Chapter 442.5 - The Girl, the Ghost, and the Gift
A tiny noble lady sat in front of a mirror several times her height with her face twisted into scowl. On most such occasions, she would have been accompanied by a maid, and while her expression was certainly tangentially related to the number of servants at hand, it stemmed in no part from any sort of displeasure. After all, it was specifically at her request that she had been left by her lonesome.
Her lack of a partner for the upcoming ball was of even less significance. There had been a point in the past where suitors would line up the moment they heard her house’s name. But if anything, she very much preferred the status quo. Romance wasn’t of much interest to her. She had neither the ability nor the desire to birth some silly nobleman’s heir.
But while many of her admirers had grown reluctant to express their interest, she knew she still captured their eyes. Men of all ages shot her the most perverse looks whenever they were given the chance, and there was even the odd woman who would secretly do the same. One might have assumed that her childlike appearance would serve as a deterrent, a shield from their lustful stares, but all the signs seemed to point at exactly the opposite phenomenon.
Her complete lack of feminine features was precisely the sort of novelty that had old aristocrats feeling blood in their loins anew. It had taken her a fair number of encounters to work out the malice veiled behind their facades. And still, she struggled to determine the most appropriate response. Rubia simply lacked the intuitive understanding of people that Claire had quickly developed. She’d certainly tried—she dedicated much of her offtime to practice and remediation—but the ability continued to elude her.
Most of the behaviours she’d exhibited were pulled straight from Claire’s memories, silently repeated without much of the certainty or purpose that the original had often possessed. And even then, she suspected that her imitation was lacking. Hence, the mirror.
She carefully tweaked the scowl as she switched between it and the usual cold stare. It wasn’t just the final product that required her explicit attention. The process of getting there was equally as difficult. The problem was her body’s composition. Her flesh was devoid of structure. She was made up of nothing but slime and any apparent muscle movements were faked in their entirety.
It wasn’t much of a problem during the usual day to day. She was able to get the motions more or less correct, and her clothes helped to mask any minute distortions. The few oddities that did go noticed were attributed to the incident that supposedly left her bedridden and voiceless.
The same excuse couldn’t be used for her face. People paid careful attention to her expression and would certainly grow suspicious if she messed up her movements. A single desynchronized bite in the midst of dinner could very well blow her cover entirely.
Thankfully, the extra chore was something she only had to consider during mealtimes and major events. Her supposed cursed wounds warded off the need to speak, and Claire’s inexpressive nature allowed her to get away with relying on her default expression. In truth, she probably could have gotten away with maintaining the cold, expressionless look throughout the event, but the real Claire had always loved to play tricks on those who earned her ire. When no one else was watching, she would often return the lechers’ stares with her eyes cold, judging, and dismissive. She occasionally followed each such stare later in the day with an intentionally out-of-character greeting, joyful and expressive as that of an innocent foal, just to further befuddle her foes.
There was also the odd occasion where she would follow through on her more vindictive thoughts and greet those she particularly detested with obvious contempt. Humiliation was a weapon she was happy to wield. And without the ability to speak, it was only through her expression that Rubia could ensure any such indignity delivered.
Of course, simply sitting in front of the mirror by herself wasn’t going to do much good. She could only see her face from so many angles, and she was often uncertain if any discrepancies had arisen. It was fortunate then that, despite the lack of servants, she wasn’t left entirely alone.
“The muscles themselves were correct that time, but you were a little too tense.”
The voice belonged to the three-headed spirit sitting atop her head. Though she was strict and frankly a little mean spirited at times, Farenlight was incredibly helpful. The pair had met a few weeks back, after the hydra had discovered that she could freely manifest within the homunculus’ reach. She was distant at first, but the pair had become fast friends.
“Was that better?” asked Rubia, after repeating the motion.
“Better, but it still wasn’t quite perfect,” said Farenlight. “Your lips were fine, but Claire wouldn’t have furrowed her brow as much.” Using her tail, she pulled on the sides of Rubia’s face and fixed her expression. “You see? Most of her scowls are a little more subtle.”
