prelude.
Henry sat on a hillside, open tome in his lap with a note laying across its pages. His eyes were struggling to read any words in the dim, before-dawn light, but he didn't find it necessary to be currently reading a word of what was sitting in front of him. He'd already memorized exactly what it said, knew every punctuation mark and every line break, he knew where the note went from a request to directions on what he needed to do.
The sun was moments away from peeking over the horizon, which was the moment he knew as when what he was being asked to do needed to go into action. It was the start of the so-called longest day of the year, and someone had spitefully and vengefully wished for Henry, easily the most fun-loving and accomplished dark mage to exist, to do their bidding on the day where there'd be the most sunlight to expose the shame. Or, at least, that was how Henry had interpreted the request letter to go. It hadn't gone much into the details of the what needed to be done or the why it was.
All it had was the who the target was, and the requirement that it was completely painful for them to endure. But Henry was a smart man, and he knew that the letter hadn't been penned by the person who signed it—after all, he was fairly certain someone pretentious like Gerome wouldn't be writing in curlicues that covered an entire page with their decorative nature. In fact, if he had to put any money onto who it was that had written this request, it was the very person who'd handed it to him; he'd seen enough of his own daughter's handwriting to know that it was her who'd penned the letter. And judging by the way it started out friendly before getting downright aggressive, he could make the guess that Noire had somehow gotten angered while putting Gerome's wishes into words.
Either way, the request had been made and it was about time for him to fulfill it. There was one issue he had with what he was being asked to do, but he'd get to that the next time he saw either his daughter or her friend, because they could explain it better than he'd be able to guess for himself. With the sun starting to shine over the hill behind him, illuminating his world and giving him enough light to make sure he had the name exactly right, he silently cast the spell he'd been waiting months to get to do.
Someone chose to wrong the wrong friend of the wrong dark mage's daughter, and now they had to pay. Painfully. But not too painfully that they died, that wasn't part of the request, and Henry wanted to make sure that the request was filled to perfection, especially since he'd made it deal with one of his favorite things. In fact, there were two things that he loved in life, and dying was only one of them.
i.
The sun was painfully bright that morning, and rising what felt like was a lot earlier than normal. Severa groaned as the light hit her eyes, bringing a hand up to cover them as she reached to shake the person laying next to her awake. "Next time you suggest going out for training at this time of year, we're making sure we have a tent with less holes," she grumbled as she simultaneously rubbed at her eyes and shook her companion's arm. "Seriously, I think I could've done without being awake right now."
"It's only sunrise, it's a perfect time for us to be waking up if we want to get anything done today," Kjelle replied, sounding like she hadn't been asleep for a while. "I'm surprised that you're only waking up just now. Felt like there was a draft coming in here a bit ago, woke me up when I felt it."
"Huh, must've missed it." Looking down at herself and how she was covered in multiple layers of blankets, compared to the single one Kjelle had on over herself, Severa gave a tired sigh. "Let me guess, though, you're ready to get onto what we're out here for and you're annoyed that I'm not letting you do it."
"I wouldn't go that far, the sun is only now just rising, and who would ever ask to be outside before then? No one, that's who." Even with that in mind, Severa couldn't help but think that Kjelle was in fact annoyed with her, especially when she ducked out of the tent long before she'd even sat up. She couldn't help it that mornings weren't her thing, especially not mornings after nights spent in the wilderness. Kjelle was crazy for thinking that they were going to be out from sunrise to sunset training, and Severa was going to make sure she knew that…after she got out of their shoddily-made bed and changed into her training clothes.
When she joined Kjelle outside, the first sight she saw was the brilliant sunrise coming up over the horizon, masked by trees that made up the forest they were camping in. "Okay, I'll admit, this time of day's beautiful if you're awake for it," she said, wrapping an arm over Kjelle's shoulder as she came up behind her. "Not as beautiful as either of us after a good night's sleep, but hey, we can't get everything when we're in the middle of nowhere!"
"This isn't the middle of nowhere, Severa, it's not even that far from the capitol. Stop being so dramatic for once in your life and accept that this'll do us both good, both physically and mentally." Leaning back into the person behind her, Kjelle gave a long, content sigh. "It's been a while since I've had a training partner along for the ride, and I wouldn't ask for anyone but you to be there for me."
"Thanks, I think?" Her eyes still fixated on the various colors currently residing in the sky, Severa thought to herself that this situation was only possible due to a few bad decisions she'd made in the past, most prominently her choice to cut ties with someone over his want to sink into isolation, yet here she was out in the middle of the woods with her new love interest. "I'm not sure why you want it to be me out here with you, you can and will always kick my ass when we're sparring and doesn't that make it too easy?"
"We're not just out here to spar and you know it." Shaking Severa's arm off of her so that she could stand up and meet her companion face-to-face, Kjelle smiled. "We're out here to get to spend time together, without anyone nearby to pull us to do their bidding. No worries about your mother asking you for favors, or for my mother to decide she wants to force me to train with her. It's only you, me, and the wilderness. What could go wrong?"
ii.
