to flee against investigating whatever made that roar.
As I run towards Prince Rodd to give him the instructions, I see Rae nod in agreement out of the corner of my eye.

I smile for only a moment, having to get serious for giving a Prince orders.
"Prince Rodd, evacuate the students and make sure that the other teachers are coming to give backup." I tell him, and he looks at me like I’m crazy. "You're not gonna chase that thing, are you?" He asks, the question is rhetorical, but he doesn't realize that until a second later. "Alright yeah, you totally would. Off to chase your maid?" And he grins like there's a joke there. I laugh jauntily. "Like she'd last a minute without me!"
I leave Prince Rodd to it, mostly so I can get to running.


Normally, I can catch up to Rae within moments, cause she's not very fast.
But now I've honestly lost sight of her.

BOOM!!

Though hearing an explosion certainly helps!
It's so loud that I feel my bones rattle along with the ground shaking and it has my ears feel a little numb.
Somehow I never have that with explosions that I make myself.

Shaking off the daze, I run towards the sound, my legs feeling a little weaker.
I will never admit this to anyone, so don't go saying ridiculous things, but.
Part of me wonders, if this might be someone trying to take Rae out..
 

Chapter Text

After leaving it to Claire to get the students in order, though I know that her stubborn pride won't let her leave me alone for long, I run to meet whatever made that roar head on before it can get close to the academy.

Part of me wonders if this monster may be a trap, set by a particular masked individual, but it wouldn't match with their MO, which has always been more manipulative and subtle to an extent.

Sure, releasing a Chimera into the school and purposefully guiding students to the main base of mind controllers isn't very different from causing chaos with a big monster.
But, the Chimera was done with a scapegoat/puppet and the mind controllers were presented as a separate entity. In both cases the focus wasn't on him and the goal wasn't obvious either.

In this case, he may not be the focus, but there's only one goal people can gather. Which is to take me out.
Or, it could also be that he's a step ahead of me here, and that it's only part of his plans, and that he actually wants something else that he's doing as we're all distracted..

If that is the case, I'll have to take care of this quick so I can check on everything else..

BOOM!!

Alright, that has got to be close because I'm tasting my ears.


As I run, I see something starting to appear as the trees thin.
It looks to be perfectly still for as far as I can see, and almost like it's made out of rock. Is it a Golum?

Oh.. Well.
It's.. Not what I'm looking for, that's for sure.
Like I previously thought, it's made of rock. But it's a statue of a minitour. In a random clearing in the woods roughly 5 minutes away from the school, maybe 10-ish if someone's not running.
With dust settling from something behind it.

It looks.. Very well made. The horns have grooves to signify the use they would've seen. The fur looks tussled and accurate for the pose it's in. Speaking of. It's posed almost mid-run, barely balanced enough to not topple over without speed guiding its path. I imagine a strong wind can topple it.
Besides that it has it's shoulders hunched in as its head looks to the right, almost as if it had looked over in haste. The muscles are consistent as well, the arms are equal size and the legs look accurate for the weight that such a creature would force it to carry.

Right as I want to disregard this and continue running for whatever made the noise, I notice the state of the bushes further up ahead.
I walk around the statue and head over.

I look around and take stock of the shrubbery. I expected it to have been affected by the explosion, that much is logical. But it's not rustled, or singed. The lower branches of the trees have been snapped off, and the bushes look to be flattened as if something has trampled through. Considering the way the branches snapped, it has to be bigger than a person, and heavier too.
Further away I can see a bunch of rocks, and if I squint I can perfectly imagine it being one big boulder, if something hadn't broken it with sheer force. Almost like something ran into it and caused a huge.. would that be an explosion..?
And with the way the bushes are angled, it came running towards the school.
I look back towards the school and try to align the branches, rubble and bushes to find the trajectory it was running at and-..


It should have knocked over the statue.

It should have knocked over the statue in it's path. It had zero issue with shrubbery and a boulder, surely a statue wouldn't be in pristine condition?

From the other side of the clearing, I see a spot of red with a blue sparkle. Claire.
Then, I notice a movement that almost feels unnatural from the left side of the tree line.

Wait.


A clear destructive path signaling a charge.

