EXTRA: A Date with Cassandra, 3

Then, after walking for some time, Mordecai and his yandere banshee lawyer found a bench in a quiet corner of the main square, near a fountain that had very clean drinking water.

Every now and then, a lot of people and demi-humans leaned close to drink that water.

He set the bags down, and Cassandra sat beside him with her hands folded neatly in her lap, watching the army of skeleton janitors cleaning and sweeping.

For a while, neither of them said anything, because the silence felt comfortable, and Mordecai couldn't remember the last time he'd had one of those.

Then, after a few minutes, curiosity spoke for him.

"Cassandra, now that I think about it..." he kept his tone light. "You've never told me anything about your past. Why is that?"

Cassandra's body reacted as if it had been electrocuted. Her gaze dropped to the cobblestones, and she turned her face slightly away from him.

"N-no. It's not important, My Liege..." She said. "Don't worry about it."

She was trembling, and Mordecai knew what that meant.

He softened.

"I see," he said gently. "If you don't want to talk about it, then you don't have to. Forget what I asked; I was just curious."

"I... can't yet, My Liege." Her voice had gone very small, with something that made his chest tighten. "I beg your forgiveness for my insolence. P-Please... please don't punish me."

'Please don't punish me.'

The magic sentence.

But in this case, Mordecai felt a deeper meaning behind those words.

"Cassandra." He kept his voice soft. "You're not in trouble, so don't worry. No punishment for you." He said.

The iron banshee nodded quickly, still not looking at him.

Then, Mordecai changed the topic to something lighter, not wanting to stress her any further.

"Can I ask you something else, then? It's an easier question, I swear." He leaned back on the bench. "What does a banshee even eat? Like... do you eat?"

Cassandra blinked, surprised out of her tension by that strange question.

"Eh? We... no. We've never felt the need of physical food. A banshee's spectral existence doesn't require sustenance." She frowned slightly, with something wistful crossing her face. "Now that I think of it... I've forgotten what things even tasted like. It's been so long, maybe thousands of years. Every memory is just... gone."

Mordecai looked at her for a moment.

"Alright," he said. "Just wait a second."

"Uhm... okay..." Cassandra said.

Mordecai then closed his eyes.

'System. I need you to generate a caramel ice cream. Right now. And I need you to make it so that she can actually eat it for real. Spectral-compatible. I'm gonna pay whatever amount it takes.'

The system replied almost instantly.

[SYSTEM REPLY: Cassandra doesn't have a stomach, you dumbass. She is a ghost, and providing her with edible spectral marble was not in her original design. Generating a phantom-compatible consumable will cost you ten Soul Coins because this is off-script and I have to build it from scratch. Do you think that we're working for free?]

'I accept. Dibbs57 donated 400 soul coins yesterday.' He telepathically spoke.

[...You keep spending resources on being nice to people. It's getting weird. First the salted peanuts and then this? Damn. You were such a corporate piece of shit at the beginning of this story. I miss this.

'Move.'

And then, a gentle weight materialized in Mordecai's edgy right hand. When he opened his eyes, he was holding a cone.

A perfectly ordinary soft-serve caramel ice cream cone, the kind you'd buy from a convenience store freezer on a hot day.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: ITEM GENERATED: [SSS Ordinary Spectral Caramel Ice-Cream]. Enjoy your pointless act of kindness. +10 positive Karma. +5 Wisdom. +20 Pathetic aura.]

Beside him, Cassandra's head turned sharply as her nostrils flared.

For some reason, she could smell it. The banshee could smell the sweet caramel richness of it cutting through thousands years of tasteless nonexistence. Her eyes went wide.

"M-My Liege," she breathed. "What... what is that? It's the first time I've seen something like this."

"It's for you." Mordecai held the cone out. "This is something even you can eat. Go on, take it."

Cassandra's eyes sparkled as she carefully took the cone from him with both hands. And then, something happened to her. Something that hadn't happened in a long time.

Her mouth watered. Actual saliva. Not spectral fluids, not x, not y, not an AI-Generated reply, but real saliva. The physical response of a body that remembered how to want something.

Instincts immediately took over.

Cassandra lifted the cone toward her mouth and, unable to help herself, breathed in the smell of it first. Then, without blinking, she took a bite.

Her entire body went still, and her eyes filled with ghostly tears.

She didn't even make a sound. She just sat there on that bench holding that ice cream while tears fell from her eyes as she tasted something sweet for the first time.

The iron banshee took another bite, and then another, eating slowly, like every bite was something holy.

Kaito looked away and pretended not to notice. He wanted his lawyer to have a little moment of privacy.

When the cone was finally gone, Cassandra sat quietly for a moment, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

And then, she spoke.

"It's been more than a thousand years," she whispered. "Since the last time I felt this warmth."

And then, without realizing what she was doing, she leaned over and wrapped her arms around him.

For some reason, Mordecai felt her. Her arms were solid and real. It wasn't the first time he had touched her body, but for some reason, she felt more real.

She was holding onto him, overwhelmed by his kindness, and she was warm.

Mordecai let her hug him and didn't push her away.

'It seems like she has suffered a lot; let's not ruin her moment.' He thought.

After a few moments, Cassandra had finally realized what she was doing, and she released him in the blink of an eye, sitting back. She had a brilliant, mortified, neon-blue blush from her cheeks to the tips of her ears.

"I-I deeply apologize, my Liege," she stammered, returning to her perfect straight posture. "Sorry! This was a deeply inappropriate and unauthorized physical contact! I don't know what came over me! Please don't fire me!" She even bowed.

Mordecai said nothing.

He just looked at the place and at the sweeping skeleton janitors, letting the silence sit there, comfortable and without judgment.

Sometimes the kindest answer was to simply not answer at all.

After a few instants, Cassandra seemed to understand that, and, slowly, some of the tension drained out of her again.

She folded her hands and looked out at the same view, and the blue faded from her ears.

Only two adventurers sitting on a bench on a peaceful afternoon remained.

That was one of the calmest moments he had felt in months, maybe.

But that peace only lasted about ten more seconds.

Because that was when he heard it.

A distant, rising shriek in the sky, building fast, accompanied by a low crackling roar like a thunderstorm being fired out of a cannon.

Mordecai looked up and saw it.

Tearing across the heavens, trailing golden light and leaving a smoking contrail through the clouds, was a meteor.

Except, it wasn't a meteor. Oh no, no, no.

Standing triumphantly (and probably also angrily) on top of a golden cloud was none other than Sun Wukong on her Nimbus.

Mordecai closed his eyes like IShowSpeed during that "My mom is kinda homeless" stream.

He knew that something like that was going to happen, because he also was the one who started it.

The universe couldn't give him a moment of peace.

"Of course," he muttered. "Of course it's her. I should've found another excuse."

Cassandra looked at it.

"My Liege... is that..." She asked.

"Yeah. It's Wukong. She's gonna go to destroy some dungeons or probably land here to ask for headpats."

And in that moment, another important thing hit Mordecai.

If Wukong was flying somewhere, it meant that Egel was also coming there to interrupt his "date."

'Ah, damn. Guess that the peace is over.'