Sitting on my usual barrel, I watched over the four heroes discussing what to do in the distance. Neither I nor Lucinda was invited into that conversation, but that didn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.
Lucinda’s thoughts were probably constantly revolving around Luna as she just stat there with an empty gaze, the flask in her lap.
And in the meantime, the twins tried to use Lucinda’s emotional weakness and sat next to herd, their heads resting on each of Lucinda’s shoulder.
I had the chance of stepping in between, but I didn’t do so as I actually hoped they would succeed and maybe fill a bit of the gap Luna left behind a second time. Because I couldn’t. I wasn’t the type of friend to cuddle with her and neither did I want that. I desired the strong bond Lucinda and Luna had, but I also knew Luna was special in that regard. A singularity in the masses of people Lucinda met.
“No, I’m not following a crazy vampire who happens to be the daughter of the god of death!” Gregory said loudly enough for us to hear him and stormed into the nearest inn we used to sleep in.
“Oh oh. One of them jumped ship.” The one to Lucinda’s right said quietly.
“Blub blub …” I couldn’t differentiate between them at all. Both of them looked exactly the same, wore the same black attire and behaved exactly the same.
And slowly, the three others apparently made a decision. They came over to us after that and presented us with a rather surprising result, presented by Sofie first.
“Lucy … I don’t know who you are anymore. You don’t care that the two vampires by your side have been demon generals who murdered quite a few people but you also cry for Luna more than anyone of us combined.” Lucinda didn’t react at all, and rather kept staring at the flask in her lap. “And I still want to believe in you. You helped us massively … and you did good for this world. I’m not going to forget that. And you are also my friend … let me help you.” Still no reaction from Lucinda, but Sofie didn’t seem too bothered by it.
“I’ll follow you wherever you go.” Like a stalker … nice one Schwarz. That really showed your character. But in all honesty, my guess was that the sword had a massive influence on this decision as well, even though I struggled to understand how Lucinda’s soul could be in that sword and influence his emotions … but whatever.
“I believe that you are dangerous, especially given your influence in society. Nobody should hold as much power as you do … but at least you didn’t misuse it massively yet. I’m not choosing you, Lucinda and Hannah. I’m just choosing the lesser evil. And that apparently means working with a lying elf and three vampires … am I right?”
“Thank you …” I muttered quietly, honestly a bit touched by their statements.
“And because Gregory wants to be teleported back to the border, I’m going to take his place as the mage again.” Louis said as Gregory stormed out of the inn once more, his things on his back.
“I’m going to tell dad everything I know. Before you come back, we will expose everything you did and what you are to the world.” I didn’t know if that was supposed to be a threat or not, but Lucinda didn’t react at all. Well, it was interesting to see how the king would react, that was for sure. Would he plunge the whole kingdom into chaos? Or would he swallow the bitter pill presented towards him to continue his comfortable life? I surely didn’t know and Lucinda seemingly didn’t care enough to look up.
Sighing, Sofie prepared herself and looked at Gregory one last time.
“Are you sure about this?” She asked helplessly. I was sure she would have liked to have him around, despite all of his character problems but it didn’t seem to work out between those five anymore.
“Yes.” Gregory stated.
“Teleport.” And then, he was gone, leaving only a silent cloud of dust behind from the otherwise noisy boy.
“Hey, sis. Say, do we get reassembled at the teleport target or are we just jumping through space?” One of the vampires asked, drawing the attention of each and everyone except Lucinda.
“Heh, the first one would be funny. We would die each time.” The other one said and chuckled a little while hugging Lucinda from the side.
“Who are you! And why did you murder my sis?” The other one said, utterly amazing me. The situation didn’t call for their behaviour at all, and yet they somehow managed to brighten up the mood at least a little bit.
“Who are you?!” The other one asked and giggled loudly.
“We are going to keep an eye on you.” Ellie said a bit stunned by their easy going attitude.
“Eww … that’s disgusting.” One of them said and let go of Lucinda slowly.
“Eyes taste horrible.” The other one nodded in approval and let go of Lucinda as well. Together, they stood up, extended their hands towards Lucinda and helped her up. “Are we heading out now?”
“I’m bored!” The other one added.
“Okay … this needs to stop. Who were you again?” Ellie asked and pointed at the left one.
“Clara.” She said and giggled a little.
“And I’m Clarice.”
“Hold on, I thought the left one was Clarice.” Sofie said a little confused.
