Thirteen
Chapter Four: Need
I don't need it.
-Megan Marie
xxXxx
Night Three
"Pig. Jerk. Snake. Beast. Monster. Thing." Haru hissed insult after insult under her breath while trying not to let tears roll down her face at every fresh wave of pain emanating from her neck and shoulder.
"Shh, my lady," Agnes consoled her while gripping Haru's hand and squeezing it rhythmically in her efforts for distraction. "You're doing so well, and they're almost finished."
Red and Blondie were trying to be gentle, Haru could tell, but it still hurt.
Those talon hands carefully pinned the last bandage into place, completely covering her neck, right shoulder, and crossing over her chest just to keep the medicine and bandages on the fresh wounds. It didn't help that the amulet always seemed to fall in the way, but it was now contentedly resting on the bandages instead of her skin, still thumping in time with her heart.
"You handled the cleaning up a lot better than any of the princesses did," Red tried to tell her kindly as she and her sister began putting all their medical supplies back onto the tray that had been waiting for Haru's return to her room.
Haru scoffed angrily, though she knew that they meant well. "Peasants get hurt all the time. Princesses are probably sheltered from everything related to pain. I don't know if I'll be able to raise my arm right now," Haru said apologetically when Agnes readied the fresh dress from where it had been resting on the bed.
It was identical to the first dress she had been presented with. All of her dresses looked the same so that there could never be a mistake as to who was keeping her here.
"We've done this before, my lady," she reminded the girl sadly, carefully folding the large skirt up so that it was a simple matter to get the arm with the bandages on it through the sleeve first to make the procedure as painless as possible.
The neck was wide enough to fit over Haru's head easily enough, and it wasn't that hard to get her other arm through the sleeve before Red and Blondie tightened the strings in the back to more fully show off the figure the poor girl never knew she had.
Haru stole an involuntary glance at her own reflection in the giant mirror not that far from her. As she had feared the night before, the placement of the bandages made it clear that she was the victim of a vampire or a near assassination.
Or just the victim of a husband with sharp teeth and no compassion for cries of pain. Haru's next shudder wracked her whole body as she tried to block out the memory of dinner that evening.
"Why don't you lay down for a while?" Blondie asked, taking her hand in order to lead the girl to the large bed. "You didn't lose that much blood, but I don't think it would be a good idea for you to handle a needle right now."
"Like I could do any real harm with just a needle," Haru muttered under her breath, stopping just before Red and Blondie assisted her into the bed. "Could I have a cowl?"
Agnes wordlessly fished around the trunk until she could slide the soft cloth over Haru's head and fan out her dark brown hair over it.
Much to her displeasure, Agnes also pulled out the amulet so that it could rest in plain view.
"Thank you," Haru mumbled miserably, not fighting as the three urged her to rest on top of her blankets. "Before you go, would you mind closing the outside curtains?" she asked while crossing her arms over her chest as if she were already dead.
Red looked at her with surprise. "I thought you enjoyed watching the outside world."
"Not today. Tonight, I mean." 'If I have to deal with another 'rescuer' tonight, I just might alert the guards instead of giving the poor sap the chance to get away. If that last one got away, he was almost begging to get caught.' "Please."
Red and Blondie gave each other a worried look, but still hopped over to the glass doors to do what she wanted.
"Do you want the bed curtains closed as well, my lady?" Agnes asked, but received a shake of the head for an answer. "Very well." She made sure that the little silver bell that would summon them was within reach before leaving with the two-headed bird.
Haru stared up into her black canopy, letting the tears come without trying to make too much noise about it. Her cuts and bruises throbbed with every heartbeat under the cowl, but since the medicine was already on them, Haru could do literally nothing more about the pain than lay in perfect stillness.
'I wonder if he was lying about the rules,' she couldn't help thinking while repressing the need to curl up into a fetal position and cry. 'At this rate, him 'concluding' our marriage is going to end with me becoming a pile of shredded meat.' She was too tired to even shudder this time.
