—Snow Palace, Ivory Realm—
Dragneel threw open the doors to a room as the servants behind her flinched. She placed her palms on her waist and scanned the room with her special eyes. “Looks good,” said Bloom, only to be weirdly stared upon by the servants in frills. They peeked inside the room from her sides and found the dark. How could she see?
Bloom found the room furnished just the way she preferred—Plain. Thankfully, Ryuoketusai didn’t drown her in all kinds of unwanted riches. On her left, the servants had set a Queen-sized bed, near one of the two gigantic windows. She walked under the chandelier and touched the glossy tabletop with a set of cushion chairs. Her eyes roamed at the beige coloured walls that complimented the furniture.
“You can leave.” Dragneel hopped on the windowsill that faced the gardens and the black scenery on the horizon. She heard the servants shuffle and the door closing shut afterwards. She sighed and unbuttoned two buttons of her satin shirt and plopped her legs out of the window, watching the little pearl like stars. Tonight, the full moon would accompany Bloom in her solace.
Bloom raised her hand, and with a muted chant, a file appeared on her palm with a poof. “Let’s see who we are impersonating tomorrow…” As soon as she pulled the string, a dull murmur became audible from the far corner of the room. Fingernails scratched on the beige walls till a trail of red smudged on the paint. An unintelligible sound transformed into a multi-toned tether, screeching across the room. “Ehehehe!”
A silhouette appeared in the corner, with wisps of dark matter floating around the huddled body. The eyes, burning coals, were the only distinguishable part in the dark. A breeze burst out of its body and propagated throughout the room, caressing Dragneel’s back. The temperature dropped significantly, as if with each exhale it intended to freeze the room.
Dragneel didn’t bother to turn and check, but rolled her eyes. “What is it Para?”
Paranoidiesis flashed a smile with all gums on display. She traced the ridges of her teeth and called Bloom in her ragged voice. “Dragneel…” Her form twisted and dropped into the floor, a small puddle before she coiled against Bloom’s warm skin like a snake. She flashed a sinister smile at her, only to get responded with an icy stare. “When will you complete your part of the promise?”
Bloom looked away at the moon. She had pondered over the same. At Night’s Residence, Paranoidiesis had helped her on the condition that she would take command of Bloom’s body for a sometime.
Dragneel glanced at Para’s face and shifted away in a deadpan. She clenched her fists, burning a hole into the wall. What should she do? She crossed her eyebrows as Para’s grinning face flew to her side, resting on her shoulder. “Do we really have to do this now?” She detested the thought of letting the cannon loose.
The blue-eyed maiden closed her eyes, taking a few long breaths. Paranoid, of course she was. Paranoidiesis deemed the bigger reason for her paranoia than the curse induced paranoia itself.
“You had the perfect opportunity to resolve the debt!” Paranoidiesis hissed as she held Dragneel by her cheeks, nails digging at the base of her jaw. “I could have dealt with those lowlives. Those pesky brats had the audacity to stand in my way!”
“I would let you kill them, rip them apart and bathed in their blood? Nah, never. That’s too much of collateral damage for me. Choose some other event.”
Dragneel could manipulate her curse to use it as a tool, but Paranoidiesis was way too unpredictable. Worst part, she had been since Dragneel was. Meaning, she knew Bloom, her past and everything like the back of her hand.
“The Grand Ball.” Her burning coal eyes suddenly sparked a fire with excitement.
There it was. Trouble.
Bloom said, “No.”
A knock on the door stole both of their attention. Dragneel glanced at Paranoidiesis and climbed the windowsill down. Her steps stopped near the door and she contemplated about something before opening the door till a creak.
She spotted a woman in white, her silver hair brushing past her arms and in her hands she held a small…basket?
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Iian walked down the hall on the flower embroidered carpet. For the umpteenth time, she sighed. Her eyes oscillated from her white strapped sandals to the basket, swinging with her arm.
“I hope she’ll pardon me.” She sighed again. “Why did I even say that stuff? She’s Unrecorded for Throne’s sake!”
Iian stopped in her tracks, her heart thumping out of her chest. There was the white door with yellow flower motifs and Ra illustrations that would decide her fate once and for all.
Dragneel Bloom…
“Okay, so here we are…” She exhaled a long breath. “I just need to knock and say sorry. I must say sorry. Father said nothing, but I know I disappointed him, so I must apologise.”
She raised her arm and knocked on the door twice.
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No response.
Iian looked at her knuckles and frowned. Maybe her knuckles wouldn’t do. She grabbed the golden door ring, staring at the dragon face motif on the base, and knocked on the door several times. She withdrew her steps, the basket handle in both her hands, and waited for Dragneel’s response.
After what seemed like a few minutes, Iian weighed whether she should just knock again or call out Bloom’s name. Or should she just leave and try in the morning?
She whispered condolences to herself and that she’ll definitely be done with this stuff the next day. “Maybe she’s asleep.” She grabbed the door ring one last time, and the door swung wide. Before her brain could even register, it was Bloom pressing against the half-open door, blocking everything inside but herself.
She gasped as Dragneel’s warm palm touched her lips, covering her mouth before she could scream. She felt Bloom’s gaze on her. Her eyes widened, and she pleaded with her eyes on a muffled stretch. “Hmph!”
“Yo Princess, do you want to summon everyone in the household and get me kicked out?”
Iian lifted her face, eyes widened and questioning as Dragneel released her with a frown on her face.
“Now don’t give me that look.” Dragneel leaned against the door, her fingers clenching on the panel and feet against the doorpost. “It’s not that you are unaware of Ryuoketusai’s protective nature towards you. He’ll kick me out the moment he feels I have threatened you. So, don’t go around screaming, lady.”