A statue that is pristine and untouched by the elements that should have been knocked over.

A minitour that is looking towards the left.

A green piece of movement that feels too smooth.


Fuck.

"Claire run! It's a BASILISK!!" I yell out at the top of my lungs before closing my eyes preemptively.

Which also means that I have no idea if she's followed my order, or if she's also closed her eyes..
"Claire! If you stayed, close your eyes!" I yell out next. Then, I hold my breath and listen for the Basilisk.

I hear movement at my left, but not in the spot I expected it. It's like it's avoiding the clearing and instead traveling just behind the cover of the tree line. Which should make more noise than just traveling over the grass.
Is this why the minitour looked over? Cause it heard the extra noise?
Is that why the Basilisk is hunting like this? So that their prey won't have a good opportunity to attack? By using the trees as cover?

I'm still standing by the broken branches, I'm pretty sure it's moving towards me, so I should move towards the statue so it can't have a stab at me. Or if it does, I attack it while it's close.

I need a better plan than just blindly attacking it.
So I move towards the statue.

"Claire! If you're still here, I'm moving towards the statue, I need you to stay where you are unless you hear the Basilisk coming for you. If we're both in the same spot, it's harder to move apart again!" I yell out in her general direction.

I feel my cheek sting and for a moment I fear the Basilisk has bit me.
"Do you mind?! I'm right here! No need to make my ears bleed!" Oh, Claire just slapped me.
Well, that's relatively normal.

"Ah, well. Nevermind that then. It's nice to feel your classic slap." I compliment her, mostly because she's currently clutching my blazer and I can feel her shaking. She shakes less, so clearly it helped.
"Yes well. You deserved it." She tells me, and I nod stoically in agreement.
She's not wrong.

"Game plan, Rae, what 'cha got?" Never thought I'd hear that from her.
I may very well still be asleep. In which case, I hope I didn't actually get asked to lead class this afternoon.

Right. Serious mode. Why am I being a little silly? Is it the stress? Has the 'Tism finally caught up to me? Is it the fact that Claire is currently clutching me like a lifeline and I don't even get to look her in the eyes? Is it the thrill of an event I've never seen before?

GAME PLAN. Yes.

"Well, right now we can't see, but we can hear. I'm thinking of using wind magic to locate it and then boxing it in with earth magic." Right as I finish my impromptu plan, I feel Claire rest her head on my chest in a less than gentle manner.
"But that means you won't need me." I can hear the frown in her tone.

I rush to think of something for her to do, when I hear the snake  don't think about that don't think about that don't think about that move.
"I'm going to need you to defend us while I set all this up, it's heading for us right now."
I feel her jump, she nearly knocks into my chin.
"O-okay." I almost frown at her uncertainty. But I know how to bring out her courage.

"What? Scared? Need me to protect you~?" I ask her with a light mocking tone. It's not as flirtatious as it should be, but this.. This feels right. As right as it can be for now.
I feel her stiffen up before she pushes away from me. "Huph! I can take care of both of us! Watch me!" She says with false pride. Though I know that it won't stop her from doing what is needed.
"I won't be watching, cause.. I want to live.. But I'll be rooting for you! Mess 'em up!" I tell her as I try to smile. I feels heavy on my lips, but the effort has to be made.

She slowly parts from my space, but I don't think she's walking away from the oversized toothpick.
"Claire, you're currently walking right towards it." I tell her as I try to listen for her response, the snakes movement and setting up my spells.
"Yeah, I know." She bites back before backing up, this time I feel my lips twitch up without doing anything.
Casting while keeping an ear out is easier than I expected.

"HEY! LIMBLESS LIZARD!! OVER HERE!!" Claire yells with the dignity of the dirt under my nails. Her name calling has certainly improved while I was away. Also, can snakes hear? They don't have ears for as far as I can recall. And while I could check with the specimen standing somewhere around here, I'm none too eager..

I can hear the fire that Claire sends their way, but I'll have to trust in her and focus on my own work.
Set up enough wind that the blowback will tell you the exact location of it.
Take control of the earth around here so that no matter where it is, it's within grasp.
Gather the remaining energy into a ball of fire, just in case this plan fails.

