Scarlet

I sigh after I finish dealing with the general, only to blink in surprise when I find Blue after leaving the meeting hall. The man is just standing in the middle of the hallway, still as a statue. And he has this strange look in his eyes.

One of pain mixed with anger and sadness, but also with apathy somehow. Like he’s trying and failing to lock away his emotions.

“Scarlet,” he says with a nod of his head, and I nod back out of both instinct and the oddity that is the situation in general.

Because Blue never calls me by my first name. Ever.

It’s always either my Title or nothing at all. He would just use ‘you’ instead of any sort of name.

Well, that’s new.

“Would you mind giving me a minute to speak?” he asks, making my eyes widen in shock at the mere action of him asking instead of telling. “In private.”

I frown at that last part before shrugging and saying, “Sure.”

We then leave the building and I follow him through the sky towards the middle of the ocean. But unlike Amelia, whose little base is a tower in the middle of the ocean, Blue simply snaps his fingers, making the water itself part to reveal a large hole with no water in it. He then starts going down the water-less hole, only briefly glancing up at me as I follow.

And I quickly find that the ocean right about here is extremely deep. To the point that I’m pretty sure there’s some sort of fissure under the ocean right here.

Thankfully I can see in the dark, so it’s not a problem. So after a long time of falling, we eventually arrive at some sort of metallic door on the floor of the ocean.

He snaps his fingers again, making the door open itself to reveal a rather grand looking room on the other side. One that I take in as we fall into the room, the door sealing back up behind us.

The room has a large statue of a kraken at the center of it, with various aquamarine life swimming around over a dozen floating pockets of water. And some of the aquamarine life isn’t exactly the safest to have swimming like that, considering the sharks and orcas I see amongst them. Ones just openly swimming in the water bubbles, occasionally jumping from one bubble to another.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Meanwhile the room itself is set up like a large courtyard, with a massive garden around the center which is a large home.

Holy shit.

Yeah, I’d say Blue has his sister beaten in terms of grand looking secret bases.

“I wonder if Amelia has been here before?” Tar asks as he appears on my shoulder.

Probably. After all, I know all of the Knights have been to Purple’s tower, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve all been to each other’s lairs before.

Although I do wonder what sort of home Black would have.

Red’s home is rather public though, since it’s in a Tier 1 city.

Blue leads me to a random little comfortable looking table with chairs and several fountains surrounding it in the middle of the garden. And just seconds later, creatures that I have to assume are some sort of water elementals in the form of humanoid creatures walk over to us, serving us tea as we both sit down.

Then silence ensues for nearly an entire awkward minute with the elemental servants just standing off to the side.

Fortunately though, I’m used to servants. Considering Tartarus and being a Princess. So they don’t bother me in the least.

They are a little surprising though.

Actually, in hindsight, maybe they aren’t… considering Blue’s previous emotionless self, having artificial servants to take care of his home just makes sense.

Eventually Blue finally speaks, “I wanted to ask about how Aria is doing.”

My eyes widen in shock at that.

He’s… worried about Aria now? Enough of his emotions have come back for him to be able to worry about her?

Then why hasn’t he gone to visit her? She’s actually been hoping for him to give her some acknowledgement ever since she heard about his emotions coming back. But he’s just avoided her even after that?

“She hopes that you’ll at least try to talk to her now that your emotions are returning,” I bluntly tell him, deciding there’s no point in keeping that from him.

His mouth parts open slightly as a pained look spreads across his face before he closes it again.

Several seconds pass in silence as he looks at the bubbles of water around us.

I let out a mental sigh, not doing it out loud due to the awkwardness of the situation. Then I join him in looking at the bubbles of water and aquamarine life in the air.

A few minutes pass like this before I eventually glance at the man and suggest, “You could always start out by bringing her here.” Blue’s gaze instantly snaps to me, his eyes widening slightly. “I’m sure she’d like that.”

He opens his mouth to say something, only to close it again. Then he repeats that process once more before finally saying, “Thank you. And thank you for getting my emotions back.”

I just shrug and point out, “I’m just doing this for Aria.”

Blue nods his head in understanding.

He seems to be really struggling about what to do.

Then again, not having emotions for decades and then suddenly having them again would probably be a rather major blow to deal with. Especially considering a lot of the things he’s done over the years.

The entire reason why Xyvandra decided to return his emotions this way.

A cruel fate. To slowly come to understand all of the atrocities you’ve committed without being able to do anything to fix them.

I take a light sip of the tea before leaning back and looking straight up.

Although I have to say, this is very awkward.

“Yep,” Tar mutters in agreement. “That it is.”