Rotten Æther

Chapter 44

Noble House

“You want me to tell you how to get a noblewoman to fall for you?” Lothar asks, his lips quirking up into a smirk. “If I knew the secret to that, do you think I’d still be an adventurer out in the asshole of the universe?”

“Probably,” I shrug.

“No. The answer is no, I wouldn’t be,” he laughs, shaking his head at me. “Okay, so to start, this is probably a horrible idea. Nobles aren’t the sort of people that you want to mess with, and even assuming you can get on her good side, what happens if you upset her somehow?”

“Ah, then she’ll be upset?” I say, shivering a little as I remember everything that happened with Adeleya. Everything is better now, at least we’ve fixed things between us a bit. “If I make her upset, then I’ll make things better again.”

“So, you’re going to do this whatever I say?” he asks, the smile crawling up higher and higher on his lips. He doesn’t seem like he wants to discourage me at all.

“It’s not just her,” I say, trying to come up with the right words. “I don’t want to give up. If I let this go, and I don’t even try, then what about the next time? The time after that? I want to have a family that cares about me and loves me for who I am. I can’t get that if I don’t take the risk to get to know people.”

“So, you just want to make friends with her?” Lothar asks.

“Maybe that. Maybe more?” I squeak out.

“Okay, I get it,” he chuckles, patting me on the shoulder. “You want some time alone with her to figure it all out, that makes plenty of sense to me. I’ll keep the others from getting in your way, but you’ll have to do the rest yourself. It’ll just cause more trouble if I try to get involved.”

“Okay, but how?” I ask. “Should I invite her out to shop for clothes? Maybe I can bring her to Olive’s place, it’s a nice store.”

“She’s a noble, so that’s not a great idea,” Lothar says, rubbing at his chin. “Besides, the city is dangerous. Maybe just find some reason to get her alone here in this mansion, and get to know her a little better? You could always just say that you want to talk in private about your magic, and her condition, that should be enough.”

“Lothar,” I say, stopping where I’m standing. “Thank you.”

“What’s got you smiling so wide?” he asks.

“You should hate me,” I say, and he stops too, facing me with a small frown. “You used to, because of my necromancy, but now… you’re nice.”

“I’ve always been nice,” he snorts, brushing my hair. “Just like you’ve always been a little monster. It’s just that now you’re our monster.”

“Lothar…”

“Shut it, just get to work planning out that date of yours,” he says, shaking his head and walking back to the others. He doesn’t look back at me and he’s gone before I can start worrying about what I have to do next.

“What can you do, Syr?” I mumble, walking along the hallway. The shadows around me flick about in strange ways, but it doesn’t feel all that bad. It’s more like a skittish little animal trying to pretend it’s something big and dangerous.

A length of shadow bursts out of the wall at me, turning into a strange face twisted into an ugly expression. I poke my tongue out at the fake person and slap at him, but it’s only a shadow, and it twists away from my hand before dispersing into nothing. Is it some kind of shadow rat infesting the walls? Or maybe something else?

Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter because it can’t hurt anyone.

“Is there someone here that could tell me more about her?” I grumble to myself. It’s always good to ask people who know better.

I just need to look around until I find someone who knows Christina better than I do, then ask them for help. Rushing to her directly is also a thought, but she’s already gone from the room. Whoever I stumble across first, then.

Maybe I should be more worried about the vampire conspiracies, the ancient elvish ruins, and everything else that’s going on in this city, but none of that ever really mattered to me. I don’t care about all the things everyone else is worried about, I just want a family and a home, and I want to be strong enough to protect them.

This city is a dangerous place, and I know that a lot of cruel people are doing bad things to make it worse, but I can’t do anything about it. This isn’t my home, and it isn’t my family. More than even that, I’m not strong enough to save them.

I would.

If I was strong enough, I would. I don’t like seeing others go through what I went through, but I don’t know how I could change things. I can’t fight any more knights, and I can’t overthrow the people in that tall castle. This is a bear much too big for me to fight.

So, I’ll do what I can.

Today, that means finding people that can love me for who I am.

As I’m walking through the house, I see someone who looks different from the ‘maids’ and ‘staff’. She pushes into a room before I can call out to her, but I’m not far behind and so I charge right in after her.

“Ah, hi!” I shout, stumbling inside. A familiar-looking girl is lying in bed, who jumps up at my entrance. The other one, who was a step ahead of me startles and skips a few steps deeper into the room to get clear of me.

“Hey, you’re the one that saved me, aren’t you?” The girl in the bed cries out after staring at me for a few moments. “When we were fighting the knight?”

“You’re alive?” I ask, stepping closer. I remember her being torn apart by the vampires, or the ghouls, or whatever they were.

“I am,” she chokes out a delicate laugh, staring down into the sheets. “Many people worked very hard to make it possible for me to survive, and you were one of them. Thank you.”

