"Speech"
'Thought'
[Magic]
{Change of time or location}
Third day, third maiden! Oh this was an hard one to write! Hope you enjoy!
Love of the Faceless
That day Ainz arrived at his office later than usual, the reason for that was that he met Demiurge while he was passing through the corridors of the 9th floor, as always they had one of their usual conversations resulting in an headache for him and a Sasuga Ainz-sama from Demiurge.
He sighed as he entered into the room, this time there was no one stand next to his desk 'where is today's Pleiades?'.
"Good morning Ainz-sama."
The voice almost made him jump away in surprise, it was near and came from his left, he turned to see that Narberal stood there 'was she waiting for me next to the door?' he wondered.
"Please forgive this ignorant one for not knowing you had other plans outside of the given schedule, a maid should always be by her master's side, I will atone for this sin with my life then!"
Narberal said as she prepared to pierce her chest with her weapon.
"Stop! You are forgiven, what happened was totally casual and even I couldn't anticipate it, there is no sin to atone for here."
He immediately stopped her, she lowered her weapon and put it back in her inventory.
"As you wish Ainz-sama."
She bowed and followed him to his desk, he sat down as she stood there in silence waiting for orders.
That day Ainz found it difficult to concentrating on his paperwork, his thoughts were all for Narberal, probably the maid his actions hurt the most, not only he forced her to be around beings she hated most of the time, he even forced her to fight against all her sisters; what if his action caused harm to their bonds as siblings? If that was true Ainz would never forgive himself for that.
Only now he realized how selfish he was, he used her as an experiment to see if the denizens of Nazarick could learn to live among humans with time and understanding, but he basically forced her in an uncomfortable environment she could not defect from.. like in his old world.
He stopped working after only an hour, he needed to know, he needed to know how much damage he caused and fix what he could, that was the priority of the day.
"Narberal."
He called out.
"Yes, Ainz-sama?"
She bowed waiting for orders.
"Are there any problems among the Pleiades? I want you to be truthful, no matter what you say, I wish to know how you all are doing."
He said/ordered; Narberal was surely the maid he spent more time with and by now he was able to understand how to deal with her personality better, being direct with her worked quite fine.
In Narberal head red lights were popping out in alarm 'does Ainz-sama want to know if we are conscious of our failures? Had he lost so much trust in us?' she felt as something heavy fell on her back pushing her against the ground.
"I-I'm sorry to say this, but… lately the morale is low my Lord, d-due to recent events… b-but I noticed Yuri-nee being more expressive after the day you spent with her! Also Lupusregina seemed very happy when she came back yesterday!"
The maid said, Ainz nodded, he was both satisfied that his time with Yuri and Lupusregina worked out and angry at himself for causing such a situation in the first place.
"I see, I would like to know how you feel about it, is your relationship with your sisters still good?"
The skeleton magic caster asked trying to fake a curious tone instead of a tensed one, Narberal thought for a moment if there was some inner meaning in his words, finding none she decided to answer the best she could.
"We don't see each other too often nowadays, we all have our duties but I still feel like our feelings for each other are still there, we still enjoy the time we manage to spend together… I would like to spend more time with them."
It took some seconds to realize what she just said, she brought her hands to cover her mouth 'no! what have I done?! How could I complain… in front of Ainz-Sama no less! I-'.
"A-Ainz-sama! Forgive me i-"
Her panicked voice was stopped by her Lord's skeletal hand grasping gently her shoulder.
"Narberal, I apologize for taking so much of your time with your sisters, siblings should not be separated and after what happened to Entoma I imagine everyone would be worried."
Ainz words sent Narberal's thoughts In a spiral of panic and fear.
"A-Ainz-sama you s-shouldn't apologize! T-to someone like me! We are only tools! Servants! We should be the ones apologizing! Our failures are inexcusable!"
Another hand stopped her as it laid on the top of her head.
"Nonsense, you are my friends' children, I value your lives far more than I value any treasure in Nazarick, if Entoma died there my rage would have known no end until the kingdom was razed to the ground."
She felt a blush appear on her face 'Ainz-sama cares so much about us, to call us the Supreme Beings' children is… i… Ainz-sama!'.
