She sat at the foot of the bed with one of the pillows in a tight hug. The guestroom was nice, much better than the ones she grew up with. So was the bed, and the room didn't even smell like dust. Despite it not being used in a long time, according to Diana at least. She couldn't fathom how much the room would've costed, let alone the upkeep. Her own parents, the ones that adopted her, were well of sure. But not “abandoned room not smelling like dust” type well off.
By the crown, the ceiling was decorated! Where do you ever see or hear of a ceiling depicting the wildlife? She laid down on the bed with a sigh, still hugging the pillow, and looked up. While it was not as impressive as the few paintings in the hallways, they were carved into the ceiling, giving them further depth than any normal painting.
Beatrice let her eyes wander across the ceiling, and idly named some of the flowers she recognized. She had an affinity to them, after all. Her power gave her a deeper understanding of nature and creating nature-like constructs with her mana. An awesome power to have as a child, but there wasn't all that much use for it in The Kingdom as an adult. And so she had asked her parents for some books on botany to make perfume. Strange, sure, for a child to work towards such a goal. Beatrice had that as a goal because her mother loved perfume, and it was only natural for her to want to make perfume for her to make her happy.
She looked at the ceiling for the flowers she knew about. She saw the normal rose, but she couldn't know for sure without the colors. The ones on the ceiling were gray, after all. The red poppy, a couple of daisies there, some cornflowers here and even a Blood rose in the corner of the room! One incredibly rare flower due to its symbiotic relationship to bone mice. Its petals are a deep bloody red and its thorns were venomous, for all except the bone mice that lived in with it. The rose got its nutrition from any unfortunate creatures that got poked, and the mice fed on the remains. And the feces of the mice made for good fertilizer for the rose again, making it grow stronger and healthier. Despite how morbid it was, however, its scent could be diluted to a wonderful perfume used by the richer nobles.
How did she know all this? She had looked into it when she read about it for the first time. It was so strange, how something so evil-looking protected something completely different and produced such incredible smells. And in a way, it reminded her of both Vita and Diana. It wasn't a difficult comparison, either. A wendigo covered in vines helping a young human, it was nearly identical. But she couldn't help being scared. Both for Diana having to rely on a wendigo of all things, and for herself for having to be around the wendigo. Crying out loud, a wendigo could fight and kill dragons! What else other than The Crown could do that!?
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
She shuddered and flopped over on her belly and crawled over to the head of the large bed. Burying herself underneath the blanket and pulled another pillow into her hug. She was more than ready to fall asleep and leave this stressful day behind.
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Heracles never got used to the modern pleasures when it came to sleep. He understood food, and loved food. Especially when it was delicious and prepared well, like the food he ate in the tournament and at the university. It was way better than the burnt remains of whatever beast or monster he was forced to fight against by Hera. By the crown, he wasn't even allowed to use any spices! He only had char and firewood to use. And monster meat wasn't all that appetizing when prepared only with fire.
Thinking about that evil hag made Heracles shudder in fear. He reached up and over to grab the blanket, and pulled it down under the bed where he was trying to sleep. Strange, maybe, to those who lived with a bed their whole life. That female gorilla didn't allow him to sleep on anything comfortable like a pillow or soft rock. No, it was always the hard rocks that Hera made. She wouldn't allow him to use any rocks he made, because 'it went against the spirit of his training'. Not his fault, Hera looked like she was made out of those same rocks. Even thinking about those times annoyed him like nothing else had. Until now, at least.
He was accepted as a disciple of Odin, who in turn was the master of Hera. While he had feared what kind of horrible training that was waiting for him, Odin simply took Heracles with him to the University of Magi-milians. And it was there he met Diana. She...was cute. There wasn't any other way to describe it for him. It wasn't romantic, like so many adults like to imagine, but in a different way. Like seeing a small fuzzy animal with large black eyes. Like a tiny rabbit. Then you look behind her and see a wendigo.
A wendigo. A creature that has only been recorded once in the past thousand years, and it was so stupidly powerful that it took THE hero and his party to defeat it. Not kill it like everyone thought, or as was written in the books the one time he bothered reading them. Odin had told him the true rendition of what had happened that day, and Heracles didn't like it one bit. And seeing Vita now? It worried him greatly, and no one else seemed as worried as they should've been. Yet at the same time, it excited him. He got to fight a wendigo, he got to train besides a wendigo, and now he got to complete a quest with a wendigo. He is one of three others who could claim that. And one day? He would beat Vita.