Level u- Leve- Level up. You acquired the ski- Lev-
“I am so fed up with everything …” Yeah, Hannah, who would have guessed that wolfing down half a box of still warm cookies wasn’t the greatest idea? But hey, she wasn’t the only one who was done with the world. The constant level up messaged were a bit louder than usual, which got on my nerves the moment I woke up due to them. Angrily, I rolled to my side and dragged the blanked with me. “Hey! That’s cold…”
Sadly, she managed to get a hold onto the duvet rather easily and pulled it back without anything I could do against it. This damn sun never ceased to weaken me.
“I curse you … I made a cute cookie man for myself and you … you ate him …” I mumbled still sheepishly. We were in Hannah´s old room and laid in her old bed side by side. I had a distinct advantage on my part of the bed though.
My left hand wandered upwards until it reached a metallic box which I directly moved onto the ground right next to me without making too much sound. Slowly, I opened the lid without much issue, only to stare onto a few crumbs. My poor cookies … Luna and Hannah ate them all.
Aghast, I pushed the box underneath the bed, grabbed the duvet closely and rolled of the bed with it. I hit the ground rather nicely as my shoulder feathered off most of the impact and finally succeeded in getting my revenge.
“Lucinda, it´s seven o´clock on a Sunday. Please, I beg you, just let me sleep.” She mumbled while her hands were already searching for the blanket again. Truth to be told, she had all right to be groggy as I kept her awake for the majority of the night just because I wanted to listen to her stories a bit.
“Fine …” Slowly, I stood up and threw the blanket over her while making sure she was covered from the head to toe. Reluctantly, I dressed myself with the dirty things from the day before, stepped out of the room shortly afterwards and closed the door behind me. Yawning once, I proceeded to knock on Luna´s door once. Then twice.
“Luna~” I mumbled groggily and rubbed my eyes as she opened the door in a nightgown.
“Lucy … can I help you with anything?” I nodded twice and then scratched my cheek. I didn’t even know why I knocked on this door for a few seconds until I remembered.
“I need clothing … is there any of my stuff around this house?” Maybe the old Mary did keep a few things from me, which would seriously come in handy as I had nothing else to wear. Luna rubbed her eyes, then nodded and turned around while closing the door behind her. For several minutes, I could only stare at the wooden door while leaning onto the opposite wall and looking at my fingernails. They looked alright, even though I didn’t have a manicure for two hundred years. Shaking my head to get rid of the drowsiness once and for all, I stretched my arms and hopped around the hallway until Luna opened the door again, this time fully dressed in the clothing I hated so much.
“Let´s go.” She said, took my hand and guided me through the hallways into the cellar. After checking three storage rooms, she finally found what she was searching for and indicated me to come inside. A single magical lamp illuminated the room which was filled with a few chests.
“That’s all mine?” I asked in disbelief. Truly, Mary liked to dress me up but the three chests labelled ‘Saint’ were truly a bit too much.
“I think so.” Luna muttered and opened the lid of the first wooden chest. While I tried to open another one of these, she already looked inside the chest and lifted up something I definitely didn’t expect. In her hands was a completely bright red princess dress, ornamented with black frills at the bottom. The dress went just a little bit above my knees and covered a large portion of my upper arm with a strangely comfortable fabric.
I truly never expected anything like this, but it did hurt me that I had grown over time. This one would be too short for me, but I had to smile just because of the intention alone.
“I need something longer though. This one won`t fit me anymore.” I explained, but was soon astonished even more. After folding the dress again, Luna picked out another one out of the chest again which was exactly the same, but probably for a different size.
“Mary … you are awesome.” I said happily and tried to wear this one. Sadly it was a bit too short, but the next one fitted me perfectly. She even thought about red fitting gloves which was quite unexpected. But what could I say? She had a long time to think about what she wanted to bequeath me.
The next chest contained my wedding dress which was still in pristine condition while the last one had my usual white attire inside. Thus, it was quite obvious what I would wear.
“Luna … what do you say?” I asked and turned around in a circle once more happily. This dress was simply perfect for me.
“I think … other girls would be envious.” I highly doubted that. Red wasn’t that popular as a colour for dresses two hundred years ago, nor at this point in time.
“Right?! Right! That’s what I thought as well!” I was still strangely happy about her comment and twirled around once more. This dress sadly had one drawback as I wouldn’t be able to hide a dagger under it anymore. I highly doubted I would need that anytime soon though and rather hugged my lovely Luna tightly. “Thank you~”
“I didn’t do anything?” So what? Couldn’t I say thank you for this dress? Strangely happy, I let go of her for a moment, grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room.