“Okay.” Rubia gave it another attempt, making sure to pay careful attention to her brow. “I think I got it.”
Farenlight paused for a second before flicking her tongue. “I think you might’ve paid a little too much attention to your brows. Your lips settled on the right shape, but they sharpened a little too quickly. I doubt most people would notice.”
“But you noticed,” said Rubia. “That means it isn’t good enough.” She tried it yet again whilst recalling precisely the sort of oblivious fool that she might greet with such a look.
“You got it just right that time,” said Farenlight.
“Okay.” Rubia repeated it five times, just to make sure, awaiting a nod from the snake for each before moving onto the next. Farenlight’s nods were particularly cute. She alternated between her heads for the first three iterations, but knowing that there would be exactly five, used all of her heads for the remaining two. Apparently, she never quite felt right if any of her heads were used more than any of the others.
“That should wrap up the scowls. What’s next?” asked Farenlight.
Rubia tilted her head, her eyes still on the mirror and her expression fully reset. “That was everything, I think.”
“Have you finished studying?”
“I did all my assignments in the morning.”
“Sounds to me like you’re free until dinner.”
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“Yeah, I guess I am!” The homunculus’ ears twitched excitedly, almost wagging like a pair of tails as she looked between the bed and the balcony. It wasn’t everyday that she had the opportunity to spend a whole afternoon doing whatever she pleased. “What should we do, Farrie?”
“Whatever you feel like,” said the hydra, with a bit of a faint, motherly giggle. It was the sort of display that she wouldn’t have been caught dead showing Claire. “I’m fine with anything.”
“Oh! I know!” Rubia lifted her arms and spun around, her summer dress fluttering as she practically pranced her way over to her desk. The silver ornaments that adorned the frilly one piece jingled as she moved, but she paid them no mind. It might have been an expensive piece of art whose cost was high enough to make the average citizen pale and faint, but the homunculus was so oblivious to the dress’ worth that she didn’t even consider putting on an apron before sliding open the bottommost drawer and grabbing an empty palette. She ran into the hall soon after and flagged down one of the maids, who immediately ran off to grab her some paint after noting the item she had in hand.
In the meantime, she returned to her room and started humming as she set up an easel and grabbed a blank canvas. She didn’t stop until Farenlight poked her in the cheek with her tail—a silent reminder that the maid would soon be returning.
Rubia placed both hands over her lips and took a moment to calm down. Such incidents had become more common as of late. Visiting her sister each night had instilled a habit of breaking into a song whenever she was happy. Claire herself had spent the better part of each evening indulging in such behaviour. Sometimes, she’d even sing her way through an entire dungeon.
Knowing that she’d probably get carried away if she started sketching, Rubia wistfully stared at the charcoal pencil on her desk whilst awaiting the maid’s delivery.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to sit around for long. The centaurian servant—Rubia couldn’t quite recall her name despite seeing her everyday—quickly brought all of the necessary implements, threw an apron over Rubia’s shoulders, and even poured her a fresh cup of tea before leaving the princess to enjoy her time of leisure.
Rubia immediately locked the door and activated the soundproofing magic built into its mechanism. Only after checking that everything was working did she sprint back to her desk, grab her pencil, and happily plop herself down in front of the canvas.
Her ears continued to bounce excitedly as she sketched out the scene in her mind, her hands moving in sync with the tune that escaped her lips. There was a bit of a discrepancy between the song she’d picked and the image that her illustration depicted, but she continued with gusto regardless, stopping only once to drain the delicious cup of tea.
Always one of her most liked classes, classical art had transformed into one of Rubia’s hobbies as soon as she mastered the basics. The paintings she produced were good enough to be hung up around the castle, but she preferred to keep them tucked away in her drawers so she could look at them whenever she needed something to fix her mood.
On that particular day, her sketch revealed a scene that only Farenlight was capable of correctly interpreting. It showed a three-headed reptile sitting on a bed and fiddling with a controller, with one head focused on the TV in front of her, one dozing off, and the last gazing out the window.
Most of the picture’s light came from the electronic device, leaving much of the room nearly faded to black. But even though the details were difficult to make out with so many shadows worked into the sketch, she still found them easily identifiable.
