Speech = ``...´´
Thoughts = [... ]
ºº
Rose waited…
Away from the battle which she heard the last shreds of its tale as the distant sounds of steel and the wayward gasp of pain started to dim out. Safe behind the old, wooden doors of the house she had called home for the last few days she had remained in the village, the old wood shielding her faithfully for now from any other source of danger that could harm her from the outside world that had proven so...voracious...
The recent memory of the event made her body shudder, cold sweat sliding down her forehead as she tried to ignore the pain still emanating from her hands.
The adrenaline of almost dying and then been rescued having dulled it for a while...but just as soon as her heart had found peace, did such small grievances come back.
She had tried to grant some ease to the bruises forming on her hands, to soothe them...in fact she knew that people could heal wounds through magic thanks to prior pang of curiosity that had led her to wander through the medical wing of the palace once a year ago.
A rather brief affair though...given that the staff though elated to see her had decided that it would be…too graphic for her to learn at her age much to her mild disappointment.
Still, she had tried to emulate after what she had seen the medical staff do... but with not really knowing how they did it, she only managed to numb it a little bit rather than healing herself completely.
But it didn't matter…
The only thing that did was to wait.
Wait for them…
And more importantly, wait for him…
She clutched her hands together, almost as if she was about to go on a prayer. Her eyes shut yet her face was not creased with line after line like it had been before when doubt and fear had corroded her spirit, but with a peaceful, almost wishful expression.
The memory of those kind silver eyes gazing at her so close to her, his hand resting over her head, patting golden strays of hair with a simple yet so profound gesture. Tugging her softly towards him and embracing her...
Making her know that she was safe…
That everything would be fine...
A broad smile warped around her lips, the sweetness of his reassuring words making her heart flutter on its own….though for a moment, brief as it was her lips curled downwards. She hoped Alpha would not resent her for it the fact that most of her thoughts lingered around her male companion…, but she could not help it.
Selfish as it was...she could not stop herself from feeling them.
Nor she would stop herself even if she knew how...as she now clung to those sensations that pushed away all that it was dark and unfair in this world.
Giving her strength…
And so she hoped with all her heart he would come out unscathed of this terrible event. At least...
Her heart started to throb a little louder inside her chest, the pumping sound growing faster and out of its normal pace as it. Her body starting to feel a little warmer and yet more lithe as if the more she delved onto those memories made her body all the more weightless.
Was this in a story she had read before? Was it a small adventure like novel or a more copious romantic kind? Where the valiant knight and its companion rescued a princess from a tower from its dark and terrible jailer...only for the rescued princess to fall for one of her saviour much to the dismay of the other character?
She had trouble remembering the style and name of said book, though she had no trouble recognising the theme of the story. A love triangle…
Her fingers started to fidget with one another.
They...they were not something she had delved much before if she was honest with herself...she was too prudish for them. After all, it sounded so sinful and wrong…., like placing her hand over a cookie jar when her father had told her not to...
So unladylike like, though that had not stopped her from ogling them once or twice...
From time to time..
….
Fine, several times…and she would leave it at that. The redness spreading through her cheeks was a sight all too appalling for her to bare. Surprisingly, she did not feel that bad about it as much as she thought she would.
Still, it was true that she had grown...an "interest" in him.
She looked down at her feet, holding her head with her hands, covering her face, though allowing her eyes to peer through the cracks of her fingers, trying to cover her face from the fluster that was once again flaring up all over her face..even though there was no one there to catch her in the act and berate her for it.
But yes...
Well…, in a sense, that was kind of an overstatement if there was one. There was...an interest there, that alone she had come to realize, sooner rather than later. And yet.
She bit her lip, chewing the flesh softly with a slight sense of apprehension.
Did that... made her a bad person?
The answer to such query eluded her still... like ethereal winds, brushing against her, slipping through her fingers….but never staying long enough for her to close her grip around it.
In the end she desisted in pursuing such endeavours when she realized that she could linger there for hundred's of years and find no answer at all…
And so, she decided to do what she knew could do.
To wait, and waited she did-….
``Crunch...!´´
One of her brows rose, a quizzical expression slowly morphing over her features.
Crunch..crunch…
Hum..? There it was again, that sound…
She tilted her head, slowly trying to search for the source of that noise...finding nothing that could tell her what it could be when her golden eyes tried to peer the darkness she was shrouded within.
It took her a few moments to realize that it was not coming from anywhere inside the dark-lighted room, but rather from outside the door.
Outside….
``Crunch...crunch, crunch….´´
The sound came again once more, louder...growing louder as if it was….coming closer? The realization made her sprung up from the cold ground up to her feet. Her eyes now staring with suspicion at the door that led outside as she slowly started taking a few precautionary steps away…
``Crunch..crunch..splat, crunch….´´
The sound echoed again. It was nearing closer, much..much closer, close enough for her to know what it actually was this time.
The sound of rubble and pebbles being stepped over by a pair of boots. The way the dusty ground and rocks that littered the ground creaked and crouched when pressure was applied to them..
A while ago she would have gone out to see who could it be. But now-...
She bit her lip, memories of what those despicable men had done to her coming back to her.