It was probably going to happen tomorrow. If he was this rough with all his wives, it was no wonder he went through so many. If anything, it was a wonder that it took him this long to get thirteen brides in one year.
'It's not even winter yet.' There would be a few more unless he slowed down a little. But there was no one to reign him in, no thing he respected enough to just find one soul to torture like any other man.
Her left ear literally twitched as it picked up a sound she hadn't heard in a while.
Music. It was a string instrument, being played very soft and gentle. But the sound was coming from outside the balcony doors.
"Please no," she groaned, covering her face with one hand. "I just can't today-tonight."
"I love you too much,
"To live without you loving me back.
"I love you too much,
"Heaven's my witness and this is a fact."
Despite herself, her heart broke for that beautiful singer. He must have been the lover of someone that Lord Maliss had taken and was now hoping to signal her. Poor man. How many brides had it been since his love was taken?
Haru tried to will herself into sitting up so that she could tell him that it was too late, but the cuts on her throat and shoulder were demanding that she stay exactly where she was. Her lower lip trembled with frustration, but she laid her head back on the pillow and prayed that he would get the idea if she just stayed silent.
The curtains were drawn this time. Was it the light from the fireplace that kept alerting men that a young lady was being kept in here?
"I live for your touch
"I whisper your name,
"Night after night."
Haru doubted that. Other than offering her name to the first 'rescuer', no one here had bothered to learn her name. She was 'dear' to him so that he wouldn't have to remember any names, 'my lady' to everyone else, and 'Lady Maliss' when Felix would announce her for dinner. Lord Maliss really seemed to enjoy hearing her addressed like that.
She hated to betray old Momo, but she was forced to admit that her visitor was far better on his instrument.
The musician kept singing, breaking his own heart and hers.
"Heaven knows your name
"I've been praying to have you
"Come here by my side.
"Without you, a part of me is missing
"Just to make you my home I will fight."
Haru started crying again, but not for him this time as her heart seemed to scream in agony.
Words like that have never been for her. She had been praying, waiting, wishing that her time would come if she could just keep doing the right thing, and for what?! For Lord Maliss to come out of nowhere and make her wish she had never been born?! It would have been kinder for her to have been smothered as a baby or met up with a bad accident while she was a child! Why couldn't the fever have taken her like it did her mother?!
The singer sounded like he had been a fair distance from the balcony, but as his song drew to a triumphant close, his voice became closer and closer until she could just hear the tap of a shoe hitting the stone outside her window.
"If you love me…
"As much," he finally finished, letting the instrument trail off. He didn't say anything for a long time, but after a while, there was a somewhat hesitant tap on the glass doors.
Haru had to brace herself to speak to the man. "The one you sang that for is long gone," she called in as strong a voice as she could manage. "I can't come to the doors because tonight was… rough on me. Please go away."
That seemed to startle him for a while.
"What happened to make it so rough on you?" a musical voice asked, almost as pleasing to the ear when speaking as when singing.
Haru couldn't keep her sobs quiet, although she tried. "J-Just go away, okay? I need to be alone, and you're making it worse!"
"But-"
"I'm reaching for the bell," she told him, though hissing in pain as she forced her arm to angle right. "You better start running, I mean it."
"If you would just-"
"Agnes! Red! Blondie!" Haru called while pulling her arm down so that she could more comfortably ring the silver bell. "There's an intruder on the balcony!"
The three ladies in waiting took a little more time storming into the room than Haru would have liked, but at least the balcony was deserted by the time they calmed their mistress down enough to take a look.
"There's no one here, my lady," Agnes assured her while obviously checking around all the corners in case the latest 'rescuer' was hiding behind a flowerpot out there. "Are you sure you heard someone?"
"I thought I did," Haru reported, allowing herself to sound just a shade uncertain so that they wouldn't organize a search for the man. She didn't actively hate whoever that musician was, she just wanted to be left alone.
Haru couldn't even make herself get worried over whether or not he could have helped her. A smart man would have known to go after Lord Maliss before approaching her or doing something as audible as singing.