Many of the shelves sported toys, plushes, and mascots, but the rest held the same pornographic books that lined the phantom’s bookshelves. Farenlight almost wanted to avert her gaze, but she couldn’t deny that she’d been curious enough about their contents to scan them whenever the phantom was asleep or absent. Even with her continued exposure, she didn’t quite understand why so many of the books were illustrated, or why they were written in a foreign language the phantom was barely capable of parsing. It was just as confusing as the relative abundance of creatures that existed in Mara, but not the realm in which the books had been authored. Asking the phantom was obviously out of the question. Farenlight didn’t particularly hate the man, but she couldn’t stand his constant presence. It was precisely because she wanted to escape his domain that she had learned to manifest near Rubia in the first place.
Nodding all three heads at once, Headhy—Farenlight returned her attention to the canvas and found that the scene outside the window had already been sketched.
The world beyond the glass revealed not the fantastically standardized neighbourhood, but a wide cityscape that sat amidst the evening rain. The lights that dotted the high-rise apartments were electric as opposed to magical, and many rooms were painted a bright yellow, with shadowy figures behind the curtains going about their business. Others were darker, with only the faint light of a screen shining through their cheap vertical blinds.
There were even rooms with window ACs, humming and spinning as they pumped cold air into the inhabitants’ homes, and large stores on the ground level with neon signs to highlight the particulars of their business. Though most were written in English, some bore the same strange characters that adorned the phantom’s literary collection.
So too were there floating vehicles all over, darting through the rain, while birds, cats, and even rabbits hid under the balconies and alcoves to escape the late spring shower.
Farenlight opened her eyes wide, blinking rapidly as she tried to process and dissect the scene. Even with three brains at work, it took the hydra a moment to determine that it had been extrapolated from a background pulled from one of the phantom’s games and filled with imagined detail. Even then, she didn’t think it made much sense.
Claire had crossed the scene maybe once during a particularly long session, and even then, it was an undetailed mess, drawn in only sixteen bits and approximated onto a phosphor coating by way of cathode ray projection. And yet, Rubia had brought it into reality, manifested it in far more detail than Farenlight could have ever imagined.
But again, it was only to the three-headed lizard that it made such sense. To the maids, to Rubia’s tutors, it probably would have been seen as an abstract construction, something that made as little sense as her inability to speak aloud.
Still, the homunculus proceeded unbothered. Grabbing her brush, she mixed the dark blues she needed to mark the buildings’ exteriors and layered them atop her work. She filled in the lights with a melange of whites and yellows, resorting to pinks and greens only to colour the signs. And then, selecting a much smaller brush, she filled in the raindrops, leaving smears across the glass, before finally colouring in the hydra that was the picture’s main feature.
With that done, she lifted the brush to her chin and tilted her head, only to add a small black cat to the canvas. Only then did she nod and fill in the rest, humming happily under her breath all the while.
The sun had already started to set by the time she put down her brush. There was still much to add, like all of the details of the hydra’s scales, as well as individual bits and pieces on all of the buildings to better differentiate them, but Rubia was happy to call the first draft complete.
“What do you think, Farrie?”
“Some of the brighter parts might be a little oversaturated. You’ll need to dim them a bit, to account for the lack of natural light. But overall, it’s wonderful.”
“Okay!” Rubia happily wagged her ears as she dropped her palette in the cleaning bucket. “I’m glad you like it.”
Farenlight smiled. “What brought this on all of a sudden anyway? Painting me, I mean.”
Most of Rubia’s work featured the world as seen through the eyes of her sister. She copied distant landscapes, bloody battles, and recently, even scenes from the Langgbjern mountains. Were any scholars to learn of the snowy scenes’ identities, they surely would have been scrutinized so that the mountains could be better charted. Alas, there were few who would have considered the claim even if it were to be stated.
“I wanted to make you a present,” said Rubia. “Since we’ll have been friends for a full month, as of tomorrow.”
One of Farenlight’s heads bawled and a second brightened and shied away, while the last simply did her best to match the homunculus’ brilliant smile.