“When is breakfast?” I asked as I strolled towards the stairs.
“… we don’t have any blood here.” She said which did make me blink a few times in wonder.
“Don’t worry about that. Hannah already got that covered. What I was saying is that you should really eat soon. We have to head out early after all.” I explained and finally opened the door to the ground floor.
“Oh … ehm … right. What about you?” If I had the chance to escape eating whatever horrors the cook conjured, I would naturally do so.
“I´ll be in the garden. Could you come to me when you are finished?” I asked and noticed how she nodded to my side. Shortly afterwards, she parted ways from me and I strolled through the backyard aimlessly. My deathly senses were turned on to the max, enabling me to feel every bit of death around me.
Sadly, there wasn’t much to feel though. A few dead worms beneath the flower beds, some ants there and a dead cat buried beneath an old tombstone. What I was hoping to find sadly wasn’t around, but that was to be expected. I highly doubted Mary would bury big doggo in her backyard. Sadly, I never asked her what happened to his corpse because it couldn’t provide me any value back then. And asking her that after she lost all her memories would be kind of pointless as I could just read it up in a book somewhere. I was sure some idiot wrote that down.
After several more minutes of strolling though the garden, I headed back to the mansion slowly, but was apparently a bit too late. Luna already came around the mansion waving towards me from the west side of the estate.
“Ready?” I asked her after I strolled over to her slowly.
“Always!” She exclaimed, turned around strangely happy and proceeded to walk towards a nearby white carriage, ornamented with golden lining. Well, the White´s certainly upped their game with this carriage, especially as the interior turned out to be rather luxurious as well. The seats were padded, the floor covered by a white carpet and the carriage even had some kind of damper.
It was indeed quite the comfortable ride, even though it was rather short. Going out of the estate, we headed right and were at the walls of the royal palace within a few seconds. Interestingly enough, we weren’t allowed entry right away. Instead, a man in a very official looking uniform opened the door and looked inside.
“I am deeply ashamed of this inconvenience, but would you be so kind to leave the carriage, Miss …” He said while nearly looking down onto his shoes.
“Lucy. Gladly.” I said and exited the carriage, only to be met by a female knight standing right in front of me.
“As we couldn’t confirm your identity, we sadly need to take a few extra steps to assure the safety of everyone in the royal palace.” Oh … oh! Was there some kind of incident which let you to change the procedures, my dear King Alphonso, my first and most memorable husband? Naturally, I didn’t refuse them and nodded towards the female knight who promptly proceeded to pat my body in an attempt to search for any hidden weapons.
Naturally, she couldn’t find any and even the search inside the carriage didn’t reveal any weapons. The only place which wasn’t thoroughly searched was Luna, but that was to be expected because of her status.
The only thing they could probably nag about were my sunglasses which sadly weren’t trendy at all. They were too costly for what a value one provided, which meant they were rarely bought, even amongst the circles which had more than enough money.
Having endured the unnecessary search for weapons, we were allowed entry into the grounds of the royal palace. Sadly, we weren’t allowed to take our carriage with us, meaning we would have to walk all the way. On the other hand, this enabled me to look around for quite some time. But truth to be told, it couldn’t be more boring.
Sure, the flower beds did have a few new plants in them and there was one more fountain in the garden but otherwise not much changed there. Well, except the massive cathedral built at the north side. It easily towered above the walls and even reached around three fourth of the hight of the palace itself, which was quite the achievement. The bells of the building started to ring as we were already halfway there.
As usual, the building was incredibly oversized for what it actually did. Not only were the outer walls decorated with ornaments and murals, the clearly oversized door was even guarded by magical circles. Both of us paid that no heed though as we ascended the stairs of the building towards a priest.
“May the gods be with you.” He said and interlocked his fingers in front of him. He looked almost as if he was praying … probably because he was praying.
“Thank you, father. May they bless you too.” Luna said and looked at me. Did she really expect me to know the customs of the church? She probably did.
“Ehh … yeah. May they bless us all.” I mumbled after a few very awkward seconds, even though I absolutely hated to voice anything in that direction. I had enough godly blessing for several lifetimes.
The priest, a bit bewildered by my comment nodded and indicated us to go inside which we naturally promptly did. Having survived one awkward encounter, I could only exhale quietly and look around a bit.
Truth to be told, it was exactly what I expected. Golden crosses, coloured windows and even a mural about myself at the ceiling certainly showed what this building was.