Everything, apparently, could go wrong, and Severa was left thinking that Kjelle asking that had somehow given Naga the go-ahead to curse their time together. It wasn't that they'd been training too long, or too hard, and the heat of the day hadn't come upon them yet, and they were certain that the food they'd packed for the day wasn't spoiled, it was just that while in the middle of a maneuver Kjelle had to suddenly stop and found herself doubling over, her weapon hitting the ground in front of her. "Are you okay?" Severa asked her, dropping her own weapon to run to her friend's side to check up on her. "You don't normally quit like that."
"I'm fine," Kjelle said in return, before standing up straight, her face looking pale despite her having been exerting herself. "Just must've eaten too fast before we started or something. Never had that come over me before like that."
"If you want to take a break, we can. I won't mind, and there's no one else here to judge you for it." Catching the glare she was shot for her suggestion, Severa defensively raised her hands before heading back to where her weapon lay in the grass—but before she made it back across the clearing she heard the unmistakable sounds of retching, causing her to look over her shoulder to see Kjelle hunched over once more. At the sight, she turned around fully and said, "Okay, you're taking a break and that's final, I'm not fighting with someone who might puke on me to get me to give up."
Looking surprised at what she'd just done, Kjelle defiantly shook her head and spat to clear her mouth of the vile taste that was in it, before reaching down to pick her lance back up and pointing it towards where Severa stood. "I told you, I'm fine, and now that that's taken care of there's nothing else for you to worry about with me. We're getting back to practicing."
"No, we're going back to the tent so you can rest, you can be stubborn all you want but you're obviously not feeling good if you're throwing up while training. Why didn't you tell me you were feeling sick before this? I get that you want to seem strong, but you can't be strong if you're dead." Crossing her arms over her chest and not backing down from her stance, even with the lance being waved in her direction, Severa added, "You can be thankful that I have no idea where we are, because if I knew I would be marching us back home right this instant."
"Stop acting like you care about me like that, I know you don't." Another wave of whatever it was that was bothering her was coming over her, and it was taking all of Kjelle's strength to not let it show. "I really must have eaten too fast before we got started. It happens to everyone at some point, I guess it's just my time to have it happen to me."
"I'm not buying it, but whatever. You keep training while fighting a stomach bug, it doesn't matter how strong you are because you're still going to lose to it." Severa gave a flippant shrug before continuing towards where her sword had been dropped, trying to ignore when she heard what sounded like more vomiting coming from behind her. If Kjelle wasn't going to stop, she wasn't going to force her, not when any interaction meant risking getting herself sick as well.
They did resume their practice fight, only for it to be stopped multiple times by the same thing as before: the sounds of a weapon hitting the forest floor in conjunction with a quick pause for some heaving and retching, only for the entire thing to be ignored as if it hadn't happened. Whatever it was that was bothering Kjelle, she wasn't going to let it affect her plans, even if pausing was still what Severa thought was best for her.
iii.
By noontime they hadn't had an unexpected pause in their match in over an hour, which signaled that things might have been moving back towards the positive. "So, now that you're done being sick and we've worked up a sweat, how about we go back and get something to eat before round two?" Severa suggested, bringing her weapon to her side to show that she wasn't ready to proceed in the battle. "I'm feeling like I could eat a horse right about now, and I'm not the one that spent all morning throwing up. How's that sound to you?"
"It sounds like you're still trying to push for a break, but I think I could use something to eat. It's pointless to keep practicing when your body doesn't have anything fueling it." The suggestion having been accepted, the two ladies made their way back over to the tent, which Severa ducked inside to grab what they'd packed for their lunchtime meal at the same time Kjelle took a seat under the shade of one of the many trees nearby.
While she was leaning back against the tree, she took in a deep breath, letting the air of the wilderness fill her lungs before she exhaled, looking at her tanned arms and how they glistened with beads of sweat. "I don't know what came over me earlier, but damn if it didn't make this whole thing awkward," she muttered, flexing her arms a few times before moving to examine her muscular legs. "Here I am, expecting an easy day of training with someone close to me, and I manage to get weaker than weak right in front of her! At least it didn't harm my performance too badly, I don't know what I'd do if…"
Her voice trailed off as she went to admire her perfectly-chiseled abdomen and found her top to be snugger than normal, something that struck her as odd. She grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it up, figuring that perhaps it had gotten tucked into her pants on accident and was being tightened that way, but when she saw that her entire stomach seemed to have become bloated somehow, she was left sputtering in confusion.
This was the sight Severa emerged from the tent to see, although a much different version than what Kjelle was experiencing. "Er, did something crawl on you?" she asked, hesitation in her voice as she approached her friend, a small bag of food held tightly in one hand. "You're not the kind of person I'd expect to see screaming about that, but I guess it could happen to anyone if the bug was gross enough."
"N-no, nothing's on me!" Kjelle quickly replied, pulling her shirt down and taking a second to breathe and tell herself that she must have just been imagining things, that there was no way anything about her had changed over the course of one morning of practice. She did glance towards Severa, who was looking expectantly back at her as if she was waiting on an answer, before her eyes fell on her straining shirt once more. "I think I'm just far hungrier than I realized I was. Stomach's being all weird right now."
