Scheherazade
Chapter 1: Bluebeard (I)
'Open them all; go into all and every one of them, except that little closet, which I forbid you, and forbid it in such a manner that, if you happen to open it, there's nothing but what you may expect from my just anger and resentment.'
"Exactly what are we looking for?" I.R. quizzically asked, squinting at the various estates in Bariti, Marlon. The city's a very large place for an island to accommodate, but every estate looks the same, every street is similar. The slow pace of the carriage didn't help to medicate her impatience – Haru Netsuma's consciousness was eating away at her like a parasite, and she drummed her fingers on the windowsill rapidly.
Duke Sateriasis Venomania looked equally impatient. "An estate of a lord who recently remarried."
"Alright, you, get off," the white-haired mage irritably said. "Knock on every single door and ask. I'm not having you claim that you know directions anymore – you're as hopeless as I first met you!"
"I'm sure our man right here knows," he retorts. "We're on our way."
"On our way! We're going around in circles!"
Or it could be that everything just looked the same.
Tailors, florists, oldest daughters, middle daughters, youngest daughters...there is nothing that Duke Venomania hasn't laid his hands on. His latest pursuit, a married woman, was much more particular – he wanted someone of high standing, and I.R. could only blame the demon for influencing his horrid tastes. Since she didn't trust him to go off to Marlon alone, she tagged along, but the sheer stupidity of the entire thing almost made her want to drown herself into the seas.
And she hears it. Cheers of drunken people and music.
The duke was invited to this special function – this lord had a reputation of marrying, and when his brides perished due to illnesses, he remarried and the whole cycle repeats itself as if it's the circle of life. When one dies, he remarries. When the new bride dies, he remarries again.
The carriage door opens, and I.R. holds the coachman's hand, inclining her head in thanks.
The estate of that particular lord had his doors open to everyone. People were drinking and dancing – the nobility, the gentry and the guests of honor basked in the bright lights and merry atmosphere of their host's marriage to another beautiful woman.
Jollity at its prime, Sateriasis helps himself by walking in, handing over his letter of invitation to a servant while he looks around. No one recognizes him. I.R. plasters a smile on her face from out of nowhere and she curtsies before the host, who looked grand and majestic with his new wife laughing upon being offered flowers.
"My lord," I.R. says in a saccharine tone. "This is my charge, one of the Five Dukes, Duke Sateriasis Venomania. We congratulate you on your wedding."
There was a pause from the lord's laughter upon looking at I.R., and then he laughs again.
"It's good of you to come!" the burly lord gaily said, patting Sateriasis's back rather roughly. "Extremely good of you to come! Enjoy yourselves, today is a happy day, and – ah, have you met my new wife? I must have introduced her a thousand times today – Boulotte, come here! This is the Duke of Asmodean, and his lady!"
Lady Boulotte, who was no taller than the men, yet much taller than I.R., smiled generously and curtsied.
Personally, Sateriasis thought that the lord looked old enough to be his father, and his wife looked about his age. The lord was tall and muscular – a man of war, and Lady Boulotte looked like a very small thing compared to him. The new wife would be a very good addition to my harem, was his first thought, and as if I.R. could read his mind, she pinched at the crook of his arm, hard.
"Not yet," I.R. said quietly between a tight-lipped smile. "Not yet, you fool."
Sateriasis held back a much needed hiss of pain.
It was fortunate that the lord didn't have much of an attention span for his new guests, for more and more started flooding in like water. Cakes were eaten and wine was drunk, but Sateriasis wasn't entirely foolishly hedonistic. It was so peculiar, really – is this his road of redemption?
Is this what he has to relive? Was it the right decision to leave his harem in search of a redemption that may or may not be possible?
But he was having such a good life. He asked Irregular to get I.R. the next chance he could, and here she is, in the body of Haru Netsuma still. Pity that he couldn't realize how she looked like in her past.
"Hey," she asked, catching his attention. "What are you thinking about?"
"Certain things," Sateriasis smiled. "Will you care to show me how you looked like when you were younger, I.R.?"
I.R. blinked, then sneered at him. "Aaah, what are you talking about? Are you trying to pry secrets out from me?"
"There's no secrets when it comes to the road of redemption that the Master of the Hellish Yard and Irregular dictated, is there?" the duke responded airily, but I.R. had a look of genuine confusion on her face. She ended up staring right at him with a half-full wine glass in hand.
"...What on earth are you talking about?"
At that, Sateriasis paused for a while. "What do you mean? Surely you know-"
"I know nothing about what you're talking about," I.R. clicked her tongue. "Do try to make sense next time. We're here to get your next woman and then we can go home."
He sees her sip her wine as if what he said completely didn't matter to her at all.
This is a very odd thing, he thought to himself, looking at Lady Boulotte without the faintest interest in bedding her for once – in fact, if anything, the lady was a placeholder for his eyes at the moment. Irregular must have been a part of this journey for those such as him, and I.R. tells him that she doesn't know the faintest idea what he's saying. Sateriasis barely even pays attention when the joyful lord allows the guests to retire to their rooms for the night, nor when I.R. places her hand at the crook of his arm to lead him away from the party.