A church.
After Luna walked onwards for a bit into the nearly empty cathedral, I took her hand and gently guided her to the last row of benches. This way, they wouldn’t notice I had no idea what was expected of me, what they would do and so on.
Sitting down near the isle, I pointed towards a familiar statue carrying a spear and poked Luna´s side.
“Who is that?” I asked in a hushed voice.
“That’s Irminsul, the goddess of life.” She whispered into my ear.
“Why does she have a spear?” I asked a bit louder than I wanted.
“Didn’t she fight against the forces of the god of death with that in the first holy war?” I really wanted to facepalm myself at this point. It was true that they fought against each other millions of years ago but she was so clumsy with any weapon that it was laughable. And worst of all, she lost that war catastrophically.
“If you say so …” I muttered and made place for someone who could have come out of the commoner district sat down to our right. His clothing wasn’t really old or looked used, but it certainly lacked the luxury of a noble attire. His shirt and pants were made out of wool and he kept looking at the ground without much emotion in his blue eyes. His golden blonde hairs had seen better days as well as it was probably unkempt and not looked after that well.
What interested me the most was his face though. He did have a cute snub nose, high cheekbones and fairly thin lips. So far, his face wasn’t that uncommon, but I still thought that I had seen him somewhere before. Maybe on the streets? I couldn’t say for sure though and I started to get distracted by the other people streaming into the cathedral slowly.
I looked at each and everyone as they walked past me even though I didn’t know their names or position. But all of them inside the cathedral must have been somewhat influential, which proved true as Mary strolled into the building while talking quietly towards a middle aged man. She even winked towards us as she walked past us, which was probably the ultimate highlight of the endeavour so far.
Fifteen minutes after the bells started ringing, they went quiet again and a tall man, around sixty years old stepped in front of the sitting crowd which fell deathly silent in a near instant.
“We praise the gods for their wonders.” He said in a loud voice to which everyone looked down and interlocked their fingers. I was a tad too late to do so, but nobody seemed to have noticed.
“May they guide us on our journey.” Everyone, excluding me of course said.
“We praise the saint for watching over us.” What the … to them, it may seem like it as I was in their head quite often, but still. I didn’t want to have that burden.
“May she live for all eternity.” That was my wish as well … but still, what the fuck?
Level u- Leve- Level up. You acquired the ski- Lev-
“I am so fed up with everything …” Yeah, Hannah, who would have guessed that wolfing down half a box of still warm cookies wasn’t the greatest idea? But hey, she wasn’t the only one who was done with the world. The constant level up messaged were a bit louder than usual, which got on my nerves the moment I woke up due to them. Angrily, I rolled to my side and dragged the blanked with me. “Hey! That’s cold…”
Sadly, she managed to get a hold onto the duvet rather easily and pulled it back without anything I could do against it. This damn sun never ceased to weaken me.
“I curse you … I made a cute cookie man for myself and you … you ate him …” I mumbled still sheepishly. We were in Hannah´s old room and laid in her old bed side by side. I had a distinct advantage on my part of the bed though.
My left hand wandered upwards until it reached a metallic box which I directly moved onto the ground right next to me without making too much sound. Slowly, I opened the lid without much issue, only to stare onto a few crumbs. My poor cookies … Luna and Hannah ate them all.
Aghast, I pushed the box underneath the bed, grabbed the duvet closely and rolled of the bed with it. I hit the ground rather nicely as my shoulder feathered off most of the impact and finally succeeded in getting my revenge.
“Lucinda, it´s seven o´clock on a Sunday. Please, I beg you, just let me sleep.” She mumbled while her hands were already searching for the blanket again. Truth to be told, she had all right to be groggy as I kept her awake for the majority of the night just because I wanted to listen to her stories a bit.
“Fine …” Slowly, I stood up and threw the blanket over her while making sure she was covered from the head to toe. Reluctantly, I dressed myself with the dirty things from the day before, stepped out of the room shortly afterwards and closed the door behind me. Yawning once, I proceeded to knock on Luna´s door once. Then twice.
“Luna~” I mumbled groggily and rubbed my eyes as she opened the door in a nightgown.
“Lucy … can I help you with anything?” I nodded twice and then scratched my cheek. I didn’t even know why I knocked on this door for a few seconds until I remembered.
