Morning stung especially worse today, really only because he was once again in bed by himself. He didn’t fancy sleeping in beds alone, having someone there as an aftermath of the previous day was always his favorite part about sex.

Haetia brought his back to a slow stand, scowling at his retainer who was leaning against the wall ominously watching him sleep as always.

“Goodmorning, Sire.”

He had some vague memory of Linias bird feeding his contraceptive to him yesterday, so he didn’t bother asking about that.

Same as before, Linias had perfectly cleaned him up and healed any blemishes or otherwise that he might’ve sustained in the process. Maybe next time he’d ask him not to do that, he somewhat found himself wanting to wear those vicious territorial imprints.

“Take off your clothes. Everything except for below the belt minus the shoes.”

Albeit internally confused, Linias, like the obedient servant he was, followed the order without question. Haetia scooted over in the bed then lifted the covers, patting the sheets. Understanding the message, Linias entered the bed and in the same motion Haetia threw the sheets over him, mounting his retainer.

“Sire–” Linias started in a reprimanding tone but Haetia immediately barked back.

“I’m not gonna do anything.”

Though, his mischievous smirk spoke otherwise.

He aligned his rear with Linias’s crotch then bent over, placing his hands atop one another and right by his retainer’s collarbone, then rested his chin on his hands.

“See? Isn’t this nice?”

“If you prefer it.”

“No, no. I’m asking you so don’t give me that kind of answer.”

“...I’m not sure then.”

“You’re not sure?” Haetia simultaneously groaned and sighed. “Is the only thing you know how to do is be a Yes-Man?”

Linias blankly stared, feeling like he was being asked a trick question. “...Yyyessss?”

The ivory prince groaned again, this time mumbling to himself quite audibly, “Why do I fuck you.” He shifted his hands to cicada block Linias against the sheets instead. “Grab my waist.”

Again, he listened without question.

Haetia’s extraordinarily long white hair created a canopy over and around him, giving him no choice but to focus on his Master, not that he was doing otherwise anyway.

“You’re telling me you don’t feel anything right now? Not like…Happy or maybe anticipating something or even a little lustful?”

“No…?”

“But you do enjoy having sex with me right? Be honest.”

“I do.”

“Then what??? I don’t get it! If I’m on top of you like this, and you enjoy having sex with me, wouldn’t you get at least a little aroused or hopeful?!”

“If you’d like me to be…?”

“UGHHH!!” Haetia howled a ghastly groan and in disbelief forced his lips upon his retainer’s, tongue and all.

After taking a quick yet thorough taste of his mouth he furiously parted from him, wiping whatever saliva leaked out. “Still nothing??”

“I said if you want me to–”

“Forget it! I give up. You’re incurable. Just–keep doing what you’re doing I guess.”

The prince leapt off of the bed, holding his hands over his head as an indication for wanting to be dressed, which Linias immediately obeyed.

As he rummaged about, putting on one article of clothing after the next, Haetia watched his every move as if something would give a sign as to why he was the way that he was. “You’re like a child, you know. A child that suddenly turns into a sex crazed man when asked.”

Linias clipped on his Master’s large maroon earrings, blankly staring at him afterwards. “I’m not sure what you’d like me to say to that, Master. Or how I’m supposed to improve to better serve you because I don’t quite understand.”

“Like I said forget it, pretend I didn’t say anything. You’re honestly more like a golem with limited responses, Yes Master or Yes Sire or Don’t do that it’s not safe. It’s like you only remember how to be human when I ask you for sex, or when it comes to your stupid animals I guess.” Feeling as if he’s talking to himself at this point, Haetia holds his head in his hand and shakes it. “Before I forget, the next time I ask you something like violate me or whatever, you can be more aggressive. Cuts, blood, whatever it is, and you don’t have to patch me up every time either. And for fucks sake stay in bed for once, you make me feel like I had sex with a ghost.”

Linias bows, “I’m sorry, Sire. I’ll do better next time.”

“No that’s not what I–! Nope! I said I give up, so I give up. Just remember whatever part of what I said that you think is important.”

“Yes, Master.”

Shaking his head again, Haetia asks himself for the umpteenth time why he initiated this interaction in the first place.

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In the inn’s dining area, the innkeepers and Revi were already waiting for the pair with concerned looks strewn across their faces. Joan hesitantly set down their breakfast waiting for either of them to speak and as always Linias filled that role.

“On behalf of both of us, we’re sorry about the other day. Is your daughter fine?”

Still shaken, Joan continues to fret, “O-Oh yes, she’s fine. Just a little bit more ill today so she’s resting right now. Y-You’re–umm…” She tries to ask about Haetia’s supposed condition but stops herself, feeling as if she’s treading on a sensitive topic.

