by Hickory Mack
“If that’s what you’ve been raised to believe it’s awfully brave of you to be here, among us, challenging those beliefs. What they taught you is pretty gory, and grossly exaggerated,” Yuuki said. “but not entirely inaccurate.”
“I know. I watched Lord Makkai kill six people, right in front of me. I know he killed the other three, he just did it outside of where I could see him. There was no hesitation, he showed no remorse. On the other side of it, I saw one of those men stand a few feet away from Fen and shoot him in the head without provocation. We weren't harming or threatening anyone by standing there. At least Lord Makkai had a reason.” Chiori looked so lost, Yuuki took her hand.
“It still wasn’t very considerate of his lordship to bring you there. How do you feel about what you saw?” the older girl asked. Chiori bit her lip.
“It was awful. The most frightening thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I heard you slept for days afterward, from the physical trauma and the emotional shock,” Yuuki prompted.
“I had nightmares, I still do, every night. Except when he’s with me. It’s his face that haunts my nightmares, but it’s him that stops them. It’s such a mix of terrible things. Sometimes I see him killing those men, sometimes I see the men killing him. I can still feel Pax’s gun against my head, so I try not to think about it,” Chiori said, her voice was monotone, emotionless.
“No one can blame you for that,” Yuuki said gently.
“I do. I blame myself. They didn’t have to die. It was my fault they found out about Makkai in the first place. If I hadn’t come out into the forest, none of this would have happened,” Chiori said, earning her a frown from Yuuki.
“You wouldn’t have been able to stop yourself. Had you been born a thousand miles away you would have grown up feeling there was something missing. Circumstances brought you close enough that your bond would have tugged on you, chafing and pestering and nagging. It wants you to be together. Regular bonds are like a ribbon, flowing and bending and adapting. Your bond with him stretches tight in an arrow straight line, it’s pulling you. You would have come to him eventually,” Yuuki said.
“Is that bond the only reason I’m hurting this much? How am I supposed to know if my feelings are real and not the manipulation of some crazy tether? He’s been so kind to me since that day, but his kindness did not start until after he discovered our bond exists,” Chiori said, giving voice to her biggest worry. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m saying all of this to you right now.”
“Sometimes you need someone to listen, and I’m sure it’s hard to find the right person, when the one you most want to be with is the person troubling you. For what it’s worth, the bond would not have grown if you were not compatible. If you were unhappy with his lordship, or frightened of him, or if he posed a threat to you, it would eventually weaken and break,” Yuuki said.
“It can be broken?” Chiori asked quickly, a startled look on her face. She’d thought Makkai was exaggerating.
“It’s the only way it can be. There is no outside force that can sever your tie, it has to come from one of you. To put it another way: The mating bond pulls the two of you together, but it responds to your emotions. It might amplify things, but it cannot create emotions that aren’t there naturally,” Yuuki said. Chiori nodded slowly.
“Thank you, Yuuki. I didn’t know how much I needed to know that,” she said gratefully.
“There’s something, too, speaking of needing to know. Have you told Lord Makkai? About the nightmares?” Yuuki asked.
“No, so many other things have happened, and when we were together the nightmares stopped, so I never thought to tell him. It wasn’t important at the time. Now I can’t stop thinking about it,” Chiori answered.
“Well, it’s my turn to stay the night with you. If you have any nightmares tonight, I’ll make sure it gets back to him, okay?” Yuuki said helpfully.
“Actually, I’d rather you didn’t, even if they do come back. I don’t want to trouble him. He wants me to get a proper education, and he thinks it will be easier to do if he isn’t always around. The more time we spend together, the more the bond grows. I want to work hard and become strong as fast as I can so...” Chiori’s voice trailed off.
“So you can be together.” Yuuki finished and Chiori nodded. Yuuki tossed her arms around Chiori’s shoulders and squished her in a hug. “You’re so adorable My Lady!” Chiori wiggled away and splashed Yuuki, making the older girl laugh.
“I’m ready to get out,” Chiori said after a while, making her way out and to her towel. They dried off and dressed then walked back to Chiori’s rooms.