"Given who your father is, can't say I'm surprised." Opening the bag up and handing Kjelle half its contents, Severa didn't seem to notice that anything was physically amiss about her friend, or if she did, she wasn't drawing attention to it. For the entire time they were eating, Kjelle was expecting Severa to make some kind of snarky comment about her, but when nothing came she was surprised to not have heard a word of anything. Severa was never one to keep her mouth shut when it came to poking fun at people's insecurities, so what was keeping her quiet this time?
iv.
When they went back to training, a silence still hanging over them that had yet to be broken, Kjelle was about ready to jump in front of Severa and ask her to say something, anything, about what was going on. Of course, the idea of "jumping" might have been a bit extreme, as even when she was pulling herself up off the ground, she felt herself acting more sluggish, as if something was really digging at her and causing her to falter. Whatever was going on, she either needed to play it off or get answers as to what was happening from the only other person who was present.
Yet Severa remained quiet on everything, merely watching Kjelle with a worried expression that she would never admit was worried to begin with. For the duration of their meal, she'd watched as her friend would take quick bites of her food, just to recoil and spend time making sure she wasn't eating too fast, only to repeat the cycle over again. It had been something odd to watch, and it was even odder when she'd catch Kjelle's hands playing with the end of her shirt, pulling on it occasionally. But she wasn't going to draw attention to it, she knew her friend was feeling sick and she knew she was stubbornly going to put herself through the motions of their training, even if it wasn't what was best for her.
But she couldn't keep her mouth shut forever, and when it came time for them to start up another practice fight she had to make some remark on what she was seeing. "So, when are you going to tell me you're not feeling good again?" she asked, drawing her sword only to stick its tip in the ground in front of her. "Come on, I won't be offended that you think my food tastes horrible and it's making you sick, just come out and say it."
"I wish I could say that's what it was, but I don't think that's the case." To be honest, the food Severa had brought was more delicious than anything Kjelle or her mother could ever make, and she wished she wasn't feeling so strange to have fully enjoyed it. "There's something weird happening. To me. The weird thing is happening to me."
"Well yeah, obviously. You're out here throwing up and acting like things are crawling on you and now you're letting yourself, un-armored, be outpaced by me." Rolling her eyes, Severa propped an elbow up on the hilt of her sword as she leaned towards it, looking towards where Kjelle was standing. "I'm not saying us still being out here's a bad idea, but it's looking like a pretty bad idea at this point."
Kjelle's eyes glanced downward for what she had hoped was going to be a quick check to make sure what she'd seen earlier was nothing more than a figment of her imagination, but when she noticed that her shirt only seemed to be straining further, she was left looking down in disbelief. "Uh, you know what, I'm starting to think you're right. I don't know how much longer my shirt's going to last at this rate…"
"Your shirt?" One of Severa's eyebrows raised at the word as she repeated it. "I haven't been hitting your shirt at all, looks pretty pristine to me. You hiding some kind of rip or something on it?"
"You mean you don't see how tight it is?" Taking in a deep breath as she prepared herself to hear Severa's laugh and response about how she was playing around, Kjelle found nothing but more confusion as she received a repetition of the word "tight" instead of anything negative. "…Ha, you're funny, Severa. I'm not in the mood for joking around right now, though. You can't be serious when you're acting like you can't see how tightly my shirt's hugging me."
To prove just how serious she was, Severa walked right over to Kjelle, a no-nonsense look in her eyes as she did, and took in a big handful of the shirt, grabbing it exactly as if it was hanging loosely on her body—which it was, in Severa's interpretation of the scene. For Kjelle, though, it was more like Severa was doing nothing more than taking the absolute end of the shirt and barely grasping it. "See, would you look at this, there's no problem at all here," Severa told her, letting go of what she was holding in both realities. "You must be imagining things, whatever's got you sick has got to be messing with your mind."
It was hard to accept what she heard as the truth, especially given what she had just seen, but Kjelle swallowed down any fears and chose to go along with Severa's word.
v.
Training had to be stopped multiple times for seemingly no reason, if one were to ask Severa what had happened that day. She would be preparing herself for another practice attack when Kjelle would call out for her to take a break, to give a moment's pause without any explanation for why that might have been. There was no point in asking, because as far as Severa could tell from her side of the clearing (where she was every time the call was made), everything seemed to be fine with Kjelle.
Except, on the other side of the clearing, in an alternate mindset, everything was far from fine. The fear of the shirt ripping had somehow diminished when it seemed the fabric was going to hold no matter how far it got stretched, but now came the worry of how far that was going to mean. In the time they'd been practicing their weapon skills and stances, Kjelle was certain that her stomach had only managed to swell out further, filled with a heaviness she couldn't explain and certainly didn't want to be caught having to accommodate for. It was worrisome, especially since she didn't have the first clue as to what was happening to her, but what bothered her most was that it didn't seem to be noticeable to the only other person around.
This was why she called so many breaks, to see if during one of them Severa would look towards her and notice anything strange about her, but Severa seemed to be blissfully ignorant to anything being potentially amiss. "Okay, I don't think I can do this much longer," Kjelle admitted after what felt like the tenth time she'd abruptly put an end to the practicing just to examine herself. "I'm getting the feeling that something's really wrong here and I don't think ignoring it's going to work."