After convincing her ladies in waiting to stay in silence, Haru couldn't help but wonder about that as her mind slowly drifted to sleep.
That was three intruders in as many nights. And two of them were so bad at sneaking, they should have been caught long before reaching her window.
Why hadn't they been caught?
ooOoo
A hand touched her shoulder, sending shock waves of pain through the rest of her body. Haru's eyes snapped open as she cried out in agony.
The bed curtain had been tossed back enough that a shadow was across her blankets from the one candle that Red had left burning. Much to Haru's surprise, it wasn't the shadow of any of her ladies.
"Keep it down, Haru," a familiar voice hissed, though it seemed to be from another life.
Haru stayed perfectly still as her eyes went huge, since she was laying on her good side and away from the one casting the shadow. It couldn't be. It just… wasn't possible.
"… Machida?" she whispered, the name even tasting strange on her tongue as she turned her head enough to see him.
"Who else would it be?" he asked with a bit of annoyance as he pulled the bed covers off the top part of her body with one hand since he had a plain wooden staff in the other hand. It looked like it had started its life as a slightly crooked tree branch.
Forgetting that she had been transferred to a more form-fitting lace nightgown the color of night, Haru forced herself to painfully rise to a sitting position to stare.
It was Machida! But it was him like she had never seen him before, he was actually looking at her! He had never looked at her like this before!
Come to think of it, he had never looked at Sakura like this before, either. Haru had to quickly look around to be sure that she hadn't dreamed living a nightmare in Lord Maliss's castle.
Haru looked at Machida, wondering if maybe he was the dream. "What… how?"
He ripped his eyes off her flimsy excuse of a nightgown to smile charmingly at her. "Isn't it obvious? I'm here to take you home. So we can finally be together."
Haru gaped at his answer. It was the one thing she had ever wanted to hear from him. Just a week ago, she'd have sold her soul to get him to talk to her like that.
But… for some unfathomable reason… hearing it now made something deep within her snap.
Ignoring the pain flaming on her neck and shoulder, she pounced on him hard enough to knock him onto the pink rug next to her bed. She saw flames dance behind her eyes at the obvious fact that although he was surprised by her enthusiasm, he was enjoying it more deeply than she had ever seen before as the branch staff fell just slightly out of reach for him.
That enjoyment only increased when she pointedly used her knees to pin his arms down and place one hand on his chest, directly below his neck.
That alien smirk was wiped clean away when she delivered the first punch.
It was wonderful. A euphoria like she had never experienced before. She could feel the beginning of the scabs on her neck and shoulder rip open in protest, but it was nothing compared to the sheer joy she felt landing punch after punch on that face she once worshiped.
"How dare you!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as she continued to pound around his screams of pain. "Eight years, Machida! Eight years you made me wait, you get married to Sakura, and out of nowhere, you decide that I really am a girl?! You pig! You and your witch of a mother are the reason Maliss has been gnawing on me like a favorite bone! All you had to do was care that I was hurting, and none of this would have happened! You selfish brat! This! Is! All! Your! Fault!"
Haru punctuated every word of the last sentence with its own punch, delighting in the warm blood that covered her fist. Six years of mucking a cow's stable and chopping wood were finally paying off, for although her hand hurt almost as bad as her neck and shoulder, her arm was still going strong as it made mush out of that once-handsome face. He flailed to get her off, but as the apprentice of his tailor father, he didn't have nearly the muscle-toning that she did. It was surprisingly easy to keep him pinned as she started savagely scratching at his face with both hands since she couldn't do much else without releasing his flailing arms from her leg pin.
Then something odd happened. Her energy just… left…
Night Four
Haru tiredly flickered her eyes open, feeling even more tired and sore than when she had briefly woken up at dawn to be switched into the nightgown. "Ow…" she groaned lowly.
Using a rope that her mistress had never noticed before, Agnes opened all of the bed curtains with a terrified expression. "Um, how are you feeling? My lady?"
