Kit Falbo
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MwN Chapter Thirty-Two
🕑 Added 2024-08-21 15:37:53 +0000 UTCChapter Thirty-two
Harmony found herself shaken awake with a weight on top of her.
“Rise and shine. I’ve got a busy day planned for us.”
Ambrosia sat straddling her, doing a wiggling dance.
“Wha…”
“I poked Hyacinth awake too. I can’t let both of you sleepy heads take all morning.”
The familiar croaked apprehensively next to the bed.
“Fine. Fine. Get off, and I’ll be at your command for the day.”
Ambrosia swung herself off of her friend.
“I moved your bucket. It gurgled at me.”
The remains of Monster Girls. Harmony had spent the night trying to separate the pages by detaching the dead organic material that sealed them together. The bonds of the material between the pages were stronger than the bonds inside the paper. Not working. Not working. Not working. Then the whole thing fell apart. She’d done it over a bucket, knowing it would be complicated. Of all the damaged books she’d purchased to repair, she knew that one had the least chance of success and was nearly free.
“Because I know you’ll want to. I’ve got two new dresses for you to help me pick what I wear today. Each comes with a matching collar for Hyacinth.”
“Grrup.” Hyacinth protested while lamely projecting that he was still sick.
Through [Familiar Bond], Harmony knew that was a lie.
“Yes. Please.” Ambrosia said excitedly, and Harmony pulled out the boxes.
They settled on the light blue and gold one, fastened by a buckled strap that cut under her arms and across the top of her chest, then hung down. It was a simple single-piece dress that allowed freedom of movement. Rather than heavy fabric, large brass buttons lined the hem just below her knees to keep the dress weighted down. The metal parts appealed as a potential tool for [Small Armor] but only in an emergency. It could be removed with a snap undoing the clasp decoratively placed in the middle of her chest and letting it drop to the floor.
She dressed Hyacinth in a blue and gold collar and a matching clasp.
“Come on. Hurry up.” Ambrosia insisted.
They grabbed some food from the kitchen on the way out. Including a pre-made basket, Ambrosia had arranged with the cook earlier. A beautiful early spring day with chirping birds and a sense that the morning chill would be chased away soon greeted them outside. Harmony hesitated momentarily when she saw a handful of reporters waiting at the servants’ exit.
Three of the five reporters standing there froze, watching the pair of dressed-to-go-out maids walk toward the exit. It was only a momentary freeze because, to the confusion of the two other muckrakers waiting, those three turned and started running away as fast as they could.
The sound of singing birds grew louder.
“Is Harmony White in?” Yelled the man at the gate.
The woman beside him elbowed him in the side. “Is it true Lord Tyler is engaged to the princess?”
With a high-pitched whistle, the first bird dove in. Tiny talons gripping and pulling at the woman’s hair.
“Hey!” She yelled
The beast tamer’s pets descended, a swirling flock armed with talons, shrill cries, and beaks. As much as Ambrosia treated her pets as a caring calling or musical instrument to help her with singing, beast tamer was a combat class and one of the more desired ones.
Rogue and reporter often go hand and hand as classes and professions, but because you can slip away from human eyes doesn’t help you against all kinds of animals. The male newshound went hazy, sliding into some sort of stealth skill. Three birds kept on him, forcing him away.
The woman shot a bar of flame from her hand, and the birds dodged while tweeting mockingly.
Harmony couldn’t see how that class would synergize well. Of course, suppose she had selected the profession that synergized the most with a necromancer. In that case, she’d have been a taxidermist rather than a maid.
Two birds charged up their skills, and a gust of wind pushed her away with enough force to encourage her to run.
“I’ve been given permission to clear pests around the entrances and exits. They’d been warned.” Ambrosia told her friend as the way out cleared.
Hyacinth chuckled at the scene.
Exiting the servants’ gate, Harmony noticed the new sign. No Loitering. Beware.
The decently long walk took the maids to one of the lesser-used parks. Hyacinth snatched a butterfly out of the overgrown grass.
“Harm, you’ve been stressing about your new pet. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve found a book to shove your nose about trying to reverse it. And now I’m not saying pet ownership doesn’t have some stresses, but I feel like you’ve forgotten to enjoy it too.”
“Except Adric is a person, not a pet.”
“He’s undead. He’s no more a person than those shamblers in the dungeon. And your bond shows that he is a pet no matter his appearance. Many pets are smarter than their masters and still choose the role.” One of Ambrosia’s larger birds swooped down and landed on her shoulder, bright red with a piercing glare. “Cherry here can speak three languages.”