“Clarice …” Lucinda said quietly and nodded over to her right. “Clara.” She repeated the same in the opposite direction which stunned the two vampires somewhat.
“How …” Clara started quietly.
“… nobody can distinguish us!” Clarice resumed her sentence.
“That’s illegal!” And Clara wrapped their statement up.
“No matter … what you try, you are still not the same person. What is the plan?” Lucinda looked towards Ellie, probably because she had realised that they wouldn’t be listening to her at all.
“We have a rowboat and Miss Dove claims to have seen a boat sailing northwards … we will follow them.” Ellie stated, which honestly only served in making Lucinda more depressed.
“Why does it always have to be water …” Lucinda shook her head weakly and then looked down onto the flask. “Hannah … I know it wasn’t your fault. You told me your weren’t sure you could defeat the enemy … but I didn’t listen and burdened you with that task anyways … I just want you to know that I don’t blame you. So will you protect her together with me once more?”
“I won’t leave your side.” I stated firmly and looked into her saddened eyes. She still believed in me, despite my failure at protecting Luna.
“Thank you … we should go now … it’s getting early.” Lucinda mumbled tired and nodded towards the nearby beach.
“Eww … I hate the sun!” Clara puffed her cheeks right away.
“Me too! Me too!” Clarice copied her sisters move but none of us were fooled by their playful behaviour. They were deadly creatures, possibly only held back from murdering everyone on the spot because they wanted to be on Lucinda’s good side … for the time being.
And Lucinda knew that very well, even though her mind was still occupied by sorrow. Slowly, she knocked onto their heads and shook her head.
“Bear with it … we’ll be covered in blankets.” Lucinda said and watched them open their mouths shocked.
“Did she just …” Clarice said, looking at Lucinda with wide open eyes.
“… admonish us?” Clara asked, blinking a few times in surprise.
“Eww … should I punch you harder?” Lucinda asked quietly.
“No!” Clarice shook her head wildly, placed her hands in front of her chest and smiled brightly.
“That was fine …” Clara added, basically dancing around Lucinda.
“What in the world am I seeing there?” Ellie asked a little bit horrified by their display.
“I don’t know … but as long as they keep Lucy’s mind occupied, I won’t complain.” I stood up from my barrel, grabbed the twins by their arms and pulled them behind me while they protested loudly.
“Help!” Clara shouted out helplessly, extending her free hand towards Lucinda who directed her gaze downwards again.
“Someone is abducting us! Call the guards!” Clarice said, which honestly made me chuckle a little. Soon after that, Lucinda was given a whole bunch of thick blankets along with a backpack to carry. Silently she walked after us towards the ocean where I soon found the little rowboat Louis had created.
While Lucinda sat down in the sand, I placed the backpack into the boat under the curious gazes of the twins.
“Beh … crackers.” Clarice said and Clara nodded approvingly. “What about us?”
Well, that was indeed a rather sensible question. None of the others had thought about that issue and I didn’t believe they would allow the twins to accompany them.
“Ehm … how about you sit next to Lucy and make … I don’t know? A sandcastle?” I asked, wondering what kids their age usually did. Well, I was basically travelling with a bunch of teenagers, but they were all mentally older. These two vampires should be as well, but they seemed to be stuck in their twelve year of living.
“Sounds boring.” Clarice said right away.
“Can you make one and we’ll trample on it?” Clara asked eagerly.
“You are so smart Clara!” Clarice jumped into the open arms of her sister and giggled happily.
“No you are smart!” Yup … I wasn’t going to put up with them any longer. Shaking my head a little, I strolled back towards the four idiots and presented them the problem we were having.
“They are vampires. They won’t be fed with crackers alone and I can assure you a hungry vampire is the worst kind of vampire.” I laid out the consequences of disregarding the two right away.
“There are a few humans in the castle.” Schwarz pointed out, much to my surprise.
“Schwarz?!” Sofie asked in loud disbelieve.
“What? They haven’t come out yet, meaning they are probably still waiting for any kind of demon. I have no problem with throwing them in front of hungry vampires.” Well, it was definitely better than being sucked dry by the three, but did a hero act like that? Surely not.
“I … I could create animals.” Louis proposed quietly.
“Does it work?” Ellie asked a bit concerned. If it didn’t, we would be in a really bad situation at sea.
“I don’t know why it shouldn’t. I’m creating the real deal after all.” Louis explained.
