Chapter 76: Alone Time

{Serena}

The governor’s dining room had eleven people in it and nine of them were talking about horses.

I sat with my hands in my lap and my back off the chair, since the Queen Mother notices posture before she notices faces, and I’d already been looked at twice. Aldric was on my left, explaining the bloodline of an animal he does not ride to a man who breeds them for a living.

My plate held one egg. I’d cut it into four pieces at the start of the meal and eaten none of them. I figured it would at least buy me an hour.

"Frostfall," the Queen Mother said. "You’ve gone quiet."

"I’m listening, Your Majesty. It’s a fascinating topic."

She held me there a moment, then let me go, and Aldric started up again. For once, I was thankful. I looked at the window and tried to do some math on exactly how many minutes of life I have left.

[Too many.]

A guard came in through the side door, went to the shrine’s steward at the end of the table, and did the thing men do when they think they’re whispering.

"Uh, sir? Two of the students have gone up the northeast path. Cook saw them cross the west field before the fifth bell and they haven’t come back down."

The steward put his cup down.

[Two hundred of them came on this trip and half have never been outside a city wall. One will be dead in a ditch before the fortnight is out, and it will not be my problem, since I’ll be here, eating an egg.]

"Names?"

"They didn’t stop to give any. Girls, both of them. One’s a beastkin, of the fox variety, orange hair. The other one’s a little blonde thing with a sword she doesn’t need."

My knife stopped on the plate.

I didn’t look up. I’ve spent twelve years learning how to not react and I’m extremely good at it, so my hand stayed where it was with the blade half through the egg while I sat and listened to a man breathe.

The steward sighed.

"Leave them. It happens every year with the academy lot. Some noble girl gets six days away from her mother and decides she’d like to find out what a beastkin’s got under the belt, and she wants a hill and a bit of privacy to do it on. They’ll be down by dark, filthy, and one of them will be walking funny." He picked his cup back up. "Don’t send anybody after them. It’s undignified."

"Sir."

The guard left.

I sat there with my knife in the egg.

[That is one possibility.]

I swallowed.

[There’s another one.]

Sakana was going to say something to Everdawn on that mountain that couldn’t be taken back. Something that wasn’t hers to talk about.

Honestly, I couldn’t tell which option was worse.

And yet, my brain decided for me.

I saw a clearing.

The sun came through the trees. Sakana was on her back in the leaves with her shirt shoved up over her tits. Everdawn knelt between her legs, opening Sakana’s belt and laughing while she did it. Then Everdawn put her mouth on her. I saw Sakana’s hips lift from the ground. Everdawn put one hand flat against her stomach and held her down. Everdawn is stronger than she looks. She knows that. And Everdawn would let Sakana do whatever she wanted.

That was the part that kept getting stuck in my head.

Everdawn goes soft for anybody who’s kind to her. Sakana had been kind to her every day for two months.

Then my imagination kept going.

Everdawn would put her hand down Sakana’s trousers. And unlike me, Sakana wouldn’t mind. Sakana would let it happen and Everdawn would pull out her cock and-

I put my knife down before I did something stupid with it.

Then I coughed. Nobody looked up, so I coughed again and put some shoulder into it. Finally, the governor’s wife turned toward me. I raised my napkin to my mouth and coughed a third time. Then I added a fourth one and made it wet.

My mother taught me when I was nine that a dry cough is rude.

A wet cough is a medical emergency.

"Frostfall?"

I kept the napkin against my mouth.

"It’s nothing, Your Majesty." I coughed again. "Forgive me. It’s been coming on since the road, and I thought I’d got ahead of it."

"You’re pale," Aldric said.

[That’s just what my face looks like.]

"Y-Yes, I should go back before it settles in my chest. I’m so sorry. This is unforgivable of me."

The Queen Mother waved a hand.

"Go. Send for the shrine’s healer as soon as you arrive."

"Of course, Your Majesty."

I bowed to the table and walked out. Then, I made it to the courtyard and ran.

---

{Kohaku}

"AND SHE HAD BIG ONES, TWO BIG ONES, THE BIGGEST IN THE LAND!"

"And she had big ones," Lily sang behind me. "Two big ones, the biggest in the..."

She stopped.

"Kohaku, big what?"

"Concerns! S-She had big concerns! It’s a sad song about a woman with a lot on her mind."

Lily kept walking.

"It doesn’t sound sad."

"That’s how we do it where I’m from. You sing the sad songs fast, otherwise you start crying in the field."

I stepped over a root and kept climbing.

"Second verse! AND THE MILKMAID SAID, OH, SIR, THAT’S FAR TOO MUCH FOR ME!"

And, good lord, Lily sang every word with me. She made it three words past the end before her brain finally caught up with her mouth.

Then she stopped on the trail.

"That’s not about concerns!"

"Isn’t it~?"

"Kohaku!"

I turned around.

"T-T-That song is FILTHY!"

I started walking backwards, hands behind my head, cause I knew she hated it when I did that. She’d tied her sleeves up and put her hair back before we started climbing. There was a leaf stuck in it from about a mile ago. I’d noticed it immediately and decided not to tell her... cause it’s cute.

"So this is fun."

Lily looked at me.

I grinned.

"Come on. Say it’s fun!"

"I’m not admitting anything to you. Ever. On principle. For the rest of my life."

"We were literally skipping together!"

"I did not."

"You did. Nine minutes ago, when we came out of the gully, you skipped."

"I took a wide step over a wet rock!"

"There was a hop in the middle."

"There was not."

"I watched it happen."

Lily walked past me with her chin up. Then, ten paces later, she slowed down so I could catch up.

I smiled.

"Fine," she said. "It... It was a little exciting."

"Go on. Keep talking."

"That’s all you’re getting! It’s a little exciting. My heart’s been going since the west field, and I keep thinking about the steward’s face if he could see us right now. I hate that I like it." She pulled the rope higher on her shoulder. "But we’re back before dark. You promised me. If we don’t find whatever it is you’re looking for by midday, we turn around."

"Absolutely."

"And you’re actually going to turn around this time."

"I am!"

"Last time, you said we were turning around, then you kept walking."

"I was making progress."

"You were going in the wrong direction."

"Progress can happen in any direction."

"KOHAKU!!!"

"Fine, fine, yes, we’ll turn around."

[Yep. That’s the plan. We get to the top, I go, "Whoa, cool sword, want to hold it?", and the second it’s in your hand, we turn around and go home. Then, some miscellaneous amount of Chapters from now, you kill the end of the world with it. Easy.]

The birds stopped.

I noticed immediately. My ears are the one part of this body that could be considered a practical improvement against my previous one. I caught that noise.

Then, something... a bit weird came through the branches.

Four wings opened around it, and none of them made a sound. The thing stopped about nine feet above the trail and tipped its head sideways at us.

[Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me.]

I knew exactly what that was.

It was called a Greater Lull Moth. Basically, it was this fat ugly thing with huge eyes that floated around and had only one spell it knew how to use:

Sleep

And it used it to get its pray down and then it would dissolve its pray and slurp it up. I recalled writing this one because at the time my thought process had been "damn, that’s hardcore" and I patted myself on the back for it.

[I should probably warn Lily about it.]

"Okay, so, Lily, we wanna-"

The moth cast its spell.

Lily, thinking it was a regular bit of magic, tried to deflect it. But instead, when it touched her sword, the spell went up her arm and around her whole body.

Lily hit the floor a second later.

"... What?" I blinked. I looked up. "Ah. Well, this sucks."