Argh, this was annoying. This was confusing! Did she have to deal with this shit right now of all times?! “What do I want to do?” Joe asked them incredulously. “I have been asking myself the same question for the last two weeks, dammit! D’you think suddenly waltzing over here and squatting on my shoulders would give me the answers to my questions?!”
“Hey, at least ya ought to get a clue from the witch!” the devil cackled loudly. “What are ya getting all worked up for, girly? Ya have got a good deal for now!”
The angel perked up at this. “Why yes! You could even make her see the error of her ways and maybe, convince her to return to the civilization! Oh, there is nothing quite like love and peace!”
‘Vash, the stampede’ much? Joe bit back a retort that she had no business trying to counsel the witch. She sighed instead. As expected, her guardian angels and devils were just about as useless as her.
“But what about the second Prince?” Joe asked them. “What am I going to do about him?”
In the hindsight she shouldn’t have asked. Those higher beings had trouble thinking through things in moderation. The suggestions were as outrageous as they were stupid.
“Easy peasy. Just slip some poison into his tea when he’s not looking.” The devil snorted. “Fucker can’t kill ya if you kill ‘im first, yeah?”
Flawless logic, if she’d ever heard one. Joe felt a twitch in her eyes. “Something less violent, please. And stop talking to me like I’m some seasoned serial killer, conveniently walking around with poison in my purse.”
“Get down on your knees and beg forgiveness for all your past crimes.” The angel said serenely. “Tell him that you’d give up on him and never show your face again. Oh, if only people would know the wonders of love and peace and forgiveness! Oh!”
“Over my dead body!” Joe snarled. “The hell am I gonna apologize for, dammit?! I didn’t even do anything! Don’t just casually ask me to drag my dignity through mud!”
“Find some grisly evidence and blackmail the fucker!” the devil said.
“Too annoying! I don’t have time for palace gossip! I’m not a detective, dammit!”
“Tsk, tsk , tsk. Elementary, my dear Stuart.” The devil began tartly, but the pesky angel beat him to it. “Oh, you should give up on all your worldly pleasures, my child!” The angel sang. “Live a pious life as a pious nun under the grace of God! Oh!”
“No, no, no! Why do I have to go that far?! I like the food here!”
“Coup d’état! Ya need a coup d’état, yeah! Gather yer own army and overthrow the bastards! Conquer the kingdom and rule like a queen!!” It was the devil again.
“Hold your horses, dammit! You skipped way too many steps! What in the blue blazes would I do that for?! I’ve got no beef with the royal family in the first place!”
“Stop being so wishy washy!” The duo snapped at her simultaneously. Joe felt like bashing her head against the pristine, white wall. Yep, even the angels and demons were finally fed up with her. Yep, she was screwed really bad.
Finally she stopped her pacing and plopped unceremoniously into the bed. There were too many unknown variables right now. She had no way of knowing what the current prince Emmanuel was like. Shit like blackmail and coups were better left to shady politicians and war strategists; one wrong step and she’d be executed before she could even make a peep. They were not her cup of tea, for Pete’s sake! Joe figured that for now, all she could do was abandon all unreasonable ideas and wait…..
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Wait till she gathered enough knowledge and expertise and influence. Joe suspected that in this world, influence was the one thing that could make the difference between life and death.
“You didn’t even answer your own question!” The angel piped up from her right shoulder. “Oh, what do we do about the prince for now?”
Joe shrugged; in the end, she was just a normal person (well, as normal as they come). You couldn’t really expect yesterday’s average civilian to suddenly turn into a brilliant tactician like an evolving Pokémon, could you? Tempting as it may sound, human beings really didn’t work that way, even idiot human beings who dropped into 2D video games right into the scrawny bodies of unsuspecting villainesses.
“For now,” declared Joe Stuart, the idiot ex-civilian in the body of one such unlucky villainess. “We wait and observe.”
----------------------------------------------------
It was twelve minutes to midnight when a nervous Joanna cracked open the bedroom door and tiptoed outside in the courtyard. The manor was silent as funeral hall, with moonlight streaming through the clear glass windows. An eerie feeling came over her, as if someone was watching her from the shadows like a predator, but she shook it off and padded down the marble stairs.
Joe thought back to her preparations carefully. They had no choice but to fool the manor staff for the entire night, right till the afternoon of the following day. She had repeatedly told Mirian in the evening that she was retiring early for the night due to a mild headache, that it wasn’t anything to call a doctor for, and that nobody should wake her up before 11 o’clock in the morning. She’d even made her way to the kitchen and purposefully made a show of telling Lucia to wake her up later the next day. The other maids had exchanged some confused glances, but none had voiced any weird questions. Joe hoped that they would just chalk it up to another one of her peculiarities and let the matter go.