“Stoopid Hoomans. Ka’ree Tish.” Cherry cried. Then the bird retook its flight.
“Pets don’t choose.”
“They do. It might not be a partnership like you and your familiar, but they choose. I want you to call your pet and have fun.”
Harmony felt herself freeze up in a way she hadn’t since she’d gained [Style and Grace]. “What if…”
“The birds will keep watch. Come, call your pet.”
Her plan had been to find a way to break the bond. But it would be good to get an update on what he was doing in the city. The fact that he’d even shown up to the masquerade where he was most likely to be recognized, mask or no mask, hadn’t been a positive experience. This was about as good a chance to talk to Prince Adric as there would be with Ambrosia to watch. She didn’t have to have fun but knew she should at least pretend to make her friend happy. Focusing inwardly, she stroked what she now knew was the primal bond inside of her. Come.
“There. Who knows how far away he is. If he’s smart, he left Hazeldown and is waiting for all this drama to die down.”
“Pets are never far from their master’s side. They get anxious and uncomfortable, or worse, they act out. You remember Baccus’s Hound tore up his couch when we left her here during a quick trip to the capitol. If it helps, just think how letting Pet Adric see you may stop him from doing something similar to get attention.”
It sunk in that Adric, an evolved prince with authority, could do much more damage than destroy a couch. “Bones.”
“Yes, this morning is more for you than me. You will be helping me with a concert this evening. Remember how Ambrosia has helped you with all these things you’ve neglected while I’m taking advantage of you.”
“Fine. I won’t let a word of complaint cross my lips as you have your way with me this evening. Now…”
A blur streaked through the park bushes towards her. Time didn’t slow down. No danger was sensed. If anything, Hyacinth let amusement leak through their bond, and the maid found herself lifted up again and spun around.
“Oh, Harm. I missed you!” The prince cried. “If I’d known how good it felt to be called, I’d have called my Bowe more often. Not that I should now. So many eyes on him. Getting close to the stables while he’s recovering has been a pain.”
The sheer joy on the almost too-pretty prince’s face was infectious. The bond between them pulsed with it. She relaxed into that and the twirling, poking her movement skills to relieve dizziness. She caught Ambrosia grinning whenever a twirl brought her friend into view. Maybe having a beautiful prince as a pet wasn’t such a bad thing, and if you can’t change fate, make it your own.
The prince set her down. The look he gave her was apprehensive, excited, and playful.
The necromancer reached up and patted him on the head. “You’ve done most of what I’ve asked, which is better than most boys and pets do. I’ve been too shocked or busy to give you much attention, and I’m sorry for that. What would you like to do?”
The prince preened at the attention, and with one eye towards the beast tamer, Harmony saw approval. She might not have memorized all of her friends’ lectures on pets, but taking care of their wants and needs had been repeated enough times that it stuck. The more satisfied he was, the less likely he’d be to destroy any metaphorical couches.
“The call has really given me some extra stamina to burn. I think we have space. How about a game of tag, you and me? Then, after I burn off the energy, you can tell me about yourself?”
“Sure.”
Harmony gave the prince a five-deep-breath head start. He could hide, but they’d set the rules to stay in the park under the watchful view of Ambrosia’s birds and skills. Not that the necromancer planned to play fair. She focused on her class and its ability to sense death. Old Bones had criticized her for not using this sense in the dungeon for the team to the fullest extent, but as a maid, that aspect of her class had limited use. Everyone carried some bit of death on them: their hair, nails, skin, clothes fibers, and the leather of their shoes. There was no point in using it. But here, she searched for the opposite due to her undead pets’ unique life-filled nature, a hole where a normal amount of death should be.
The park’s soil was soft but full of dead and living matter. Dead insects, roots, sticks, twigs. Now [High Kick] does adjust for such things when pushing off, but with the cost of lost force. It also tended to care less about the damage done when landing. With the failed final rush out of Old Bones still fresh in her mind, a quick sloppy cast of [Manipulate Dead] created a matrix-like stepping stone of fused material for the necromancer to push off. With that plan in mind, Harmony pushed off with a kick. At the end of the strike, another cast made a landing spot rather than risk the strike having her knee-deep in the ground.
