After the long … uh … “disciplinary session,” Amelia is rubbing her sore bottom and glaring at Donna with bloodshot eyes.

“I’ll get you back for this, you hear me, bitch?! I’ll fucking murder you and eat your corpse, and I’ll hunt down everyone you know and love and eat them too!”

Donna raises her hand, and Amelia shrinks back.

“Wait! Wait! Wait! No more! I repent, okay?! I repent! I repent! So don’t spank me again! It stings!”

Donna lifts Amelia onto her lap and looks down at her with an unwavering gaze. She says, “I don’t care if you’ll kill me, Ms. Amelia. By right, I should’ve been dead a long time ago if it weren’t for you saving me. But before I leave my mortal coil and return to Ceram, I will do everything in my power to save your soul. In this, I swear.”

“For what? For what?! What did I do wrong? All I did was come up with a brilliant plan to keep my idiot son out of harm’s way!”

“You propose to introduce his bully—introduce the girl who is torturing him day in, day out, to an even more extreme form of torture. So he would, in your words, run away to the far corner of the earth to escape from her. That is, without a doubt, the most idiotic, most singularly insane thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“That’s because you lack vision, Freckles! You can’t see the ingenious, multi-layered thinking that went into concocting such a perfect scheme. I mean, what else would you have me do? Go on! If you’re going to be a hater, you gotta at least have a counterproposal to keep Julius away from knighthood.”

“You’re a shapeshifter! Just shapeshift into an authority figure and fire the kid if you care so much. Done!”

“Oh … oh yeah?! If it was that simple, then why haven’t I thought about it, huh?!”

“Why ‘haven’t’ you thought about it?”

“That’s because … that’s because …”

“Well? Out with it!”

“So what if I got him fired from this place? What’s stopping him from trying to become a knight, or an adventurer, or whatever somewhere else, huh? But if I turn the girl into an obsessive sadistic yandere, she’ll totally chase him to the ends of the earth and make sure he’ll never have the chance to succeed at anything he does. Sure, he’ll spend the rest of his life looking around his shoulders, so what? Big deal.”

Donna slaps her forehead. “You’re crazy. You are literally a crazy person. Your brain doesn’t work right—if it functions at all! And to think you, of all people, used to call me stupid. Lord O Mighty protect us all.”

The two girls spend the rest of the night arguing until sleep finally consumes them at the crack of dawn.

Around noon, Amelia and Donna are woken up by a knock on the door. They fuse into Eleanor and languidly stretch their tired limbs on the bed.

“Yawn … Come in.” Eleanor waves to unlock the magically sealed door.

Two female Palatine knights enter the room. “Pardon the intrusion, your holiness. We understand that you value your privacy, but you haven’t had a morsel to eat for days now. The servants couldn’t deliver food to your room because of the ward you’ve placed on the door.”

“I’m not hungry. Now leave me.”

“Please, I beg you, Your Holiness, do not torture yourself.” One palatine kneels on the floor. “We know it is our sin of forcefully bringing you here and imprisoning you, but you must believe we have no intention of harming your holy vessel. If you are wary of poison, then we shall test your food, or we can bring in the chef to prepare a meal before your watchful eyes.”

“I said I’m not hungry.”

“Your holiness—”

“I won’t repeat myself.”

The knight’s face twists in a mixture of guilt and concern.

“Ms. Amelia, please don’t be mean to her,” Donna says from within. “She’s only doing her duty.”

“Yeah, yeah, little soldiers following orders. I heard it all before. We won’t be able to do anything with these dumbasses breathing down our necks.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“It’s not about them, it’s about you and your twisted sensibilities, Ms. Amelia. You treat everyone and everything like a game, even your loved ones, and you’ll only end up hurting them. Please, at least ‘try’ to act human. You do love to play pretend, don’t you?”

Eleanor clicks her tongue and turns toward the kneeling Palatine. “Fine. Bring me a light meal or whatever.”

“Immediately, your holiness! And would you permit the servants to sweep up your quarters? It has been a few days since your arrival.”

“Sure, whatever.” Eleanor waves nonchalantly.

The Palatines leave, and ten minutes later, dozens of servants and pages pour into her room, setting up the dining table and changing the bedsheets.

