Chapter Thirty: Une Nuit en Ville V
2319 Words
Fuscia Greene
“You must go, my love,” Coral whispered desperately to the man.
“Okay, okay…” the man replied instantly, but even after a few seconds had passed, he still made no effort to leave; in fact, he seemed to be tugging Coral into his arms, “After a kiss. Just one kiss that, I promise you, will get me through the week.”
“A kiss? Viscount, There is no time!?” Coral answered, matching his desperation easily, “Please?”
Without a word, the man sighed, nodded, then hastily dashed out of view.
-Wow-
Fuscia thought as she tried to use that golden moment to detangle her hand from Jelly’s.
“Hey!” she whispered finally when no amount of effort could make her budge, “You are kind of-,”
The intense pain in her hand skyrocketed the moment a young girl dressed in an old unfashionable blue dress that matched with her light pastel blue hair came to view.
Though the young girl resembled Jelly, her eyes and hair were a few shades lighter. The differences, however, did not end there; the woman in blue wore a practised submissive posture, whereas Fuscia could not imagine the woman holding her hand hostage adopting such a stance.
“My lady!” the blue-haired girl called as she approached the white-haired woman, “My apologies for-”
A loud clapping echoed the cold night as the white-haired woman struck the cheek of the blue-haired one so hard that she fell on the gravel.
“You, b***h!” she huffed.
The white-haired woman seemed like a completely different person.
“You would like it if I kissed that toad, wouldn’t you?!” she sneered, “Where the hell were you, we agreed three minutes?”
“The- the-,” the blue-haired woman began to state her reason; however, coral only took this as an opportunity to assert herself.
“The…the…the?” Coral repeated in a mocking tone, “You almost f****d this whole night for me! As if the day was not bad enough!”
Though the scene unfolding before fuscia was riveting, the pain in her wrist only worsened at the events.
“I-I I'm sorry.” The woman on the ground whispered dejectedly.
“You are sorry? Sorry? Ugh! Unbelievable. So you screw up, and then I come out as the bad person??” Coral spat questioningly before kicking the woman on her knees, however before she could land another hit, Fuscia shuffled the leaves around her, causing the violent woman to flinch.
“Who is out there?!” Coral called, but rather than wait for a reply; she picked her skirts in readiness to leave. However, as the woman on the ground did not do the same, Coral hesitated in her ‘quick get away’ to ensure the woman followed, “Well, what are you waiting for? Us to get caught? Get up, slave. This is not over!”
The blue-haired woman hastily scrambled to her feet to chase after her master, and just like that, they were gone.
Despite their departure, the pain had not eased from Fuscia’s hand, and worse, her knight appeared locked in a trance.
“Jelly!” she called, but her companion did not respond, leaving her no choice but to snatch her hand forcefully from Jelly’s grip.
“Oh? Sorry…” Jelly responded at the first tug, immediately letting go of her hand. “I am so so sorry.”
Jelly continued, panic replacing the tortured expression she had worn earlier, then she took Fuscia’s hand to examine it once more.
“s**t, it is bruised.” She mumbled to herself.
“You think?” Fuscia replied sarcastically, then sighed, “So, who was that blue-haired girl? You somewhat froze up from the moment she arrived?”
“Hmm? I should get you healed first. But, for now, because the temple might not be open for healing by the saint representatives, we will have to go to the magician tower.” Jelly answered, more distant than Fuscia had ever seen
“Jelly? Are you really not going to answer my initial question?”
“No, that is not important. As of this moment, I, a knight, hurt my temporarily assigned master due to negligence.”
“Are you serious? This is just a bruise…it’s..it’s,” she began scrambling for the right words, but her vocabulary failed her, “it's not like, like-,”
“I am also asking that you keep any information found out today a secret as spilling them would most likely endanger your life.”
“Of course, I will keep them a secret, but you’ll be there to protect me when th-,” Fuscia halted her statement as the sudden introduction of distance clarified itself, “You will not be there to protect me, will you?”
“I have behaved improperly.”
“JELLY! It is just a bruise. It will heal! So stop saying such things and let us…let us head to the tower, hmm, okay?”
“I am an imperial knight, Miss Greene.”
-Miss Greene?-
“Therefore, I have no room to make mistakes that make me resemble the basest form of man.”
“So, you’ll just what? Ask to be assigned elsewhere?”
“No, firstly, I will inform my superior the happenings, my sneaking you into the garden maze and my hurting you, then they will see the way forward.”
“Obviously, if you put our entire outing in that context, then you seem as though you are in the wrong even though you are not. I mean, you talked me out of looking for my companion and causing even more problems that…that has to count for something. I mean, you were just surprised after seeing...." Fuscia paused to sidestep the set landmine, " what you...saw."
“Be that as it may-”
“I don’t...I don't understand." Fuscia let out a nervous chuckle before her hands flew to her waist; however, the act did not go as smoothly as she had imagined it would, as the second she folded her right arm, she reflexively winced in pain.
-Gods, it cannot be broken, can it?-
"We must g-" Jelly tried to instruct but, Fuscia was not ready to let go of the matter.
"Do, do you not like me or…or?”
“No, I do. You are quite… cute? However, if I do not report today's incidents myself, the tower will, and the offence will be more severe than it coming from my mouth.”