Iian’s face heated as a flare of red ran across her cheeks. She quickly lifted the basket to Dragneel’s face, trying to hide her blushing face with it. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have said those things to you!”
She felt a grip from the opposite side pushing down the basket in between, exposing her embarrassment along with it.
“I suppose I’m not talking to the basket, Princess. Would you look me in the eye, or shall we call the night?”
Iian raised her head and found Dragneel’s expressionless face, her lips in a thin line.
With a loud, clear voice, Iian said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made those derogatory remarks about you.” A shiver ran up her spine as the scarlet-haired maiden’s face stretched to accommodate her sporting smirk on her lips.
Why was Dragneel smiling?
Dragneel’s next words didn’t sit well with her playful smirk. “You really saved your neck, Princess. Maybe the ‘Ryuoketusai’ factor favoured you, but others haven’t been lucky. You can question my actions, my worth, but never why I get to be a Dragneel. Consider this your first and last mistake.”
Iian gulped the lump in her throat as Dragneel pulled the door shut right after her little speech. She looked at the basket and then at the pristine, white door.
Nothing sat quite right with her. Was Bloom in a hurry for something else? But she got forgiven, right?
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Dragneel slammed the door shut and whipped her head to Paranoidiesis. Her eyes widened, irises dilated, and her hand clenched against the door handle. She said, “You heard that?”
Paranoidiesis was leaning against the windowsill, her head sticking out like a sore thumb. Her hair gently swayed along the wind invading the room and she inhaled it till her chest inflated like a balloon, eyes rolling back.
A grin made its way past her lips, and her muffled snicker echoed in the room. “Hee hee... Smells like Kalguchi’s minions!”
Dragneel joined Paranoidiesis on the windowsill and sniffed the air. “Looks like they’re not here, but the wind’s carrying their smell. They’re not that far, too.” Dragneel’s eyes shone under the moon so bright. “A Kalguchi, a Baruchi, and twenty Aruchi. Dunno who taught them, but they’re bad at hiding their presence.”
Bloom placed a firm foot on the sill when Paranoidiesis zipped past her, blocking the entire window. “Hey, hey, hey! Let me have the fun~ You can have the Ball Ceremony!”
A smirk crept on Bloom’s lips. She observed how Paranoidiesis squirmed, glancing once at her, then at the forest on the horizon. Her blood-red eyes were beaming. How lucky!
“Of course. Just keep one alive for me, will you?”
“Fine.” Para grumbled under her breath. “But the rest must die.”
“With pleasure.”
Bloom positioned herself on her palms and a foot on the windowsill and leapt outside, leaving an impact of her muscle strength in midair as she covered an entire distance of twenty-six metres in one go. She gently landed on the fence, the last wall of the Snow Palace, and her abnormal eyes dilated to find the exact location of the intruders.
Dragneel muttered directions to herself as she studied at the propagation of Kannu in the space. An unusual wave wafted through the Kannu, then another. “Now, where’s that horde? How the hell there’re so many in the middle of Dragonix?”
While Paranoidiesis’ mouth watered, trickling a drop at a time on Dragneel’s head, Dragneel wondered about the situation. “It’s understandable if they were spotted in Galen or Demos, considering those are the realms of the last layer, but Ivory doesn’t share universal borders with Obsidian. So, who brought them?”
Paranoidiesis shrugged her shoulders. “Whatever~ Prey is prey, may it be one, or a thousand!”
Bloom’s eyes glinted with an evil intention. Paranoidiesis was right, once a prey, always a prey. “Then keep the courtesy of sparing at least one in a talkable state.”
Paranoidiesis shot a sinister grin and disappeared into nothingness.
Dragneel sighed. “How exemplary of Obsidian. Who to blame when Dragonix has such wonderful neighbours?”
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—Inside the Forests—
Bloom’s boots touched the forest floor, caked in mud and leaves. She bent and pinched a bit of the soil. The ground was wet; the boot marks would be visible easily. She sniffed the air again, and there it was, that rotting, greasy smell of the Aruchis along with a burnt aftertaste.
Paranoidiesis silhouette zoomed past her and she noticed the shadows of the trees twist, from a normal trunk to a growling tree monster and run behind Para. The shadows of the entire forest fled towards Para, under her control, in a spiral storm.
At a distance, a small flicker of fire became apparent. Paranoidiesis was in the lead, irregularly visible with the flashes of her dark aura. Bloom followed a step behind, running soundlessly on the ground.
Paranoidiesis’ multifold voice echoed. “Trying to utilise Shadow Arts?”
Bloom shot back a look. “Practical combat is better than practice.”
She looked at the ground, concentrating on her own shadow. There was that familiar buzz in her brain and she could see the Kannu vibrate around herself. Her feet entered first, then her body followed. Paranoidiesis lifted herself into the air and plopped into the shadows like a drop of water in a lake.
The ground rippled like a small puddle of black liquid and two heads popped up. Bloom looked at Para and Para looked at Bloom. “Don’t stare at my face, Para. Look there.”
While they hid behind the bushes, they found out a horde of creatures sitting under a tree, circling a bonfire. Under the glow of the blaze, there sat some creatures with elongated faces, protruding forehead, sporting various types of horns. Two black pits for eyes and a dot swirling inside, musculature on the arms and chest but lacked skin. Aruchis, that was what they were called.
“There they are. Hee, hee... It’s time for our Midnight Fiesta.”
And on the far end, they found a lone creature scratching on the ground. Dragneel said, pointing at the lone one in the corner, “I’m going for that one, the Baruchi. You can get the rest.”
Bloom side glanced at Paranoidiesis and they separated their ways for their respective conquest.