Kick off, platform, land. This was the kind of training she should be doing after gaining new skills and levels. Harmony kept her kicks as vertical as possible through the grass while searching for the empty space represented by the ball of life that was Prince Adric. She spotted the feeling of him behind a tree. She kicked off harder, activating the skill for a strike there. The wood splintered and cracked at the impact of the craft, and Harmony hooked her arm around a lower branch, planning to swing around. But the prince skipped past her just out of reach flashing his impeccable smile.
Shifting herself to the fleeing prince, she kicked off again as she hung from the tree using the trunk as the floor. One part of her brain registered the impressive damage to the tree, but most of her thoughts were on tagging her pet. The kick propelled her forward, her toe ready to tap her pet in this game of tag. Inches away, the man accelerated faster than her kick even as she lost momentum. She could hear the throaty chuckle of his laughter hanging in the air as she used her movement skills to land gracefully.
She pushed off again, chasing her laughing pet, but not with the same amount of effort. The prince was faster than her, faster than her targeted skill. She knew it had been stupid to assume she could tag the man, and while she had hoped, it wasn’t unsurprising. Not only must Prince Adric have filled out his skill slots with a critical movement skill that she still lacked, but he was also evolved. Evolution changes a person, mostly better. However, as the man discovered with his cursed profession of mourned prince, sometimes you come out worse. Raising him from the dead clearly corrected any issues.
He’d also chased her down and into the manor after the raising. The man twisted and turned, testing how quickly Harmony could use her skills to switch directions, letting her get close before darting away.
Harmony bounced from tree to tree like a striker ball bouncing off the walls of a game table. She weighed her options. Tiring him out first was unlikely. Waiting for him to get bored, the pet seemed more excited than a dog chasing its own tail. If he was the tagger, she could use [Manipulate Dead] to change the environment to trap him, perhaps loosen the ground rather than solidify it like she was doing. But he was faster and more unpredictable than she could adjust for.
As her skills used for chasing the man started throbbing from overuse. Harmony made a choice.
Prince Adric didn’t see it coming. He watched, laughing, as his master huffed while chasing after him. Knowing what she was capable of was supremely important. Ambrosia had told him she was competitive and stubborn, so he contemplated letting her tag him. No, she’d realize that. Just calling the game over with him, the winner felt right. It would give Harm motivation to improve. A giant toad fell out of a shadow and crashed into him. In that brief moment of confusion where the sudden attack conflicted with his image of the game, he readied a defensive skill only to have a gummy jaw twist his arm a little as the familiar and pet tumbled together on the ground. As his brain clicked, he relaxed. A dainty finger poked his nose even though the tumbling continued.
“Boop, you’re tagged,” Harmony told her pet as it continued rolling with Hyacinth in the grass.
Involving the shadow toad had cost her several favors. Being both lazy and greedy, Hyacinth wanted free passes for hunting and naps in the future. She knew he only agreed to not let the new bond show him up.
Hyacinth hopped back to chasing butterflies while the prince sat back up, dusting himself off.
“Isn’t using outside help cheating?”
“You said skills were fair. [Familiar Bond] is a skill.”
“Fair enough.” The prince replied.
Ambrosia started clapping from the sidelines. “I feel that deserves some refreshments.”
She unpacked the picnic basket.
Hyacinth disappeared to reduce the small woodland creature population.
The moment Harmony sat cross-legged, Adric lay beside her and used her lap as a pillow. Taking advantage of this, Harmony used her fingers to scratch his scalp and muss his hair. No matter how she worked it, the hair settled back into some attractive wave rather than a frizzy mess. Is that a consequence of its new not-quite-living state or the effect of some skill?. Possibly similar to the same way she used [Poise and Bearing] to control her facial expressions.
“Tell me about your path?” Adric asked.
One of those questions that you could answer shallowly or deeply. Ask a stranger, and they’ll tell you their class and profession. The prince knew she was a necromancer and maid. He was fishing for more. Some might talk about what they want to evolve into. Others about their favorite skills.
“Not my mother. I don’t know if she was more disappointed that I didn’t choose the same class and profession as her or upset at what I chose.”
“And she is?” Adric probed.
A prince from the capitol shouldn’t know who she is, and Harmony wouldn’t want to inflate her mom’s ego to imply they would. He knew as he was already calling her Harm and digging for information on his new master, but it didn’t feel malicious. Maybe they caught a play while visiting Old Bones for an early level. He would have heard something with the kids hawking sheets on the street.
“The beggar queen of the stage.” Harmony purposely used one of the nicknames Kelly hated. “The most popular actress in Hazeldown.”
“So you grew up wealthy?”