"Your reticence is not appreciated," the white-haired mage said. "I'm starting to think we should've stayed home."
But home wasn't where she was the last time he remembered.
Sateriasis Venomania's lust is insatiable, yet he has no need to have intercourse for a long, long time.
He is a perceptive man – tell him something and he will surely understand. He's not a fool, in contrast to what I.R. calls him half the time: dimwit, fool, half-wit and the like. So when he was told to atone for his sins and repent, for the time has come, he listens, he understands, but doesn't agree.
The Heavenly Yard is a place where he'd rather not go. If his own justice against him being treated unfairly and unjustly by his parents, by his brother, by everyone and everything in general is a justice befitting the Hellish Yard, then he'd rather stay. He closes his eyes and tries to sleep alone in his room, knowing that I.R.'s just at the room right next to his.
In fact, if Irregular is to be the successor of the sun god, Irregular certainly looked uninterested.
But why doesn't I.R. know about any of this? Everyone knows what had happened throughout the timeline of the world, but it seemed as if she behaved exactly the way she did when she was with him. She showed no knowledge of anything beyond it all, which did make him a bit curious.
He didn't need the sword for his face anymore, nor for power.
He didn't have the demon with him, but he has a special attachment to women without charming them.
He has I.R., but she doesn't seem to know the circumstances.
...Ah, how different things seem now. When I was younger, I would brush these unnecessary thoughts away.
But he had no authority against the higher powers, now did he? He had no choice but to carry on with this needless journey of so-called repentance, so he would. It wasn't making a mockery out of him – probably when the whole thing was done, he could face his imbecile of a mother and a bastard of a father and his shit-faced brother and say 'I am a decent man now – you have no right to treat me any lesser than you did when I was alive,' and call it a day.
Probably the reward awaiting him was not only the Heavenly Yard, but empty satisfaction.
What woman has he not touched? What depths had he not explored? What love has he not experienced? Is it a sin to know everything there is to fill his neglected soul?
Sateriasis quietly quells his anger and closes his eyes.
In fact, you see, Sateriasis prefers his end of his journey to repentance if it involves waking up in the morning to a beautifully decorated guest room in a posh estate with the sounds of a morning party taking place.
Do any of these people even exist? Is this all in his head?
But if it is indeed in his head, it cannot be – he is dead!
Sateriasis washes himself and gets dressed, feeling strangely repressed of his thoughts and memories. He's taking all of this strangely in stride – he's not protesting at such unfairness like how he would likely do when he was a young boy, but he is taking it slowly and surely. He's even starting to think that it's not such a big deal after all, this entire pointless journey, and when he walks out of his room, a noble couple walks past, bowing before him quickly before planning to have their own private rendezvous.
So he walks to I.R.'s room and gives the door three good knocks.
"Come in," came the response.
The duke walks in and sees I.R. writing in a blank book while her cat saunters over to him, giving a slight hiss as it returns to its mistress. She tirelessly writes, using the sunlight passing through the window as the room's natural illumination, and Sateriasis peers over whatever she's possibly writing.
It's in a foreign language that he surprisingly understands. Her latest sentence said something along the lines of: 'The house belongs to the lady.'
"Oh, go ahead and read the whole thing – the demon lets you understand languages, can it?" the white-haired mage groaned, putting aside her quill. Sateriasis takes a spare chair and sits beside her, raising an eyebrow at her words.
"The house belongs to Lady Boulotte?" he asked.
"Yes, apparently. That's what I found out this morning. Isn't that odd?"
Odd? "Well, what's so odd about?"
"A woman owning a house without any remaining family members," I.R. said, closing her book to pick her cat up. "She marries a much-married man who has a reputation of his wives dying each time. Now the question is, are you still interested?"
Sateriasis, to be honest, was more confused of the bigger picture.
"...I.R."
"Yes?"
"How did we get invited to this house? I don't remember..."
I.R. rolled her eyes. "You don't remember because you spend more time in your basement than the space around your house. I took the invitation one morning and passed it to you, but you said that you'd think on whether to attend."
...He didn't remember that at all, but the way she said it was so natural.
"Is...is that so…?"
"What's wrong with you lately?" she asked. "You're forgetting things again."
No.
No, I'm not forgetting things.
"...I'm alright," he managed. "What of Lady Boulotte?"
The witch got up with her cat in her arms, inclining her head for Sateriasis to open the door of her room for her as she walked past. They walk through the hallways and downstairs to the morning breakfast party, to which I.R. pointed at the lady dancing with her gallant and strong husband.
"Well, there she is," the white-haired girl said. "Have fun. I'll be looking aro-"
She paused.
"...Do you smell that?" I.R. asked.
"Smell what?" Sateriasis replied.
"...I don't know. I smell something rotting."
Amidst the dancing guests, the ones who were smiling the most were the lord and his new young wife.
A/N: You can also find the story on AO3. Collecting fairytales is rather hard...