As you can very well imagine Albert told Isse he’d slap her if she didn’t go to the concerto, so not ten minutes after she and Tobias had finished talking she was out of the shop’s door and walking with him.
Before that though she’d gone upstairs and made her dress of Shifting Silk change into an elegant gown with frills and bows deep blue in color that hugged her human half snugly, showing off her curves while also not showing skin; it also felt padded and warm. While that happened she set about styling her hair, something she hadn’t done… ever, in this world. There had never been a need for it back in the Forest and from the day she’d started her life here in Tedam she hadn’t felt that need.
Her hands felt clumsy as she styled her hair into a simple chignon. It had been her favorite way to style them back on Earth: her mother had taught it to her when she’d been six and ever since then she’d fallen in love with it. That, at least, hadn’t been taken away from her in that dreary hospital. The nurses had helped her style her hair every morning ever since she’d been too weak to do it herself.
After she was done she looked at the reflection in the mirror of her room and admired herself. She looked good, that much she could agree with (Siidi too for the matter), but she still felt like something was missing.
It’s too… ordinary. Too much like the old me, the human me. I want… no, I need it to look different. Special. Mine, for the new me.
Then decorate them.
…What?
You remember those big crocheting needles you bought on a whim a while back? Put them in your hair and see how they’ll make you look! And you’ve got the power of spider silk on your side, you could literally put anything you want in your hair and it wouldn’t fall!
She thought it over for a moment, then nodded and skittered to one of the strands of webbing attached to the ceiling, from which hung, pointing upwards, two long needles. They were made of steel and, on one side, sported two small red balls of something like wood.
Smiling slightly she looked back at the mirror and carefully put them in her hair, making sure they formed a cross over her head with the two balls.
She looked at herself from one side and the other, admiring the new addition… and frowned.
It doesn’t fit.
Yup.
She sighed and went to pull them out, but then she was struck by a very simple idea.
“[Minor Illusion],” she said, pointing at the two red spheres with her right index finger and concentrating on the effect she desired to put on herself.
A moment later the red shifted in color and became the same blue as her dress.
Now it’s perfect, she thought with a smile as she looked at the change.Sure, the Spell was going to be a drain on her mana, but she apparently had very good reserves, what with her having a much higher body mass and a soul empowered by the presence of another soul bound to her, together with the abnormal rate at which arachne absorbed mana. It wouldn’t be a problem for her to keep it up the whole evening.
Then another thought crossed her mind: a hair clip would’ve looked lovely with the whole ensemble. But she owned none.
Then her eyes settled on a little something hanging over her bed: a small, wooden statuette of a bright orange fox with a white tipped tail. A gift, one she had received what felt like years ago in a dream by a strange, scared, kind man with a very old and tired soul in the company of a girl that had wanted to be her friend. Garda and Albert, right.
The statuette had survived the fire by virtue of being inside her bag of holding and now she kept it over her bed in the hopes it would keep her safe from nightmares. Not that she dreamed: when she fell asleep she ended up in her Mind Castle and, when she decided to fall asleep there, everything just became darkness. For the longest time she’d thought it normal for the arachne but Siidi had told her it was not, that it normally took years of training to do what she did. She’d unlocked the ability by virtue of Siidi living in her head and dragging her there the first night she’d fallen asleep.
Gently, she cuddled the statuette towards the side of her head and, with a small mesh of sticky webbing, attached it to her hair.
She looked back into the mirror and, after a moment, smiled. This was good. This was… her. A new her. The her she hadn’t accepted until the third Trial, or maybe even until she had understood that Anda was her soulmate and had accepted it.
She walked out of her room, wearing a beautiful long, blue, clinging dress, her hair in a chignon pinned in place by crocheting needles with deep blue wooden balls on top (that she could probably use as weapons in a pinch now that she thought about it) with a bright orange fox hanging from the left side of her head in a rather garish and contrasting display that didn’t quite fit with her elegant and maybe even somber apparel, but looked great all the more because of it.
Last but not least, as she walked out she passed by her hammock and took the pocket watch Albert had gifted her, placing it in a pocket her dress made for her right then.