“Great, well do that. And if that doesn’t work out, we can always teleport back.” Ellie proposed which was actually a rather sensible solution to our problem. “Could you take this? That should’ve everything we need to take with us.” Ellie gave me a rather heavy bag with her amour right away. Naturally she didn’t want to wear them on the boat as she wouldn’t be able to swim with it. Nodding, I threw the bag over my shoulder and walked back to the three vampires behind the others.
Unsurprisingly these two twins couldn’t sit still for more than absolutely necessary and were doing somersaults on the beach.
“Did you see that?” One of them asked the other.
“Awesome! Ten out of ten!” She said, clapping happily even though I was pretty sure the twins could do more than one at a time.
“Hey, we are heading out?” The left one asked.
“What about food?” The other one added.
“Yum yum!” Who was that … Clara? Clarice? It was impossible to tell.
“I will create birds for you to drink.” Louis admitted, trying to be friendly to them.
“Animals? Eww!” One of them admitted and stuck her tongue out a bit disgusted.
“Not yum yum!” The other one shook her head as well while closing her eyes, throwing her blonde hair all around her head.
“Deal with it.” Lucinda said quietly and stood up from her place she didn’t leave since I went back to the fourY
“But Lucy!” Both of them said in protest.
“We are going to fight the demon king. If you cannot bear with that, you might as well stay here.”
“… can I have an albatross?” It was quite amazing how easily they changed from demanding human blood to being okay with it, just so that they could befriend Lucinda.
“No? I want an albatross!” But they were still doing their usual thing, even then.
“You both can have an albatross.” Louis said which made both of them look dumbly at him.
“Meh …” They said in unison and ran over towards Lucy as she stepped closer to the water.
“What did I do wrong?” Louis asked confused.
“I think they both wanted to have one, but neither wanted the other to drink its blood.” Sofie said quietly even though I was fairly sure their ears could pick out everything we talked about.
“I don’t get siblings.” Louis admitted.
“Weird … me neither even though we all lived on that spaceship as a big family of some sorts …” Lucinda’s hunch was right, I had to agree with that. None of them had a life before coming here. They were created for this world, possibly for the entertainment of the gods.
Sitting on my usual barrel, I watched over the four heroes discussing what to do in the distance. Neither I nor Lucinda was invited into that conversation, but that didn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.
Lucinda’s thoughts were probably constantly revolving around Luna as she just stat there with an empty gaze, the flask in her lap.
And in the meantime, the twins tried to use Lucinda’s emotional weakness and sat next to herd, their heads resting on each of Lucinda’s shoulder.
I had the chance of stepping in between, but I didn’t do so as I actually hoped they would succeed and maybe fill a bit of the gap Luna left behind a second time. Because I couldn’t. I wasn’t the type of friend to cuddle with her and neither did I want that. I desired the strong bond Lucinda and Luna had, but I also knew Luna was special in that regard. A singularity in the masses of people Lucinda met.
“No, I’m not following a crazy vampire who happens to be the daughter of the god of death!” Gregory said loudly enough for us to hear him and stormed into the nearest inn we used to sleep in.
“Oh oh. One of them jumped ship.” The one to Lucinda’s right said quietly.
“Blub blub …” I couldn’t differentiate between them at all. Both of them looked exactly the same, wore the same black attire and behaved exactly the same.
And slowly, the three others apparently made a decision. They came over to us after that and presented us with a rather surprising result, presented by Sofie first.
“Lucy … I don’t know who you are anymore. You don’t care that the two vampires by your side have been demon generals who murdered quite a few people but you also cry for Luna more than anyone of us combined.” Lucinda didn’t react at all, and rather kept staring at the flask in her lap. “And I still want to believe in you. You helped us massively … and you did good for this world. I’m not going to forget that. And you are also my friend … let me help you.” Still no reaction from Lucinda, but Sofie didn’t seem too bothered by it.
“I’ll follow you wherever you go.” Like a stalker … nice one Schwarz. That really showed your character. But in all honesty, my guess was that the sword had a massive influence on this decision as well, even though I struggled to understand how Lucinda’s soul could be in that sword and influence his emotions … but whatever.
“I believe that you are dangerous, especially given your influence in society. Nobody should hold as much power as you do … but at least you didn’t misuse it massively yet. I’m not choosing you, Lucinda and Hannah. I’m just choosing the lesser evil. And that apparently means working with a lying elf and three vampires … am I right?”