Alright. Should be good.

"Claire! Run for the tree line!" I yell out a second before I release the wind.
The magic spreads out like a drop of water ripples in a pond. Telling me where the statue is, where I am, where the trees start all over, where Claire is, and, where the Basilisk is hiding.
Before it can move and outdate my info, I pull up the earth, essentially plunging it into an impromptu coffin before sealing it up too.

Once I'm certain the snake is in there, I open my eyes.
The sun is brighter than I thought it would be. Its rays are stabbing into my skull.
I look around and find no Basilisk.

"Miss Claire? It's safe now." I tell her gently as I slowly make my way over.
She opens her eyes and she looks a little drowsy, the adrenaline must be fading.
"We did it?" She asks softly.
I nod. "We did it."

We walk over to the hole that should have a very dangerous creature underneath.
"I wonder what the roar that we heard was." I mumble, mostly to myself.
Miss Claire looks up thoughtfully before turning around towards the minitour statue. Right.
"Probably that thing."
We probably heard it's last moments.
Wow, that's morbid.

"The air in there is going to run out soon, should I make it collapse and let it suffocate or would you prefer something else?" I ask her. She might find use for it alive, in the game that wasn't ever an option, so I only know the uses of a dead Basilisk.

She chuckles for reasons I can't guess. "If I were a stupid character in a book, I'd say 'keep it alive! It can bite us later!', but I'm not. End it."
Well, no need to convince me!

I let the air leak out of the containment and force the ground to replace it. Causing it to bury and suffocate the snake as it is.
This isn't the first time I've recently tried to bury something alive. But between the masked man at the well and the noble lady at the yard, although I wasn't trying to kill her. Still. I've leaned my lesson and observe even the heartbeat moving the dirt ever so slightly. I don't let up even two minutes after I no longer feel it beat. I'm not letting up until I feel safe.

Then, and only then, do I lower my hands. "If you want, I can unbury it now. I know that certain parts of a Basilisk are quite valuable." I offer as I turn to face her.
Miss Claire looks a little saddened for a reason I don't want to guess. I'd have to apologize.
"Yes, though make sure its eyes are covered."
I nod and make sure that as I force the earth to drag it upwards, the eyes are still covered with earth. I then lift it up with air magic and off we go, walking back towards the school with a giant snake floating above the trees, as trying to fit it through the forest would be a nightmare.


Should've probably thought a little deeper about how that would look.
We're greeted with all of the teachers in attack formation, but not aiming at us.
They're aiming at the giant floating snake.
Go figure..

Well, even if the lesson went poorly, surely this'll get us a good grade, right?

Rae got told off for running off during a class, ignoring that she was protecting the students that she was instructing, and got praised for bringing back a very valuable corpse worth of ingredients. After getting told off for scaring the teachers by having it float over..

All in all, not too bad.

The weekend has passed, which I had to spend at home since father had some issues with a few members of staff. Namely that he had to be away on deals but the twin maids were celebrating their birthdays and their 5th year of working with us. So I had to throw a party for a couple of maids, without my own, because she was busy getting yelled at by the school principal.

I look at the arriving students from my carriage window, and notice that Prince Rodd is looking around anxiously, standing at the main gate. I wonder if I should dodge whatever is going on with him..

Right as I get out, I already feel his eyes zero in on my back and I pre-emptively give up on the idea of skipping out on his issues.
I calmly walk over to the main gate while my bags get taken care of, but apparently it's not fast enough for Rodd, as he runs to catch me sooner.
"Good morning Prince Rodd, how are you?" Please don't give me any work, please don't give me any work, please don't give me any work. It's Monday Prince Rodd, have some grace!
"Great! Come on! You need to see this!" And he gently tugs my hand as he gets ready to take off. I consider not cooperating, but I know it's only a pipe dream. There will never be any denying the first Prince of the country.

"Fine." I huff before nearly falling flat on my face as Prince Rodd nearly rips my arm off in his haste.
I'm starting to wonder what goes in that guys breakfast..


