Chapter 6: A Lesson
I push my eggs around, making the shape of the Star of The Night from the nightmare I keep having. It had burst from the darkness and tried to swallow me up last evening. I'd woken sweaty and I am still a little shaken. Father hadn't come to dinner last night even though I had met with Meliodas and because of that, I sent a request through Jennah for father to come to breakfast. His chair sits empty and his plate is getting cold. I know because my food has long since chilled.
They wouldn't have set his plate here if he hadn't agreed. Something is holding him up.
My mind wanders to the novel on demon history I started. I have a stack to read but the writing is bland, tasteless in its formal and educational outlining. What stole my attention was the pictures, they still blow me away. Depictions of Purgatory and hellfires the demons escaped from are shining detailed scenes. I had stared in awe. The battles, inked in with swirling blood and vicious faces looked three dimensional in its shading like the fighters were popping out of the book. One, in particular, I can't seem to stop thinking about is a scene of a demon changing for something termed, 'The Calling of a Mate'. His eyes were black if you looked at the man from the right and yellow from the other side. I had turned the page back and forth trying to figure out how the artist had accomplished the feat. The hellfire around the man licked at his calves and I wonder if any demon alive remembers purgatory and if they are immune to fire.
It's said that the first of my people to arrive in Britannia were cast out of Heaven for their crimes. We are descendants of criminals. For the demons, it is the opposite. The demons here are descendants of those that left behind the worst of them to make a nicer world away from those that stayed. We are born of sin and they are born of hope. Somehow we've ended up here together.
Our history books conflict in a few places. Points of view of the author, I suppose, but it unnerves me that what I accept as fact may not be the truth. I look around, eyes landing on the family portrait over my father's empty chair. No one has the full truth, because every memory is different for each person. There is no logical outsider looking in to guide what story is told and passed down.
The door opens and I rise, picking up my plate expecting Jelamet. She always collects me, saving me from my lonely meals.
"No need to rise, Ellie." My father's gruff voice is laced in humor, laughing at me and I flush, happily surprised. He is dressed formally and I wonder if he has been up for a while. I resituate myself, smiling. He's here! "I'm sure you want to tell me about Lord Meliodas but I have something I want to discuss with you first."
Oh? He pulls his chair out, picks up his fork and takes a bite of eggs. He coughs, picking up his napkin to hack up his eggs into it. "Dear girl, how long have you been sitting here?" My father pushes his plate and fork away, focusing on me.
"I... it's okay. I'm used to waiting." I tell him and he frowns, reaching across the corner of the table to put his warm hand over mine.
"I'm sorry, Ellie. It was... is a hopeless situation for me." My father shakes his head, "I had no room to breathe, between a rock and a hard place with too many compromises." The hand over mine squeezes and slowly, he sighs, tawny eyes shining as he shows me his soft tender feelings in the set of his face. "Anyway, the matter at hand... I would like to assign you a personal guard, for your own safety. Sir Meliodas has made a fair bid for the task when he takes you on 'adventures' as he says, but I fear he may have over-inflated his abilities."
"I don't need one." I answer. "Why would I need one?"
"There are dangers out in the world, just for being a royal and for being the next queen, there are people who don't want our two sides coming together." His words are hinting at something and I wish he would speak plainly but I don't want to push him when I have a favor to ask. I want to see the Vampire Kingdom and if that means biting my tongue to keep my fathers mood, I will.
"I trust Sir Meliodas," I answer and after a long stare, my father removes his hand from mine and nods. "Okay, but if you go out in the city or to the meadow, which are both open to you now- after all the King's insistence." He shakes his head in exacerbation.
"The Kings insistence?" I puzzle. My father holds my gaze but after a breath, he exhales heavily.
"Lord Meliodas had been a young teenager when the two of you were... Uh, selected for the union." I frown at his choice of words. "You were a child. It had been me and the King, in heated negotiations for months before this arrangement was made. If your safety wasn't a constant priority... if you had received a wound too great or befell any other harm following that bastard of a tutor, you would have been immediately taken and raised in the demon kingdom under his thumb." My hands fall from the table and I lean back putting distance between my body and the words in the air between us.
It hadn't been my father's doing, keeping me away from the world? He had truly been buying me time, as he calls it. "Oh." I hush. Sir Meliodas had been a child too, so he wouldn't have been involved. "Did Lord Meliodas have similar... restrictions?"
