Curse of the Goblin King
By: OtakuSailorV
Chapter Three
Erutis sat in the high-backed chair, waiting for the formidable Goblin King to finish eating. She had barely picked at what was laid before her compared to him. He had finished almost everything and now sat up straight, downing the last of his drink and then turned his gaze on her.
Erutis froze, eyeing him carefully. Krayon found some amusement in her sudden uneasiness as his gaze fell on her. She seemed quite flustered, and something struck him as cute about her reactions to even the simplest things. He smiled at her divinely, making her tense up even more.
Coming out of his seat, he strode around the edge of the table, and came down the length of it toward her. She sat ram-rod straight, hair seeming to stand on end, eyes downcast and averted from his, though she still was watching him as he came closer and closer to her.
He stopped next to her chair and leaned down, his face coming too close to hers for comfort. She tried to move away, but found that she would bump into his arm on the other side of the chair if she moved too far. "You didn't eat very much, are you sure you're not hungry?" He asked.
She pressed herself hard into the back of the chair, trying to get away from him, though she knew it was futile. "I'm fine." She ground out in a terse manner, narrowing her eyes on him.
"You still appear hungry, though. I do not wish for you to starve." Krayon pressed.
"I'm. . .Fine. . ." She said slowly and forcefully.
He smirked as she squirmed uneasily. "If you are done then, please allow me." At this he pulled gently on her chair. Despite the ornate rug underneath it, it slid out quite smoothly, without catching even once or ruffling the rug beneath it. Erutis was sure this had something to do with magic.
When he had finished pulling the chair out, she knew that it was her cue to stand so that he may push it back in. But she was not about to cooperate for even a second and held perfectly still, grasping either side of the chair tightly with her hands. Her fingernails started to dig into the unpolished wood on the underneath of either side as she did so.
Krayon sighed as he saw that she was going to be difficult about it. Pressing one hand into his closed left eye, he frowned slightly as he examined the situation. She had a strong grip on the chair, but she was still just a human. A good pull would unseat her quite nicely. His arms snaked down and moved behind her shoulder blades, coming back up underneath her armpits and yanking upward. He smirked as she squirmed against the sudden contact, dropping her guard in shock and confusion. Erutis made a protesting, half-angry noise and had let go of the seat to wriggle her arms away when he pulled upward.
Erutis cried out, lashing out in the air to try and right herself, and to try and hit her enemy who had caused her to be flung over the top of the chair and into his waiting arms. She flushed furiously when she saw where she had landed and stopped for a moment, dumbstruck. Then, brows furrowed and eye twitching, she lashed around again, struggling against him. "Get off of me!"
He smirked wider, enjoying the fact that she was so enraged by such simple things to him. He hadn't been so mirthful since. . .well, it had been a very long time.
Leaning down, his lips touched hers in a brief kiss. Pulling back, he grinned broadly at her as she instantly calmed, her expression blank and face suddenly pale. "You're cute when you're angry." He commented.
After a moment, her eyes rolled towards him and she turned livid again. "You-!" Erutis cried, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. She couldn't help it, she felt so outraged, so violated. How dare he take advantage of her that way! Her first kiss lost to her enemy like that! Acting on impulses instead of clear thoughts, she wasn't aware that her hand had struck him on the cheek until he had released her.
Nimbly she stepped to her feet, glaring at him, the spots where tears threatened to overcome her were plainly visible to him as she watched him for one second before running out of the dining room and tore down the hallway.
As she fled, he felt a smirk cross his features. He half wanted to give chase, but willed himself to stop. It would not do to act on such impulses, especially for someone of his stature. Though he blatantly reminded himself that he had just acted one of those said impulses, he brushed it aside and went back to his own quarters. He would just wait until she calmed herself and came looking for him. It would not do for him to make her more upset than she already was. If anything it would just hamper his plans at the moment. Touching the red handprint on his cheek thoughtfully, he left the room. Far behind him the sound of her angered stomping echoed in the mass pillared hallway.
Erutis' mind shrieked with denial and burning hatred as she strode away from the dining hall, heels grinding into the marble painfully. A string of curses were heard under her breath, and if one were to have peered into her mind, they would have found ever more crass words just waiting to be uttered. These were no words a Lady should have been using as if it were common everyday language! Certainly not acceptable behavior.
Still the rusty haired woman persisted, not even noticing or really caring that she had passed the door to her 'temporary' lodgings. There was still blood splattered and dripping from it where her fist had impacted not that long ago.