"It's that you're sick and should be resting rather than working yourself like a dog," Severa replied, making the trek across the clearing with her sword in hand to rejoin Kjelle. "I think I'd feel like crap after a day of practicing when I'd been throwing up that very morning, too."
"No, it's not that I'm sick, I think that's part of it but I don't know what it is." Scratching the back of her neck as she looked anywhere but at herself, Kjelle had a realization come upon her and her attention turned towards Severa. "Say, look at me now, will you? Mind, er, telling me if I look any different from normal?"
The request made Severa suspicious about what it might have implied, but she went through and obliged simply because of their level of friendship. "I mean, aside from how grossly sweaty you are despite us doing barely anything, and your weird stance you're taking, I don't see anything different at all. Why, am I supposed to?"
Nothing she said was the answer Kjelle had been looking for, something that she had feared was going to be the case. "Oh no, not at all," she told her, forcing a smile as she braced herself for what she was about to do. "It's just that I'm starting to think someone's cursed me or something, because what you're saying and what I'm feeling are two very different things." As she spoke, she brought her hand to the lower hem of her shirt, which was resting far from the top of her pants, leaving a swath of skin the width of her hand exposed. "Would you tell me where my hand is?"
"It's at the bottom of your shirt…I don't think I'm quite getting what you're trying to get at here." As the answer still wasn't what Kjelle had wanted to hear, she had to resort to drastic measures which involved pulling (or in her own reality, rolling) her shirt up to completely expose everything between her chest and her waist. This, predictably, had Severa's eyes going wide, and just as Kjelle thought she finally was going to get a confirmation that what she was seeing was really happening, Severa said, "Gawds, why are you showing your abs off like that? I get it, you're ripped, but can you not rub it in so much all the time?"
"W-what? But I'm not…" Now Kjelle was certain that what she'd said before was correct, and that someone had cursed her to interpret herself differently than anyone in the world around her would, because she was positive she wasn't showing anything even remotely close to her normally-pristine set of abs. Breathing rapidly, her heartbeat picking up as she started to panic about how to proceed, she pulled her shirt back down and went straight to Severa, pressing herself up against her as closely as she thought possible.
"Why are you grinding up on me like this? Kjelle, I know you might like me like that, but we're nowhere I'd like to be getting down and dirty with you!" Pushing Kjelle off of her, as her friend had been basically pressed entirely against her, she grabbed her shoulders and started shaking her. "Explain whatever it is you think's going on, right now, so maybe we can figure things out together!"
Her heart still racing, Kjelle gave a quick nod before breaking into the only explanation she could come up with. "I think someone's cursed me, if you think I was grinding up against you right then. I couldn't have grinded against you if I tried, honestly." She looked to see Severa's raised eyebrows, watching her suspiciously as she kept trying to explain. "Here, let me demonstrate with you, if you don't mind."
"As long as you don't get me sick with whatever you do, I don't—er, Kjelle, what are you doing now?" In the time Severa had taken to say her opening statement, Kjelle had pulled her hands off her shoulders and walked behind her, a noticeable and completely awkward sway in her step as she moved. Once she was standing behind Severa, pressed up against her as she had been before (although in Kjelle's perspective she wasn't nearly as close as she was in reality), she grabbed Severa's arms and moved them in front of her, positioning them to where it looked like she was trying to hold an invisible ball to her body. "Are you implying something? You know it's been months since I've slept with a guy, there's no way—"
"I'm not implying anything about you, I'm implying that someone's cursed me to look like this, more or less." It had taken until she'd thought up this demonstration for Kjelle to realize where her supposed physical changes seemed so familiar to her from; with the heaviness she felt and the way that her body had "grown" noticeably in only one spot, she couldn't help but equate what she was going through to what she'd heard several ladies of her parents' generation complain in recent months. This wasn't just any sort of wayward curse, this was someone actively targeting a woman who'd never been with a man in her life, making her rapidly go through the physical transformation of being pregnant.
And when she told Severa this, there was a moment's pause before Severa replied with, "Huh, how about that. Kjelle, I don't know how else to put this, but you're crazy."'
vi.
Whether it was her actually being crazy, or that there was something seriously wrong with her, Severa would never be able to tell because the only person who seemed to know anything was happening was Kjelle herself. They had to stop training after that, because Kjelle didn't want to be having to deal with what was going on with her body while trying to make judgments about how close Severa or her weapon were, and it was hard to separate the fake reality from the actual world around her.
"I just need to lay down and hope I can sleep this off," she admitted, hating that she was giving up on what she'd wanted to spend the day doing. "I never wanted to have to go through this, why would someone curse me to suffer this way?"
"It's not like we know anyone who'd do such a thing, you probably just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time," Severa suggested with a smile, jokingly reaching for Kjelle's absolutely flat stomach and rubbing her hand along the light ridges of her rock-hard abs. "I still don't know how you can try convincing me this is anything but normal. Just doesn't make sense. I'm not that gullible."