"No. I didn't... have any leverage in the negotiations. Outside of you, as cold as that sounds, I had to use what I could." Right. That makes sense. Silence falls between us and he scratches at his beard before he asks if I want to be escorted back to my rooms as he has duties to attend too. I shake my head, out of sorts but recovering.
"Yes, father," I answer, rising and I accept his arm, feeling the velvet patch on his sleeve. "I wanted to ask you something, anyway." On our walk, I tell him about the picnic Sir Meliodas had packed and how we'd stayed in the meadow until past dinner time. We are nearing my hall when I breach the topic of the Vampire's princess coming of age and how Sir Meliodas asked me to attend the event with him. "Separate rooms! A whole kingdom will be there watching us and we've been allied for years! Besides, remember that friend of Margaret's? It's a relative of hers."
"Gelda?" My father asks and I nod, remembering the pretty vampire girl with elegant blonde locks. I have a hazy memory of her braiding my hair in beautiful loops. "If you want to attend, I don't see a reason why not." I release him, jumping up to hug his torso in a squeeze and he stumbles to catch himself, laughing. "Separate rooms." He reminds and I laugh, my cheek to him.
The two of us part, him leaving me at the entrance of my rooms and giving me a rue smile. "Make sure to walk the night garden, Ellie. There are flowers that only bloom for the moon." He tells me, then his face twists up as he warns, "The cocktails in the black glasses they will be passing around are blood, don't take one." Oh. Right. I thank him for that knowledge, then I laugh at the face he makes of disgust.
When he goes, I head to my study to write Sir Meliodas. I am in the room, halfway to my desk when I realize we hadn't made plans when we parted. I'd been frazzled from his invitation as it had always been me to reach out to him. Had Meliodas been out of sorts as well? Or is he fine with waiting so long for another visit? Sir Meliodas said the Vampires Ball is over a month away.
Ignoring my doubts, I write about my father's advice for when we go to the Vampire's kingdom and briefly I thank him for the history books, referencing my observations on our different 'versions' of the same events. When I wrap up, detailing how grateful I am that Sir Meliodas is going against his father's imposed rules on my safety, I decide to send him a book about goddess history. I doubt he has read much on us.
I want it to be one that rivals the beauty in the one he's sent but I know nothing compares. Still, I go to the library and search until I came across one about the myths of my people. I found the stories elaborate stabs in the dark but very thought provoking. It has been a few months since I've read it but one story in particular always resonates with me. A goddess enslaved by the will of her people had overcome their demands with a trick. The trick had freed her but in the end, she regretted her actions as it doomed her people, introducing them to sickness and death. There hadn't been a way for her to come back once she'd left and the consequences were devastating.
Rather than tag the page, I put the folded letter in there as a bookmark, sticking out so it won't go unnoticed. I have so much parcel paper in my room from all the gifts and I feel better about reusing. So, I pick a gift bigger than the book I have and open it for the wrappings. Inside is a tome, leather and rich feeling titled, 'An Other Mate: A Demon's Reference Guide'. I leave the book on my bedside table, putting it under the other cultural novels he sent much more recently and complete my own gift to Meliodas. Comparatively, the novel he sent, however long ago, looks much nicer than the one I am sending now.
Without Jelamet around, I go in search of her. She isn't in any of her usual haunts and I miraculously run into Zenari. With all this space a random encounter is rare. I ask her about delivering a package. "I'll ask him if he got it, so no funny business."
"I understand." Zaneri answers blank faced. It hadn't been her fault but I am suspicious after my father kept everything of Meliodas' away. That couldn't have been an order by the king. My father's confession at breakfast explains much about his extreme over-caution and also made me feel worlds better about what I thought it was about, but it doesn't mean I excuse him for his role in this. Zaneri takes my package, tied with a ribbon rather than the twine Meliodas uses. I want it to be more feminine. The only ribbons I have are for my hair, but I used them anyway as they work well enough.
When she leaves, I continue my search and my heart drops when I find Jelamet in her rooms, laying in her bed. She's having a bad day then. She's sleeping and I clean her room, refreshing her washing bowl with new water, scenting it with jasmine. I go to the kitchen to gather an apple and a knife. When back, I peel the skin of the apple, letting them fall into the water for added healing and I dip the rag to wring out. I place it on Jelamets forehead and she wakes, opening her wrinkled eyelids. Carefully, I cut slices of the soft inside of the apple and she eats.
"Do you want me to heal you?" I hush.
