While the Maou is Away: Part II
Gunter stood on the balcony, gazing into the distance in the direction his Maou and companions had ventured off to the day before. The cool breeze lifted his long, silky white hair behind him in fluttering waves. He sighed heavily in personal grief for the absence of the one whom he had decided to devote himself towards.
He heard quiet footsteps approaching him and recognized the woman they belonged. He only knew one person who walked so silently and with such determination. A sense of dread began to creep up his spine. He turned and offered her an innocent smile. "Anissina, how kind of you to join me," he greeted.
Anissina narrowed her bright blue eyes at him, unsure if she detected a trace of sarcasm in his voice. "Are you still moping about Yuuri's absence?"
Gunter raised his hand to lay it across his heart, palm flat in a wounded fashion. "You must not speak of his name with such familiarity. He is the Maou, the leader of our people, the bringer of peace and harmony, his is---,"he was cut off.
"He is the sun and the moon and your world revolves around him et cetera," Anissina finished for him with an impatient wave of her hand before taking a firm grip of the white haired man's arm and dragging him inside the room and out of the elements. "I'm sure our great Maou will be even more impressed with you once he discovers you've been aiding me with my latest inventions!" She enthused with a mad twinkle in her eyes that sent another shiver of fear up Gunter's spine.
"Wouldn't Gwendal be a more appropriate guinea pig?" Gunter argued, Anissina sent him a look that made his blood freeze. "I mean assistant?"
The red haired woman ran her fingers through her hair impatiently. "No. The experiment I want you to help me on actually involves the revelation of what our dear von Walde's intentions are."
Gunter frowned but allowed the woman to lead him into her laboratory. It was often safer to not argue. He hated to admit that she could easily beat him up and he did desire to save some face. Besides, participating in her experiments were often more embarrassing than permanently scarring. And he did have a rather pretty face. "I don't understand how such an invention will please the Maou."
"It's too complex for you to understand," Anissina replied with a bright grin. No way would she admit that this experiment was for purely selfish reasons. She needed Gunter's help and the best way to solicit it was to make him think he was doing it for the man he was obsessed over. He didn't need to know about the training session and the ensuing confusion she was feeling about her best friend.
She pulled up a chair and ordered Gunter to sit in it. She then lifted a large helmet with odd wiring from the table and placed it over his head, connecting a long cord into an outlet that fed into a printer. Gunter eyed everything with a nervous lick of his lips. "What am I supposed to do?"
"Just sit there and concentrate on this bear," Anissina explained, handing him one of the knit animals Gwendal had recently completed. She needed something of his to make the connection. She flipped a few switches on the helmet causing Gunter to shift uncomfortably.
"Are you sure this is a bear? It looks more like a penguin," Gunter mused while examining the stuffed animal in his hands. He didn't want to think about the heavy contraption sitting on his head. "This isn't going to hurt my hair is it?"
He started to raise his hand to check his hair for damage before Anissina slapped it down. "Don't touch anything," she told him ignoring his question. She really didn't know if it was hurt his hair, and if it did she would simply invent something to correct the damage. Some sort of herbal shampoo would surely do the trick. "Now concentrate on the bear."
"Penguin," Gunter muttered.
"Bear," Anissina argued.
Gunter began to open his mouth to continue the debate when Anissina covered it with her palm. "No talking, just concentrate."
Gunter acquiesced, the sense of dread never leaving his spine.
Once more in his office, Gwendal began to massage his temples with his thumb and middle finger as a pounding headache began to develop. It felt as if something were being extracted from his brain, but that wasn't possible so he blamed it on the small font type of the documents he was reading over.
Anissina bit her lip in frustration as she read over the print outs. "You must not be concentrating hard enough. Think harder about that bear!" She demanded her reluctant assistant. Gunter tried to obey her command, ignoring the pain in the neck he was developing both literally and figuratively. The helmet weighed a ton!