We run over gravel, which goes better than I expected considering I'm wearing heels, followed by some of the halls of the school, I notice after a few moments that we're headed towards a particular garden, specifically where Prince Rodd loves to play chess the most. Does he want to play against me? Classes are starting in less than 40 minutes, it'd be reckless!

As we turn the last corner, I find that I was correct in the spot and the activity, not so much the company.
In the opponents chair, sits Rae. Though I have to do a double take.
Her hair is still powder white at first glance, but as I come to stand still, I notice that there's quite some strands that have regained their original colour.
"Rae.. Your hair.."
Rae looks up from the board and smiles at me, it's not her flirty smile, just a normal one. Something you might expect if you were greeting a stranger. But it's a smile all the same.
"It's, been coming back slowly. I didn't notice until yesterday." She says as she moves a piece on the board.
Prince Thane, who is sitting in Prince Rodd's usual spot, frowns. "Rae could you please not do that?" He asks as he moves his king.
Rae giggles softly and call me crazy but it sounds like bells are chiming on a warm yet foggy day.

I turn to Prince Rodd as Rae takes a piece off of the board, which has Prince Thane grumbling.
"Is this what you wanted to show me?" I ask softly before half turning back to the two playing chess.
Prince Rodd hums in approval. "Yeah, I noticed this morning and I knew you wouldn’t want to have to wait a moment longer than you had to."
I lean back onto his chest as I fondly see Rae wink at me before moving a rook. I have no idea if it's a good move because Prince Thane is blocking most of the board, but I imagine it's as genius as she has always been.

Prince Rodd puts a hand on my shoulder and I feel a little guilty at how I've been treating him.
Not with my words of course. But my intentions have been a little self serving regarding Prince Rodd.
He wanted to make Rae happy with his hand in marriage, a huge honor. And I talked him out of it.
Yet still, he thinks of me when there's something he thinks that could make me happy.
I don't deserve it.

Prince Rodd leans down and angles his head so that his lips are hidden behind my curls.
"Rae may be good at chess, but she hasn't been making any moves lately. Why don't you.. Check, mate and sweep her off her feet?" He whispers into my ear.
I nearly lose balance with how unexpected this is.
"What do you mean?!" I whisper back, a little too loud. Rae looks over and I smile hurriedly and give her a thumbs up. She smiles back and continues to focus on her chess match.

Prince Rodd tilts his head. "I just mean that I think Rae's done enough of the romance. It's your turn now." And he grins sadistically.
I 'Hmph!' away from him and go to stand behind Rae.

Since she's a lot shorter, I can see the whole board, and she's mopping up the floor with Prince Thane.
She already has him dead to rights, but it looks like she's gunning for every other piece before she takes his king.
A little cruel, I like it.

I watch as Rae switches fronts on Prince Thane and takes a knight after having been aiming at his bishop for three turns. The poor guy looks like he's close to flipping the table. He probably would if it wasn't a stone feature that is basically stuck to the floor.
Rae sits back in the chair and I feel the change of weight hit me. It's nice. I put a hand on her shoulder and giggle in sync with her when Prince Thane tries to retaliate with several pieces. It's just funny, he'll reach out for a piece, look at the board again, and back away again. He knows there's really nothing he can retaliate with that Rae won't get him back for.

Fast forward to the end of the match, Rae won. She saved the king for last and used nothing except for two bishops to trap him. I don't think I've ever seen someone use bishops to ladder before.


We head to class and I sit down in my usual spot while Rae gets stopped by the teacher. For a moment I consider standing back up and walking back over, but I can't be seen walking back for my maid. And this teacher is a good one anyway.
Rae nods at something that was said and comes walking over to me.
"What was that all about?" I ask as she unpacks her books. She pauses for a moment and I can see her consider telling me. She decides that it's fine and explains as she continues unpacking. "The school was inspired by my teaching to let the class have a professional in self-defense teach the class from time to time, though on the condition that I attend therapy."
What?!

That is UNACCEPTABLE!