“I need clothing … is there any of my stuff around this house?” Maybe the old Mary did keep a few things from me, which would seriously come in handy as I had nothing else to wear. Luna rubbed her eyes, then nodded and turned around while closing the door behind her. For several minutes, I could only stare at the wooden door while leaning onto the opposite wall and looking at my fingernails. They looked alright, even though I didn’t have a manicure for two hundred years. Shaking my head to get rid of the drowsiness once and for all, I stretched my arms and hopped around the hallway until Luna opened the door again, this time fully dressed in the clothing I hated so much.
“Let´s go.” She said, took my hand and guided me through the hallways into the cellar. After checking three storage rooms, she finally found what she was searching for and indicated me to come inside. A single magical lamp illuminated the room which was filled with a few chests.
“That’s all mine?” I asked in disbelief. Truly, Mary liked to dress me up but the three chests labelled ‘Saint’ were truly a bit too much.
“I think so.” Luna muttered and opened the lid of the first wooden chest. While I tried to open another one of these, she already looked inside the chest and lifted up something I definitely didn’t expect. In her hands was a completely bright red princess dress, ornamented with black frills at the bottom. The dress went just a little bit above my knees and covered a large portion of my upper arm with a strangely comfortable fabric.
I truly never expected anything like this, but it did hurt me that I had grown over time. This one would be too short for me, but I had to smile just because of the intention alone.
“I need something longer though. This one won`t fit me anymore.” I explained, but was soon astonished even more. After folding the dress again, Luna picked out another one out of the chest again which was exactly the same, but probably for a different size.
“Mary … you are awesome.” I said happily and tried to wear this one. Sadly it was a bit too short, but the next one fitted me perfectly. She even thought about red fitting gloves which was quite unexpected. But what could I say? She had a long time to think about what she wanted to bequeath me.
The next chest contained my wedding dress which was still in pristine condition while the last one had my usual white attire inside. Thus, it was quite obvious what I would wear.
“Luna … what do you say?” I asked and turned around in a circle once more happily. This dress was simply perfect for me.
“I think … other girls would be envious.” I highly doubted that. Red wasn’t that popular as a colour for dresses two hundred years ago, nor at this point in time.
“Right?! Right! That’s what I thought as well!” I was still strangely happy about her comment and twirled around once more. This dress sadly had one drawback as I wouldn’t be able to hide a dagger under it anymore. I highly doubted I would need that anytime soon though and rather hugged my lovely Luna tightly. “Thank you~”
“I didn’t do anything?” So what? Couldn’t I say thank you for this dress? Strangely happy, I let go of her for a moment, grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room.
“When is breakfast?” I asked as I strolled towards the stairs.
“… we don’t have any blood here.” She said which did make me blink a few times in wonder.
“Don’t worry about that. Hannah already got that covered. What I was saying is that you should really eat soon. We have to head out early after all.” I explained and finally opened the door to the ground floor.
“Oh … ehm … right. What about you?” If I had the chance to escape eating whatever horrors the cook conjured, I would naturally do so.
“I´ll be in the garden. Could you come to me when you are finished?” I asked and noticed how she nodded to my side. Shortly afterwards, she parted ways from me and I strolled through the backyard aimlessly. My deathly senses were turned on to the max, enabling me to feel every bit of death around me.
Sadly, there wasn’t much to feel though. A few dead worms beneath the flower beds, some ants there and a dead cat buried beneath an old tombstone. What I was hoping to find sadly wasn’t around, but that was to be expected. I highly doubted Mary would bury big doggo in her backyard. Sadly, I never asked her what happened to his corpse because it couldn’t provide me any value back then. And asking her that after she lost all her memories would be kind of pointless as I could just read it up in a book somewhere. I was sure some idiot wrote that down.
After several more minutes of strolling though the garden, I headed back to the mansion slowly, but was apparently a bit too late. Luna already came around the mansion waving towards me from the west side of the estate.
“Ready?” I asked her after I strolled over to her slowly.
“Always!” She exclaimed, turned around strangely happy and proceeded to walk towards a nearby white carriage, ornamented with golden lining. Well, the White´s certainly upped their game with this carriage, especially as the interior turned out to be rather luxurious as well. The seats were padded, the floor covered by a white carpet and the carriage even had some kind of damper.
It was indeed quite the comfortable ride, even though it was rather short. Going out of the estate, we headed right and were at the walls of the royal palace within a few seconds. Interestingly enough, we weren’t allowed entry right away. Instead, a man in a very official looking uniform opened the door and looked inside.
“I am deeply ashamed of this inconvenience, but would you be so kind to leave the carriage, Miss …” He said while nearly looking down onto his shoes.
“Lucy. Gladly.” I said and exited the carriage, only to be met by a female knight standing right in front of me.