"It is only revealing thoughts about government correspondence. Surely this is not all that is on his mind," Anissina muttered to herself, frowning and feeling defeated. She pulled the plug on the experiment and yanked the helmet off Gunter's head not caring that it pulled rather harshly on his white locks.
"Hey!" Gunter complained, massaging his scalp and giving her a venomous glare.
"Leave, your powers are obviously too weak and that's why my invention isn't working properly." Anissina shooed him out and began to examine her machine, wondering where exactly she went wrong.
Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Gunter scrambled out the room as fast as his legs would carry him. He needed to make sure his hair was still in good shape. He couldn't risk looking less than perfect for when his Maou returned home.
oooooOOOOOoooooOOOOOooooo
Gwendal missed dinner that evening with the rest of the household. Whether it was intentional or not it was hard to determine. He felt that given the circumstances it would be best to avoid Anissina for a while. Mostly because he wasn't sure how to act around her now that he had kissed her. He didn't expect to feel attracted to her; she was his oldest and dearest friend.
He wasn't supposed to feel attracted to her!
And this headache of his simply was not going away. It came out of nowhere when he was thinking upon various governmental correspondences. It probably was related to all the stress he was putting himself under.
His brow furrowed as he considered this line of reasoning before he purposely tried to stop scowling. In the back of his mind he could hear his mother's voice echoing about how he'll mar his beautiful complexion with such an ugly wrinkle.
Within his hands he carried the dolphin he finished and was walking towards Greta's playroom. At least she was one female in the household that wouldn't cause him any undo stress.
He noticed the three busybody maids lurking in the hallway, pretending to dust and shot them an annoyed look. He struggled to hold in his desire to sigh at the lack of effect his glare sent them. Maybe he was losing his touch.
Perhaps he should go out on the next mission instead of staying around the castle. He always did tend to feel better after a good fight.
Greta's door was open and she looked up from the blocks she was playing with and smiled at him warmly. "Gwendal!" She exclaimed, rising to her feet and rushing to his side to hug his leg.
He gave her an awkward pat on the head before handing her the dolphin he made for her. "I made you this gift," he offered.
"What a cute fishie!" Greta cried with a toothy grin as she hugged it close to her chest.
Gwendal felt his eye twitching in irritation. "It's a dolphin," he corrected with as much patience as he could muster.
"Do you know where Anissina is? Normally she reads me my bedtime story and its almost past time now, do you think you could read to me instead?" Greta looked at him with pleading, childish eyes that no one with a heart could refuse. Unless he wanted to dwell on the fact that when he met her she tried to assassinate the Maou.
Gwendal did tend to hold grudges.
"I will read to you," he consented. He really wished she hadn't brought up Anissina. He was doing so well with pretending nothing had happened between them and not thinking about her at all.
Greta tugged on his long green sleeve happily and led him to the chair beside her bed as she crawled under the covers, hugging the dolphin close to her.
Gwendal began to reach for a book to read when Greta stopped him. "I want you to read this book," she told him, handing him a green and blue leather bound book. "It's about a princess and a warrior," she informed him, settling back against her pillow.
He cleared his throat and flipped to the opening page. "Once upon a time, there was a princess named Natilda," he started before he was interrupted by the child.
"No, her name is Anissina. Use the name Anissina," Greta smiled sweetly at him. Gwendal nodded and continued.
"Once upon a time there was a princess named Anissina. She was the most beautiful princess in all the land. She looked like a fairy with her…"
"Long red hair and bright blue eyes," Greta supplied, changing the words. Gwendal frowned. This story reading was harder than he thought.
"The book says she has blond hair and…"
"She has red hair and blue eyes," Greta interrupted with finality. "And she's very strong and smart too," she added with a nod of her head. She looked over at the confused dignitary. "You may continue now."
"One day, Anissina, met a warrior named Philip."
"Gwendal."
"Yes?"
"No, his name is Gwendal." Greta corrected with a trace of annoyance.
