Chapter 30 – Brother and Sister

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After the goblin extermination we returned to the village that had commissioned the quest and spent the night there. We arrived at Vilfori only the evening of the next day, after a pretty uneventful walk. There we went to the guild where the receptionist informed me that the presence of a Goblin General made the quest moonstone ranked. Between the quests completion, the monster cores and the parts of the viper I received five gold coins and fifty silvers. Being already late we decided to spend the night there in Vilfori and leave in the morning to return to Holiés' village.

We arrived at the village around noon. The few people we met around the streets weirdly adverted their gaze when we passed by or looked at Holiés with pitiful eyes. No one said anything to us though and Holiés ignored them as we went towards his house.

He opened the door shouting, “mum, we're back.”

Clementine, who was cooking at the fireplace, turned around and said “Holiés! Lady Fortuna! Welcome back, I was starting to worry,” before coming to us in a hurry to hug her son.

She separated from Holiés saying, “it good to see you're alright,” and was about to hug me too but stopped just a moment before, visibly nervous about how she should behave with a noble.

Seeing her like that I hugged her first and said, “it's good to see you're still as well as when we left.”

“It's good to see you too, Lady Fortuna,” she said with a smile as I let her go, “I hope this son of mine didn't cause you too much trouble.”

“Oh, the opposite actually, I may be the one who caused him trouble.”

She laughed and said, “there is no way a fine lady such as you could trouble him.”

I looked at Holiés and smirked at him, to which he said, “don't smile like that, she can still call you a fine lady only because she wasn't in Vilfori the other night.”

“Holiés! You won't be disrespectful to the hero in my house!”Clementine said, an angry look on her face.

“Yes mum,” he said in a tired tone, then,after looking around a bit “by the way, where's Clarisse?”

She lowered her gaze for a bit before saying, “about that... The other night after the dance she went to have a walk alone with Jacques-”

“The cheesemaker's son?” He interrupted her.

“Yes, him.”

“Well, they've been friends since they were children, I don't see what's wrong with that.”

“Well, he was a bit drunk and...”

“He forced himself on her?” I tried to guess.

She nodded and said, “she hasn't come out of her room since.”

Holiés didn't wait a single moment, he ran to his sister’s room, opened the door and entered, closing it after himself.

Only a few seconds passed before he ran out of her room towards the entrance door shouting, “I'll fucking kill that little cunt.”

I sprang towards the door too and tackled him before he could reach it, sending both of us on the ground.

“What the fuck are you doing?” He asked me, trying to free himself.

“Stopping you from doing something really stupid.”

“Let me go.”

“No,” I said, struggling to keep him down.

“I said let me go!” He shouted, hitting me right on my nose.

I saw a few drops of blood fall on his shirt. I looked him in the eyes and said, “now you've done it,” before mounting on his torso and planting a fist on his jaw.

“Fuck you!” He said.

“No, fuck you!” I said, punching him again.

I grabbed him by the collar and raised him until he was almost touching my nose with his, “do you even have an idea of what you're doing?”

“Trying to go teach a dickhead not to mess with my family.”

“No! You're trying to get yourself executed.”

“Why do you even care?!”

“That's it,” I said before using lightning magic to stun him.

I let him fall back on the floor and got up. Once I was standing again I realized that Clementine had been looking at us the whole time and was now staring at me terrified.

She stood there, frozen, for a few seconds, before throwing herself at my feet saying, “Lady Fortuna, he didn't mean to hit you. Please, he's the only son I have left with me.”

I crouched, put a hand on her shoulder and said, “don't worry, he's only passed out. I know what anger can do to people. I won't have him arrested over that.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking up at me.

I stood up again and said, “I still plan on having a good talk with him though.”

“Of... of course.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I bent over Holiés and raised him from the floor before putting him over my shoulder.

“Well then, I'll see you again at lunch time. I hope to have managed to calm him down by then,” I said, before exiting the house without waiting for her to say anything, Holiés still hanging from my shoulder.

I walked to the back yard where I found my horse. I put Holiés on it sideways between the saddle and the neck and mounted. Once I was sure everything was fine I made the horse walk towards the fields, shivering a bit as I thought back at the lightning magic I had just used. The walk soon became a gallop and fields of the village disappeared behind us. I rode for more than half an hour before coming to a pond in a clearing in the forest where we first met.

I dismounted, took Holiés and threw him in the deep water at the center of the pond. His head being underwater he immediately woke up and swam up.

“How's the water?” I asked him as he was taking in a big breath.

“Amazing, want to take a bath?”

“Why not?” I said, taking my shirt off.

I kicked away my shoes and unlaced my pants, letting them fall on the ground behind me as I walked. In only a few seconds I was already naked and entering the pond.

“You know I was joking,” Holiés said, having finally reached a point where his feet touched the bottom.

“Oh my. Are you saying I misunderstood your intentions?” I said, bringing a hand to my chest as I reached a point where the water almost reached my waist.

“Definitely,” he said, walking past me towards the shore, “but you know what? It doesn't seem that bad of an idea now.”

He took off his wet clothes and threw them on the grassy field under the sun before coming back in the water.

We sat next to each other on the gravelly bottom, the water reaching just under our necks.

“So, has your head managed to cool down a bit?” I asked.

“Kinda.”

“You know you were going to do something really stupid, right?”

“Yeah...”

“Good.”

We stayed like that, staring at the other side of the pond, for a few minutes before he said, “my mother is probably already organizing their marriage.”