“I was nine before she started getting well-paying roles. We really lived up to her class most of the time. I turned fourteen and made my choice. A maid rather than an actress. A necromancer rather than a beggar. Out I went. It was hard, but I had Hyacinth.” In the back of Harmony’s mind, Hyacinth hopped with victory after having snatched a squirrel. “What about your path?”
“I was the twenty-third prince in the royal line. Twelfth swordsman among them, a depressingly common pairing, but taking a magic class lessens your chance of transforming into the kingship. I had no interest in the cleric option. There’s a lot of pressure to stand out while sticking to the model that will make you a king. It’s lonely, even when you pick up the nickname of the pretty one.
When uncle Reed brought me the coatl egg and pet scroll, I figured it was just one more thing to curry favor or make me stand out among the crowd. But Bowe became the best thing in my life. Who wouldn’t want such a beautiful being beside them?
Then I evolved. I grabbed the bonded rider class so quickly that I nearly didn’t read my skilled duelist and cutter class options. I disappointed my family with that, so I couldn’t abandon my position when the evolved profession arose. Mourned wasn’t listed as a fatal condition, so I took a chance. They all mourned me even as they searched for an answer when it became clear I would die. The guild master was a last resort; he wouldn’t even see me. Doesn’t feel right anymore. My profession will change. I’m done being mourned. I can feel it in my soul. The moment hasn’t come yet, but when it does, I don’t care if all my authority is stripped away.”
Harmony slowly rubbed his scalp while he spoke in that sad, wistful tone. She was sure he was pouring his heart out about his expectations, his love of his pet, and how he was finally ready to move on from his family’s dream. It was all useless. Who cares if you don’t get to rule? It’s not like most normal people get that opportunity. None of this helps with her current problem.
“It’s all right, my little prince. Those are all past problems, and now we have the future.”
[Poise and Bearing] really did help her have that gentle, reassuring touch to her voice to back up her lies. She booped his nose, which was adorable and regal, just to watch him squint and wiggle it a little.
“All you two have to do is handle the irate duke, deal with your pet’s missing corpse, manage newfound fame, decide on the manor job, and figure out your new life paths,” Ambrosia interjected after chewing a sandwich.
“Thanks.” Harmony sarcastically responded.
New paths? That is what got her in trouble trying to raise a pet. Survive today. Survive tomorrow. Seemed like the best path for the moment. Even if surviving today was hanging your bestie, doing favors, and petting an adorably simple pet.
“It’s okay. I’m working on a plan.” Adric announced confidently.
Harmony’s emotions went frosty. The prince hadn’t said he had a plan but was actively working on one. With such wonderful choices like selecting poison when death was on the line and showing up to the masquerade ball hosting the people hunting him, it brought a chill as she wondered what he could be doing now. So much that [Cold Touch] reacted positively inside her while the social skills guided her breathing. The unexpected emotional aspect of the skill used to chill glasses and make ice was a bit worrying, but who had time to focus on that when idiots abound.
“What’s your plan?” Harmony asked as innocently as she could.
“At first, I thought of Rosaline, but she’s never had real power. I realized I’d be getting her in trouble at the masquerade. It had to be auntie. We used to write coded letters to each other. More a silly game than court intrigue, but it is how she’ll know I’m still me. Gran tends to see snakes everywhere and hits them with sticks the moment they pop their heads out of the ground. Auntie Maye will know how to present my death and return as only a temporary little problem. No need for any helping hands to come and smack us. “
The necromancer wondered how best to say, bad prince, never do that again then spray him with water or smack his ass with rolled-up news sheets. It had only been a few days since being raised, and he couldn’t think to sit still, do nothing, and keep a low profile. The man was a product of his birth. There was no buying your way out, then asking someone influential for help that the maid could picture going well. Harmony didn’t have the words to respond to this revelation. Thankfully Ambrosia wasn’t silent.
“And if your aunt chooses not to or is unable to smooth this over?”” The beast tamer asked, her eyes wide.
“Then we’d have to leave the kingdom. But don’t worry, Countess Maye is the queen’s favorite daughter. I have my full faith in her.”
A brightly colored bird, one of Ambrosia’s pets, flittered down and landed on the prince’s head. It bent down and stared into his eye.
“Just to let you know. I would not appreciate having my Harm forced to run off.” Ambrosia said.
Her little bird chirped, grabbed an eyelash, and flew off, plucking it from the man.
“Ow. I’m taking care of it.”
The two women sighed and shared annoyed looks.