“Would you like some tea before bed, my Lady?” Yuuki asked when they drew near.
“No, but feel free to have some yourself if you like,” Chiori answered. In her room she riffled through her wardrobe, excited to find a pair of pink fluffy slippers inside. She dipped behind her screen to change and came back with her dress in hand. “I feel stupid, but, where should I put these?” she asked.
“Never you mind about that, My Lady,” Yuuki said, taking the clothes from her. She’d finished laying out Chiori’s futon and blankets. “I’ll take care of these and come right back with the tea. And I’ll bring an extra cup, just in case.”
Alone in her room with so many things she had yet to touch or explore, the first thing she did was push and pull her futon to the edge of the open wall, stopping short of the hallway to take advantage of the tatami mats and soft rugs. She wasn’t sure it was close enough to feel like she was outside, but left it anyway, figuring it could be moved further out if needed. When Yuuki returned with the tea she had an apologetic look on her face.
“I’ve never been a Lady’s companion before. I wasn’t supposed to leave you, I’m sorry, I should have asked one of the others to bring the tea,” she said.
“I don’t mind, I’m used to being alone,” Chiori said, accepting a cup and drinking it more quickly than was polite. She was tired and ready for bed. Yuuki followed her lead and hurried to set up a second futon next to Chiori’s, not commenting on the revised location. She fussed around the room a bit, setting the tea tray outside the door and making sure Chiori had enough pillows and blankets, though the early summer air was warm.
Feeling awkward Chiori nestled in while the other girl changed into her own pajamas. Yuuki turned out the lights and settled down next to her.
“Goodnight, my Lady,” Yuuki murmured sleepily.
“Goodnight, Yuuki,” she replied.
It took Chiori a long time to fall asleep, curled up in a ball, uncomfortably aware that a near stranger was right behind her. When she did fall asleep, the nightmares were back. She tossed and turned and woke multiple times. In her last attempt to sleep she was at the tree looking at Doctor Pax, his hand was out in front of him and he spoke quickly, trying to diffuse the situation. Lord Makkai was behind her, his arm around her, grasping her tight. When the gun touched her temple it was his hand holding it.
The weapon fired and Chiori woke with a start, drenched in sweat and tears shed in her sleep. Yuuki stirred and brought a cloth to clean her face and neck. Chiori thanked her and lay back down, pretending to sleep so the other girl could, too. Once Yuuki’s breathing became regular Chiori slipped outside into the garden to wait for dawn.
Chapter 23
When Yuuki woke Chiori had already quietly folded her blankets and stuffed them and her pillows back into the wardrobe’s drawer. She was dressed for the day and sitting on the edge of the hallway, one foot dangling through the barrier and into the garden, a chick in her hands. Chiori smiled, the older girl’s beautiful long hair was a tangled purple mess, and she was clearly confused from waking in an unfamiliar place. She looked over and saw Chiori and her eyes suddenly came into focus.
“My Lady! I’m so sorry, we were told you like to sleep late!” Yuuki said in mild panic, fixing her robe into place and jumping to her feet. Chiori laughed.
“It’s fine, Yuuki, really. I got up
early is all. Take your time, the faster you move, the faster the day has to start,” she said, watching Yuuki attempting to straighten her hair. She threw Chiori a grateful look and tied it all up in a messy bun. Yuuki folded up her blankets and set them aside, then Chiori helped her get the futons put away against her protests. She couldn’t sit there doing nothing while the other girl did all the work.
Yuuki sat Chiori down and plaited her hair in a French braid, starting at her temple and sweeping it across the back of her head so it rested on her opposite shoulder. She tied it in place with a ribbon. A knock came at the door and Yuuki admitted Ani, who looked surprised to see Chiori up and dressed. The spider demon bowed to Chiori as deeply as Fen to Lord Makkai.
Chiori nodded her head in reply, as she’d seen her Lord do in response. Yuuki looked between the two of them and Chiori noticed the older girl's lips press into a thin line. She wondered what the sprite saw but knew this wasn’t the appropriate time to ask.