"You can't attend therapy!" I whisper harshly. I look around to make sure that no one overheard us, luckily people have been steering clear of Rae ever since word got out as to what happened between her and Sister.
"If people knew you were in therapy they'd call you insane!" Therapy is for people who should be in the loony bin but are still too important to dismiss. If our classmates even knew that she got an offer, it's basically social suicide.
Rae looks at me with those painfully empty eyes of hers, I'm starting to wonder if they're still full of life, and that I'm just blind to it. That maybe I'm only seeing Rae the way I do because that's how I think of her.
It's unrealistic, I know. But I want things to be back to normal so badly. Enough to consider that they might already be back to normal.
"Do you look down on people who go to therapy, Miss Claire?" She asks blankly.

Rae has always been strange, in everything that she does. And for the most part she's always made clear that she loves me no matter what. But this question has a right and wrong answer, and it's not the obvious choice.

"Well, I know that they can't help the issues that they have, but I think that if you need therapy, it might be better if you're not in public, where you can be a danger to others." I shouldn't have said it like that. Or at all.
Rae nods numbly anyway.

"What do you think Rae?" I ask, desperate for a peer into her head. Why hasn't class started yet?
"I think that therapy is just as necessary as a band aid. If you're hurt, it should be treated. That can be physically, mentally or emotionally. And therapy is a good tool for figuring out what it is that hurts, and how you can heal from it." That is a surprisingly deep response for Rae.
Or maybe not, she's had moments like this before.

"Well when you put it like that.." I've never considered asking for help when it comes down to dealing with feelings.
Maybe I'd be able to stop feeling sad when thinking of mother, if I had therapy.
"Do you think I should go?" Rae asks, genuinely. I think she'd decline if I asked her to.
"Yes, but not a word of this to anyone, I understand that you're not crazy or anything like that, but I don't think our classmates would have the same amount of dignity."

I'm going to ignore that if it was anyone else, I would call them crazy for getting therapy without leaving society for a bit.
There were some nobles a while ago who had been getting haunted by the people they killed in the war. They also had to get therapy, as they were nobles and not commoners. One of them died by undisclosed circumstances, so probably their own hand or a family member, and the rest of them are still being haunted now, but able to deal with it. They stopped having hysteric episodes and weren't seeing visions during the day anymore.
I heard that one of them couldn't stomach seeing horses anymore, they had worked with the war horses. Every time they saw one, they supposedly got stabbed with an incredible headache as the past would assault their head all at once. Apparently it costs so much energy to see all of this all at once that they're immediately out of breath, like they've been running a marathon.
It's probably not true, but it's a scary thing to envision for Rae, especially since so many commoners who have these types of visions end up becoming more violent. I can't have that.

So I'll have to get her treated as fast as I can.

Class finally starts, with the teacher apologizing for having only just finished grading some tests that we took a couple days ago, Rae may not have attended the past while, but she still got the top score. Sometimes it feels like she knows the questions beforehand..

It's late now, the first therapy session went well. It was mostly just getting to know each other and figuring out if we'll be able to work together.
I find that I'm struggling to trust and open up to the stranger.

My head keeps telling me that she'll  turn out to be working for the masked man. Or that there's another party that have put their hand in the pot.
I normally assure myself by just repeating the order of events, since I can't be caught off guard with them.
That worked until I did, get caught off guard.

How much more can be off script? I know I've changed events, but can others do that as well? Or was it my actions that caused this as a chain effect? How much more will change?
Can I feel at ease and act in confidence when I don't know what consequences I might face?
It's unfair but it makes me want to go home.
It shouldn't, I was miserable, but this uncertainty scares me.

I open the door to my room after having walked a couple halls. I keep feeling like there's something wrong due to how much the halls all look alike. It makes me think I took a wrong turn when I know I didn't.

My room is the same as it's been. Ever since coming back I haven't made any big changes.
I look in the mirror that Misha uses in the morning, I see myself stare back.
My hair is brown.

My hair is brown.
That's not right.

I go towards the mirror, it's a rather small thing, so I see far less of myself as I close the distance.
With every step, I can pick out more and more white hairs.
By the time I can grab the thing, my hair looks completely white. For a moment I wonder if I saw wrong.
I absentmindedly fiddle with the mirror and see a flash of green with gold. My body freezes and the mirror slips through my fingers. I feel panic bloom and wither in my chest, like a wave that is being hunted down by familiar numbness.