He did not like where this was heading. "Met a warrior named Gwendal. He was given the task of defending the land from a great threat. A powerful, evil wizard decided to destroy the land and take the beautiful Anissina as his own to be his wife."
Gwendal paused and looked at Greta expectantly. "Does the wizard have a name that I should be aware of?" He couldn't help the trace of annoyance that had slipped into his tone.
Greta waved the question away. "He's not important. I want to hear about how the warrior Gwendal saves his one true love, Lady Anissina."
"Don't you mean princess?"
"Whatever," Greta remarked with impatience.
Gwendal closed the book and turned towards the child. "Perhaps you should tell the story. I seem to be getting it all wrong."
"No, you're doing fine. Just be sure you get the names right," Greta gave him a winning smile. Gwendal never was good at refusing something cute so he consented and continued to read her edited version of the tale.
"And then Gwendal vowed his undying love for the princess Anissina and together they flew off into the sky on the winged horse that they had rescued from the evil wizard's clutches." He closed the book and lay it down on her shelf.
He straightened the covers on the little girl before rising and heading towards the door. The person standing in the frame was the last person he wanted to see at the moment. He wondered how much she had heard and felt an uncomfortable flush.
"Interesting rendition of the Princess and the Warrior," Anissina commented. She couldn't help the smug look at seeing her best friend blush. It helped her feel more confident that at least he was somewhat affected.
Gwendal shrugged. "She adapted it; I merely did as I was told."
"Never could deny the request of something cute," Anissina smiled softly at him. The look was so serene and cute that Gwendal felt his heart rise in his throat. "I just came to check on her, I'm afraid I wasn't able to make it in time to read her a bedtime story."
"I think I handled that pretty well," Gwendal told her as he walked out of the room and shut the door. He didn't want to look at her. Reading the fairy tale put too many notions of happily ever after into his head. Why did that little girl have to change the names of the characters?
"Something wrong?" Anissina asked, placing her hand upon his shoulder when he kept his back to her, and remained facing the closed bedroom door. She felt his muscles tense under her light touch.
Gwendal turned around and gave her a bland, aloof expression. "Of course nothing is wrong. I just have a terrible headache," he explained, lying through his teeth. The headache had disappeared at least an hour before.
He narrowed his eyes at Anissina when something akin to a guilty expression crossed her features. "You wouldn't happen to know why I might have a headache would you?" He asked suspiciously as he walked alongside her down the hallway.
Anissina smiled all too innocently. "Nope, I don't have a single clue why you might have a headache. I really must get back to my laboratory, good night!" She took off at lightning speed down the hallway. No doubt to destroy the evidence of her 'failed' experiment.
oooooOOOOOoooooOOOOOooooo
Yuuri and Murata sat side-by-side at campfire. Yuuri poked the flames with a long stick, stirring the ashes and cinders in the process. Konrad and Wolfram were arguing about the mission. Or rather, Wolfram was arguing and Konrad was calmly listening, not bending in his decisions.
"What do you suppose is going on back at the castle?" Yuuri asked his friend from both his incarnation as the original Maou and back home in the modern world.
Murata shrugged, stretching his long legs out before him. He hid the secret smile he felt as he could clearly see the small drama playing out back at Blood Pledge Castle. He only needed to make sure their return trip was delayed at least until the following evening. "Who knows?"
"We'll be back at the castle by tomorrow evening Wolfram and that's final," Konrad explained. He was all too aware of the boy's desire for adventure and the boredom he felt at the castle, especially when Yuuri went back to his home world. And now that their mission was complete, there really wasn't a reason for Yuuri and Murata to remain.
"Don't worry Wolfram," Murata interrupted before the blond pretty boy could argue more. "Yuuri won't be leaving until the end of the week," he promised.
Yuuri watched the exchange in silence. It was still odd to be the center of so much attention. And yet, he was oddly curious about what was taking place back at the castle. He had this odd feeling that something was happening and he was missing out on the commotion.