"Trust me, I'm not that gullible either, but here I am, knowing what you're trying to do but seeing you do something completely different." Trying not to look to see just where on her that Severa was touching, because just the thought of seeing how distended her body had gotten in the short amount of time since she'd last looked was horrifying to her, Kjelle turned her head to face back where their tent was still standing. "Come on, stop feeling up on me so I can go lay down and get over this."
Severa pulled her hand away and laughed. "More like, so you can sleep forever because you overworked yourself while you were sick, but I got you. Let's get moving." She waited for Kjelle to take the first steps, but when she was met with inaction she was left confused. "Uh, aren't you the one that wants to head back? Why aren't you going?"
"I want to walk behind you, so you can't watch and make fun of whatever weird motions I make while I'm walking." Just the thought of walking any distance with an audience was making Kjelle want to go hide in the tent even more, because although she knew she was the only one who could see what she'd become, she knew that the way she walked was going to be effected in both her reality and Severa's. "Just get a move on, I'll be right behind you."
It was wishful thinking, at best, because Severa was able to walk unimpeded and Kjelle was completely unable to keep pace with her, which led to the exact thing she hadn't want to have happen happening, because Severa got to the tent and turned to watch Kjelle join her, smirking the entire time. "You'd think you'd be great at walking with heavy weights on you, given that you're normally training in armor," she said, opening the tent so that Kjelle could get into it. "I guess whatever you think's happening to you is really messing with your head."
Halfway into the tent, Kjelle stopped moving and wished she could easily duck out to punch Severa for saying that. "Why, of course it is, it's clearly only happening to me," she replied, feeling like her insistence that something was wrong was being taken as a complete joke because she couldn't prove anything. "And with that, I'm going to sleep. Don't wake me up for anything, got it?"
"Not even if we're ambushed, I got you." Severa gave her friend a playful smack in the rear to try and get her to hurry up into the tent, thinking that she wasn't doing anything wrong at all. But given that Kjelle's sense of existence and space was completely warped, one smack was enough to get her to topple forward, her head hitting the ground first before it was followed by every other part of her. It wasn't how she'd wanted to get into the makeshift bed, but it was how it happened, and as she slowly got herself situated into laying down she found that the spot she'd slept in the night before wasn't going to cut it for her now. In order to even try getting comfortable, she was having to lay halfway in Severa's spot, which would make for an awkward conversation that blurred the lines of their individual realities if she chose to come lay down as well.
Once she got herself into a position that she could lay in without feeling like she was being crushed by the unexpected weight of her body, she closed her eyes and hoped for sleep to overtake her in moments. The relief never came, and she was left there, hyper-aware of every lurch and movement that was overtaking her body, until she couldn't bear to be laying in the hot tent any longer.
vii.
Getting up out of the bed was a nightmare. With no way to properly judge how big her mind was telling her she was because it had come upon her so quickly, Kjelle struggled to bring herself back up to sitting, much less up to her feet. After spending several minutes in disbelief that she couldn't even stand up on her own at this point, she had to give in and call for Severa to come help her out, which was met with complete silence. "Where are you, Severa?" she asked, hoping she didn't sound as distraught as she felt while she was calling for her. "I really could use a hand right now!"
Eventually she was met with the sound of footsteps charging through the grass, and soon the tent's flap came open, Severa poking her head in to meet Kjelle's worried eyes. "Sorry, I got distracted by the sunset, it's really beautiful through the trees tonight. What's got you looking like you're about to cry in here?"
"Oh, you know, just the fact that I feel like I've doubled in size over the course of the day, no big deal." Playing it off as if it wasn't bothering her immensely, Kjelle held out both her arms for Severa to grab, and together they were able to get her back to standing and out of the tent without further issue. The light in the sky outside was similar to what it had been at sunrise, beautiful colors streaking through wispy clouds that felt less than real to be looking at.
"Told you it was beautiful," Severa said, nudging Kjelle gently in the side. "Guess this is the world's way of thanking us for being outside on the longest day of the year, giving us a show in the sky at the end."
There was something Kjelle was going to give in rebuttal, but when she looked down at herself to find the animosity at what had happened to her, she found that she looked completely normal once more. "How weird," she whispered to herself, drawing a hand across her stomach that hadn't changed from how it had been that morning, despite her knowing it had. "A waste of a day in regards to getting training in, but at least the sunset's worth it."
interlude.
Nearly six months was a long time to sit around waiting to hear about the success or the failure of what he'd done. Henry had hoped that he'd get word of his curse within days, maybe a week or two, but when it took nearly until the next solstice for him to be approached about it, he was left wondering if anything had happened at all. He had gotten the name right, he'd made sure it lasted as long as the sun's light did on that day, he hadn't killed or seriously harmed the person in question, so what had gone wrong?
As he found out when he had a wyvern tied up outside his home and its rider coming inside to speak to him about the event, what had gone wrong was something that was no fault of Henry's at all, but rather a fault of the messenger's. "She told you to go after the wrong person, to put it bluntly," Gerome said over a cup of tea that he suspected might have been made in a cup previously used to store bird feathers, judging by the small feather pieces he had floating in his drink. "This was not something I knew of until recently when I spoke to the person I cannot help but think you targeted."