My body turns around before I consider wanting to, I think I would've preferred to run straight for the window.
There's nothing there. Just the door.

I could have sworn that there was someone right there.
Someone who died.

Right. The noblewoman passed away. So I couldn't see her.
Cause she's dead. Gone. Sleeping with the fishes. Outta town. Bought the farm. 86'ed. Left the chat. Ignored the canary. Went upstairs. Got murdered.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I turn towards my bed but when I open my eyes again I see her.


Her dress is torn and dirty at the bottom, the gold detailing is muted.
Her face is far more hollow, like she hasn't been eating since that night.
Her eyes are as clear as ever, even though the flesh around them is rotting.
As if someone took her eyes out and only put them back in now.

Her mouth is in a stern frown and she looks moments away from screaming hysterically. Her previously pristine white hair is tangled and matted.
There's.. A little blood caked in her hair, on her face.
But most of the blood is right in her chest, where a dagger rests. Its gold and jewel encrusted handle being the only thing poking out.
The blood has long since dried up but what little skin is still visible is so angry and red that I'm not confident that it's bare and not covered in blood.

I stumble back and take a silent gasp so sudden that it surprises me.
The lady hasn't moved. I don't think she's even taken a breath.
She lifts her head up, and I notice that she doesn't have eyelids when her bare eyes pierce me with their stare.
She seems unable to make expressions, but it's not needed for me. She looks angry, resenting, like she blames me for what has befallen her. Like she wants me to either finish the job or make sure I pass before she does anyway.
I look at her, she's like something right out of a nightmare. Not yet a ghost but so on the verge that there's no calling it a zombie. Something ghoulish in between. Stuck between everything that there is, held there by nothing but will or bad luck.
But I feel nothing. There's no real reaction. I observe what she is, but can't make myself feel bad.
Can't feel sorry. Can't feel sad, or guilty.

All I feel.. Is hollow.

Nothing but empty.
My chest squeezes in pain like it's collapsing in on the void where my heart should be.
It feels so familiar that I barely think of why I should reject it.

The last couple of weeks have been almost nothing but sadness, numbness, fear and confusion.
I've been scared out of my mind and unable to figure out where I am in the game's timeline. I'm not even entirely sure if I still remember the correct order, let alone all of the events!

So feeling nothing? Not even the sadness, just the grey that enveloped me for however long I was gone for?
It's almost comforting.

The lady is smiling at me, I don't know when she did, but I notice now because her teeth are rotten. It doesn't match her eyes, her eyes are still angry and resentful. I imagine this disjointedness is how I would've looked if I could have expressed my emotions while my body was forced to follow her commands.

When she shifts her weight forward, I instantly take two steps back, snapping out of whatever held me still before.
I grab my phone out of my pocket and unlock it. But I struggle to think of what number to dial.
Authorities would never get here on time, my friends are in my hometown, my coworkers don't care, my parents wouldn't be able to help. I blocked my last ex when she tried to take me to camp.
I don't have Claire's phone number. Why don't I have Claire's phone number?

Before I can wonder why I don't, I see a bony, dirty and discoloured hand grab my arm, yanking it hard enough that my phone flings itself across the room.
I look up and see those same red eyes, getting closer and closer. I shove my free hand in my other pocket and find a bottle that I usually leave in my purse.
I pull it out and pepper spray her in the face. Her hands fly to her face and I try to run but she's still holding me, and despite her state she still holds true, forcing me to fall to the ground, twisting my shoulder painfully. I cry out in pain.

The lady aggressively wipes at her eyes, she must have clawed them out because when she bends down to pin me with both hands, her face is bare of them.
I scream without feeling the fear that it should need and try to get away, but she maneuvers herself to use the tatters of her dress like a net.
I think I'm crying, I certainly struggle to see straight. I think I hate this.
I think I hate all of this.

I don't know how to fight this. This wasn't a thing in the game before.
There's never been people coming back like this, not like this.

There should be a way for me to defend myself.
Why can't I defend myself?

The lady is hanging over me, and her face is deformed due to both rot as well as being blurred by my tears. I try to force my hands up as she laughs at me, loudly. Like she's trying to drown out everything else.
I wonder if anyone heard me, as she pulls out a collar.