“Thank you …” I muttered quietly, honestly a bit touched by their statements.
“And because Gregory wants to be teleported back to the border, I’m going to take his place as the mage again.” Louis said as Gregory stormed out of the inn once more, his things on his back.
“I’m going to tell dad everything I know. Before you come back, we will expose everything you did and what you are to the world.” I didn’t know if that was supposed to be a threat or not, but Lucinda didn’t react at all. Well, it was interesting to see how the king would react, that was for sure. Would he plunge the whole kingdom into chaos? Or would he swallow the bitter pill presented towards him to continue his comfortable life? I surely didn’t know and Lucinda seemingly didn’t care enough to look up.
Sighing, Sofie prepared herself and looked at Gregory one last time.
“Are you sure about this?” She asked helplessly. I was sure she would have liked to have him around, despite all of his character problems but it didn’t seem to work out between those five anymore.
“Yes.” Gregory stated.
“Teleport.” And then, he was gone, leaving only a silent cloud of dust behind from the otherwise noisy boy.
“Hey, sis. Say, do we get reassembled at the teleport target or are we just jumping through space?” One of the vampires asked, drawing the attention of each and everyone except Lucinda.
“Heh, the first one would be funny. We would die each time.” The other one said and chuckled a little while hugging Lucinda from the side.
“Who are you! And why did you murder my sis?” The other one said, utterly amazing me. The situation didn’t call for their behaviour at all, and yet they somehow managed to brighten up the mood at least a little bit.
“Who are you?!” The other one asked and giggled loudly.
“We are going to keep an eye on you.” Ellie said a bit stunned by their easy going attitude.
“Eww … that’s disgusting.” One of them said and let go of Lucinda slowly.
“Eyes taste horrible.” The other one nodded in approval and let go of Lucinda as well. Together, they stood up, extended their hands towards Lucinda and helped her up. “Are we heading out now?”
“I’m bored!” The other one added.
“Okay … this needs to stop. Who were you again?” Ellie asked and pointed at the left one.
“Clara.” She said and giggled a little.
“And I’m Clarice.”
“Hold on, I thought the left one was Clarice.” Sofie said a little confused.
“Clarice …” Lucinda said quietly and nodded over to her right. “Clara.” She repeated the same in the opposite direction which stunned the two vampires somewhat.
“How …” Clara started quietly.
“… nobody can distinguish us!” Clarice resumed her sentence.
“That’s illegal!” And Clara wrapped their statement up.
“No matter … what you try, you are still not the same person. What is the plan?” Lucinda looked towards Ellie, probably because she had realised that they wouldn’t be listening to her at all.
“We have a rowboat and Miss Dove claims to have seen a boat sailing northwards … we will follow them.” Ellie stated, which honestly only served in making Lucinda more depressed.
“Why does it always have to be water …” Lucinda shook her head weakly and then looked down onto the flask. “Hannah … I know it wasn’t your fault. You told me your weren’t sure you could defeat the enemy … but I didn’t listen and burdened you with that task anyways … I just want you to know that I don’t blame you. So will you protect her together with me once more?”
“I won’t leave your side.” I stated firmly and looked into her saddened eyes. She still believed in me, despite my failure at protecting Luna.
“Thank you … we should go now … it’s getting early.” Lucinda mumbled tired and nodded towards the nearby beach.
“Eww … I hate the sun!” Clara puffed her cheeks right away.
“Me too! Me too!” Clarice copied her sisters move but none of us were fooled by their playful behaviour. They were deadly creatures, possibly only held back from murdering everyone on the spot because they wanted to be on Lucinda’s good side … for the time being.
And Lucinda knew that very well, even though her mind was still occupied by sorrow. Slowly, she knocked onto their heads and shook her head.
“Bear with it … we’ll be covered in blankets.” Lucinda said and watched them open their mouths shocked.
“Did she just …” Clarice said, looking at Lucinda with wide open eyes.
“… admonish us?” Clara asked, blinking a few times in surprise.
“Eww … should I punch you harder?” Lucinda asked quietly.
“No!” Clarice shook her head wildly, placed her hands in front of her chest and smiled brightly.
“That was fine …” Clara added, basically dancing around Lucinda.
“What in the world am I seeing there?” Ellie asked a little bit horrified by their display.