When she skittered downstairs she was met by a very approving Albert who looked her up and down before nodding.
“You look stunning. Go on, get out and blow that boy’s mind.”
“Albert! I’m not doing this because I’m looking for a boyfriend.”
She was into girls now after all. Arachne girls, specifically.
“Blowing someone’s mind doesn’t necessarily mean proposing to them Isse. For example, [Fire Mages] blow people’s heads off all the time. Doesn’t mean they have harems.”
She smiled thankfully at him, managing somehow to keep the chuckle building up in her throat to stay there.
“I’m going then.”
“Have fun and tell Virgo to go to Airm for me, alright?”
“I will!”
Then she walked out of the backdoor into the shop proper, where Tobias was looking with interest at a display of wrist watches near the entrance, his hands tucked in his pockets as he just waited.
“I’m ready to go!” she said in a chipper tone.
“Oh, grea -” he didn’t manage to finish his sentence because, the moment he turned around and his brain registered what his eyes were seeing, he froze in place, jaw hanging slightly open.
Then a slight blush crept over his dark skin.
Finally, Isse skittered towards him and closed his mouth with two fingers in a very ladylike manner, a smirk on her face.
“See something you like?”
Girl, calm the hormones, you said you didn’t want a boyfriend yet you’re practically seducing him.
Calm down Siidi, I’m just having fun.
That’s what one of my sisters used to say every time she flirted with one of the people we captured before fucking the poor sod to death.
…Is that an actual thing?
Yeah. I believe in your old world it was called… death by snu snu? What in the actual fuck does that mean? What in Airm is a ‘snu’?
Don’t ask me, I have not the slightest clue.
The Author too, for the matter, still has no clue as to where in the actual fuck the word ‘snu’ came from, and at this point he is too afraid to go deeper down that rabbit hole.
Anyways, she turned her smirk into a simple smile and told him: “Let’s go get Morra.”
----------------------------------------
“No.”
It was a pretty straightforward answer. There was no way to turn it over and see an affirmation or a possibility of one.
“Why?” she asked. Maybe she could convince her to join them.
“Because I don’t want to,” answered Morra.
“But Tobias spent a lot of money on the tickets. Surely you wouldn’t want him to throw them away.”
Morra turned to look at Tobias and Isse was for some reason certain that her best friend in this city was glaring at him underneath her mask.
Before anything more could be said Creanza appeared seemingly out of nowhere (That’s gotta be a Skill. No way in Airm it isn’t!), her head popping up over Isse’s shoulder, her eyes big as an owl’s as she gazed at the ticket she was holding towards her guest. She read the words and her eyes became even bigger. The arachne feared the woman’s pupils would explode.
“Isse, please, confirm this for me: you’re holding a ticker to the King in Yellow’s latest concerto. I’m not seeing things, right?”
“Nope, you’re not seeing things.”
“And you’re offering it to Morra?”
“Yup.”
“And she’s refusing it.”
“Yup.”
The [Barista] looked at the ticket, then down at Morra with an expression of utter shock.
Then she looked back up at Isse: “You wouldn’t want to give it to me, would you?”
“Nope,” she confirmed, her hand moving slightly back to protect the ticket from sudden grabbing.
“Figures,” she sighed, before turning around to look at Morra.
“Alright girl, you’re going.”
Said girl looked up at Creanza and this time Isse was certain of the presence of the glare behind her mask.
“I said no.”
“But why? Are you so afraid of socializing with others?”
The pointed silence was all the answer she needed.
“Look Morra, I know you’re not much of a people person, but this is a one time occasion. I don’t know how Isse managed to get these tickets -”
“It was Tobias actually,” the arachne corrected her.
“Tobias - wait what?” Creanza turned a disbelieving look at the half elf, who smiled smugly at her.
“I’m not gonna ask, I don’t need to know that. Anyways, I don’t know how he got these tickets, but he did, and he’s offering you a once in a lifetime chance to go with him.”
“I’m not interested,” she mumbled.