I woke up to nothing.
Nothing woke me up. There's nothing out of the ordinary.

Yet still, I find myself awake.
It feels familiar. Like Déjà vu.
It feels like if all the sound suddenly stopped, but it didn't this time. I can hear Catherine snoring in the bunk above me.

Since I don't think I'll fall asleep again any time soon, I get up and decide to take a walk, to burn off whatever anxious energy is plaguing me.

Despite the fact that I'd rather take an ice bath than walk around in the dark, at night. Without Rae.
But I should learn to be brave and face my fears, even outside of the necessary moments!

As I walk through the far too dark halls, I find myself thinking of Rae's comments on therapy, and compare it to some of the other wise insights she's had throughout our time together.
She's always so wise, always knows just what to say in order to get me to view things another way. Like she knows me from every angle. Like she knows where to push to get something to happen.
It's as comforting as it is concerning.

The amount of power that she holds over me is something I'll ignore for as long as I can.

Right as I think this, I hear a noise a couple halls down. The raw fear in it sends a shiver down my spine and for some reason it rattles me to my core.
But I am a knight! I must protect my fellow students from danger!
With that in mind, I race off towards the noise.

As I run, I hear shouting. The closer I get, the more I think I know where it is.


I stop at Rae's door. There's no one else here in the hall with me, I assume no one else wanted to deal with what Rae might do if she's scared. But I don't care. I open the door and see Misha whip her head towards me as she attempts to wake Rae up, who's crying in her sleep.

She's tangled up in her sheets, I try to get them off her as she tosses and turns, she's clearly uncomfortable.
Right as I put my hands on the sheets, Rae pushes the air in front of her as her eyes fly open, wild and unfocused.
"Rae..?" I ask carefully while she looks around.

"When did I go to bed?" She asks as she shakes softly, her voice sounds a little raw and I wonder if it hurts.
"Dunno, I didn't hear you come in." Misha answers.
Rae only looks more lost at that.
"But you weren't in the room when I got here."

Well.

"Are you okay?" I ask, unwilling to address the current issue.
Rae rubs her face. "Yeah, sorry. Just had a bad dream, I guess."
She slides a hand against her hip and frowns. I don't know what she expected, she's wearing pajamas and those don't have pockets.
"Right, no phone." She says. This does not help lessen my confusion.
"What is nopone?" Misha asks, voicing my question.
Rae looks a little alarmed and sits up better. "It's another word for phony, except for the mind." She answers lamely.

"Right, anyway. Do you want to talk about it?" I ask, hoping that she's willing to. I've heard that therapy is just talking about stuff, so this should help then, right?
Rae sits there for a good while.

Then, she shakes her head. "I don't."
I wait, because I know she's not done.

"But I should."

I move to sit down next to her, Misha stands there awkwardly. "Do you want me to stay, or go?"
Rae looks pained, and Misha nods. "It's okay, I'll be in the hall."

"You can stay in my room, use my bed if you want." I offer quickly, before she can get out the door.
Misha smiles. "Thank you, Miss Claire." And she leaves. I'm unsure if that means she will or not, but it's not my main concern.

I turn to Rae to give her my utmost attention.
And then I wait for her, for whenever she's ready.

"Am.. Am I really here?" The question is so soft that it takes a moment for me to figure out what she said, but once I do, I feel my heart break.
"Yes, you are. You're right here, next to me. Rae."
She turns to me and I can see tears in her eyes. "Can you tell me my full name?"
What?

Alright..
"I don't know if you have any middle names, but your name is Rae Taylor."
She nods. "Who am I?"
Another weird question.
"You're my maid. My Rae. A dual- well. Quad-caster and a brilliant chef."
"Where are we."
"We're at the magic academy, in the dorm room that you share with Misha."
"Say my name again, please."
"You are Rae Taylor."
"Again."
"Your name is Rae Taylor."
"Again."
"You are my Rae Taylor."
"One more time please."
"You are my beloved Rae Taylor."
"No one else?" Her voice is so small, so weak.
"No, just Rae."

She nods and seems to swallow a sob. "Thank you."
"Sure."