As she continued on, she came upon a large double-door that was like the one that led to her own room. Had she cared, she might have noticed that instead of a handle or knob, this door had simply two large, ringed knockers. This made it hard to access to anyone who lacked the strength to push the doors aside. But, having a sword-master's strength, she easily breezed past them, though her obliviousness to the situation ahead of her might have helped in this case.
Upon entering, a plume of dust and moldy air greeted her. No fresh air had come into the room in a very long time. Erutis gasped for breath, inhaling the dust particles, and immediately started coughing and spluttering, water droplets burning at the corners of her eyes. Covering her mouth with one hand, she bent slightly at the middle, placing her other hand near her chest. "Damn." She cursed, wincing.
The dust cleared after a moment, giving Erutis room to breathe. Gasping still from her fit earlier, she took a look around at the room carefully. It was dank and dark; furniture with large white cloths over them was stacked everywhere near tall, deep in-laid bookcases. The bookcases reached all the way to the ceiling around the circular room, and directly in front of her, across the far wall was an open window though it was opaque, only a few dim rays of light able to reach through to the room beyond. The in window reached outward, creating a window-seat or sill-type sitting area filled with dusty old, forlorn pillows. Curiously, she thought she spied an open book. 'But why would someone leave a book open in this room for so long?' She wondered.
The Goblin King, was her only answer. Not only was he the only one present in the dreary castle that could have done it, but he seemed absent minded enough to forget about such a large, drab room as this one for so long. 'Long enough to make himself a good thousand minions out of dust bunnies.' She noticed, covering her mouth as she cleared the distance between herself and the window.
Coming upon the open book, she raised an eyebrow at it thoughtfully. The writing seemed to be someone's own handwriting. Though this was not uncommon, she thought that the Goblin King could at least afford to get himself ink-printed books. Still, the pictures drawn inside were intriguing and she found herself sitting on dust-encrusted pillows subconsciously, a plume of dust filling the air around her and going unnoticed except for a single sneeze.
Scanning the pages, she found the writing hard to decipher, though she was slowly able to read the words, and, as she deciphered the letters, began reading back at her normal pace.
"Curses involving more than one subject or object are very complex, and not easily broken. Like curses sealed by death or a kind of sacrifice, they are very powerful and may even lengthen the bearer's life if he does not find the cure or remedy to the curse and/or the curse does not fulfill it's basic need right away."
Erutis blinked, stunned. 'A book about curses?' She thought, but read on, past the little sub-script notes about the above passage.
"Curses may take years to accomplish their basic job. To read more about what kind of curse you have or are interested in placing on someone else, consult the Table of Contents."
Erutis sighed as she came to the end of passage. 'It's like a training manual.' Rolling her eyes, she flipped to the contents, sending a shower of dust right at her eyes. Closing them swiftly, she waited until she was sure it was ok to look again, and found that she had turned right to the Contents. 'That was easy.'
Skimming through, she found the manual on curses to be slightly humorous and ironic. She had never seen a book like this before on such a serious subject, and thought maybe she would try and write a book on being a sword-master just like this one someday. She giggled absently at the thought.
She stopped a particularly intriguing chapter that caught her eye. 'Curses That Affect One's Brain. Hmph, maybe the Goblin King's got one of those.' She grumped to herself.
Passing it by, she went on to the next column on the next page. The leading column read: 'Special Cases.'
'Special cases?' Erutis questioned curiously. Flipping to the page, she found that a good deal of the book dealt with curses that had to do with 'special cases' and even included a history of such cases. Some were funny or humorous, and others were quite serious. And one such Curse bearer was horribly tragic, and Erutis felt moved by his story, though she wouldn't say it aloud that she was.
Most of the people that had been cursed were men who had angered women who had loved them but had their love never returned. 'That's so stupid.' Erutis furrowed her brow at a picture of one woman glaring at another man and woman kissing. 'Why would anyone get so worked up over such a thing like that? So he didn't love her back, big deal.'
But then there were other stories where objects had been cursed instead of people, for the simple reason just to cause mischief or even to grieve the person to whom the object belong. The book simply stated that the cursing of objects could have a double effect, depending on how it was used, and in the end was quite useful and at times more spiteful than cursing the person himself.
Turning to the very last, and newest of what she had started to think of as the 'famous curses and their many bearers,' she continued to sneer at the past fables. None of them were particularly interesting, and all had a rather 'already been done' feel to them, though she was sure that originality did fade after a time. It was just so hard to come up with something new that no one else had done before if one was always competing with things that had already been accomplished in the past.
This last story – though it did not lack the 'non-original' feel – was the most interesting of them all so far. It started off like a fairy tale, but soon grew grimmer as she read on.
