“My left arm… It doesn’t feel quite right... Sometimes, I could swear that the pain of losing it is still there. It wakes me up in the middle of the night with piercing agony…”
“You still have phantom pain? That side effect should have been treated as well… It seems like you and I both underestimated the trauma that moment caused you… But is it about having your arm torn off, or about being unable to stop Benait’s killer?”
Sitting around a table draped in a white, refined tablecloth, two youthful-looking men were discussing, both wearing white suits that did not fit their usual styles at all.
The first man to speak sighed heavily, staring at his left arm. Several months ago, it had been brutally torn off, and he had accumulated many other serious injuries at the time. By all means, he should be dead. He should have bled out shortly after escaping the mechanical terror.
Instead, he had received treatment at the hands of the very man he was conversing with. A cleric of incredible talent in the domain of healing, he had even been capable of regrowing the lost arm over a period of a few months.
Now, the limb was back to normal, or at least, it should be…
But somehow, despite the perfect physical recovery and despite the many holy spells that should have cleared his mind and erased the phantom pain as well, things persisted.
“Only at night, you say?”
Since Jupo did not respond to his previous inquiry, Maarkus instead did what he did best, and that was to try to figure out what was troubling his fellow.
“Yes”
“Then, the source must be nightmares. They are harder to eradicate than phantom pain for me, but still, it is surprising that they are occurring with enough strength to make you believe that you are in pain… Do tell me, what are those nightmares like?”
Jupo took a few moments to think.
“I don’t remember much after I wake up, but it feels strange… Maarkus, are you aware of the concept of lucid dreams?”
“Dreams where one is aware that they are dreaming and can control the sequence of events? I’ve had a few people ask me if I could induce such a thing… I didn’t ask, but I doubt their intentions were pure”
Jupo lightly chuckled at that.
“The point is, it feels like I am completely lucid and aware in these nightmares. I know that I am in a dream, but I can’t wake up… And I have to… Sort of… Fend her off”
“There are strange rules in these nightmares. I don’t think the location stays the same. I just keep ending up in places that are recognisable as houses, manors, ruins, and the like, but I am never in an actual place that I actually know, and often, I am in a place I have no idea about in the least”
“You told me that you didn’t remember much of your nightmares, but it doesn’t really seem like it”
“I… I guess talking about it helps me remember… I don’t know”
“No worries, and what is the point of these nightmares? What do you do within them that ends with you feeling pain in your arm?”
Jupo frowned.
“It doesn’t always end up with pain in my arm. In fact, it often ends with nothing happening at all. When it ends, I just wake up at the usual time I wake up… But sometimes, I fail to stop the monster from reaching me… And she kills me in the dream. This is what causes me to feel pain in my arm and wake up screaming”
Maarkus stayed silent for a few seconds. Glancing at Jupo in silence, the young mage-blade had been hired by Sir Nebulo shortly after the incident with Mara, apparently seeing some promise in him.
But Jupo didn’t know that the monster of steel was actually his employer’s twin sister…
In fact, Maarkus sometimes wondered if Sir Nebulo actually remembered that the creature was his own sister… The cleric had been told that the incident that had preceded her disappearance had been her doing, but he had never actually seen any evidence of that.
He had always known that Mara was… A rather uncommon sort of girl, one prone to violence and a rather harmful usage of words, but still, he had always been sceptical that she had been involved in any way.
She might have become a monster, but it didn’t feel really fair to compare the current Mara, who was a literal abomination, to the person–To the human–That she had been before this.
And honestly, her brother was behaving a bit bizarrely when it came to her. It was hard to tell whether he was genuinely trying to eliminate her or if he had deliberately sent an underwhelming force as a sort of means to gauge her instead.
Frankly, if he had wanted to eliminate her, he wouldn’t have sent just ten of his regular knights and Maarkus to do it. There was a slew of much more efficient and safe methods that he could have employed besides this one.
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The cleric sighed.
“So… You have lucid nightmares of sorts… What do you do in those nightmares to escape the monster?”
“It depends on the place I am in the nightmares, often, it is just about running and hiding… But sometimes, I am in a sort of place where the walls are made of steel, sometimes shiny, sometimes rusty. And there, for some reason, I am compelled to stay in place and use strange mechanisms to block or send the creature away from me… Oh, but those are just the most common”
“Somehow, whenever I have one of those nightmares, I instantly become aware of what I am supposed to do to keep her away, and the rules are inconsistent with one another… When I am to run or hide, she’ll break through obstacles without problem, but sometimes a simple wooden door is enough to keep her at bay…”
Maarkus rubbed his chin. It honestly sounded suspicious.
A surviving victim of Mara was overtaken by abnormal nightmares that could actually inflict pain, or at least give a strong impression of it… Was this the expression of some sort of ability?
Maarkus had checked Jupo many times, and he had found nothing that could be exorcised out of him. The profession of exorcist could do more than just expel spirits or fend off devilish influence. Pretty much any abnormal influence should be within Maarkus’s skillset to, if not get rid of, at least sense.