“Yeah, I expected something like that.”

“You know? I always thought those two were going to marry someday. I certainly didn't expect it to happen like that.”

“You know him?”

“Yes, he's the son of the cheesemaker living next to us. He's generally a good guy. I don't know what kind of shit got in his head the other day.”

“Well, let's make sure he doesn't drink too much from now on.”

“Yeah...”

I got up and walked in font of Holiés before sitting on his legs and lifting his chin up with my right hand.

“What are you doing?”

“Healing that stupid face of yours, you'll get black and blue marks otherwise,” I said as I started to use healing magic on his jaw.

After only a few seconds his face was completely healed and I said, “all done,” to which he answered by leaning forward and kissing me.

As soon as his lips left mine I said, “Holiés...”

“I know, sorry. It's jut... I felt like I had to, at least once.”

“As long as you understand,” I said, giving him a warm smile, “so, how was it?”

“Salty,” he said, passing a hand over his wet eyes.

I took his head in my arms and brought it to my chest, holding him tight.

“I promised to protect them and yet...” he said between the sobs.

“It isn't your fault.”

“If only I hadn't left with you.”

“...sorry.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head, which was still on my chest, a bit, “I know it isn't your fault. It's just... I feel like...”

“Shh, it's alright,” I said, stroking his brown hair.

We stayed like that for a few minutes in complete silence then I raised his head and said, “let's go back.”

He nodded and we got out of the water. I dried both of us up with magic, we dressed again and we mounted back up on my horse. We returned to the village almost an hour later as I didn't make the horse go as fast as before.

When we entered Holiés' house I saw a guy kneeling in front of Clarisse and Clementine's room, his hands and head on the ground in front of him and a bouquet of wild flowers next to him.

“Ehy, pretty boy,” I said to him.

He raised his head and looked at me, he looked to be around seventeen years old, his face not yet completely that of a man but well past being that of a kid. “Me?” He asked surprised.

“Yeah, you, get out of here before I decide it's the right day to make you try anal fisting with some fire magic added to the mix.”

His eyes widened in surprise before he sprang up and ran out of the entrance door.

I walked up to Clarisse's room and, before Clementine or Holiés could tell me anything, I entered.

As soon as I entered I was met with a “I said I don't want to see you!” shouted at full force, along with a vase crashing on my face.

I blinked a few times and I saw Clarisse sitting on the bed under the sheets, staring at me with a frightened look.

“Lady Fortuna! I didn't mean-”

“Don't worry,” I said, closing the door behind me, “it's not like something like that could hurt me anyway.”

“Did my mother tell you what happened?” She asked me, hugging her knees beneath the sheets.

“Yes. How do you feel?” I said, sitting on the bed next to her.

“Terrible,” she said, looking down.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“That's fine,” I said, letting my back fall on the bed while my feet were still on the floor.

I was left there staring at the ceiling for quite a while before she said, “what would you do in my situation?”

“I think I'm the worst kind of example for these kinds of things?”

“Why?” She asked, a hint of curiosity in her tone.

“You see, I have a lover waiting for me at the palace. That same lover almost raped me the night before my departure. I started slapping, shouting and freezing doors while being mad as hell. After some arguing we ended up having make-up sex and everything went back to normal,” I said,almost laughing towards the end.

“You're strong.”

“Your brother would probably say I'm just a bitch.”

She laughed a bit and said, “yeah, probably.”

Then, realizing what she had just said she froze and said, “no, ehm, I didn't mean to say...”

“Don't worry,” I said, waving my hand in the air, “I'm not Baroness Fortuna right now, just a dirty woman who doesn't mind her own business.”

“You really are weird,” she said, laughing.

“Oh my, I take that as a compliment.”

“How is that a compliment?!”

“Well, it's like saying I'm not boring.”

“Yeah, you're definitely not,” she said, still laughing. Now, though, a few tears were streaming down over her laughing lips.

“You know,” she said as she rested her head over the covered up knees, her laughing no longer there, “I thought I loved him. Now I only feel betrayed by one of the people I trusted the most.”

“And you know what's even worse?” She asked me but instead of answering I just stayed there, looking at her, waiting for her to continue.

“When I told everything to my mother,” she said, now sobbing loudly as she talked, “She said... She said I should marry him to keep my honor as a woman.”

“Who the fuck cares?!” She shouted, throwing a pillow at the wall.

She breathed heavily for a few second before hugging her knees tight again.

“Still... I can't come to hate him. Despite what he did, despite how I feel. Why can't I hate him?” She said, her tears wetting the sheets her head was resting on.

I sat up and hugged her tight, bringing her head to my chest while caressing her head, like I did only an hour before with her brother.

“What should I do?” She cried.

“What should I do?” She repeated, in her broken voice.

“What should I do?” She asked, growing quieter every time.

Soon her words became an even cry and, after a while, she laid on the bed and I laid next to her, over the sheets, keeping her head in my arms.

Holiés entered the room quietly about ten minutes after she had already fell asleep. He got on the bed next to his sister on the opposite side to me and put an arm over her.

We didn't say a word to each other and I got off the bed and exited the room.

Once out of the room I went towards the entrance door but Holiés' mother stopped me saying, “Lady Fortuna, where are you going? You haven't even had lunch yet.”

“I'm sorry but I feel like taking a walk right now,” I said, before exiting the house.

The fact that said walk involved my fists hitting Jacques' face behind some trees and a broken nose was an irrelevant detail.

I obviously healed him afterwards, and so I did the second and third time too.