Ainz seemed to think about something for a moment before speaking.
"You should be rewarded for your loyalty instead, tell me what you desire, I will do the best I can to assure you receive it, and before you refuse this is an order, Narberal Gamma tell me what you desire."
The magic caster said, his past experience with the NPCs made him understand how their mind worked a little more, this experience was turning out to be useful for him too.
Narberal seemed to be passing from embarrassment to indecision and then hesitation, almost a minute passed before she tried to speak her mind.
"Ainz-sama… i… I would like to spend more time here, with my sisters…"
She said, Ainz nodded.
"Well then, I will visit the Empire alone then, of course I will bring an invisible escort."
Ainz quickly corrected his initial words before he caused a scene, Narberal was conflicted about his decision but seemed to accept it.
In that moment a memory came back to Ainz, years ago, before all his friends began to leave the game he received a peculiar item from one of his friends, he accessed his inventory to retrieve it, as his hand came back from the Dimensional Pocket it was grasping a small blue ribbon in it.
"This is an item Nishiki-san gave to me a long time ago, I think is time you have it, after all it was meant to be yours to begin with."
He explained, his friend gave it to him after saying that it didn't came out as expected but he himself didn't want to destroy it since he spent some good materials on it, he gave it to Ainz hoping for him to find a use to it.
"A-Ainz-sama, this is… Nishikienrai-sama's possession, I could never…"
Narberal stuttered.
"Nonsense, Nishiki-san said it was for you but didn't have the right occasion to give it to you."
After a moment of hesitation she finally decided to take the ribbon from his hand, she gently grabbed it as if it was the most fragile thing in the world, slowly she put it between her hair.
No one spoke for few seconds before Narberal took a step toward him.
"Could I be allowed to ask a question Ainz-sama?"
Ainz nodded curious to hear what she had to ask.
"Does Ainz-sams like Doppelgangers?"
Ainz felt genuinely surprised by her question.
"What brought this up?"
He asked cautiously, it was better to analyse the situation before answering in some way he would regret later.
"W-Well… Ainz-sama's only creation is Pandora's Actor-sama and when my Lord choose among the Pleiades for a guard while he was building his adventurer persona, well Ainz-sama choose me."
She said with a small blush remembering how honored she felt about being chosen that time.
'I never thought about it that way' Ainz said in his mind while he was thinking about how to answer 'I cannot say that I made Pandora's Actor a Doppelganger because of my lack of personality…' then he had an idea, his mind had gone back in his early teens when he had still time to watch animes, he clearly remembered one with a small cute Doppelganger he liked a lot.
"Ah well, if you put it like that, I guess is because I like Doppelgangers."
He said feeling relieved about finding a normal answer and not having to put up some cryptic act.
While he was thinking that Narberal's blush intensified, her face was as red as a tomato 'A-Ainz-sama likes me!... he said he likes Doppelgangers… so he likes me too! Yes Ainz-sama likes me! She felt her body began to shift as she was unable to maintain her form because of her emotions being out of her control.
"I… I like A-Ainz-sama too…"
She managed to say, she felt like steam was coming out of her ears 'but I'm not Albedo-sama… or Shalltear-sama… there is no way… I', her thought was interrupted by a hand patting her head.
"I see, I'm glad you feel that way, but it would be cause of problems if todays' conversation became public, may I ask you to keep it between us two?"
Asked Ainz but his voice went almost unheard by Narberal's mind as she tried to keep her emotions under control, failing miserably 'a-a secret relationship with A-Ainz-sama! I… I…' if things went on like this she would faint soon.
"O-of course Ainz-sama! This will be our s-secret…"
She lost any control over her body in that moment and fell forward, Ainz caught her easily helping her to stand up using is body as a support.
'Ainz-sama is so close to me…' she felt her body melt under her uniform.
"Are you okay Narberal?"
Ainz asked in a worried tone, she only managed to nod in response, she couldn't even speak anymore 'i-i… no matter what, I will be… by Ainz-sama's side… forever…' that she swore on the name of her Creator.
A.N.
Geez… Narberal is hard to write, well hope you enjoyed, see you tomorrow!