AN: HEY Y'ALL! Finally got this baby out! enjoy some more adventures and revelations! thanks again for all your support even though I'm pretty slow hehe :P enjoy!
/
KYOTEN CRAP 16
"You're...WHAT?!" Galadriel errupts, slamming her fists on the table so hard that the shell of the table's surface breaks and some of the embedded pearls roll off.
"Tsk."
"I have to. It's the only way to save Arion," he says softly after, and the room goes silent. Galadriel storms out of the room at once.
The air turns even more dour. It reeks with the pungency of shock, anxiety, and despair.
"When?"
They barely hear Rick croak out the words.
"Five days, at sundown."
"Then what?"
"She wakes Arion, we get the second relic, and continue the mission. Then I go back."
"But you have duties! You can't be the king of Etlancis and the Holy Emperor at the same time!" Skie butts in from where she is right across him.
"No. I don't necessarily have to do anything. As long as she has a husband, she has complete control. I will just let her issue all her decrees with my so-called approval. That' all she wants from me."
"No it's not you moron!" Skie screams back, and Victor looks like he's about to snap.
"She's fucking obsessed with you!" Skie continues. "She won't let you go just like that. She'll keep you away from the ones you love, hell, maybe even kill them! Your friends, your brother, and Arion!"
"And why kill the Seraph?" He asks as politely as he can between gritted teeth, and his pale blue veins on his forearms begin to pop as he crushes table's edge in his grip.
"Because you know damn well that you love him!"
The bomb renders the whole room completely petrified. Even Victor stops seething. Instead, he is frozen into place, not letting up his grip on the table.
"You," he growls,
"have a bad habit of jumping to conclusions, Lady Blue," he spits out with as much venom as he can spare while keeping his control in check. His gaze doesn't falter as he clears his throat.
"Let me make this clear to you all; I intend to wake the Seraph for the sole purpose of freeing the people and healing my brother. Any assumptions made whatsoever as to my feelings towards him is not unwelcome, nor is prohibited from being vocally imparted to this group. However..." His eyes, his blazing golden eyes that outshine the sunset, almost melt the previous center piece.
"...any violent reactions that will refrain me from doing whatever is necessary to complete this quest will not be tolerated. I called this not for you to call off what I have already agreed to. I called you for a change of plans."
They suddenly go from silent to confused.
"New plan? But you said that all you have to do is get married, and you'll continue the quest. Basically, the wedding is just a time delay." Riccardo states.
"Yes, but knowing her, she's having her own change of plans," Victor says as he turns to his brother.
"That's right," Vladimir sighs. "Did any of you notice anything about the queen?"
"The eye patch," Sam mutters, and they all nod.
"Exactly. It's on her left eye. Now, do you remember what my brother did to the squid that attacked us?"
"He stabbed it."
"Using what?"
"...a sharp piece of rock."
"Where?"
"On the left..." Sam stops mid-sentence and his eyes widen in disbelief. Everyone turns to look at each other, and Jade slams the table with her fist.
"I knew that she was trying to kill us! But why go so far as targeting us? Arion wasn't there, and if she wanted the first relic, it would be easier and safer to get it at the palace instead of chasing us all the way out there."
"There's only one answer, Vladimir mumbles. His eyes fall on the empty seat beside Rick. Only she might know the answers.
/
After much aimless and angry rampaging, Galadriel finally finds herself in the hallway leading to her old room. She wrests the door open, slamming it behind her as she flops down on the huge anemone bed.
"GAHH! MARRIED?! Why am I even overreacting?" She screams at her mirror. She knows that she obviously won't get an answer, but she still shrieks at it and hurls the nearest pillow.
"UGH! It's just-it's just-I hate it when people have to do something they don't want to do. It isn't the only way to wake up Arion. Is he just going to be a giver-upper?" Galadriel complains to her wardrobe. Her bedside lamp bubbles, and she pretends that it's agreeing with her.
"UGHHH!" She screams again as she flops back down. She stretches her arms, knocking over something and sending it over the edge of the bed.
Immediately, she straightens up, and momentarily panics as she she scoops up the contents of her father's now upended box. She sets them down on her bed, dusting them off to examine them more closely.
"A book?" She asks herself as she picks up the old, dog-eared item. The front page is wrapped in something textured...was it mermaid scales? She throws it back down with a skirl.
"What the carp dad!?" She hisses, then picks it up tentatively while trying not to think of a librarian flaying a mermaid for this. The scales glitter a pale lavender, with faint tinges of orange and pink as she tilts it in the light. Also, something has stained the spine.
"Huh. What's this black ink doing here? Dad always loved green," she says to herself as she runs her index finger over it. Flipping it open, she reads the first entry:
To my dear little princess,
I've stopped using green ink. You should too.
Your old man,
Dad
Galadriel knows she feels like crying at the thought of her dad but she's totally distracted by the short message, reading it over and over again.
"What's so important about that?" She mutters to herself, before dismissing it and flipping to the next page.