Eleanor sits crossed legs on the lounge chair, casually flipping through a book—uninterested in the surrounding hubbub. That is until a certain page, holding a certain mop and a certain bucket, trips on the carpet and splashes dirty water all over her.

Everybody in the room stops in their tracks, and the boy with an ugly bowl is lying on the ground, too nervous to stand up and face the consequences of what he just did.

“Are you alright?” a sweet, gentle voice comes from above.

When Page Julius June looks up, he sees the infamous cult leader standing over him. Her clothes are drenched, and her wet silver hair clings to her angelic face.

Eleanor smiles and offers Julius a hand.

“Can you get up? Are you perhaps injured anywhere?”

“I … I … ah …” Julius casts his eyes around the room, but the other servants quickly turn away. He gulps and takes her outstretched hand. “I’m okay, ma’am—Ah, I mean Miss! I mean priestess! I mean …”

“I’m glad. But let me check you for injuries, just to be on the safe side.”

“But aren’t you a fake priestess and a waste?—Wait, I mean … I didn’t mean to … What I meant was …”

Eleanor giggles. “Since I’m a fraud and a waste, then there shouldn’t be any problem if I ‘pretend’ to heal you, is there?”

“I mean … sure” Julius nods.

Eleanor leads Julius to the studies and has him seated in a chair. Julius looks at Eleanor’s wet clothes clinging to her body and his cheeks turn bright red.

“Now, I should probably do something about this.” Eleanor snaps her fingers and her clothes become dry and her hair becomes fluffy and shiny again.

“Wait, how did you—!” Julius is startled. “They say you were a waste. I mean manaless … I mean …”

“Maybe I am. Maybe I know a magic trick or two.” Eleanor winks playfully. “Now, let me take a look at you—shall we?”

“... Sure.”

Eleanor quickly casts a healing spell on Julius. The boy has minor scratches and bruises on him, along with some older injuries. When she’s done, Julius jumps up onto his feet and moves his limbs with shining eyes.

“Whoa, I feel good as new! What did you do to me?”

“Nothing beyond what a normal fake priestess can do.” She chuckles.

“Ah, about that …” Julius rubs the back of his neck. “I’m sorry for having insulted you earlier … ah … priestess—and for the bucket!”

“It’s alright. As you can see, there’s no harm done.”

“But still …”

Eleanor smiles at Julius’ troubled expression and pinches his cheek. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?”

“Hey, stop that! I’m not a dog.” Julius steps back.

“Hahaha! I’m sorry. You’re not a boy. You’re a big, strong little man.”

“You’re darn right I am! And don’t call me little!”

“Of course not, dear sir. How could I’ve mistaken such a valiant figure such as yourself for a little boy?”

“Sure, make fun of me—everybody else does. But I’m telling you, one day I’m gonna become big and strong—the strongest knight of them all. Then nobody will be able to make fun of me.”

Julius puffs his chest and tries to strike a tall pose. He looks adorable when he does it, so Eleanor reaches out to pinch him again.

“Hey, I said cut it out!” He slaps her hand away.

“Aww …”

“Don’t ‘aww’ me, woman! Tch! Why do you girls make fun of me? Just because I’m a bit shorter and a bit skinnier than the rest, it doesn’t make it right to make fun of me. It’s not fair!”

“Of course not. Of course not. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” Eleanor raises her hand in a defeated motion, smiling. “Do you often get picked on by girls?”

“All the time! The sisters picked on me. The old hags at my old school picked on me. And then there’s that horrible Raelyn. She’s the worst of the lot!”

“Oh? Is this Raelyn a girl your age?”

“A girl? Ha! Raelyn isn’t a girl, she’s an ape! A tall, ugly ape with long, ugly ape arms and a stinky ape smell! She’s a stupid giant brute who only knows how to throw her brutish ape strength around. Plus, she’s …”

The young Julius inside the memory then goes on a tirade about Squire Raelyn.

Meanwhile, current-day Knight Julius June is frozen solid as his fiancée’s smooth arm tightens around him.

R-Raelyn … I can explain …

Hush now, darling. The court is still in session.

Raelyn Reed gives a sickly sweet smile and blows hot breath into Julius’s ear.

We’ll talk about this … later.

And with those words, every married man in the audience dedicated a moment of silence to Knight Julius.

May God have mercy on his soul. Amen.