"It's not a sickness, child. I'm old." Jelamet croaks, but I put half of the apple and knife on the table to rub my hands together in a glow. With my love I surround the two of us in my aura and it's like a cloud, misting magic rather than pinpricks of moisture. It's easier to let go of myself in its presence and I ease her aches, her pains and enliven her. We're on borrowed time and I want her last moments to be peaceful. I can ensure that. "Oh child, don't look at me like that." She croons and I gather the apple again but she takes the fruit herself, stronger now to sit and do it herself.
It's a few days later that a letter from Meliodas arrives. Inside he put an invitation to the ball, a kind of ticket and I look over the pink pastel, lace-covered, shimmering thick paper. Part of me had expected a dark masquerade but that is just my over-imaginative mind influenced by too many novels. After my father said there would be black goblets of blood, I had a picture in my mind that doesn't match this invitation's feel.
The first part of his letter outlines how he will arrive early the day of and the pair of us will teleport there with the Demon clan's mage. A piece of me feels a bit morose having to wait that long to see him but then his next confession in the letter gives me an idea. Sir Meliodas wrote of his day, of his hopes and troubles in his clan and how he doesn't know if his father has any influence over my father in regards to me but that he will, 'look into the matter and take care of it'. Which I feel sounds ominous. He thanks me for the book, that he has read quite a bit on Goddesses but has never come across the myths. 'If it's something that's caught your eye I'm sure to enjoy it.'
I write him a short letter, with my idea and a tentative date if he wants to come before the ball. With my heart racing, I find Jelamet before I send it to get her approval and she claps, telling me it is a wonderful idea. "You'll be fitted by then, we can give him a swatch to match with." I flush at that. You are supposed to match your date? I hadn't noticed at my own ball, but it had been female and old married couples only. Both of my sister's balls had been too, come to think of it. My father may put the blame on the Demon King for his imposed rules in my upbringing but my father had his own narrow-minded views.
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Margaret comes when the seamstress does. She wants to be fitted with me, as she will be attending too. "I requested our rooms be next to one another!" My sister gushes and it is sweet to see her so excited. She picks a gold dress, it sparkles and as she is being fitted, I am having a hard time selecting. I like the red satin one with the diving neckline and I like the burgundy one with the slit up the leg.
"Try them both on." Margaret tells me and I do, knowing right away which I like. I hadn't noticed the swooping, open back to the red dress and I fell in love with it on my curves. "This one!" Margaret exclaimed, leaving the lady with pins in her mouth as she adjusts the shoulder and cups one of my boobs to better situate it. She spines me to face the mirror. "You are a beautiful, kind woman and I'm so proud to call you my sister."
My eyes well and I fall into her arms, her glittering dress sparkling next to mine until something sharp jabs into my arm. We part, laughing as she goes back to her position with the seamstress and we speak of her temple. Eventually the topic turns to Sir Meliodas and Margaret frowns at my mention of Veronica's rumors. "Oh, because he's never seen with a girl? He's about to be seen with you." I take her words to heart, knowing I should just ask Meliodas.
Our time is up too soon and I accept my swatch. Margaret takes hers although her husband cannot afford to have anything tailored, she told me Gilthunder would be in all black. "We'll just use the swatch as a pocket napkin and that will be enough. It's not like we'll get separated." I walk her out after father has lunch with us. Our time reminding me of how it used to be and I'm surprised I don't ache after like I normally do. Is it because I have something to look forward to, or because I feel like I am finally joining the ranks of the living?
Quicker than before a letter is returned, short in his reply of, 'I look forward to your lesson' and with the tone I use in my head, I flush. How silly, I read it how I want to read it but I have already started thinking of my first night away from home and I can't deny my thoughts venture into a sensual corner of my mind. We can't, I won't. Not with how things are. We are still getting to know one another.
I take tea with Jelamet when she feels better, in the gardens as I can go into the city once more. Along our way home we stop to see Mead but it is just the children, which means the excitement stays high throughout the visit. Millie has to help pry Mabel from Jelamet when it is time to go and the girl breaks down into tears.
Healing Jelamet every couple of days becomes normal and on the day I am expecting Meliodas I request tea in the library as the floor there is wide open. Zaneri is setting up the tea while I struggle to push the heavy table against the wall, when Jennah announces my visitor and they walk in together. Flushing, I straighten, leaving the table crooked as I look him over. Is he more attractive today? Did he do something different? Same chaotic hair, similar loose clothing over his strong figure.