She took another step back, her eyes moving left to rights, searching for something, anything she could use..until she found her target in the form of a small, stub of wood that must have probably belonged to a table, or a chair that had clearly not survived the passing of time.
Her small, slender fingers slowly closing in its dusty form, their grip tight, her golden eyes taking a quick glimpse to make sure that her grip was strong enough and that there were no loose sections...
Not caring in the slightest at the way she felt the palm of her hands being poked by some of the splinters over its rough surface, or the grime staining now her hands...
``CRUNCH…´´
Her eyes switched to the door, then back into the wooden stick, then once more to the door. Pupils shrinking into pin size points in her eye with each passing step.
She tried to breath, but only found a lump of spit in the way. When she tried.
There was no mistaking it, they were approaching.., no, they were not just approaching. They were coming straight at her!
She took another step back...questions popping left to rights in her head.
Who...? Who was it? Who were they? She did not know…
Did the sound of those footsteps belonged to her friends..? Perhaps…, but they also could belong as-well to those foul creatures of blacken hearts..?
A cold shudder ran through her back a the memory..
``CRUNCH…..´´
``CRUNCH…..´´
``CRUNCH….´´
They were in-front of the door now, they were..they were going to get inside and-
She shook her head, clenching her hands even more tightly around the wooden stick almost to the point that it hurt. The ache spreading through her still battered hands spreading through her arms, making it easier to control her breath.
No…., this was enough.
She had already told herself to stop doing that, to stop fearing, to stop dreading what could it be and start acting like she was suppose to…
He had gone far and beyond to keep her sake, she was not going to spit on his efforts by standing in place struck by fear. She had made a promise...and she would keep it.
And so she started to ran, her legs moving, snapping away from their frozen, and numb positions….., but not away from the danger as one would have first expected, but rather towards it.
Rapidly closing in the distance between her and whoever was coming...
Fire flaming inside her little chest, giving her legs the little push they needed to break out from her stupor and more...and like a child, she clung to it. Slender arms raising the stick above her head, even before the door started to open with a wide swing.
She didn't catch a good glimpse of those who were coming in nor their faces as the door was still in full swing and the light of the moon was directly shining through the now exposed overture of the structure with its silvery glint…bathing those that were coming in a peculiar bath of cold light that wrapped around them for just an instant.
Had she perhaps she would have regretted what was coming next..
Especially when the first of the two finally took a step forward in his stride, dispelling the moons light appeared to be a black haired boy whose silver eyes were trying to peak through the darkness that had shrouded the room. Finding her..just as she leapt into the air and was already bringing down her makeshift weapon in a wide arc.
``We are back Ros-´´
``For Oooooriiiaaannnnnaaaaa…..!´´
``Rose what are yo-...oh for the love of the darkness...´´
BOOOOOONK…...!
….
….
….
Auch..?´´
ºº
…..A few minutes later….
….
….
Fine, it had to be addressed...
He had lived for a long while…
He had seen a lot of fuck up things…
He had witnessed a lot of stupid things…, which taking into account the other two already mentioned things should have been a given..
So when he opened that door, when he pushed the old, dusty and grim covered door-frame and took a step inside he was not surprised by the sight of a stick racing through the air, swinging from up to down…
And aimed at his head.
…
...
He was not angry when it actually collided with him, knowing full well that if there was nothing actually there to be hit the stick would just phase through...or if he had thought for a moment to make her think that she had hit him the problem would have been fixed.
No...
He was just disappointed….in the TWO brats standing right behind him at that moment, for he did not need to turn on his heels to know they were trying to hold off their chuckles. In fact, they were failing at that that he did not need to peer into their minds to hear the echoes of their laughter..!
Aurora had been expected...the purple haired witch had proven rather prone to find anything she could use to make fun out of it, if it was out of his own expense even more. That he had come to accept as an inevitability..
But he had at least hoped the young girl would have more composure than the dead, childish ghost lady attached to him like a dog on a leash.
He had been wrong…, again. It seemed he was doing that a lot since he arrived into this miserable little seeding in the universe.
He sighed, teeth grinding against one another the way old men would when vexed by a strange thorn between their nails.
The nerve of those two! Both of them! Aurora and Alpha! How could they laugh like that at his attempt to try to mimic pain like any other child would?
….
Yes…, it had been rather weak one, so painfully bad that he was surprised by it... that was an understanding of how underwhelming his lack of reaction had been to the whole process of being bonked in the head.
He understood…
That...he did.
But how could he have replicated that after spending an eternity NOT Finding himself in such a situation? After all, it was hard to show pain when you could not feel it.., by STICK anyway.
In fact, they should have lauded him for not laughing out right on the spot at the audacity of Rose thinking that a mere stick would do anything than brush aside the dust from his body.
Speaking of which…, at least Rose was too engrossed in either bowing and apologizing to him to notice his frustrations flaring up here and there, fluctuating the air into cold, freezing winds..or dark mist..
What a small mercy was that.., but he would take it. He had the feeling that this day, no matter how much he would rather try to forget...those two would be very keen on reminding him of this...particular event..
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A/N
Here comes another chapter, I hope you like it. Feel free to comment to give some feedback. Any commentary will be appreciated.