Nothing. She shuffles through the pages, eyes straining from looking for something in the sea of emptiness. Just plain, slightly yellowed paper, reeking with something like eel purée.
"Was my dad trying to drug himself?! He was allergic to eel! And crabs. And maybe octopus, and squid..." Her mind drifts off to enumerating the litany of things her dad's digestive system dealt with very poorly. But as she murmurs the last word, she goes ramrod-straight.
"SQUID!" She breathes heavily, wheezing as silently as possible so that people wouldn't get disturbed any further. Squid. Black ink. The spine. Her father's telling her I do something with black squid ink.
Quickly, she shreds through the pages once more, looking for something, anything she might've missed. Not a single word. Her hopes vanish in an instant. She cusses under her breath, about to close the stupid thing.
But she can't bring herself to.
"What are you hiding?..." She asks herself, once more, as she plays with the paper's corner using her thumb. Then, she curiously holds one page up to the light...
...and she sees a faint outline.
All at once, her eyes grow to the size of dinner plates, and hope swells up inside her.
"There is something! I just can't see it, damn it! But, the ink-!" She sputters, her mind in a maelstrom of questions. "Come on, think think think!"
She berates herself for being so slow right now as she turns to the mirror. Her eyes land on the crown, perched on her dresser, gathering some algae after all the years. Ugh, and Leia didn't even bother to have this place cleaned, but it's better than having her snotty cousin pilfering her things. She looks around more. A useless jewelry box, a brush, some parchment-like paper, and an inkwell.
'An inkwell! An inkwell!' She screams to herself in her head, trying to fight off the giddiness and trying to act like her age. She rushes over to it, checking the label. Yep, it's squid ink. And without thinking, she pours everything on the pages.
For a moment, she sits so still, that she's holding her breath.
And nothing happens.
She fights back the growing uneasiness, the growing despair inside her as she shakily flips back to the first page.
"What?...but I was so sure-!" She frets, and she can feel herself about to go into an all-out panic fest. No no no, this can't be happening, this can't be! There had to be something.
Her eyes prickle, and she grips the book so tight that her knuckles blanch. And with an angry snarl, she gets ready to throw it all the way out her window, but wait-!
She stops halfway almost tearing off the page as she reels it back. The light from her lamp shone somewhere, and she watches as the inky blackness consumes almost everything.
Almost everything. Except for a few letters, stark against the ebony. And she reads six letters, written in the same, crooked, and tiny penmanship of the man who raised her.
The Legend Of The Sea Witch.
She exhales shakily, touching the still sticky page. She has to let it dry, but she can't hold herself back. One by one, the lines appear, focusing into view. Words crawl over the pages, drawings as well, and she sees plans and places and maps as well as dates and entries. She squeals excitedly, an she stops flipping when she sees a page with a woman on it.
A beautiful woman. With short hair, barely brushing the shoulders. Smoky, almond-shaped eyes and pointed ears. And her eyes widen, especially when she catches the detail of the body. Legless, and with tentacles sprouting in place of the limbs. She gasps, almost dropping the book.
"That!-that looks like-!"
/
"So what kind of antic do you think Leia will pull?" Riccardo inquires calmly as he plays with a small flower that came through the window.
"We don't know yet, but-"
"GUYS!" Galadriel comes busting in, scaring the living lights out of everyone.
"I know I know, I'm sorry about my reaction earlier," she blabbers, pausing to shoot a look at Victor, "but I found something about the sea witch!"
"Come inside!" Jade says excitedly, anxious for the young mermaid's news. Her aqua eyes, though determined, seem a bit sad.
"The sea witch-she's in my cousin."
It's as if everyone gasps at the same time, and they start whispering amongst themselves.
"What! But how?-!" They say, and the state of the room is thrown even deeper into confusion.
"So that concludes it, then," Riccardo says in a voice louder than the rest, piping everyone down. "She possessed Leia, and aside from having Victor all to her slimy self, her true purpose for the wedding is to exact her revenge and take over the city! A woman important to him, which only means one thing," Rick trails off, and all eyes look at the princess still near the doorway.
Aitor smiles snidely, showing off a toothy grin before he makes a comment.
"Looks like it's your turn to be bait, Princess!" He says cheerily, with a hint of smugness in it, and she locks her gaze with his.
"Not funny, Cazador," she bites, and the friendly banter between the two lightens the mood somwhat.
"Actually, it's a good idea," Rick insists, making her jaw drop as she turns to him.
"Are you serious?!"
"Riccardo is right," Victor speaks up. "I intend to keep my word, so I will push through with the wedding. But our objectives remain the same: heal Arion, get the Relic, free your cousin, and protect you."
"At some point we have to make Leia transform into the sea witch by using Galadriel as bait, so that we can free Leia. But how about Arion and the second Relic?" Rosie asks.
"I'll persuade her to heal him before the wedding. Then, when we free Leia, we can ask her where the Relic really is." He answers.