“Then, then let us not tell-“
"Do you know what will happen If the Empress calls you and you are sporting a wound? I could be killed?"
"Why would you-"
"Because the incidence can easily be twisted to seem as though I have been abusing you and denying you the right to seeing a healer or-"
"But, but I could jus-"
“Miss Greene, it is important that I do this,” Jelly said with finality, halting albeit forcefully, their discussion.
*
*
*
Azalea Oleander Cursix
“And you! You wench!” an actress playing me yelled to a white-haired actress who was playing my supposed sister?
“How dare you steal my family!” I apparently yelled to the girl sitting adjacent to me in the tea party scene.
Because a father who had abandoned their sixteen-year-old daughter to lead the continent with morally questionable allies while he remarried and built another family is such a catch
“Hey..” Henderson whispered to me as he leaned over to my side.
“What?”
“Did that really happen? I mean, I think I heard that the Empress and you know, her…your?” he paused, to ascertain the word he preferred, “your* sister don’t get along or anything, but do you think-,”
I cut Henderson off mid-sentence by pushing his head out of my personal space.
“I don’t know. The only thing in my head is that this play has been rolling for nearly an hour.”
“Do you want to leave?”
“No…” I frowned, then whispered back, “I am kind of curious what I said next.”
“I think you scorched her with hot tea.”
“Really?”
“I think so. It was a hot topic for a while.”
On cue, the actress playing me, threw a cup of tea at the poor damsel who threw herself on the ground, and the crowd went,…ooooh.
“Oh yeah, because you remember that tea is made of metal!!” I spouted a bit too loudly, drawing emphasis on the fact that the actress had fallen because she had tea splashed on her face?
“Shhh!!” a harsh voice shushed my protests aggressively, causing Henderson to burst out laughing.
Our shenanigans caused the onstage actress to hesitate before proceeding with her next lines.
“W-why must ye be cruel to me! Why must you hurt me so? Is it because you, too, hide a deep pain within you that those around you cannot heal?” the white-haired actress dramatised.
I mean, even if Azalea did lash out at her father’s new family, why would he keep scoring invites for her new and favoured daughter to the tea party?
“You know,” I said, then turned my voice into a low whisper as before such that only Henderson could hear, “I find it hard to believe that one would invite someone whose presence they could not tolerate to a party they were looking forward to.”
“I guess, maybe the dowager wanted his daughters to get along?”
If so, by what right? What right permits him to freely dictate how one should feel, especially after his actions.
“So, what do you think of the Dowager?” Henderson asked, forgetting to whisper, which earned him a few shushes from the front.
“The actor or?”
“The real one?”
“I don’t know…I kind of hate him,” I murmured, “I mean, yes, I get that what he did was for the best. I mean, imagine if the Empress had to live with his new wife? They would probably be fighting over inheri..."
I halted, realising that it was not out of consideration that he had not brought his new family to the castle but fear that Azalea's curse will make him lose more than he had before.
" Anyway," I continued, "at the end of the day, because the person he loved was killed before him, even though it was to save him, he could no longer raise his child? I don’t know, such conditional love..unsettles me.”
I knew that I was perhaps drawing inspiration from my initial life, but I couldn’t help it. I was as of today till my death, Azalea. It does not get any more personal than this.
“People are different.”
“I understand that, or at least I want to,” I murmured at his response.
“Plus, he lost the woman he was completely in love with. That changes you.”
-I know, but…everyone has a choice-
“Yes, it changes you, but it's-,”
“I mean, your circumstance aside, he is, you know this is it for him, so she was really important to him.” Henderson proceeded, interrupting me.
“Hends, the people I love, are important to me and-”
“Well, yes, but it's not the same.”
Again, he dismissed me.
“How is it not the same?”
“You, you get to move on, start afresh, while for him this is, you know, ‘it’,”
“But the people I lose are ‘it’ for me too, Hends… and I keep my memories.”
“Look, it's just different, okay?” he stated matter of factly, “Life means different things for you than it does for us. Otherwise, why the hell would you keep dying stupidly?”
-Oh, this conversation is not about the dowager-
I realized, and just as I parted my lips to further dispute his point of view, the streetlights buzzed back on, signalling the end of the play.
The sound of scattered claps filled the streets as the play had been somewhat mediocre, but for the most part, people were standing to leave as the night was growing too late for festivities.
“I think I am going to head to the pub,” Henderson said, his voice sounding a little distant.
“What? Did you bum yourself out with your nonsense?”
“It's NOT-“ he began, his voice trembling with emotion, but a loud and deep voice interrupted him.
“LUCY!!” the voice called right behind us, and while it caused Henderson to turn annoyed at the loud stranger, the deep voice elicited very different emotions in me.
A frown crossed my face as I turned towards the source of the temptation as its depth had caused deliciously rapturous shivers to run up and down my spine almost orgasmically.
-What the hell?-
A goliath of a man walked up behind the seated Henderson and tapped the shoulder of the young uniformed girl seated before us.
Euphoric tremors of desire eased themselves across my skin as the all too familiar scent of eucalyptus and pine wrapped itself around my body, assaulting me into memories that served me better forgotten.
-Oberon?-
- Writer