"Why would Noire tell me the wrong person?" Laughing, Henry knew exactly why it was and had long suspected that he had been sent to curse someone who hadn't been guilty of any crime, but he wanted to see if Gerome could answer him before he said anything. "She's a sweetheart, a bit violent and blood-thirsty at times, but really, if she was going to want me to go after the wrong person, why would she have kept it to 'no killing', hm? Doesn't sound like a wrong person kind of thing to do."
"As the woman you cursed happens to be dating the woman that I had mentioned needing deserving a wake-up call, I can only imagine that Noire didn't want a close friend of hers being your victim so she chose her girlfriend instead." Gerome adjusted his mask over his eyes, allowing for himself to look at Henry and his wide grin closely for a second. "Which, if you had done anything lasting or scarring, I wouldn't mind that you did that."
Thinking through the meaning of those words, Henry's laughter came to a halt when he realized that this meant his playful curse hadn't done more than be a one-time nuisance. "So what do you want from me this time?" he asked, his grin growing in side at the millions of possibilities he was about to hear. "I can curse the other girl if you want, Noire's not here to stop me from doing it for you."
After taking a sip of his tea and nearly choking on the feather that came with it, Gerome collected himself and replied, "I just want you to finish the job. Target whichever one of them you want, but make sure it isn't just a joke this time."
"You're dark and twisted, aren't you?" Henry thought about all the different curses he could unleash on his unsuspecting victims, but his mind kept tracking back to one directly related to the first one he'd used, which was awfully tempting but would bring anyone to the verge of wanting to die. "I'll see what I can make happen, but what I'm leaning towards, heh, isn't for the faint of heart. I'm thinking it's going to be a 'shortest day of the year' kind of curse, if you're okay with that."
Gerome wasn't one to smile at suggestions that involved harming people he might have cared about once upon a time, but he could feel his cheeks lighting up to a red almost identical to his hair's as he heard Henry's continued babbling about the logistics and specifics of what was to come.
viii.
The days had been steadily getting shorter, with less daylight hours to spend out in the field training for battles that were never going to happen. With the season on the cusp of changing to winter, everyone was spending more time at home staying warm than they were out doing anything, and for people who rose with the sun to get things done, that meant sleeping in next to the one they loved until mid-morning. But on the shortest day of the year, that sunrise wake-up call was nothing but trouble, when Severa's eyes cracked open at the first hint of light in the room to find that she was alone in her bed. "Uh, Kjelle? Where'd you get off to already, I thought you said you didn't have anything planned for today…"
The response she was given was a muffled scream from outside their bedroom, which was followed up moments later by the door sliding open and Kjelle standing in the doorway, one hand covering her mouth and the other taking in a handful of her short hair. The look of panic in her eyes was enough to get Severa to sit up immediately, unsure of what was happening but aware to the point that she knew something was wrong. "I-I don't know what's come over me," Kjelle said, leaning against the doorway as if she couldn't bring herself to stand any longer and uncovering her mouth so she could speak. "I was just doing some things for before you got up, and when I looked to see how long it was until sunrise I was hit with some of the worst pain I've ever felt. Kind of like I'm being stabbed."
"That sounds like a personal problem, sorry to hear it." Thankful that what she'd been told wasn't worse, Severa made motions to lay back down, but Kjelle screaming again stopped her from doing so. This wasn't a panicked scream she was hearing, it was one of pure pain, and it caused her to sit back up, eyeing her girlfriend with concern. "Did you start hurting again, or was that to keep me from laying down?"
"A little bit of both." Bringing both her hands down to grab at her sides, which seemed to be where she was hurting most, Kjelle winced as she started rubbing at the afflicted areas, her thumbs bringing little relief but at least taking the edge off of the pain. "I can't explain what's hurting me, but it's come on so suddenly that it's got me worried."
Giving a shrug, as she had no idea how to reply, Severa hopped out of the bed and walked to Kjelle's side, grabbing her in a hug once she was there. "Don't worry, it'll pass soon enough. Knowing you, you probably pulled a muscle and it's giving you hell. Just lay down and you'll get better in no time."
"And what are you going to do while I'm laying down? Sit here and make fun of me because I'm letting a tiny muscle strain get to me?" Severa didn't give an answer, only ending the hug to push Kjelle towards the bed, something that she didn't appreciate but wasn't going to argue with. As she climbed in, she saw Severa duck out of the bedroom, leaving her alone to deal with the pain she was experiencing, even if it was currently at a lull.
Little did she know, when she gave a deep sigh and shook her head at her predicament, things were only going to get worse from there.
ix.
The screams coming from the bedroom weren't a constant, and they certainly weren't something that Severa enjoyed hearing when they happened, but there was something humorous to her about hearing her girlfriend be the one in pain for once in her life. It was always her that was the one getting into trouble, so for the tables to have turned to put Kjelle into the position, it was nice to know that she wasn't having to deal with the same. After a quick break to step outside and see how, even though it was nearly noon already the sun hadn't been up for very long, Severa was back inside their house to check on how Kjelle might have been feeling.
She was greeted with genuine sobbing, as if whatever was happening was getting far too painful to have to be going through. "I don't think it's a pulled muscle," Kjelle choked out once Severa was back in the bedroom with her, "and it's getting worse every time it starts flaring up. I know finding someone who'd be down to help me out, because it's you asking on my behalf, is going to be hard, but…do you think you could?"