“Now that’s a lie if I ever saw one! Do you think I don’t know about your collection of Song Crystals?”
Morra froze in place, her head slowly turning towards Creanza: “Did you rummage around in my room?” she asked, menace and barely-kept-at-bay anger in her tone.
“Of course not. It’s just that you forgot that our rooms’ soundproofing isn’t that good. It certainly helps, don’t get me wrong, but when someone blasts a song at the maximum volume the spell allows, well, let’s just say that our evening crowd was treated more than once to some good music. Especially the King in Yellow’s music.”
Silence fell on the table like a heavy, wet, blanket, before Morra put her head in her hands and began mumbling incomprehensible things.
After an entire thirty seconds of this Creanza intervened by putting a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. She immediately froze in place as if the [Barista] had been holding a knife to her throat, before relaxing… slightly.
“Morra, nobody would ever judge you for having fun. It’s good to unwind, to stop thinking about life. You, more than anyone, deserve it. So go.”
The young girl looked down at the floor beneath her feet and sat in silence for a bit.
Then: “I don’t have anything to look good.”
Isse’s heart broke at hearing this and she resolved to go upstairs and quickly weave something good for her if it was necessary. It would be a simple dress, after all they didn’t have that much time, but she’d do it!
Luckily, again, Creanza came to the rescue: “Don’t worry about that. There’s no need to wear anything fancy for the King’s performances. It won’t matter anyway when he starts playing.”
Everyone at the table frowned, looking at her in confusion.
She smiled: “I had the pleasure of… hosting the King in Yellow, back when he still wasn’t as famous as he is today. I was one of the first people to ever wander his Court, so trust me: it doesn’t matter. You could go naked for all he cares, the Court’s standards are what matters and they will be applied to you all, want it or not.”
She decided not to tell them that the King had cried when he’d seen her mask in the Court. She had too. But she’d never changed, even knowing what it meant.
“So don’t worry Morra. Go with them, have fun and live through a night you will never forget.”
Another moment of silence, then she nodded.
“Alright.”
“Great! Now go! And if you change your mind, know that I will force you to join me and the others during our game evenings!”
Faster than the eye could blink Morra shot out of her seat and marched towards the door, not even turning around to look back and make sure they were following her. Which of course they did, but not before they turned around to thank Creanza, who had sat down at the table with a tired smile. For a moment there she looked older than she was… or maybe as old as she was. There was a weariness to her eyes, a tug at her lips that turned her smile not quite as happy as she wanted, and a slight slump to her shoulders that only Isse noticed.
Still, she didn’t have the time to stop and ask. She just nodded at the woman in thanks and turned around to leave.
Meanwhile, she and Lavia looked at their disappearing backs and remembered.
Creanza was wearing a worn yellow dress, one that definitely wasn’t up to date on the modern trends of the Court, but who cared? This was the Yellow Court, where everyone could be what and who they wanted.
And what was she? She… was a walking corpse. Not a zombie, no, she wasn’t rotting after all. Just a corpse that still had the will to walk around. In many places all over her body she was missing bits and pieces of flesh, leaving bone exposed. Her left arm, the non-dominant one, had been completely stripped of it, leaving visible gleaming white bone. That, more than anything, made her understand this wasn’t real: bone wasn’t supposed to be that clean. She should know. Well, unless one sanded it down, but that had a tendency of making the bone weaker. Had she sanded her bones?
Still, this was her nature, had been for a very long time: someone who gave up parts of herself, who took from herself, from her life and strength, and gave it to others, uncaring for the pain. She suddenly put a hand to her chest, looking for a heart, beating or unbeating she didn’t care, but only found an empty space. Right, she had forgotten: that had been the first part of her she’d given up, the only one that had been wasted. Or had it? Losing that had changed her, had turned her into who she was today. So yes, maybe not completely wasted.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
She looked to her left, where a harpy with broken wing arms stood proudly, holding a glass of wine and wearing a halved mask that showed a beak with a few pieces missing, the other half, the one covered by the mask, lacking even that. Ruined, broken, damaged, taken and thrown away and abused, and yet there she stood, prouder than a jungle lion and much prettier. Hadn’t it been for her missing heart she would’ve probably long since fallen in love with her.