"Ow," Haru clarified, sinking deeper under her blankets in sheer exhaustion. She tried to raise her right arm to feel her forehead, but it was strangely heavy, and was throbbing with a pain at least comparable to her neck and shoulder. Although she knew she shouldn't have been able to tell, she could feel that the wrappings were different from the bandages that Red and Blondie had put around her the previous night.
With a certain amount of effort, she was able to raise her right hand to see the bandages circling it like a fighter.
Haru blinked and tried to sit up. "Ow," she repeated instead of the 'how did that happen?' she had meant to say. A glance to her left revealed a different rug than what had been there last night.
Her heartbeat quickened as her eyes went wide. No. Had that been real?
"You had a daymare, my lady," Red told her, coming forward to grip the undamaged hand with her sister. "We heard you screaming, but when we came in to see what was wrong, you were pounding the ground like a madwoman. We even had to replace the rug because of your blood on it."
Haru blinked and laughed weakly at herself while resting her head back on the pillow. 'Of course that wasn't real. Machida thinks I'm a vegetable he doesn't want to eat, and he never could have gotten here that fast. Not even for Sakura.'
Then she noticed it was sundown. "Time for my bath before dinner?" she asked in resignation, even though she couldn't even sit up for some reason. "We all know it won't end well for me if I try to say-"
"Dinner was cancelled, my lady," Blondie reported, though her chipper attitude seemed a little forced tonight. "Lord Maliss received some news he didn't like, so he's focusing on that for tonight. The kitchens are already preparing a small meal to send up to you. Why don't you spend tonight resting and letting those wounds heal?"
If her dream hadn't been enough to put her in a good mood, that certainly would have done the trick!
ooOoo
After a few more hours of unconsciousness, Machida slowly rose back to the world of the living. He slowly looked at the large mirror he had passed out in front of to check on the current state he was in.
Most of the bone structure of his face had gone back to its original shape, but the cuts from Haru's fingernails had turned into scabs since the last time he passed out from a healing spell.
That was the problem; healing spells were pretty much the opposite of his specialty, and they required far more concentration than his usual style. On top of that, he had never needed to heal wounds this severe before.
The worst he'd ever had to heal before this was his liver after drinking more wine than he should have the previous evening.
While he had been out for the count, one of the freaks that served him had left a covered dish and a flask of his favorite wine where he could easily reach it from his crumpled position on the floor.
He growled deep in his throat before eating everything he could and draining the flask before readying himself for the next round. 'Out of all those sieges, and all those would-be 'heroes', and it was a peasant girl that's come the closest to actually killing me?!'
He passed out again after performing the healing spell for the fourth time, but when he woke up long after midnight, there were no more fractures, no long cuts over his face. Gripping his staff with one hand, he twisted it enough to encourage a cold sensation to change the sturdy wood into a rare red obsidian, the top of the staff reforming into his alternate shape of a dragon's head.
It took a bit of effort, but as he forced himself to use the staff to get to his feet, the change from Machida to Lord Maliss started at the hand holding the staff and rippled out until the last of the peasant homespun tunic and healthy complexion had disappeared.
Someone had left him food again. But he didn't dare lean down to pick up where it lay for him on the ground since his head was still throbbing enough to say that he needed to take it easy for a while. Even using his magic right now would be unwise.
After perhaps a half hour of resting on the closest chair, he forced himself to get up and lean heavily on the staff in order to leave the random room he had ordered his bumbling servants to leave him in.
He would have preferred to be transferred to his own chambers after that horrible encounter, but the freak show he called his staff couldn't work together smoothly enough to make the move as painless as possible. He had just barely been able to use his wife's stolen energy to start the first healing spell before passing out; there was no telling if he would have been able to wake up if he had waited until they had nearly bounced him all the way to his own quarters.
As dumb as the monsters were, he couldn't help being grateful that they at least knew to stay out of his path when he was in a mood like this.