"I could, but it's more of a matter of if I will." Jumping up onto the bed so that she could be right next to Kjelle, Severa clasped her hands together as she looked at her girlfriend, taking special note of the way she'd propped her legs up to try and relieve her pain as well as how her cheeks were marked with tear-lines. "You've really got to beg me for it."
There wasn't any time for begging, as Kjelle had started biting down on her lip to keep herself from screaming again at how much she was hurting. She was grabbing her sides and clutching them tightly, to the point that Severa was sure there would be visible finger marks left on her skin if she ever lifted her hands. "Hm, you've made a pretty solid case for why I should do this," Severa remarked, but she shook her head at her own words. "But I don't know why I would bother, everyone'll take one look at me for being me and turn me down. What, am I supposed to go to some stranger and invite them into our home to get you checked out? I don't think so."
The deadly glare she was shot for the comment was enough to make her rethink her position, and as soon as she'd properly dressed herself to go out anywhere that wasn't directly outside the house, Severa was on her way to go find the one healer she could think of that might have given her the time of day if she asked nicely.
x.
"What do ya mean, I've gotta come help you out with something?" Looking at Severa as she stood on the outside of the front door to the house he was living in, Brady leaned back for a second to glance at something on the inside, before turning his attention back to her. "I can't right now, Ma dropped off little me not that long ago and do ya really think I'm gonna risk takin' him somewhere just for her to come back for him?"
"She knows who I am, and she knows Kjelle, she'll get over herself when she realizes you're doing this for the greater good of your friends." His eyes narrowed at her use of the word "friends", which she was quick to replace. "I mean, she's your friend, isn't she? I'm nothing better than dirt to any of you, but Kjelle did nothing wrong. Ever. And now that something's killing her from the inside you've got to be the one to save her."
The look of consideration on Brady's face was quickly erased by him slamming the door closed on her, leaving her standing speechless outside as she waited to see if this was the end of the discussion or not. When he reopened the door with a younger version of himself under his arm, looking determined to get to be of use, she gave a small cheer before leading him in the direction of her place. While they walked, she tried giving him the rundown of what was happening, as well as she could given that they weren't exactly sure what had started making Kjelle feel like she was dying.
"You said it feels like she's being stabbed, yeah?" he asked for clarification, after she'd rushed through that part of the story to get through it quicker. She nodded, knowing that was the exact comparison she'd made for herself, and he gave a thoughtful hmm at the reference. "Well, I know this isn't possible 'cause of who she is and 'cause she's been with you for a while now, but why does this sound like she's—"
"Do not say those words that I know you're thinking." This was the first time Severa had thought back to that day out in the woods since it had happened, and just hearing Brady's train of thought lead to that conclusion reminded her that this wouldn't have been the first time that Kjelle had somehow managed to get stuck going through something that oddly resembled being pregnant to anyone who was able to witness it. "And she's not, don't worry, after that time we were out training I doubt she'd willingly go behind my back and put herself in this situation."
"Time in the woods…? Come on now, Sev, ya can't say something like that and then not tell me what's going on." He was right, even though she hadn't intended on telling him about it, and so the story went from the current issue to one of six months prior, that she herself hadn't been able to see but she had definitely heard about. After her explanation there was done, they were at the front step of the house and she was ready to let them inside, but Brady wanted her to hold on for a second, so they could finish talking before he was distracted by helping his friend. "This sounds a lot like someone's actively cursin' her for some reason. Which doesn't make any sense, because she'd never wrong a mage unless they deserved it."
"Whatever it is, you can stop it, right?" Severa was hopeful in asking, because she saw how Brady seemed to be antsy to get away from the house, rather than eager to go inside. "Please, tell me you can, it's not like I know any other healers I can ask to help out here."
He looked towards his younger self, who was babbling something to himself while being held under one of the bigger man's arms. "I mean, if I was alone right now, I bet I'd be able to tap in to some of what Ma taught me and think of a way to break a curse, but I've got babysittin' duty right now, and if I mess up and accidentally curse little me…ya know, Ma'll have my head for it."
Taking in a deep breath before giving the stupidest suggestion she could think of, all for the sake of helping her girlfriend out, Severa held out her arms wide and said, "I'll watch him for you then, Brady. As long as you'll try to end Kjelle's suffering, I'll do whatever it takes.
xi.
Babysitting wasn't ever anything Severa had wanted to do; it was something she had escaped from whenever her parents had asked her to watch her younger self when they were both busy with leading the people under their control. She hadn't ever dreamed of being put in charge of any child at any point, yet there she was, sitting on the floor in her own house with a young boy across from her, looking at her with wary eyes as he tried to make sense of who she was and what she wanted from him.
"Ignore the screaming and cursing that's coming from the other room, just pay attention to me," she told the boy, who looked to be on the verge of crying after a particularly loud yell came from the bedroom. "Big you's doing me a huge favor in helping the love of my life out of a sticky situation, and that means I'm in charge of you for right now."