Creanza batted her eyes and returned to her bar. She still remembered that day: in those times it had only been her and Lavia. Her [Chef] Premié and Grazia hadn’t been there back then, nor had she had the Class she had now.
She sighed and smiled: they were going to have fun.
----------------------------------------
The theater was large and, surprisingly, filled to the brim.
When they’d arrived a clerk had looked at their tickets, squinted, used a Skill, then looked at them again with raised eyebrows as she let them in, wondering how in Airm these kids had managed to get the money to come in this evening.
Still, her job wasn’t to ask questions, only to check tickets, and check she did.
Anyways, the theater was large, probably as large as… ten dining clearings from back in the forest. Too small you say? Well, consider this: the dining clearings were meant to house dozens of spiderlings together with all the grown up arachne, and they did it while also having space to spare. So yes, it had been pretty big.
The seats were padded and looked mighty comfortable from the noises of appreciation made by Tobias and the way Morra wasn’t fiddling in place and instead had decided to recline on it. Isse would’ve loved to feel that but, you know, big ass spider half didn’t fit in human chairs. At best she could’ve laid face down on them, and while it would’ve been pretty comfortable still she doubted her dress of Shifting Silk could’ve made that look normal. Instead she sat on the ground sideways and, with a bit of mental gymnastics, shifted her perspective and saw what the Dress was showing the rest of the world: her, sitting sort of sideways with her legs hiked up on the armrest of the nearby seat, keeping everyone from taking place there and making sure this was that nobody would bump in her spider half while attempting to take a seat.
She and Tobias chattered a bit about nothing in particular while Morra just stared ahead in her mask and dark clothes.
Some people who passed by seemed to recognize her and either waved in greeting or frowned, to which the girl answered with a small nod of the head for the former and completely ignored the latter.
It took the beauty of half an hour for everyone who’d gotten a ticket to come in and take a seat, but when they did the lights of the room were snuffed out: every single candle, lantern and [Light] Spell, all going puff. It was disquieting. It was exciting. She smiled.
Then, just as suddenly, a very yellow light turned on over the stage. And no, that wasn’t an overstatement or something: the light felt yellow, it gave off a feeling of yellowness and colored the world underneath in a shade of yellow that superimposed itself over the natural colors underneath, shading everything in this otherworldly color.
And right there, at the center of that beam of yellow, was the man of the hour: the King in Yellow, Virgo-no-surname because he hadn’t told her. He was wearing, as expected, a yellow button-up shirt with comfortable yellow trousers and yellow leather shoes. Or rather, she thought it was all in yellow, it could’ve well been another color that had been changed into yellow by that light.
On his head had been proudly put a broken crown of pyrite, rough around the edge, probably uncomfortable and decidedly a mocking of an actual king’s crown.
He stood there, in complete silence, and in that single moment he appeared more regal than any [King] living today. Then he did something Isse had rarely seen him do: he smiled. It was a bright smile that seemed to radiate light just as yellow as the one over his head, a second beam that reached towards the crowd in front of him, and wherever it touched, the people and place seemed to change for but a single moment before it moved in.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, lords and ladies, beggars and nobles, common people with uncommon talents and uncommon people who’re just plain boring and, finally, but not for being the least, actual normal people.
“I am Virgo, the one you all keep stubbornly calling the King in Yellow, and tonight… tonight, the Yellow Court shall unite anew.”
Cheers rose from the crowd but especially from a small group of people sitting at the front, people who all wore, first to last, yellow scarves. They didn’t look special, just normal, everyday people: one was wearing a straw hat, another had pelts hanging from his shoulders, a third had scars criss-crossing his face. Normal people, but every time Virgo’s smile turned towards them they seemed to shine of a light of their own.
“Now, without further ado,” he clapped his hands and when they separated he was holding a violin, “Let the Court come!”
He put bow to string and began playing.
