Haru
I scooped up a spoonful of my mother's berry and oat porridge and it was like decades hadn't passed. Like I was the same little girl who used to hang on her mother's legs. I had cried so much today that my tear ducts felt empty. But tasting it, I could feel the waterworks filling up. The porridge went down smooth and I quickly took more, each swallow warming my soul.
“It's been years but the recipe is still a classic.” My mother said,
“Aunty Debbie!” Jen showed her an empty bowl. “More?” she grinned with porridge on the corner of her lips.
“Get it yourself downstairs, lazy.”
I clicked my fingers, forgetting my past reputation in this manor as a pariah; too used to the adoration and love from being the saint.
A servant came to the duchess's red room.
“What would you like this morning, Your Grace?”
Very Quick. And no sign of disrespect.
“Huh, take Jen's bowl down for a refill, if you please.”
The maid bowed. “Yes, your Grace.”
That easy?
Jen handed over the bowl. “Ordering the help like you've been noble all your life. Knew you’d get used to it.” Jen joked.
“Okay, I have eaten like you told me. Tell me about the fires.”
“You haven't even finished.” I showed Jen the bowl almost licked clean. “Alright. While the Wolfburn were ransacking the place underground, the bastards planted barrels all around the city.
“Black powder?”
“Yes… how did you know?
A little help.
Umm… we did get intel from Sandra about such a thing. Haven't heard from her in a while... Wait! Why am I helping you? Get me the hell out of here!!
“Sandra's intel. We searched ships coming through the river but its possible this was a plan long in the making.”
“Oh! It's getting too political in here. I'm going back down to the kitchens. Maybe the servants would like some servants serving.” My mother sat from her chair, stretching her old hips.
“Bye, Aunt Debbie!”
Out went my mother and in came my servant holding hot porridge.
“What did they come here for? The Dowager and Son are not one bit valuable to the Wolfburns except their positions.”
Jen closed in, chewing as she talked. “The duke is keeping it hush but a soldier confessed they stole something quite valuable to the Greystone house. Some sort of black obelisk.”
I see… explains why your husband's in a rush.
Monument? The block of black rock inscribed with family names?
“It is a very large safe made of a strange rock; only people with the Greystone blood can open it. That's what they say. But even in my time, Joshua never managed to open it. He spent countless hours venting the frustrations of his failure with harsh words out of his drunken mouth and thrown bottles from flimsy hands.”
… A very different Joshua than mine.
I put my bowl on my bed. “Take me out,” I asked Jen. “I would like to see the aftermath.”
“But I haven't finis- Fine, fine, I'll pick something nice and warm for you to wear. Autumn chill is coming!” Jen ran giddy to the walk-in closet. To hear her raspy voice again. It felt like a dream to see her choose my clothes. To see her smile.
In your time, what happened to her?
“A… blizzard trapped us on our way to Osberg and cursed and attacked the carriage. We leave a massacre behind to wade in the deep snow away from the fighting. But they followed. Jen, the bravest and most foolish woman I knew—I know—stepped between me and cursed Beast's slash. Arrows slay the beast too late as Jen bled on the snow.”
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That's why he came…! Tarion…
A peculiar man. My curiosity for the pale Greystone grew. What else does he know and how does he know it? Why does Vanessa swoon for him like a sasaeng? Her emotions when he talked were so strong I wondered if I would succumb to them.
Maybe I should nip this in the bud.
While Jen was still arranging clothes, I talked to the captive.
“So, how do you feel?”
About being trapped? Peachy, thank you for asking.
“Your husband didn't seem that bothered-”
DON'T PLAY BULLSHIT GAMES. I WILL NOT BE MANIPULATED ANYMORE.
I sighed. “I wanted to let you down easy. Because the unfortunate reality of this is that this is my life now.”
She hit the wall of her prison. Like a woodpecker on a glass pane. Like a monkey, she rattled her cage. Only a moment's meditation was needed to quiet her noise.
“Tada!” Jen displayed dresses on hangers. “So what do you think?”
I glanced at the clothes, then back at my best friend whom I dearly missed.
“Why ask when you know I wouldn't know what to think of it?”
Jen shook her head like a disapproving mother. “Cos I had the stupid idea you might have learnt from me.”
How could I? You weren't there to teach me…
Vanessa
This is beyond bizarre. Mentally trapped in my own brain while a ‘me’ from another time (?) has hijacked my body. My husband knows. Now that I remember, from the weird questions he asked when he first met me, it seems he expected it…
I stood. Through the golden prison, I looked up at the opening in the darkness that showcased the world that this Haru saw. Haru sat opposite Jen in a carriage. I could feel everything carriage rock to and fro on the cobble streets and the leather of the seats. But not even an eyelid could be moved
My husband. Is he like you? A hijacker?
“Hahaha. Very rude. To answer your question without such a negative remark. If I am a regressor who has come back to the past, then he is a bit different. From his out-of-era vernacular, I think he is a reincarnator.”
Reincarnator?
“A being granted a second life by the lands above."
Huh?
"Technically, I am a reincarnation as well. Haru…was my old name. Why would he know that?”
Huuuuuuuh….
I sat back down, trying my best to sort all the new information on my mind. But I kept thinking about one thing over and over.
What was his first name?
Haru
“There's one burnt building, and another and another... wow, it's worse than I thought.”
“The people,” I said, almost ignoring Jen.
“I know. Winter will come and if their homes aren't repaired-”
“Why do they look happy?” A disaster supposedly occurred yet they are smiling?
“When people see a man bring down heaven's waters,” Jen said. “They tend to become optimistic.” The carriage drove down road after road full of neighbours helping one another. They smile, looking fatter in the face. Healthy and less sickly in their countenance.
“Where do they get their food?” I asked as stare out the window.
“For Breckner Road? Umm, let me remember. Yes, we have a kitchen around the corner.”
Kitchens? With what food?
Viodens. My husband took over Kirgfeld. Their fields and food stores are ours.
“He did WHAT?”
Also, higher taxes on the nobility and the money Count Trak was hiding away the help before then.
Count Trak. A name I haven't heard in a while. There couldn't have been a worse governor for this city. Underfunded every department, from managerial to the military. Although the guard was getting enough coins to grease their pockets and look away at discretions.
“Could we take a detour to the city governor's office to meet office?”
Jen's eyebrow went as she looked at me perplexed. “Count Trak? The dead man?”
Vanessa chuckled in her prison. Tarion killed him.
“The reincarnator killed Trak? He killed a Count? Not just any count, but one of the leaders of the northern nobles. A Count linked to all sorts of nefarious people-”
Tarion killed them all. Even the horn.
“Vanessa, are you alright?”
I opened the window a bit. “Yes. I am well.”
“We married the craziest man in the world.”
Only I.
Driving by the river’s edge, the Osberg guard escort carriages filled to the brim with supplies.
“Jen, what are the guards preparing for? A Cursed Monster Hunt?”
“He didn't tell you? The Duke is preparing to take the capital of Vioden, Maize. He is leaving soon.”
I banged against the carriage with my surprisingly strong fist, making an indentation in the thick wood.
“DRIVER! Find my husband!”
Vanessa
Haru's concentration waned and the prison didn't feel solid anymore.