“I didn’t do a very good job,” I say.

“It was enough,” she says, sitting up. “And Piper, it’s good to see you again. I get lonely here since I can’t walk very much.”

“You are better?” The norkit girl asks, walking closer to Belle. “The healer is finished with you?”

“Not quite,” Belle groans, sitting up. “It takes time to rebuild limbs.”

She’s hurt worse than I thought. I’m not sure how much my healing magic could do, but if she has a proper healer attending her then I’d just be causing trouble by messing about with her injuries. If I could drag Anna here, she might be able to do something with her weird magic, but she’s with Olive back at the mercenary company.

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Piper looks between me and Belle for a few seconds, but she doesn’t say anything.

“Ah, Syr, what’s brought you here?” Belle asks after a little while longer.

“Christina invited me here,” I say, and the two look at each other for a moment before returning their eyes to me. “We were both fighting at that battle, and there were things we had to talk about.”

I can’t tell them about my magic, not when they could cause everyone else so much trouble.

“That brought you here,” Belle says. “What brought you to my room?”

“Oh, yeah! Um. Do you know much about Christina? What sort of things she likes? Or stuff like that?”

“What sort of stuff she likes?” Belle asks slowly.

“I want to get to know her better,” I say. “She’s nice, and she doesn’t judge me for- I mean, I want to spend some time alone with her but I don’t know what to say to make that happen. What do you think I should do? You know her pretty well, right? I mean you’re staying here with her.”

Piper and Belle glance between each other again, talking with their expressions. People do that all the time around me, I think they know that I can’t understand much of it.

“Are there really so many girls who are like that, around?” Belle asks, quietly.

Piper shrugs, “It could just be good luck. For Christina and everyone.”

“You want to set them up?” Belle asks. “I mean, I’m not against it but Tina is… well she’s not the most…”

“It’s fine, isn’t it?” Piper says, sitting on the bed and turning her back to me. “I mean, we’ll let her choose, but this could be good for all of us.”

“Um, why are you talking like I’m not here?” I ask.

“Sorry about that,” Belle says, facing me. “it’s just that Tina is not a normal person.”

“I know,” I say. “She told me everything.”

“The vampirism, and the blood-sucking? Yeah,” Piper says, shaking her head. “It’s not terrible, just a little bit weird, but that’s not what makes her dangerous. She’s a noble and she has the sadism that comes with their kind.

“Noble sadism?” I ask, as Belle bites her lip and looks away.

“She enjoys causing others pain. She pretends that she doesn’t, and she acts like a good person most of the time, but she’s insecure and any day she could just turn around and change her mind about everything. A noble like her, she could have us all killed, and we’d…”

“I was a slave here,” Piper says. “We were out there working the yard, whipped and beaten daily, while she was in this mansion enjoying all these luxuries, and she didn’t care, not until she was so lonely that she was forced to spend time with us. She’s a noble, and she’ll turn on us again. They are only ever nice to people for their own reasons.

“We should be getting out of here before she changes her mind.”

Piper has barely taken a breath this whole time, ranting endlessly about the noble girl.

“Okay?” I say, not quite sure how I should reply. There’s a mess of thoughts and feelings coming from her and it’s impossible for me to understand it all.

“I… can’t deny that she has a… a problem. She enjoys hurting people,” Belle says. “I’ve seen it myself, and I think that she’d be dangerous in a relationship. I know that you can keep up in a fight, but this would be something different.”

“She’s not like that,” I say, shaking my head. “She was telling me all of that before, well not the slavery thing, but she was trying to scare me. She showed me her fangs and her eyes were glowing, but it was cute.”

“Cute?” Belle asks, her face paling as she stares down at the bed. Her hands are gripping the sheets tight enough to make them nearly the same colour.

“Yeah, it was cute,” I say. “The way she holds herself back and pretends like she’s not. Then when you face her straight she doesn’t know what to do. It’s cute.”

“You haven’t seen her feeding…” Belle shakes her head. “If you want to try getting closer to her, I won’t stop you. Just be careful and try to… she’s unstable. Maybe it’s the vampirism but try to make sure she doesn’t do anything too terrible, I want to keep an eye on her myself, but…” She looks down at her missing limbs.

“Okay, but you haven’t said anything useful,” I say, frowning. “What sort of things does she like? Can I take her down to the markets and buy her something sweet?”

“Offer her your blood,” Piper turns to me and smiles. “If that doesn’t do it for her, then nothing will.”

“Piper, do you not like her?”

“She’s…” Piper frowns, staring at the wall for a few seconds. “She’s good for a noble. So, she’s worse than scum, but… she hasn’t done us wrong, yet.”