And then Isse understood what Virgo had meant when he’d talked about playing true music, great music.
----------------------------------------
Isse looked down at herself: she was now wearing a yellow dress that looked the same as the one she’d had before. Her hair was styled the same and, luckily, hadn’t changed too much, gaining only a few streaks of yellow here and there. Her fox statuette, too, had become yellow and, if one looked at her the right way, it would almost look like it was now chasing something in a field of flowing golden stalks mixed together with the earthen colors of the ground beneath.
She was also wearing a mask, although she couldn’t see it because there were no mirrors around her.
On her left Tobias stood wearing a typical thief’s outfit: body clinging, yellow like a punch in the eye and with a mask that reminded Isse of the one worn by Zorro in all the films she’d seen as a child.
He was staring to his left, where Morra had been sitting, his mouth hanging open. When Isse looked she understood why: the girl was naked.
Only, that was no longer a problem, because she didn’t have a body anymore. Instead she was now a walking skeleton wearing a human face, one whose lips clearly weren’t Morra’s because they were puffy and lacquered in yellow lipstick. As for the rest, well, she’d never seen the rest of her face so she couldn’t tell if anything had changed. But from the way she was smiling and looking at herself she was… satisfied?
Then she looked at her… and her jaw dropped.
“Isse, what are you? And who’s that behind you?”
Confused, the arachne looked around and, as she turned, caught a glimpse of… an arachne. There was an arachne standing right by her side and looking around in utter confusion. She was wearing a dress, yellow like everything else, and her fur had been colored yellow too, but the thing that stood out most of all was the mask she wore: it was divided in two, one half red, the other green, just like…
“Siidi?”
The arachne turned and stared at her: “Isse? What’s happening?”
Then she looked down.
“Oh fuck, Isse, look down.”
She did and saw that her dress had retreated, showing off her spider half, which fur, like her hair, was still chestnut, but with strands of blonde mixed in.
She began getting ready to bolt out of the room, panic taking hold of her heart and mind, her thoughts going in circles of desperation and determination as her hand moved to her bag of holding and began looking for the knives she’d bought when she’d first come to the city. Siidi, too, seemed ready to run and fight, her hands beginning to close into fists as she realized she had no weapons to speak off on her persona.
All that though was stopped by Tobias who, while touching the soft fluff of her spider half, smiled and said: “Whoa. I’d heard that his illusions were realistic, but this is on a whole other level. It feels real! And soft.”
She froze in place.
He was touching her. Her spider half. He’d said it was soft. Which… was true, her fur was fluffy and soft and it was wonderful to sleep on, so he was telling the truth, he wasn’t exaggerating.
Then she realized: he wasn’t scared. [Perceive Emotion] wasn’t reading fear coming off him or Morra, just curiosity, happiness, satisfaction and wonder. Wait, was wonder an emotion? Apparently yes. So they weren’t scared.
Which was normal. Of course they wouldn’t be scared? Why would they if it was normal for Morra to be a skeleton with a human face? If she could be that, then being an arachne wasn’t strange, right?
“Ah, I see, newbies. Welcome to the Court my lovelies,” said someone on their side.
Before Siidi could jump and attack, Isse's hand shot out and grabbed hers, her grip tight, but she didn’t forget to squeeze reassuringly, giving her a tight smile when she turned to look at her.
She leaned in, whispering: “Don’t worry and act natural. This is probably supposed to happen.”
“I don’t like the sound of that ‘probably’,” she hissed back.
“Now now there’s no need to panic young one,” said the voice again, and this time Isse and Siidi both turned around, ready to tell the woman, because it was clearly a woman’s voice, to shut the fuck up and leave them be.
Only for both of them to remain with their mouths hanging open when they saw her: she was beautiful. Her skin was as blue as the sky, with eyes an even deeper blue that reminded them of the ocean depths. She wore a yellow silk dress that left little to the imagination, but then again, it was useless for the woman was missing all her bits. As in, she had no nipples and nothing down there. At seeing their surprise she smiled and they saw that her teeth were pointed, like a shark’s, as if she was ready to tear apart their throats at a moment’s notice.