“I’ll get in touch with someone higher-ranked than me in the church. They might be able to identify the problem”
“You have my thanks for that”
The two men were far from being just by themselves. The table they sat at only had them, but the room as a whole was packed with people who were either sitting silently, awaiting the main guests, or discussing amongst themselves to pass the time.
Frankly, the event they were attending was making Maarkus think about Mara more than usual. She had already been on his mind ever since he discovered that she was actually very much alive, but today was making him especially thoughtful.
“You seem a bit disturbed yourself, Maarkus. Is everything alright?”
The cleric shrugged.
“Did you hear about Sir Nebulo’s twin sister?”
“Huh? You mean the one that went missing? I heard of her when I asked about who the girl in the painting was, you know, the big one that Sir Nebulo keeps at the top of the stairs when you enter his residence?”
“Ah, yes, an old family portrait… I am sure you must have thought that she was quite pretty”
“I didn’t give it much thought…”
“I… Used to be ensnared by her charms. To be honest, I think she’s the only woman I've ever felt so strongly romantically about. She was beautiful, that was for sure… But actually, what really enamoured me was her… Let’s say, rather unconventional traits”
“The painting doesn’t do her justice in those departments. She was a tall girl, and much stronger than the average woman… I think she must have had some sort of hidden talent or constitution, as I am fairly certain that she was stronger than most men as well”
“She was definitely stronger than me, though, and I quite liked that”
Maarkus leaned back in his chair.
“Unfortunately, she yearned for a man who was stronger than her. Mara was always confrontational. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that she literally wanted suitors to beat her in a fight if they wanted her attention”
Jupo raised an eyebrow.
“Didn’t she disappear a long time ago? Why are you thinking about her now?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Just as Maarkus said this, the doors to the room opened, and two figures, followed by several other people, walked in, prompting everyone already present to stand up and clap as musicians began to play.
With their arms interlocked, a man and woman walked toward a small platform, where a high-priest of the Divine Feather was awaiting them.
After several minutes of clapping and music, everything went silent as the high-priest spoke up.
“Today, we have gathered to celebrate what is certainly the brightest day for them both. Today, the Divine Feather will watch over the union of a man and woman tied together by the strings of faith, bound together by the embrace of love…”
“...The marriage of Lady Gallilah, Noble Warrior of the Southern Draconic Tribe, and of Sir Leton Nebulo, Genius Inventor, whose creations propelled countless out of poverty and hunger!”
Everyone cheered.
Jupo tapped Maarkus’s shoulder in understanding.
“I get it. You wished that you could have stood at the altar with her?”
Maarkus nodded silently.
“Well… Perhaps not all hope is lost”
“Mmh?”
The high-priest once again spoke up. His voice resounded throughout the area, perfectly audible to all.
“Lady Gallilah, do you swear before the Divine Feather to love him until the end, no matter the storms that might befall?”
“I do!”
The monsterfolk exhaled out of her nose so strongly that sparks came out. With her powerful build, some had been worried that she would look utterly ridiculous in a wedding dress, but as it turns out, she was wearing it most naturally.
Though due to the sparks she tended to emit when excited, it had been smartly decided not to include a veil.
“Sir Leton Nebulo, do you swear before the Divine Feather to love her until the end, no matter the storms that might befall?”
“I do”
Leton’s voice was far less boisterous, but he spoke without a shred of hesitation nonetheless.
He looked rather short when standing right next to his monster folk wife, especially due to how muscular she was, but the high-priest was unfazed. He had married far more bizarre pairings than this. He was sort of a professional in conducting a ceremony for couples who came from different sapient species.
And considering the amount of bizarre sapients out there, this union looked mundane to him.
“Very well! Then, to seal your union before the Divine Feather, and for you both to be united even in death, you may share a kiss”
Gallilah bent down and went for it like a tiger leapt on its unsuspecting prey, but judging by Leton’s lack of reaction, this seemed to be her habitual way of doing things.
Despite being a few years into his forties, Leton Nebulo still appeared very much youthful. Presumably, thanks to his connections that had allowed him access to rare alchemical products to not only recover one’s youth, but also to genuinely extend lifespan.
Nonetheless, it was still obvious that he wasn’t a young man. The look in his eyes did not lie.
The wedding between Rootriska’s greatest genius and the female warrior of a monsterfolk tribe spread throughout the nation, but did not generate much surprise. It wasn’t like the relationship had been kept a secret to begin with.
The only surprise was that Leton had actually gone forward and married her officially, more than that, in fact… He had married her and gotten a member of the church of the Divine Feather to do it.
In Rootriska, there was nothing more official than this.
And the union of a human and monsterfolk, whilst not uncommon overall, was rather odd for a member of upper society. Nobles and the likes put an extremely high value on succession, and it was well known that the vast majority of sapient species could not procreate with one another.
So, it generated discussions about the future of the Nebulo household, nobles and commoners alike began to discuss the subject in their conversations.
To the point that the news even reached the ears of the self-proclaimed owner of Louwoods…