“I was going to come and send Yuuki out to get herself prepared for the day, I’m sorry my Lady, we did not expect you to be awake yet,” Ani said, looking at Yuuki with cold eyes. Chiori decided she didn’t like it.
“Well, in the future, if someone is going to be sleeping in my room, I will not have whomever it is ‘switched out’ while I am sleeping. I won’t have anyone sneaking in and out of here without even warning me and giving me no idea whom will be here when I wake,” Chiori said, irritated.
“I agree,” Yuuki said. “In fact, that’s exactly as Nakia suggested yesterday.”
“Her suggestion should have been taken more seriously. I want choices to be brought to me, so I can make my own decisions about my own life. At least until I decide which of you will be the head of my household,” Chiori said, using her authority for the first time. Ani lowered her eyes but the air was thick with contention. “Yuuki, please feel free to go about your day. Ani, please send Nakia to me, if she is not busy.”
“Thank you, my Lady. See you later!” Yuuki said with a smile, practically skipping out the door. Chiori made a mental note to ask her what she’d seen between her and Ani later.
“As you say, my Lady,” Ani said, looking crestfallen.
Chiori waited until she was alone before going out to the garden to return the chick to her sisters and the rooster. She then used the bathroom, brushed her teeth and admired what Yuuki had done with her hair in the mirror. Going back to her bedroom and seeing that Nakia hadn’t arrived yet, she went to the sitting room and looked through the books on her shelves. The topics were varied with no apparent focus on any one subject. Her fingers paused, the spine of this one was plain brown, no title, just a simple gold leaf etching of the outline of a tree.
The front cover was tan and it too had a golden tree, more intricately drawn with scrolling letters across the top. “Phytotomy and Morphology: The Anatomy of Plant Life.” She opened it to the first chapter and it was titled “Introduction to Botany”. Chiori leafed through a bit, seeing photos of different plants and realized that she recognized very few of them. One page caught her attention, a diagram of what she had already seen through magic, the xylem tubes of a tree, running from root to leaf.
She slowly sank onto the chair, reading the page talking about those tubes and the cellular tension created by evaporation to move water against the pressure of gravity dozens of feet off the ground. Nowhere in the diagram did she see the pools of magic she had tapped into with Lord Makkai’s help. She turned the next few pages, looking to find an explanation, then went back a few, but found nothing. Chiori took one of the several ribbons off the shelf and marked the page, deciding to ask Lord Makkai about it when she saw him for breakfast. Then she flipped to the introduction page and began to read.
A few minutes later Chiori had a dictionary lined up alongside the book to look up words she’d never encountered before. She was immersed in root systems when a tap came at the door, pulling her away from learning what the word “Hypocotyl” meant.
“Lady Chiori?” came Nakia’s voice from the hallway.
“In the library,” Chiori answered, forgetting they’d called it her sitting room. The door slid open and Nakia entered wearing the purple uniform, but she’d added a darker purple, flower-patterned sash around her waist.
“Good morning, My Lady. Ani said you wanted to speak with me?” Nakia questioned, her pale blue eyes meeting Chiori’s.
“Good morning, Nakia. Yuuki’s turn babysitting me is over and Ani makes me uncomfortable. I was hoping you would take me to Haruka, so I can get my schedule for the day, before Lord Makkai comes for breakfast this morning,” Chiori said, getting a second ribbon to mark her place in the book. She set it and the dictionary on the table next to her chair.
“Yes, absolutely. Would you like to go now?” Nakia asked, looking at the clothes Chiori had chosen. Shorts and a cute but comfortable black and purple hoodie. The fuzzy pink slippers covered her feet. Chiori stood up.
“Yes, I would,” she answered, going into the hallway ahead of the snake demon. Composed, Nakia led the way, taking almost the same route through the house as the day before. Haruka’s office was directly across from the entrance hall.