“As we couldn’t confirm your identity, we sadly need to take a few extra steps to assure the safety of everyone in the royal palace.” Oh … oh! Was there some kind of incident which let you to change the procedures, my dear King Alphonso, my first and most memorable husband? Naturally, I didn’t refuse them and nodded towards the female knight who promptly proceeded to pat my body in an attempt to search for any hidden weapons.
Naturally, she couldn’t find any and even the search inside the carriage didn’t reveal any weapons. The only place which wasn’t thoroughly searched was Luna, but that was to be expected because of her status.
The only thing they could probably nag about were my sunglasses which sadly weren’t trendy at all. They were too costly for what a value one provided, which meant they were rarely bought, even amongst the circles which had more than enough money.
Having endured the unnecessary search for weapons, we were allowed entry into the grounds of the royal palace. Sadly, we weren’t allowed to take our carriage with us, meaning we would have to walk all the way. On the other hand, this enabled me to look around for quite some time. But truth to be told, it couldn’t be more boring.
Sure, the flower beds did have a few new plants in them and there was one more fountain in the garden but otherwise not much changed there. Well, except the massive cathedral built at the north side. It easily towered above the walls and even reached around three fourth of the hight of the palace itself, which was quite the achievement. The bells of the building started to ring as we were already halfway there.
As usual, the building was incredibly oversized for what it actually did. Not only were the outer walls decorated with ornaments and murals, the clearly oversized door was even guarded by magical circles. Both of us paid that no heed though as we ascended the stairs of the building towards a priest.
“May the gods be with you.” He said and interlocked his fingers in front of him. He looked almost as if he was praying … probably because he was praying.
“Thank you, father. May they bless you too.” Luna said and looked at me. Did she really expect me to know the customs of the church? She probably did.
“Ehh … yeah. May they bless us all.” I mumbled after a few very awkward seconds, even though I absolutely hated to voice anything in that direction. I had enough godly blessing for several lifetimes.
The priest, a bit bewildered by my comment nodded and indicated us to go inside which we naturally promptly did. Having survived one awkward encounter, I could only exhale quietly and look around a bit.
Truth to be told, it was exactly what I expected. Golden crosses, coloured windows and even a mural about myself at the ceiling certainly showed what this building was.
A church.
After Luna walked onwards for a bit into the nearly empty cathedral, I took her hand and gently guided her to the last row of benches. This way, they wouldn’t notice I had no idea what was expected of me, what they would do and so on.
Sitting down near the isle, I pointed towards a familiar statue carrying a spear and poked Luna´s side.
“Who is that?” I asked in a hushed voice.
“That’s Irminsul, the goddess of life.” She whispered into my ear.
“Why does she have a spear?” I asked a bit louder than I wanted.
“Didn’t she fight against the forces of the god of death with that in the first holy war?” I really wanted to facepalm myself at this point. It was true that they fought against each other millions of years ago but she was so clumsy with any weapon that it was laughable. And worst of all, she lost that war catastrophically.
“If you say so …” I muttered and made place for someone who could have come out of the commoner district sat down to our right. His clothing wasn’t really old or looked used, but it certainly lacked the luxury of a noble attire. His shirt and pants were made out of wool and he kept looking at the ground without much emotion in his blue eyes. His golden blonde hairs had seen better days as well as it was probably unkempt and not looked after that well.
What interested me the most was his face though. He did have a cute snub nose, high cheekbones and fairly thin lips. So far, his face wasn’t that uncommon, but I still thought that I had seen him somewhere before. Maybe on the streets? I couldn’t say for sure though and I started to get distracted by the other people streaming into the cathedral slowly.
I looked at each and everyone as they walked past me even though I didn’t know their names or position. But all of them inside the cathedral must have been somewhat influential, which proved true as Mary strolled into the building while talking quietly towards a middle aged man. She even winked towards us as she walked past us, which was probably the ultimate highlight of the endeavour so far.
Fifteen minutes after the bells started ringing, they went quiet again and a tall man, around sixty years old stepped in front of the sitting crowd which fell deathly silent in a near instant.
“We praise the gods for their wonders.” He said in a loud voice to which everyone looked down and interlocked their fingers. I was a tad too late to do so, but nobody seemed to have noticed.
“May they guide us on our journey.” Everyone, excluding me of course said.
“We praise the saint for watching over us.” What the … to them, it may seem like it as I was in their head quite often, but still. I didn’t want to have that burden.
“May she live for all eternity.” That was my wish as well … but still, what the fuck?