“I think I get it,” I say, nodding slowly. The foxes hunt the rabbits, that’s how it’s been since forever ago, and now a fox is trying to be friends with a rabbit. Would the rabbit trust the fox?

No.

There’s probably something more to it as well, slavery sounds pretty bad from what people have told me about it before, but none of that matters right now. Piper isn’t the person that I’m interested in.

“So, she’ll like it if I offer her my blood?” I ask. That sounds strange, but I guess that’s how vampires are. I probably should’ve come up with that idea myself. So, if I can convince her to come with me by talking about vampires and necromancy, then I can offer her my blood and we can be friends.

A better plan than I had before.

“Yes, she will,” Piper says. “Unless she’s been snacking on people, then she hasn’t eaten in a while. She won’t be able to refuse.”

“Thank you,” I nod firmly.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about her yet, it’s not the same as I felt about Adeleya at least, but if she doesn’t mind my magic and she wants to accept me for who I am then I want to be her friend. I want to have at least someone in my life who can know everything and still love me for it. Romantic love, familial love, friendship, or something else.

“She should have a better appetite after fighting, don’t you think?” I ask, pacing back and forth. “I’ll fight first, and then I can ask about it.”

“You seem so excited…” Piper frowns shaking her head. “I don’t get it.”

“Oh, shut it,” Belle shouts at her, slapping at the bed. “I’ve seen what you’re like when that boyfriend of yours is around. What’s his name, Sharry or something?”

“Hey! We’re keeping that quiet, especially with our local noble crushing on me.”

“She was never crushing on you,” Belle rolls her eyes. “You were just the closest person available. I was the one she was crushing on.”

“Ah, so what did you do to make her like you?” I ask, jumping onto her bed.

“That’s not how it works,” Belle shakes her head. “Tina is… she’s a lonely person. I’m sure that if you’re nice and you’re honest about what you want then it’ll be fine.”

“Okay, okay,” I nod quickly. “I’ll be confident, and I’ll impress her in our fight. I’m sure that’ll be good. Everyone likes a strong partner.”

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Piper asks, leaning against the back of the bed and watching me closely.

“She’s cute, I’m sure Tina will love her,” Belle says, shifting around before sitting up. “That aside. I heard that you killed that knight, Syr?”

“Sort of, kind of, maybe,” I say. “He nearly killed me. It was bad.”

“I can’t believe it,” Belle says. “I’ve seen knights fighting their best. My parents are just as powerful, if he was fighting you seriously, then I just don’t see how you could’ve survived, let alone beaten him.”

“His attacks weren’t very good against me,” I say. “I am small and quick. I was gone before he could hit, and I didn’t touch the ground that he was stirring up with his magic.”

“Even so, a knight is… they’re something else.”

“He was,” I shrug. “Now he’s just a corpse just like all the people he killed. He’s dead now. He doesn’t matter anymore. We need to focus on what matters, the people who are still living.”

“Talking about that,” Piper says, leaning against the bed. “I have a few questions if that’s okay. I couldn’t ask Christina, she… she scares me.”

“We just finished talking about how this girl beat a knight in open combat,” Belle laughs at the other girl, gripping her shoulder. “You should be frightened of her.”

“She’s just not as scary,” Piper argues back. “I wanted to know why you like girls. That’s what this is, right? You want to be with her and kiss her and things like that? I don’t want to be rude, but it just seems a bit… not right.”

“Kissing? That’d be nice, too,” I nod slowly at the thought. What would her cold lips feel like? “You want to know why I like girls? I don’t get the question. I like her.”

“Yeah, but it’s normal to like men,” she says. “You know, a man and a woman come together and that’s how babies happen?”

“Sex!” I shout, “I know all about that, too.”

“Right, but two girls can’t have babies,” Piper says.

“So?”

“Ah, I guess what’s the point of it, then?” Piper asks.

“The point of liking people?” I ask. “There’s not meant to be a point, is there? You like someone because you like them. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“I guess it’s not,” she admits, shaking her head. I don’t think she gets it, which is kind of weird.

One thing that I’ve noticed talking to more people, is that sometimes they get stuck on really simple things because they’re convinced it’s actually something complicated. They just can’t accept the simple answer even when it’s right in their faces.

There’s no ‘why’ to liking someone. It’s just something that happens.

We talk for a little bit longer, but it seems that these two, even though they know Christina, they don’t like her that much. It’s not that they dislike her exactly, but they’re sort of like how my team is sometimes. Especially when the topic of necromancy comes up.

I don’t think that they want to know her properly. They’re happy enough with the ‘Tina’ that they already know, and they’re convinced that there’s nothing more worth knowing about her.

As the day gets closer to night, we head outside into the field to start training. The noble vampire is there ahead of us, dressed in something a little loose but still a little too much for fighting in.

It’s almost time to put my plan into action.