The boy nodded, taking steps closer to where Severa was sitting. He didn't say anything to her, as one of his hands was balled up in his mouth and he was drooling all over it, and she didn't do anything to stop him in case she upset him on accident. She was quite aware of how much of a crybaby the older version of Brady was, so she was certain the younger version of him was the same way. So when he reached towards one of her pigtails with said drool-covered hand after he'd taken it from his mouth, she knew she had to sit there and endure what was coming for her. His wet fingers knotted themselves in her long brown hair, and when he couldn't extract them he started wailing right in her ear, screeching about wanting out and away.
"I should've pushed you away when I had the chance, damn it!" She gave a groan as she tried untangling the hand from her hair herself, finding it impossible with how much the boy was jerking away from her, and that meant that she needed to turn to someone else for help on this thing as well. Even though she knew she shouldn't have gone into the bedroom with the boy, she needed Brady to get little him unstuck just as badly as she needed him to break the curse off of Kjelle. Maybe even more, she realized, as at least Kjelle didn't scream solely in her ear whenever there was an issue.
xii.
Brady was, predictably, less than thrilled to see Severa and his younger self come into the room, but every ounce of his disdain was ignored because Kjelle was happy to see Severa rejoin her after all. "Here I was, thinking you'd have left me forever because I've gotten myself into this mess," she said, sitting up and showing that she was shaking from how much pain she'd been in. "And then Brady walks in and tells me that you're guessing that I'm going out behind your back and getting involved with guys and—" Her words stopped abruptly as she fell back into a pained state, her head hitting the pillows behind her and her whole body tensing up.
"Telling lies about me now, huh?" Severa asked, looking at Brady who was still unhappy that she was even there. "I volunteer to watch little you and end up in a bad way for it, and you're in here not helping my girlfriend and making her think I don't trust her. You're such a joke, I don't know how anyone can like you."
"Same could be said for you, Sev." Getting off the bed and dropping the small staff he'd been using right at Kjelle's feet, Brady came for his younger self, ripping his fingers free of Severa's hair just to set him down and tell him to stop crying. "I told her to tell ya that whenever ya came in to see what your reaction would be, and guess what? You didn't disappoint me."
"Oh great, so instead of helping her you spent your time preparing to make me flip out on you. What kind of idiot do you take me for?"
Without missing a beat, he replied, "The kind of idiot who'd think that someone can actually heal someone from a curse like this, actually. It'll have to fade on its own, which who knows how long that'll be from now." He shrugged, picking his staff up to whack Severa in the face with it. "Least I can do is tell ya that it's just a curse, there's nothin' more going on here aside from that. Because yeah, I figured you might start suspectin' her of being unfaithful to ya behind your back, even though as long as I've known her she's never wanted anyone but a woman in her life."
"Shut up if you're going to be like that, and get out if you're done trying to help." Severa raised a hand back towards the front door of the house, somewhere that Brady and his younger self were both quick to head towards the moment she got out of their way. And once she knew they were both gone, she was right beside Kjelle on the bed, stroking her hair to try and comfort her. "I am so sorry about that," she apologized, kissing her right at her hairline, the taste of sweat strong in her mouth afterward. "You told me to get someone to help and I panicked and picked him of all people."
"He was able to at least tell me that nothing was actually wrong with me, aside from being cursed, anyway," Kjelle replied, her voice breathy as she spoke. "I guess I got worried that this wasn't going to be like last time, and there was going to be something we were both missing when we looked at me."
"Nothing could ever be like last time, you were just crazy then. This time, you had physical proof that something was wrong that I could hear just as well as you could." Severa kissed her again, this time on the cheek. "Now come on, don't spend all your energy talking, not when you're going to be screaming for the rest of the day most likely."
She had forgotten that the strictly-defined sunrise-to-sunset day was a lot shorter that particular day than on any others, which meant that relief from the torture would come a lot sooner than expected. The first thing Kjelle did when she felt her body be released from the grip the curse had on her was roll over and groan into Severa's side for a few minutes, before getting up and attempting to salvage what was left of the day to do whatever she had initially wanted to do with it.
postlude.
Whistling to himself, Henry read over the newest note he'd been given, written in the same curlicue handwriting that the first letter had been in. This one apologized for giving misleading directions initially, before chiding him for going through with harming the same person twice despite being told she was the wrong target to begin with. "Who cares if she wasn't who needed to be taught a lesson? This whole cycle of vengeance is stupid. No one's learning anything from it except me, and that's because I've got a whole new classification of spells in my repertoire thanks to this."
He laughed, folding his daughter's note up before shoving it into the back cover of his current tome. "Next time a certain someone I actually know starts acting up, oops, my spell hand can just curse them into wishing they'd never tempted me with cursing someone else with fake babies." A pause, followed by, "Or next time Tharja acts up. I don't know how she's ever going to go through with having a real baby, a fake one would be delightful!"
The laugh turned to a cackle as he went into reading his tome, the cover marked with How To Surprise Someone That You're Expecting.
A/N: I actually planned this six months ago, which in hindsight is hilarious given some of the things I have written since then.
I toyed with putting an "improper use of magic" warning at the beginning but, really, with it being Henry involved in the prelude I hoped people would gather that he was going to do some improper stuff, haha