"There once lived a powerful Demon Lord who ruled over the realm of dreams. His age was unknown, for he always looked youthful. Sometimes, when he was bored, he would enter the dreams of young maidens and haunt them, or simply enter anyone's dreams, if only to breach that sanctuary. But his curiosity was soon captured by the dreams of a single girl who lived in a simple village.
He visited her many nights in her dreams. He never fell in love, for he maintained that he was a demon and she a human. They would never mix, but she saw no such boundary and willingly gave him her heart. When it was denied, she flew into dying despair. Her heart broken, she died in misery, but not before sending out a plea that someone would help her. She was heard not by friend, but by a foe of the Demon Lord. As she was dying, she used the last of her strength to cast a curse on him, that his heart would be cold as stone to all with the exception of one who would be his ultimate downfall if he found no way to exact her love back for him. With the help of the enemy of the Demon Lord, another part was added onto to the curse. The Lord would be denied to leave the forest that his castle was contained in until the curse had been lifted, and neither would he be able to escape through dreams of those that lived outside of the forest. Only travelers in the forest and those in his castle would be subject to his power over dreams, and no one else.
Usually such curses brought about by a human on a Demon Lord would have no effect on such a powerful being. But with the exception that it was both a curse sealed by death (also being called an ultimate sacrifice in this case) and a curse exacted with the help of another stronger being, it was immediately placed into use."
The words dribbled off after that, as if the writer had been suddenly overcome with sleep and just scrawled across the rest of the page as he fell on top of his own work in his exhaustion.
Erutis stared at it for a moment before closing the book abruptly. "Well, that was a good fairy tale." Glancing over the title of the book, she rolled her eyes. Curses for Dummies, a fitting title if nothing else. Fitting the book underneath her arm, she walked off toward the open doors, not caring to shut them back behind her.
Walking back down the hall, she found herself deep in thought about nothing really in particular, just ambling along, intending on heading back to her own room. Erutis had only passed a few of the large, thick pillars though, when suddenly she collided with something else. Startled, she stepped back, away from what she had bumped into, but only managed to place her footing wrongly and stumbled backward.
From her side, whatever she had bumped into made a groaning noise as well, though she didn't get to catch what she had bumped into as she spun and slammed onto the floor, the book skittering away from her grasp. Making a face, she rubbed her sore butt and looked back up indignantly, only to meet Krayon's gaze.
Fire flared up inside of her as she spotted his smug grin. He still remained on his feet, watching her in that way that he did, making her angrier and angrier every second.
"Watch it!" She hissed at him, glaring at him as if she wanted nothing more than to strike him dead at the moment.
The Goblin King went down on one knee, offering her one gloved hand. "I'm so sorry, Erutis." He said smoothly, irking her. "Here, let me help you up."
Erutis made a face, her lips tugging down ward into a frown. Her brows furrowed and her eyes narrowed. Slapping his hand away roughly, she denied his act of chivalry without a second thought and hoisted herself up in one swift motion. "I can get up by myself, thank you. I'm not some fragile little flower you can keep locked in a glass cage!" She warned him.
Krayon got back to his feet and gave her a cheery smile, his efforts to lighten the mood still taking no real effect on her. "That is most obvious, but you should let someone treat you more like a woman every now and then, hm?"
Erutis' face lit up with a blush, though it would have been easily mistaken for a reaction to the same anger that flared suddenly in her eyes, widening them in surprise at his comment. Was he trying to insult her? Anger bubbled and suddenly burst inside of her. She had always been short-tempered when mocked or teased, but it seemed more so with this man always hovering over or near her. Steeling her resolve, her hand came up, though not in the fist she had summoned. Smacking him, she stomped off again, as she left him standing in shock.
Krayon rubbed the cheek, pouting slightly. "What did I do this time?"
Well, the 'curse' wasn't explained really in the way that I wanted for this chapter, but I'm working on how to further and better explain it later. Though, I think you guys could understand it ok, ne?
At any rate – it was kinda hard writing the kissing part, since I've never done that before, and I wasn't exactly sure how to handle Erutis in a situation like that. I referred back to the manwha and tried my best, but I'm still uncertain. I'm sure someone will let me know if I screwed up big time though. Haha.
I will be out of town from December 30 – January 2, and I will have no computer to write on or get Online with, so I will not be updating to writing those four days, as it is most obvious. However, I will work my hardest the few days I have beforehand to prep for my return.
I hope everyone enjoyed their Holidays. I know mine were very good, but that might help that I love my mom's side of the family beyond words. laughs at self Well, enjoy yourselves everyone!!
Thank you for the reviews, as always. I truly appreciate it. See ya soon!
Review Please.