Everyone is in here. Jennah, Zaneri, Jelamet and the pair of us. He stares, looking me over before making his way toward me with purpose. I shift, uncomfortable until he adjusts his direction and bends to grip the edge of the table. "Where do you want it?" He asks, light and easy. Jennah and Zaneri excuse themselves and I point to the far wall. I expect him to push it but easily, with his grip on the side of the table, he lifts it off the ground. Jelamet gasps as he walks it over and sets it down with a soft tap.
"You're-" I flush, looking away, already embarrassed for what we are about to do. "Would you like some tea before we... begin?" I ask as I need the comfort. We sit at another table already pushed out of the way, facing the open archway windows that show off the garden. He's looking at me when I explain about our library, pointing to where I normally sit and where the best hiding spots are, remembering from when I was a child.
"Who were you hiding from?" Sir Meliodas asks, severe. I frown thinking of Master Twigo but it hadn't been long before he was caught and sent away.
"My sisters, it's... it's a game, hide and seek?" I query and he doesn't know it. I hadn't expected this to be our topic of conversation and I chuckle as I explain the rules of the game. His eyebrow raises at the simplicity of it and I ask what he and his brother played as children.
"We played with swords, or trained." He shrugs, "We did play this game with a ball, kicking it into a goal. You can only use your feet and it was a way to train... Of course, there was the normal kid stuff, wrestling, getting into trouble and wrangling chickens." He gives a wry smile and when the tea is gone I can't put it off any longer.
Jelamet laughs when I stare blankly at the table before me for a long moment and I shake myself into action. I stand and exhale a deep breath, steadying myself as I ask Meliodas if he'd like to start. Blankly, he agrees, standing to follow me. "I imagine it's similar to fighting, but... in this case, we'll be a team," I whisper, moving to stand before him less than a foot away.
Jelamet is situated up in her chair and I hear her clear her throat. "You'll have to touch me." I whisper, "Can I see your hands?" I request and he rises them both up in offering to me. I can't read him but he is here, complying when he has his own clan to run. I accept that thought for courage, touching the back of his right hand to guide it to my waist. He settles there, fingers spreading to get comfortable. It tingles, my skin coming alive and a soft warmness opens in my tummy like a blooming flower facing the sun.
"Oh, a waist hold." Jelamet notes from the corner. "Could have gone with the-"
"Don't!" I interrupt the old mischievous fool but the warmth in my face already grows into uncomfortable levels. She snickers, plucking a string on her harp. Meliodas is smiling and I flush, filling the silence with, "You're in for a treat, Jelamet's played all her life and the sounds she can make will astound you." I take his other hand, slipping my palm into his. "Usually the man leads but for a little while, I will, so you can get used to the movements."
Tentatively, I rest my other hand on his bicep at the bend of his shoulder and the muscles are tense, like a bundle of cords under my palm. He looks nervous, his blank face slipping as his brows come together and his mouth remains parted, breath coming in and out. I might be projecting my own feelings onto him as I know I am trembling with his hand so intimately pressing to my waist. Strangely though, it is holding his hand in mine that settles the fluttering in my tummy to morph into a warm bubbling goo, calmer but more of something else. A new feeling I am just getting acquainted with.
The music starts and I... don't. I can't move while absorbing the feeling of having him so close. I stare, not into him as I will implode if he looks at me like he always seems to be but, at his hairline over his right ear. I had lessons about two years ago. They used to be the only thing to break the monotony, and learning something new in an open setting, under supervision, had been the only thing my father would agree too. I learned dancing, harp playing from Jelamet, self-defense from Zaratros, and a few other skills over the years from others.
Sir Meliodas doesn't complain, he seems content just like this and when the tingling notes make their loop back to its first pattern I whisper, "Okay... follow my hips, it will help." I watch his hair dip in a short concise nod, but angling down to stare at my core and I shift uncomfortably. He mirrors my hip movements and I flush, knowing he doesn't know just how embarrassing this is. I begin, slow. Jelamet changing the tempo to assist my steps with a lazy adjustment to her stringing.
We do a slow, first circuit, a full set of steps. I watch his feet and he is good at mirroring my body.