“I don’t think your daughter’s illness has a link to him, since he was born with this appearance.” Linias lies. “And you said it yourself that your daughter wasn’t always like this.”

“Oh, I see…” Disappointed, her husband caresses her back to comfort her.

In an attempt to revive his wife’s spirits, Gideon follows up, “How can you be so sure?”

“I’ve learned a lot about different kinds of races and species, animals, humans, or otherwise. People born with my Master’s kind of discoloration are usually just considered albino, which isn’t a disease.”

As downtrodden as ever, the parents erase the hope they felt upon seeing Haetia’s unnatural appearance that was akin to their daughter’s.

In truth, Linias knew for almost an undeniable fact that there was a link between the two.

Back in his Lord’s home of Gwyneira, there were several cases of people whose skin started to pale, always happening after they ingested some form of bodily fluid from Haetia, so typically anyone he slept with. Hence, Linias always had to heal the infliction before it worsened, though because of that he wasn't sure what exactly would happen if it got worse nor why that occurred in the first place. If Haetia himself wasn’t sick and never was sick, how did others get sick after ingesting his bodily fluids?

What made even less sense was the fact that their daughter numerous towns away was inflicted with the same ailment as those Haetia had slept with in the past, despite the fact that Haetia had never left Gwyneira until its downfall. The only thing Linias could think of was someone possibly transporting his blood or something of the like, but that was also unlikely since he was with him every minute of the day…Except when he was taught by Mitsuyo. Dharax took over then.

That raised even more questions. Dharax knew Linias couldn’t get infected with anything, so was that why he abducted and raised him to watch over Haetia rather than just any other person?

Linias put the idea to the side for the time being. What he was more concerned about right now was the possible correlation between that girl and his Master.

The only reason he lied was for his sake–if Haetia was nearly driven into a panic attack just from the sight, who knows how he’d react to having his theories confirmed and thus identity thrown in question. And although he knew without a doubt that he could heal their daughter, he knew that he shouldn’t as the soldiers currently in pursuit of them wouldn’t be the only one’s hunting them down then.

Linias’s brows knitted as he held back a skeptical scowl. “Do you know anything else that could help? I’d like to do my own research if you don’t mind.”

The pair’s eyes scintillate upon hearing the sympathetic words.

“Of course!” Gideon beams, “The stranger arrived only recently, maybe in the last two weeks I would say. Elena had only gotten pale at first, so we thought it might’ve just been a terrible fever or something of that nature.”

First their skin color fades, that much is still the same, which means I’m probably right. The retainer continues to listen with ever apprehensive ears.

“Then it was her hair and eyes and then even her temperature became ice cold! In more recent times she’s started to cough up blood but it’s…sprinkled.”

“Sprinkled?”

“We aren’t sure with what, just that there’s white specks in the blood she’s been coughing.”

Any of the other symptoms they spoke of were unknown to him; then again, no one in Haetia’s home ever got past the alleged first stage.

Not touching his breakfast in the slightest, Linias pushes his seat away and begins to leave. “Revi, watch his Lordship for me. I’m going to try and ask the other residents.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“I-I’m not sure they’ll be too receptive to you, Mister…?” Joan leads off to allow Linais to fill in his name but he ignores the attempt.

“I said try.”

With the final cold shoulder, Joan shuts down completely and her husband moves to comfort her once more.

“Stay in the inn. Both of you.”

The fire spirit sensed something was wrong with Linias but decided to save her questions for later. It was clear to her that he had his own theories brewing again and she’d rather let him figure it all out than receive another hour-long lesson about everything that was going on in his secluded mind.

----------------------------------------

Although he trusted Revi to take care of his Master, he still left a trail of vines between them just to feel as comfortable as possible. Once he left the inn he was immediately met with harsh glares and hearsays. The townspeople were scared of travelers enough to hide in their homes when they saw them coming but not enough to cease all of their day-to-day activities when present. It was strange but he didn’t blame them for the way they lived. Small towns like these got by best by trusting themselves.

Every person he tried to approach slowly backed away or shouted some form of insult or uninviting phrase, so his information hunt went about as well as he expected.

Just as he was about to head back to the inn, he saw a man and his children in their yard, plowing what looked like a dead field.

Linias approached the family who immediately grew cautious and backed away, but all he did was simply place his flower tattooed hand on the soil and mazes of corn, roots of all kinds of vegetables, and a beautiful apple tree a safe distance away erected from the earth that had once only consisted of weeds and shriveled stems.

The farmer and his children fell back from both the sudden vibrations and in utter shock as they were plastered with agape mouths and drooping eyes.