“Master Haruka,” Nakia tapped on the Magisterium’s door. “Lady Chiori has come to collect her class schedule.” A quick shuffling preceded the door opening, Nori stood before them. She narrowed her eyes but gave a curt bow before stepping aside to allow them entrance.
Haruka sat on a cushion on the floor, a low table of papers before him, a pipe in hand. He looked as perfectly well put together at this early hour as he had the day before. Fen sat next to him and he looked up at Chiori with a look of pure annoyance. Neither stood to greet her or give respect. Chiori didn’t notice, she was still surprised and felt awkward when anyone showed her deference. Nakia took notice and she stared at Fen coolly.
“I keep hearing I am up earlier than expected, is my schedule prepared, or would you like me to come back?” Chiori asked innocently, but the demon bristled and came to his feet abruptly. She took an involuntary step back, she’d not been intimidated by his size when Lord Makkai had been standing next to her, but without him, the man was huge. Haruka gave a satisfied grunt, his dark eyes boring into her.
“Sen, Moscow and Kai, in that order. See Sen immediately after breakfast, she has you for two hours. When she is done you will be with Moscow for two hours before lunch and another hour after. Kai will have you until dinner. Do not give any of them any trouble,” Haruka said, settling back down next to Fen. Chiori had expected to be given a paper to outline the rest of her week, but he had nothing to give her.
“Should I… Come back tomorrow?” she asked, feeling stupid.
“Obviously,” Fen said, shaking his head.
“Okay,” she said lamely, turning away and leaving so they could not see the heat on her face. Beside her, Nakia seethed.
“They only answer to Lord Makkai, nobody else in this house gets their respect. Even Airi has trouble with them. We’ll change that, even if it takes a while,” she gritted her teeth.
“That was embarrassing,” Chiori admitted, her shoulders hunched over, making herself smaller. Nakia stopped her and gently pushed them back, raising Chiori’s chin with her fingers.
“That’s exactly what Haruka wanted it to be,” the snake demon considered her for a moment. “I’ll be your unofficial teacher. Those men deciding what’s important for you to learn forgot the essentials. You need to learn the daily intricacies of how to be a Lady. You can’t knowingly break the rules if you don’t first know how to abide by them. There will be plenty of time between classes, and you have all evening, we’ll find time,” Nakia said.
“You’ll give up your time to do this for me?” Chiori asked, smiling. She knew she was outclassed and ignorant in basically everything she did in their world. “Why?”
“Because you’re the most interesting thing to happen around here in a long time, and I think it will be fun to knock their egos down a pe
g or two. I have the time, and the knowledge, and I happen to like you. So, why not?” Nakia smiled a bit and Chiori was startled to see a long set of fangs. “Oh, they come out when I’m irritated. My venom is strong, but no use against Haruka. He’s a badger, you know. He eats little snakes like me. You though, you’ll be able to use him as a dinner napkin when your power comes to fruition.”
Chiori felt the hair rise on her arms. She hadn’t known what Haruka was. Badgers were to be feared. A single badger could destroy half a nest. Even the lessers were in a class of their own, they were relentless. What stumped her was not knowing if what she knew was real.
“People keep saying things like that. About my power. Every time I’ve used it so far it’s been an accident, and the one time I used it on purpose I almost killed myself,” Chiori said sardonically. They were walking again, in a different direction than she’d gone before. The house was a massive maze of hallways and rooms.
“But you didn’t,” Nakia said, raising one eyebrow. She took Chiori down another hall and an unfamiliar man backed into a room to let them pass. He looked confused about what they were doing there and Chiori couldn’t blame him. She looked completely different without her layers and layers of kimono and six inches worth of shoe to give her height. Without Lord Makkai at her side, she was easily forgettable.
Another two turns and the interior gardens came into view, from a vantage point she’d seen once before. Her heart skipped a beat, these were Lord Makkai’s rooms. She looked at her pink slippers and sighed. Caught unprepared again. They came to a room with open doors, hardwood floors and a low table with a cushion on each side. When they entered, Nakia kneeled next to a wall, sitting on her heels. Chiori moved to do the same but Nakia shook her head and nodded her head toward the door.