After what felt like ages, he pushed the door open to the one room in the castle other than the treasury that he always made sure to lock with both steel and magic.
The most valuable and irritating treasure in his possession was smirking before Maliss even got a good look at it.
"You told me she loved that boy," he snarled, barely able to slam the door shut behind him.
"I cannot lie, Lord Maliss,
"What I said was true.
"But you left to seduce
"Before I was through."
Lord Maliss growled under his breath, grateful that he at least already had a comfortable chair within range to see the large ornate mirror. Although it took him longer than normal, the evil wizard settled himself comfortably before glaring at the silver-cast face forged above the glass. Vowing once again to never let the staff get farther than arm's length away, he set it over his lap and leaned forward slightly. "Then give me the information that might have been useful before that wench pounded my head into a pudding."
That fat pale face sniffed at his choice of words but made the reflective part of himself ripple and change to show the same young man as it had the night before, with Haru looking at him with her heart in her eyes as they passed by each other in the tiny village square.
It was only then that Lord Maliss noticed that Machida was avoiding looking at her at all cost.
"Eight long years did Haru wait
"For love to enter his heart
"But another he chose to mate
"Never an apology to impart."
It was here that the scene changed to Haru slamming an egg into that same boy's face, her own full of pain and rage before she snarled a seemingly silent remark and got another egg ready.
Maliss couldn't fight back a grin now that her target was someone else. The poor fool never had a chance, but at least he was smart enough to leave after Haru leaned down for a rock when she had two eggs left in her apron.
"Haru chose to let them be
"Allow others to throw the rice
"Rather than prove herself unworthy.
"But for his mother, this would not suffice."
The scene changed to Machida getting his head stuck in a bowl of soapy water as an older woman washed his hair clean from the egg while fuming angrily.
"Many invited wouldn't go
"Unless the bride was Haru.
"All uncaring, did Kamiko
"Decide that only force would do."
Then it switched to Lord Maliss' first glimpse of his latest wife. Closing the door to that quaint little cottage just outside the little village before she began her slightly nervous walk towards the woods.
If it hadn't been for the sight spell to confirm she was both a female and unclaimed, he would have taken her before she entered the woods. As things stood, he had to keep his invisibility charm active and circle the area while praying she would come out in the open soon.
"Haru chose to flee by night
"Only a day would she have been missing
"To keep the wedding from her sight
"If you had just kept on moving."
Maliss twirled one side of his mustache in thought. "You know? I think forcing a rival to watch me marry their love is the one thing I haven't done. Mostly because I don't perform the ceremony where I find my next bride. There's always too much room for error when I don't wait until bringing one home." He leaned back tiredly into the high back chair with a long, thinking exhale of breath.
"This explains why she didn't give me the 'my true love will rescue me' speech, and why her bag only had some mediocre food and sewing things. Though I would have changed my approach a bit if I had known ahead of time that her heart was taken."
The mirror let the glass fall dark before smirking at him.
"Haru is clever, have no doubt.
"If you punish her for this-"
"She'll figure the game out," Maliss finished with one hand on the side of his aching head. "If she figures it out, they will never let me forget about it."
"You can take that for granted," the mirror told him cheerfully, as if also telling the wizard that the looking glass would work the victory over him into as many future verses as it could manage.
That doubled his resolve. The mirror and them were unmanageable enough without some peasant girl spoon-feeding them hope.
Hope had to be the only thing more dangerous than himself. He had to crush that hope before anything could come of it.
Then he smiled at remembering his pretty little wife in black lace that left little to the imagination. He had to say one thing about choosing her over another blue blood; there was definitely a charm to a woman that seemed oblivious to her own beauty. It was actually enthralling to watch her cringe under his gaze and try not to look like she was cutting off his vision instead of issuing demands or throwing things at him if he wouldn't keep his eyes to himself.
He was in equal parts amused by how her very flesh recoiled from his touch. It always made such an interesting contrast between when a wife knew it was him touching her or not. He had already known that she was one of the stronger wives he'd ever had thanks to wrestling small samples of affection out of her at dinner, but he hadn't anticipated how weak Machida's body would leave him for his latest attempt to claim his wife. Why did Haru waste eight years pining for that weakling, again?