"It is like fighting," he whispers and I peek at him but he's still watching my hips. I shift again and this time, he doesn't mirror me but I see his smile. I bite my lip to stop the groan from escaping my chest as I know he realizes why I was reacting. I'm moving with the dance but the shift of my hips ease my growing warmth. This is just basic and I'm coming apart. I can't handle him dipping me or twirling me, his hands feeling around me will set my blood to boil.
Jelamet stops and we do as well, I step back and his hands fall, his face blank again. She gives a suggestion and I nod. "After this, I'll cut in and you play for us." Jelamet says, "It will be good to get these old bones moving again." I agree, looking to Meliodas.
"You play?" He inquires and I nod, asking him to raise his right arm. He does, straight up. I laugh.
"That's not what I meant," I smirk to him and I reach up to position his elbow to bend forward. I mirror him, stepping closer to touch our elbows and then our bare wrists. At the contact his fingers curve as if to grasp my hand but I explain, "We'll be moving soon." I thought he'd drop his hold but his digits roam up the side of my palm leaving trails of himself behind. I explain, stepping in a circle around one another and then, switching sides, going in the other direction. "We switch partners part way-"
"If we have to switch I don't want us to do this one." Sir Meliodas speaks and I relent, dropping my arm from his, his fingers slipping across the outside of my hand. Behind my back I stretch the fingers, alarmed at the warmth that spreads from his touch. Are demons usually this hot temperature-wise?
Jelamet stops stringing, standing and we switch places. She prefers the harp on its stand but I learned on the floor and it is a habit I continue to this day. It isn't a full-sized harp, that would have been impossible to move with just us, this is a Celtic harp. I pick it up, lowering it to the floor space. I hike my dress up, smoothing to a seat to spread my legs around the wooden curve of the instrument.
I hear a thump and an, "ow" from Meliodas that draws my attention. He is rubbing the back of his head, looking at Jelamet. Her scowling smile is in place as she motions for him to come nearer to her. "You'll lead me." She tells him, then asks me to play the piece I wrote. I frown, looking to the thin strings. "It may be the last time I get to hear it, don't deny an old lady her pleasures."
I mumble, "How many times are you gonna use that one on me, eh?" but I comply, scooching closer so the Harp rests on my shoulders. My dress falls up my thighs and I hear the thump again, but I don't look as I bring my hands up, stretching my fingers wide. "Give me a second, and I won't sing it." I demand, swallowing. Slowly, I hit the first cords. I hear the two adjusting and Jelamet commanding him, "Shoulder dear, I'm much too old to be taken by the hips." She laughs and it overcomes Meliodas' low chuckle.
The harp is something I've returned to over and over again through the years and I imagine what I always do with this song... the purple of the dining room. An endless fall into night, the last star in the sky flickering and falling to the earth to extinguish in a flash. I feel my chest start to close, my throat growing tight and my eyes fill. I stop, the notes fading too slowly as I drop my hands and sag my head against the wood of the harp. 'This too shall pass.' I breathe, shaking my fingers and I ignore what they are talking about as I pick up where I left off, sucking back my feelings. It helps to turn away from them, hiding my face with my hair. In the end, I disentangle myself from the instrument, fixing my dress. Any other song and I would have been fine.
My mood is off and I think Sir Meliodas picks up on it, as he asks me to walk him to the gate. I agree, remembering my dress swatch and I give it to him in the middle of returning the tables to their original positions in our library. "Red?" He asks and I flush as he looked me over. "With your creamy skin and silver locks... you could wear a sack and still outshine everyone."
Stupidly, my mind blanks and I cover my mouth from his compliment. He must like me, saying something like that. Flustered, we walk in silence through the castle and into the noisy, busy city. The back of his hand brushes mine and I move it, clasping my own hands behind my back. Sir Meliodas watches, giving me a small apologetic smile.
At the gate, where the city slowly starts to be covered with clouds beyond it, we face one another. Meliodas stares for a long moment and I hold his green soft gaze as long as I can manage before I dip my head to look at the tips of his shoes. "Thank you for teaching me to dance, Elizabeth." He tells me, a smile in his tone and I nod, stepping away from him.
"Goodbye, Sir Meliodas." I whisper, walking away. I don't look back, folding over on myself as I prepare to wait, but this time, for a ball and an entire evening from here. Even with my excitement I feel heavy and I breathe it away, taking my time being unsupervised for an entire walk home.
There is artwork for this chapter on my Tumblr blog! (My name is Jacklynnfrost there too). LeMaskadra is amazing and for the Big Bang event, we were paired and I am thrilled with how everything came out!