Flustered, the father rushed to his feet and forcibly shook Linias’s hand enough for the quiver to travel up his arm. “T-Thank you!! Our crops have been suffering for a while now, somehow everyone else’s fields seem to do just fine by comparison though…”

“Do you let your soil rest?”

“R-Rest?”

Linias sighs, nearly face palming. “Don’t plant anything for about two months and lay down some livestock manure instead.”

The farmer seemed to question the tactics but ultimately left it to the supposed expert, considering he provided them enough food to last for the rest of the month at the very least.

He rapidly nodded, taking note of all of his advice and bowing. “You really didn’t have to Sir but my family and I really appreciate it! Truly!! Please, let me repay you! I don’t have much to give but–”

“I just want to learn more about the innkeepers’ daughter Elena, if you can tell me about what happened to her.”

Wavering upon whether or not to divulge any more information on the sensitive topic, the farmer’s lips purse until he ultimately sighs and gives in. “That stranger that came by seemed fishy from the very beginning. Dressed in a hooded robe so we couldn’t see their face. They offered whatever that drink was to everyone but only their daughter accepted in the hopes that they’d spend the night and help her family’s business, but they kept going after that with an eerie smile on their face and kept encouraging her to have more, hence why none of the rest of us touched it. Something was off about it from the very beginning.”

The information didn’t tell him much of what he didn’t already know, but what was a key line to him was the fact that he insisted. If this really was an infliction wrought by Haetia in some way shape or form – be it blood or otherwise –, what could that stranger gain by infecting as many people as possible? Who even was that stranger? It could’ve been someone from the village but no one ever entered or left aside from Dharax and himself as far as he knew.

Dharax could’ve possibly obtained some blood while Linias was with Mitsuyo then handed it off to some outsider…

Linias shook his head. Everything he learned from Gideon and the farmer brought more questions. Particularly, questions about the place that his Master once called home. Was it even a wise idea to go to the Ivory Shore?

No, they had to. Now it was even more critical for them to find out what Haetia is, if they were telling the truth about the Ivory Shore in the first place that is, but they didn’t have any other lead to go off of in that regard.

After the farmer thanked him a thousand more times, Linias made his way back to the inn. Through his vines he saw Elena suddenly contort in what appeared to be pain…until her scleras dyed red. The innkeepers struggled to calm their daughter down to no avail. Revi broke through the parents to help while Haetia stood frightened in an opposing corner and even with three adults holding her down Elena was still jolting and screaming.

What was once leisure trots shifted gears into a full gallop as Linias raced towards the inn.

As soon as he darted up the stairs he heard a crash–the window!

Down the hallway he already caught and lost sight of Revi as she leapt through the opening after Elena. Joan and Gideon bellowed desperate cries for help from the rapidly approaching retainer, who immediately bypassed his Master and leapt out the window after their daughter as well.

Frightened screams of men, women, and children alike ensued before his feet could even touch the ground as they fled indoors with a rabid Elena chasing after them. Rather than waiting for Revi to reach her, Linias’s roots stretched and motioned to seize the innkeepers’ daughter.

Then, his roots suddenly began to fade to white once in contact with her skin as they lost strength and crumbled to what seemed like dust into the earth.

In disbelief he immediately tried again, and again and again and the same result occurred every time.

Seemingly enraged, Elena’s head snapped back towards the pair. Her frenzied and feral gaze lacked pupils and along her limbs and waist were cracks from where the roots tried to withhold her. But…he knew he didn’t put enough strength in it to harm her. How did–?

All it took was a blink and the berserk child was already flying towards him in a full force attack, claws launched forward. Revi stood between the two and spun on her heel, kicking back the innkeepers’ deranged daughter. At the contact of their skin a puff of spores erupted and just as quickly dispersed as Revi burned them immediately.

“There’s no time to be daydreaming Slave-boy!”

Still astonished from the sight a low mutter of his thoughts manages to escape, “My roots–”

“Then don’t use them!” Revi kicks back Elena a second time trying to get Linias back into form as quickly as possible. Another cloud of spores discharged from the collision until she burned them once more.

Linias rapidly shakes his head.

She’s right, he couldn’t think about what it meant right now, this wasn’t the time. He needed to focus on stopping her.

Instead of using his roots, he unsheathed his staff and layered it several times over with more roots. If the overlapped roots decayed from the impact, the bark itself would be fine.

As Elena hurled right back at them, Revi’s circlets ignited in flames as she resumed a fighting stance. This time Linias stood between them, halting Elena with his staff. The manic daughter’s claws met with the staff and fused with the roots as they held her in place.

“Don’t hurt her! That’s still their daughter!” Linias pushed back against the force, regrowing roots after roots to try and by time.

“Are you insane?!! Look at her!”