Maliss shook his head with a smirk. It didn't matter. All he had to do was find the right disguise to approach her, and everything would be right back on track.
Every woman had a type that would make her lose her senses. The last thirteen years were proof enough of that.
"All right," he concluded while looking up at the mirror that had lost some of its cocky attitude at his renewed confidence. "What type of man does Haru go for?"
If the looking glass had been forged with shoulders, Maliss was certain that it would have shrugged.
"Machida was the only sight
"That made her heart take flight."
Maliss closed his eyes in irritation. "What sort of man did she think he was? Eight years without encouragement must have come from something."
"What is said and done
"Will always be open to me
"But as you've long since known
"Thoughts and future remain a mystery."
Despite his aching head, Maliss let out a frustrated scream. "You think I don't know that?! All that wench ever does is think! Princesses generally wait for some true love or sing songs about wanting their freedom, almost any girl of rank cry themselves to sleep until I catch them, and all of them tell the monsters serving them what's on their mind, no matter how loud they get or what they throw for emphasis!"
He accented his anger with slamming the bottom of his staff against the stone floor, almost like dropping the final straw.
"But not this peasant girl! She doesn't sing, she doesn't talk about anything she isn't prodded to, and she barely even cries! All she wants to do is embroider those worthless bags and think about whatever it is that can make her forget that I'm in the room! Barely cordial to me, I can understand, but she could be thinking anything! How am I supposed to know what she looks for or why she's abnormally calm for being my wife if she never voluntarily opens her mouth?!" That made his dark eyes light up with a thought. "She had at least one friend in that village, didn't she? She only wanted to be gone for a day, which means someone was going to miss her."
Ugh, the mirror was grinning at him maliciously again!
"Indeed she does, but had long since known
"That telling Hiromi anything personal
"Might as well be shouted in square of town.
"Which is why she keeps secrets all."
Maliss shakily got to his feet, used his staff to draw closer to the mirror, and picked up the mace he always left in this room for just such an occasion. Though his grip was unsteady, waving it side to side in front of the mirror's face had the desired effect.
"Give me something to work with," the evil wizard almost whispered in his fury.
That pudgy face gulped nervously before the glass beneath it rippled awake. It took a while for the Magic Mirror to find anything useful, but the threat of violence still worked like a charm.
It was a warm summer day, and two young girls were cloud gazing next to full baskets of strawberries.
The unknown girl turned her head to scowl at a dreamy-eyed Haru, looking maybe a little older than ten. "All right, Miss Smarty Skirt. What do you think is the perfect romance?"
"Your grandparents," Haru answered without a thought, smiling in pure bliss as her large brown eyes traveled a million miles away.
The other girl laughed almost in pity. "Seriously, Haru? That's the best you can come up with?"
Haru turned her face enough to smile at her friend, as if she had expected nothing less. "Think about it, Hiromi. Remember when Nashito came back from the capital last month and bragged about getting to see the queen and princess in a big parade?"
Maliss couldn't resist a bit of pride and reassurance at the thought of that princess. That one had definitely been a worthy challenge. If he could handle Mononoke, then Haru was no big deal.
Hiromi rolled her olive-green eyes. "And Grandpa had to go and say, 'Big deal. I get to see a queen every day' while pointing at Grandma."
Haru looked up at the sky, her large brown eyes content at what was obviously a worn-out flirtation to her friend. "She giggled, Hiromi. It was like she forgot that they weren't newlyweds. Mother says she can't wait until she and Father get to be that old and still madly in love with each other."
Removing her slim hands from behind her head, she placed them over her heart with a hopeful smile. "Someday, when I'm old and wrinkled, I want someone amazing to still be able to point at me and proudly say, 'there is my queen."
Maliss smirked thinly through his remaining headache. "I can arrange at least half of that for you, dear."