Victor then pauses, contemplating on his choices for this extremely complicated plan. He knows exactly how to persuade the lady, but the queasiness and somewhat disgust at even talking to the Queen is pooling in him. But Arion...
"Meanwhile, Rick, you have to find out everything you can about the sea witch," he says suddenly, and Rick nods. The vampire turns to Jude.
"Commander Sharp, please help us with the attack formation and the strategy."
"Alright. But how will you talk to Queen Leia? She is quite difficult to persuade," he asks the henchman, and despite Victor's absolute gelid facade, the warlock catches a flicker of evil lurking in the golden orbs.
"Through my specialty," Victor replies.
"And what is that?"
Victor smirks, evilly, as if a darker monster was unleashed from within.
"The Art of Seduction."
/
A knock on the door rouses Leia from her sleep. She goes to the door, opening it, and she grins mischievously when she sees a tall, slim silhouette at the door.
"Couldn't wait for tomorrow night?" She drawls, brushing her hand against his jaw and tapping his chin with a long nail. She bats her eyelashes lasciviously before swimming back inside. Victor almost retched at the touch lingering on his skin, but he suppresses it as he enters the room.
"I have plans for...us, My Queen," he says, trying to sound like he's supressing his 'horny feelings' from seeing her shed her robe.
"Do tell," she says. He watches as she gathers her hair over her right shoulder, exposing her slim, milky white back that almost glittered in the moonlight. He doesn't really like where this is going, but infatuation has its perks.
"I just didn't want the others to know. Not yet, at least," he adds, crinkling his nose when he sees her brushing her hair by the window.
"And believe me, my Queen, when I say..." he pauses when he reaches her side, and he turns her face slightly to his so that his eyes would have maximum effect. "...that I want nothing more than this."
'Too easy.' He smirks to himself once he sees her eyes soften, shining with the spell of besottedness.
"Victor," she whispers against his jaw, and he sees her almost angling her head to kiss him. And he takes it as his cue.
"But," he says, interrupting her. Her eyes are curious, yes. But still very much in a trance, which is good.
"You must heal Arion by tomorrow."
At the words, the luster in her eyes becomes a lurid shade of blue-green, one that didn't have the kindness of Galadriel's eyes. They turn angry, and she whips around, facing the window and gripping on the sill.
"And why must this be so?" She asks, her voice full of spikes like that of a shark's many-toothed grin. Victor knows he's treading on thin ice now, but many years with many women have taught him how to make them putty in his hands.
"Because," he begins huskily, hands reaching out to touch her arms lightly. He makes his voice, his body language, and the air in the dark secluded room bleed with the words 'I want you'.
"I wouldn't want him to miss this."
And he wraps his arms around her, pulling her close against him.
When she makes no move, he could tell that the gears are turning in her head. It works much faster than he's anticipated, making him almost jolt when she suddenly sighs and leans back against him.
"Fine. But the wedding is in three days," she says, and Victor forces himself to chuckle.
"Of course. Anything...anything for you," he replies as he presses a kiss to her temple. It tastes horrible, he thinks, nothing like the honeyed skin of his beautiful angel. But he feels her hands on his, and he knows that he's reeled her in. When she cranes her neck, her long black hair brushing against his jaw, he draws back.
"Can't wait till the honeymoon?" He asks with the most seductive voice he can, and her pout is replaced with a coy grin of her own. She rolls her eyes, breaking free and swimming back to her own bed. She almost looks like she wants him to lie beside her, but Victor knows that he's played with her long enough.
"I must go now; no one must catch us," Victor says instead, swimming to the door. "But in three days my lady, three days..." He says, looking into her eyes with as much desire as he can, before exiting.
The moment he shuts the door, he swims as fast as he can to the room where he others are waiting. Anything to get away from there.
"How was the art of seduction?" Aitor asks as he does a quote on quote gesture with his hands, snickering uncontrollably.
Victor merely narrows his eyes, and at this, it's Vladimir's turn to laugh. The elder one is about to spouts witty remark, but Victor cuts him off with a snarl.
"Don't. Even. Think about it, brother," he says, sitting down gruffly on the stool. "By the way, she reduced it to three days."
Everyone's surreptitous giggling is replaced by loud yelps of panic, which are only silenced by Rick's call.
"It's okay. We can do this. We have this, after all," Galadriel reassured them as she holds up the book in her hands. It's enough to send relief and hope flooding through the room again.
"All right, it's gonna be hell for a few days, so get some rest and hit the haystack, men!" Jade hollers as she claps her hands, and everyone stands up to go. "Come on, chop chop!"
As they all file out of the room, some stretching and yawning, Victor exits the last. As he swims along languidly, he stops a little when he passes by Arion's room.
Tomorrow, surely. He will bring back Arion no matter what.
No matter what.
/
AN: okay yes i know heheh pretty hard to digest, no? but anyway, it's guaranteed that the next chapter will contain —DUN DUN DUNNNN— our favorite sexy vamp and his cute lil' b*tch. :3 see you soon!