The talons finally dislodged and a flurry of uncoordinated slashes followed immediately. Now that he was backed into a corner Linias struck her with his staff enough to send her several meters back and for a third time spores emitted from the slam and the fire elemental engulfed them in flames just as swiftly as before. Whatever they were or whatever effects they had, she didn’t want to risk finding out.

This time, Elena struggled to her feet. A crack emerged on her chest from where Linias and Revi had struck her. The crack spread like a rapidly dissolving lake of ice until the fissures met and a chunk of her torso fell to the floor, creating another eruption of white and maroon spores.

For the second time in his life Linias felt a hurricane of terror–dread–or apprehension. Even he didn’t know. All he knew was that what he saw, he knew wasn’t of this world. He’d learned of all kinds of creatures that inhabited this land but none–none–like this.

It had a colony of bleached fungi occupying its now agape chest, as if using what was once the innkeepers’ daughter as a host. Veins of red were threaded throughout the ecosystem, fueling it as it breathed in a slow pulse.

Once the segment had fallen, the other cracks upon her limbs shed sections of skin and muscle as well, all of it falling to the ground like slabs of decrepit, brittle concrete and erupting into pale spores all the same.

The being once known as Elena took one broken half-step at a time, lugging her crumbling body across as Linias could do nothing but watch in horror and pity.

This wasn’t human–how could a disease–?

“Do you still think she’s all there Linias?” Revi stood from her stance that was once prepared for a battle but even she could see that there was nothing left to fight.

She walked towards the decaying being, rising the temperature around her to protect herself from the spores and whatever harm they could possibly befall.

“Wait–!” Linias rushed after her, grabbing her by her arm, not paying any mind to the scorching heat and flames that would typically frighten him.

Feeble and falling to pieces with every shuffle of a step, what was once Elena fell on her back and shattered into even more fragments from the impact. Hoarse breaths wheezed as they left her lungs filled with parasitic fungi whose roots only seemed to delve further into her organs the longer she survived, as if trying to snuff out the last of her life for good.

“We can’t–We can’t kill her. That’s not our decision to make, her parents–”

“Her parents what?” Revi shook off his grasp. “If we leave her the way she is now, puffing out a disease with every breath and step she takes, she’ll get this whole town ending up like her! Her parents lost that choice the moment she went insane and started trying to hurt other people!”

Both of their voices rose to a shout as fury filled both of their hearts.

“Then let them kill her if they want to!”

“You know that they won’t!”

“Then that’s their choice! She’s their daughter!!”

“And let their choice affect the lives of everyone here!? Or better yet, if it spreads and other towns or travelers suffer because of it!!?”

As Linias attempted to continue to contradict Revi, a voice that he painfully recognized and couldn’t deny cut his faith and reduced it to ashes. “Linias, stop. Revi’s right, it’s better to kill her ourselves. Let Revi burn her so whatever those things are don’t spread.”

Following the voice with a slow turn, Linias bit back a rebuttal as his eyes landed on his Master.

“My Lord–!”

“I said stop, didn’t I? If you’re so worried about my safety, take this as a sign to keep me safe and do what I say. If her parents let her live any longer they’ll get sick too and you won’t be here to stop the chaos that happens from that.”

Linias’s fists curled until he was clenching them tight enough to be audible. He knew–He knew that was best. End it here and now, not just for the people of this town or anyone else, but for his Master. But…he couldn’t. Who were they to decide upon the fate of someone they didn’t even know for a full day?

Swift exhales and inhales slowed and broke as swallows took their place. And finally…Linias looked away.

He didn’t need to see what happened to know what occurred. The heat was all he needed to feel, and the clamorous screams of the still-breathing Elena within. They merged with the ghastly wails of her parents as they shouted her name.

“ELENA!!!”

A scurry of despairing footsteps that halted in front of the fire.

Friction against the soil as Gideon held his wife back from throwing herself inside.

“ELENA!! ELENA!!”

And what he wanted to avoid most of all.

“YOU MONSTERS!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?? OUR DAUGHTER–!!!”

Fire. To watch your daughter burn while she still breathed life, as close to her end as she was. The least they could’ve done was a quick death, and then if you so chose to rip the decision from their hands and burn her you could’ve. It wouldn’t have made it better in the parent’s eyes, nor his own, but this?

The townspeople crept out of their homes, eyes beholding upon the appalling sight that in their eyes, another group of strangers inflicted upon their village.

“LEAVE!! TRAVELERS ONLY BRING CALAMITIES ONTO US!!”

They flung stones upon the group, giving the retainer no choice but to shield his Master. Even the farmer he had once helped gazed with scornful eyes and casted stones all the same.

The silent embers rose higher and higher.

Nothing was left of her now.