She was also wearing a yellow scarf.
“It can be disorienting the first time, I understand, but the moment you leave the Court you’ll go back to normal. Until then, enjoy being an arachne with all the perks of actually being one of them.”
“Wait,” asked Morra, “so this isn’t an illusion?”
The woman smiled: “That’s what the outsiders want to believe. But no: this is real. All of it. But then again, what is real?”
The woman smiled and patted the skeletal girl on the cheek, bowing down from her impressive height and whispering something in her ear that Isse couldn’t catch because of the noise around them.
That was when she noticed it: there was noise. People were talking, shouting even, and laughing. There was so much laughter.
And above all that, there was music. A song that didn’t feel like it belonged here, where here was the world she lived in, this planet in general. It was a song so filled with meaning that the world itself bent and twisted around them in an attempt to comprehend even a small part of the hidden meaning inside.
The theater they’d been in was no longer there now: they were instead in a dining room that was just as large, if not maybe even larger, and everywhere there were tables filled to bursting with food and games and instruments and anything one’s heart could desire. There was a changing room near the back where a man wearing a yellow scarf showed all the people present the large breadth of clothing available to change oneself into, from extremely formal dresses to comfortable house clothing to bathing suits to…
“Is that fetish wear?” asked Siidi, shocked, and causing everyone around her to look towards the clothing section and seeing a woman changing right there, in the open, into a yellow dress (if that could be called a dress) of leather straps that criss crossed her body. Another one had chosen one made from golden chains that clinked at her every step.
“...Apparently,” said Tobias, who had turned away from the scene with a slight blush on his cheeks.
Then the real fun began.
Isse and Siidi stayed together most, if not all, the time, dancing together the old dances Makira had shown them back in the forest. For a while, as they’d danced, Siidi had activated her Skill [A Minute, United] and… it had been simply amazing. Normally, since they were in the same body, Siidi could only feel what Isse felt and the two shared an enhanced version of those sensations; here though, now that they were separated, in two bodies, however temporary one of them might have been, it was a sensory experience.
Isse felt the steps she was taking and Siidi’s the feeling of the floor from two points of view, the feeling of the other’s muscles as they pumped away and moved the body, the feeling of their hands joining and touching, the taste of their lips when they kissed and then the sensation of the love they had for each other. Not love like the love that had existed between them and Anda, no, it didn’t even come close, but the love of two siblings who had been through Airm and were slowly dragging each other out of it through sheer stubbornness.
They danced, and the minute was eternal, for time lost meaning in this theater where the only Rules and Laws were the ones set by the song and the song shouted ‘All Shall Be Allowed in Spite of Belief’. It wasn’t a Skill, for a Skill couldn’t ever come close to what was really being done here: Virgo, in all his abilities, was playing a Word of Creation. Or rather, a set of them. Words that had been used to create reality, and he was trying to let them all listen to them, that they may catch a glimpse of it. He had been given that chance at his second to last Capstone, and from there he had created ever more complex songs that would, one day, allow him to say the words that had nearly melted his eyes and mind without killing anyone.
The two arachne danced, and time lost meaning because they wanted it to and the song allowed it.
In the end, though, they decided to change partners.
Siidi danced with Morra, who knew nothing of dancing but was happy to learn, was truly happy for the first time in a while (that is, time without Isse. The girl always managed to brighten her days), because her body was her own, it was the body she desired, one that was unable to feel what she’d been forced to go through when she’d been younger, before she’d run away and met Creanza. Meanwhile Isse danced with the charming Tobias, who in fact knew how to dance and was more than willing to show off.
Then they changed partners anew and the faces blurred together, or rather, the masks. Most people were wearing masks of some kind and there were few who showed off skin in that department. The other ones though? Isse was pretty certain one of the people she’d danced with had been naked.
In all that though, for some reason, an orgy didn’t start, and in truth that is probably the greatest mystery of them all when it came to that evening.