I'm unsure why she asked, I think if anyone were to know who they are, it's the person themselves.
If anything, shouldn't I be asking questions to ground her?

"I saw the noblewoman." She says then.
"In your nightmare?"
"I thought I was awake, but yeah."
I almost tell her that seeing dead people isn't very realistic, but I know that that's not true, and that we've seen quite some monsters in a short time, so the undead isn't as far away of a fairytale as it was growing up.

"Like, as she was in life?"
"Sort of, she looked like she had been dead for a while, but no change of clothes, and not as rotten as she should have been."
For a moment I want to ask her if the sword was still in her chest, but decide not to. Prince Rodd, Sister and I made sure never to tell or show Rae what exactly happened to the noblewoman. So it's best not to ask if she saw a broadsword that we never mentioned, or a jagged cut through most of her throat.
It certainly wouldn't do her any good.

"She was very mad at me, like she despised me."
Rae looks at her hands, resting in her lap with silent tears running down her face. I resist wanting to grab one.

"I thought she was going to take me back." She chokes out, and I throw the last of my manners out the window and grab both her hands.
"I'd never let her." I tell her, surprising us both with just how much I mean it.
"You weren't there, no one was. It was like there was nothing else."

"I'm here now, and I won't leave." Rae looks doubtful. "Misha can have Catherine." I add like I don't care.
Rae laughs wetly, it's been a while since I heard her laugh, I think.
In private, anyway.

Her laugh dies out, and we sit in a comfortable silence for a moment.

"Can you tell me what I look like to you? Right now?" That's an odd request. But sure.
I study her, she doesn't look different from how she did earlier today.
"You have red eyes, pale skin, white hair with brown strands mixed in," Her shoulders relax. "a faded bite mark on your neck and light freckles."
She looks calmer now.


"Y'know, ever since coming back, I've just been scared, confused and overwhelmed." She says suddenly.
"Strange, you look and act numb most of the time." I comment before I can really think about it.
I mentally beat myself up over my carelessness, rest assured.

She lets out a chuckle.
"I know, sorry." She looks out the window. "I just prefer looking numb. It's better than being on the verge of tears all the time." I'm not sure what to say to that, I think we've already had this conversation.
"Do you think I can help with it?" I know the answer. I know that there's nothing I can say or do to make her feel better. Only worse.

I can point out that she broke the promise that she made me in her hometown.
I can point out that therapy will help, like she needs fixing rather than understanding.
I can tell her about the feelings that I've had for her, making things more complex.
I can try to pretend to still hate her, without knowing if she'd receive it well.

There's nothing I can think of that will help.
But I still asked.

"Can you just, stay with me?"

Oh.

Maybe I can help.

"Always. If you also stay with me."

"Forever."


"Miss Claire?"
I'm about to feel hurt about being called that, my body is very ready for it, in fact. But then I notice that her tone is teasing. Something I've missed more than I thought.
"Yes?" My tone is in between genuine and snappy. I'm not sure what I want to hear.

"I love you!" Rae turns to me and cries out happily, but her smile afterwards is real. Soft. Not beaming like when she flirted before. Not teasing or taunting. Just. Loving.

I let out a 'Hmpf!' and turn away swiftly as I pout, though I open an eye soon after to look back towards her.
"Well I love you too!" I tell her sternly, with the same tone as I have every time before, even if my words changed.

I turn back towards her and she looks genuinely taken aback that I admitted it.
I tuck a lock of hair behind her ear and smile.

"I love you, and you are mine, so why don't you figure out where you are, and then once you're ready. We can date."
I tell her with a grin more smug than it should be. But in my defense, Rae has never been this speechless for this long.
It's sort of amazing. I can understand why she tries to fluster me all the time. It's fun!

No matter how much Rae may struggle to pick the pieces back up again, or to deal with the problems of being a Quad-Caster, I'll be right there with her, as will everyone else.

And anyone who lays a hand on her, including whoever is reading this, will have to deal with me.

I love Rae Taylor, the most stubborn and annoying commoner in the Bauer kingdom, and probably the planet as a whole.
Because she's my stubborn and annoying commoner.

Don't forget it.

-Lady Claire Francois.