The night was crisp and cool, peppered with the sounds of cicadas and owls and bubblebirds calling out intermittently, and a crescent moon hanging low in the clear sky. Joe paused in her steps momentarily and took in the sight over her head. The milky way was sprawled across the night sky like a diamond-studded ceiling, the starlight bathing the marble white Winsten manor in an ethereal glow. Joe, like the born and bred city-dweller she was, had never seen the untarnished night in her previous life. It was a view like no other she’d ever had the pleasure of knowing, and she wanted to burn the image in her mind forever.
Nero was waiting for her near the stables. He stood silent as a shadow in the dark, only flashing her a toothy grin when he saw her coming. True to his words, no guards had stopped her on the way, no maid was found lurking in the halls near the central room. Joe had spied some guards hunched down and snoring near the front door, and wondered if Nero had any hand in this. Seriously, what other secret was the man hiding behind that goofy, harmless façade?
But time was of essence, and it couldn’t be spared to ask silly questions. Joe checked her satchel once more. The bouquet had been wrapped in a neat little package and placed at the bottom with careful hands. She could only hope that it survived the long-ass journey. The hairbrush and the cookies were packed as well. She suspected that Tabitha, the cook would have an aneurysm if she knew that her special handmade cookies were going to be served to the infamous witch of the west. It couldn’t be helped, but Joe resolved to somehow make it up to her later.
Lucia, the maid met up with them in a corner of the stable. The woman was fidgeting with a small box in her hands. When Joe looked at her in askance, she held up the wooden box by its cloth-wrapping. “I’ve made some sandwiches for my lady’s special journey.” She smiled nervously, “And hey, hey, I might not be a cook as good as Mrs Tabitha, but I’d say that these turned out pretty well!”
Joe gingerly took the box from her hands with gratitude. It was a simple lunchbox, but undoubtedly made with great care and efficiency, even given the small timeframe. She hesitated for a beat when she saw Lucia’s nervousness, and then threw all caution to the wind as she tackled the woman to a hug.
The maid was momentarily taken aback. “L-Lady Joanna! Hey hey hey, this is —this is highly inappropriate, err … a-and embarrassing!” She flailed her arms around in panic even as Nero guffawed in the distance. Joe only squeezed the petite woman further in response. When she showed no signs of stepping back, Lucia hesitatingly brought her arms around the younger girl, briefly squeezing back, surprised but no longer unwilling.
“Thank you ever so much, Lucia, Nero.” Joe whispered softly against her stomach, her muffled words carried along by the night wind. Lucia smiled in dark, patting the girl warmly on her back. There was a strange sense of relief flowing in her veins; relief that even under all the circumstances, she had chosen to let her guard down and believed in Lady Joanna. Relief that her Lady was much more than the person that she’d first seemed to be. Relief that even against all of Perry’s warnings, Lucia had never once regretted her choice.
Nero came forward, bringing out a sturdy, black horse from the stable by its reins. “My lady, this is Griffon, Nero’s most trusted steed.” He lovingly patted the animal on its head. “He will be the one to carry us through the night to the royal capital Riseindell. He can be a little restless, but do rest assured that he is the fastest horse around here.”
Joe nodded and stared back at the majestic black steed. She’d never ridden a horse before, but well, she supposed that medieval problems required medieval solutions. She gave a quick bow to the animal, and most predictably, it snorted back at her. There was a soft snicker from Nero and Lucia, and Joe felt her face burn in embarrassment. Well, at least her etiquette tutor, Mr Forkes would have been proud of her. No harm done there.
Nero mounted the steed with a graceful ease, and helped her onto it as well. He assured Joe that the stable boy of the manor wouldn’t find the missing Griffon suspicious in the morning, because it was relatively well known for being Nero’s favourite one among the horses. The boy would just find Nero absent as well, and assume that he’d gone out to run an errand in the town with the horse.
The grinning moon was almost overhead in the sky when Griffon galloped out of the mighty gates of the Winsten manor, right under the noses of all the watchmen snoring heavily by the sides. No sound was made other than the soft crunches of leaves beneath the hooves, no watchdogs barked away to alert their masters, and not a soul stirred awake to see the two lone figures as they rode out and disappeared into the darkness of the night.