They didn’t know how long they spent as the Court, but in the end their beloved King, for he was truly a King here to be capable of making something so beautiful and unique, spoke: “The song is about to end my lovely Court. It is time for us to divide anew, for the Court to break apart. It was my pleasure to see you here.”
Then the song ended.
And they were all back in the theater.
Their clothes were back to normal.
Their faces were uncovered anew.
They all were in the same places they’d been sitting or standing on when the song had started.
And it was dark again, only a single beam of light shining on the stage, illuminating Virgo, but missing the yellowness from before. The man was smiling but Isse could clearly see that he was tired, his breathing nearly ragged as sweat beaded his forehead and he had to sit down on a nearby chair.
One song. That was all he had played. A single song for the entire evening, a song that, to him, had lasted no more than ten minutes, but to them had seemed like hours, maybe even days. Now Isse understood why he was so famous.
This was wonderful. Not even us arachne have ever managed to make something so… so, said Siidi.
Really?
Our music touched the soul, but few, nearly none, of us ever managed to touch the soul of reality itself, not in a meaningful way, not this way.
Then the theater erupted in applause, cheering and screams and shouts of approval, a sound so loud that it made the walls themselves tremble.
When it calmed down, several minutes later, and they started to get ready to leave, she heard that voice again.
“Ah, Isse!” someone shouted.
Turning around she was nearly tackle hugged by a very happy [Lady] Serafia. She dodged her only by an inch, at which point the woman turned and gave her a more normal hug, all the while laughing, joy clearly emanating from her to Isse’s Skills.
“It’s been so long dear. How have you been?” she asked, extricating herself from her and giving her face a good look.
She hesitated only for a moment before Master’s training kicked in and she smiled back: “Serafia, the pleasure is all mine. I’ve been well.”
The [Lady] frowned: “You look thinner. Have you not been eating well?”
She chuckled: “Well, I’ve been told that I eat at ungodly hours, but other than that I’ve been eating well.”
“Hmpf… alright, I’ll believe you.
“Anyways, while meeting you is a great pleasure, I’m here for someone else: her,” she said, turning around and pointing at Morra.
The girl, who’d been frozen in place by the sight of someone of such importance being so close to her and talking in such a friendly manner to Isse, froze even more.
“M - me?”
“Yes, you! I’ve been ordered to give you this,” said the woman, to everyone’s complete shock: someone could order [Lady] Serafia around?
She rummaged around her bag of holding a moment and took out… a yellow scarf.
“Our [Recruiter] greets you and welcomes you to our ranks,” she said while handing Morra the scarf.
“She says that you felt like a perfect addition to the Eternal Court.”
“What?”
Serafia was still holding the scarf, offering it to her.
“The Eternal Court, as we call ourselves, are… exceptional people who understand the true meaning behind the Court. Some see it as just a place to unwind, others as a place where they can be free of any rule and regulation, others still see it as a resource. Few understand its deeper meaning, fewer still on the first time they’re inducted in the Court.
“You, my dear, are exceptional, or so our [Recruiter] says, and so far she’s never been wrong.”
Morra raised a finger, probably to protest, but Serafia spoke over her.
“Being part of the Eternal Court means that you’ll get to enter the Court every time it unites, which is guaranteed by Virgo himself. The scarf marks you as one of us, but it doesn’t bind you to anything. Ultimately, it is always your choice, because that’s the nature of the Court. Just know that you will always be welcome.”
That said she stepped forward and wrapped the scarf around a still stupefied Morra, before smiling, greeting Tobias, hugging Isse and leaving while waving goodbye.
Morra stood there, watching the woman leave, before finally saying: “Now I understand why everyone likes her.”
Then they left.
And, as they did, Isse skittered close to Tobias and kissed him on the cheek: “Thank you Tobias,” she whispered, “I’ll see you around.”
The boy blushed like a tomato, stuttering something that was probably an 'It was my pleasure', but she was already skittering away.
That night, as she fell asleep, the System whispered to her too.
[Apprentice Musician Level 9!]
[Relic Bond Level: 15%]
[Relic Skill Unlocked!]
[Skill: Glimpses of a Song’s World Obtained!]