“I don’t know … but as long as they keep Lucy’s mind occupied, I won’t complain.” I stood up from my barrel, grabbed the twins by their arms and pulled them behind me while they protested loudly.
“Help!” Clara shouted out helplessly, extending her free hand towards Lucinda who directed her gaze downwards again.
“Someone is abducting us! Call the guards!” Clarice said, which honestly made me chuckle a little. Soon after that, Lucinda was given a whole bunch of thick blankets along with a backpack to carry. Silently she walked after us towards the ocean where I soon found the little rowboat Louis had created.
While Lucinda sat down in the sand, I placed the backpack into the boat under the curious gazes of the twins.
“Beh … crackers.” Clarice said and Clara nodded approvingly. “What about us?”
Well, that was indeed a rather sensible question. None of the others had thought about that issue and I didn’t believe they would allow the twins to accompany them.
“Ehm … how about you sit next to Lucy and make … I don’t know? A sandcastle?” I asked, wondering what kids their age usually did. Well, I was basically travelling with a bunch of teenagers, but they were all mentally older. These two vampires should be as well, but they seemed to be stuck in their twelve year of living.
“Sounds boring.” Clarice said right away.
“Can you make one and we’ll trample on it?” Clara asked eagerly.
“You are so smart Clara!” Clarice jumped into the open arms of her sister and giggled happily.
“No you are smart!” Yup … I wasn’t going to put up with them any longer. Shaking my head a little, I strolled back towards the four idiots and presented them the problem we were having.
“They are vampires. They won’t be fed with crackers alone and I can assure you a hungry vampire is the worst kind of vampire.” I laid out the consequences of disregarding the two right away.
“There are a few humans in the castle.” Schwarz pointed out, much to my surprise.
“Schwarz?!” Sofie asked in loud disbelieve.
“What? They haven’t come out yet, meaning they are probably still waiting for any kind of demon. I have no problem with throwing them in front of hungry vampires.” Well, it was definitely better than being sucked dry by the three, but did a hero act like that? Surely not.
“I … I could create animals.” Louis proposed quietly.
“Does it work?” Ellie asked a bit concerned. If it didn’t, we would be in a really bad situation at sea.
“I don’t know why it shouldn’t. I’m creating the real deal after all.” Louis explained.
“Great, well do that. And if that doesn’t work out, we can always teleport back.” Ellie proposed which was actually a rather sensible solution to our problem. “Could you take this? That should’ve everything we need to take with us.” Ellie gave me a rather heavy bag with her amour right away. Naturally she didn’t want to wear them on the boat as she wouldn’t be able to swim with it. Nodding, I threw the bag over my shoulder and walked back to the three vampires behind the others.
Unsurprisingly these two twins couldn’t sit still for more than absolutely necessary and were doing somersaults on the beach.
“Did you see that?” One of them asked the other.
“Awesome! Ten out of ten!” She said, clapping happily even though I was pretty sure the twins could do more than one at a time.
“Hey, we are heading out?” The left one asked.
“What about food?” The other one added.
“Yum yum!” Who was that … Clara? Clarice? It was impossible to tell.
“I will create birds for you to drink.” Louis admitted, trying to be friendly to them.
“Animals? Eww!” One of them admitted and stuck her tongue out a bit disgusted.
“Not yum yum!” The other one shook her head as well while closing her eyes, throwing her blonde hair all around her head.
“Deal with it.” Lucinda said quietly and stood up from her place she didn’t leave since I went back to the fourY
“But Lucy!” Both of them said in protest.
“We are going to fight the demon king. If you cannot bear with that, you might as well stay here.”
“… can I have an albatross?” It was quite amazing how easily they changed from demanding human blood to being okay with it, just so that they could befriend Lucinda.
“No? I want an albatross!” But they were still doing their usual thing, even then.
“You both can have an albatross.” Louis said which made both of them look dumbly at him.
“Meh …” They said in unison and ran over towards Lucy as she stepped closer to the water.
“What did I do wrong?” Louis asked confused.
“I think they both wanted to have one, but neither wanted the other to drink its blood.” Sofie said quietly even though I was fairly sure their ears could pick out everything we talked about.
“I don’t get siblings.” Louis admitted.
“Weird … me neither even though we all lived on that spaceship as a big family of some sorts …” Lucinda’s hunch was right, I had to agree with that. None of them had a life before coming here. They were created for this world, possibly for the entertainment of the gods.
