Hatching a Heroine - Chapter 16 - As One Enters, Another Leaves

Kylee

Humming to myself as I walked down the street, I studied the stalls and stores we passed in search of anything interesting. Food - intriguing, and maybe worth checking out? Jewelry - I loved to browse! It gave me all sorts of ideas for my personal hobby! Exotic pet shops? All they had were fish… and none with proper teeth so far as I could see, either!

“Can you please stop running towards every store you see?” Belinda asked me, through gritted teeth.

“Belinda, Belinda,” I replied, flashing her a happy grin.

“...Yes?”

“Boring Belinda, Boring Belinda. Oh so Boring, Boring Belinda… don’t you know how to have fun?”

“I don’t think I’m the one who’s definition of fun needs to be questioned,” Boring, Boring Belinda said, with those still gritted teeth of hers.

She really did need to learn how to smile. I wondered if anyone had ever told her that?

“You should really learn how to smile.”

“Can you please control your creation?” Boring, Boring Belinda (who’s name was really too long, and in desperate need of a good shortening) asked Mama Maeve.

“She’s more Sorissa’s creation than mine,” Mama Maeve protested, placing a hand on her chest. “If anything, I consider her a warning to myself - just what can happen to a person’s heart when I play with it for too long…”

“Aw, you don’t have to apologize Mama Maeve!” I said, patting her on the shoulder. “I asked for it, remember? Again, and again, and again. To make the pain go away. To make the misery fade. To make me happy… and now I’m always happy! Isn’t that wonderful?” I giggled.

“...If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were purposefully trying to torture me,” Maeve said, with a sigh.

“Well, I don’t know any better,” Bel said. “You’re suspicious as hell, ‘Substitute Princess.’”

“Don’t call me that,” I replied, pouting. I hated my title. It was so… unfun! I didn’t like things that were unfun. “Or I’ll turn you into a slug.”

“Like you’d dare,” Inda- was Inda better than Bel? - scoffed. “Not when the Queen put me in charge.”

“Aw, don’t be like that In-In,” I said, pouting up at them. “It’s no fun when you hide behind Not-Mom’s authority…”

“Can’t you at least try to behave?” In-In snarled. “I know you’re capable. I’ve seen your performance at banquets.”

“But In-In-”

“And don’t call me that!” they snapped. “I don’t know how you even came up with that stupid nickname, anyway…”

I pouted, again, but it didn’t have any effect on Stubborn, Boring, Old Inda.

“We need to go greet Countess Liliath,” Stubborn, Boring, Old Inda said. “All of us. Then you can go explore while the rest of us extract information, alright?”

“Why are we even bothering?” I asked. “We already know she was here!”

“Maybe the Queen wants to suggest otherwise?” Stubborn… Okay, no, I needed something shorter… Maybe just ‘Stubborn’? Yeah, that worked.

“I don’t believe it’s our job to question the Queen’s intent,” Mama Maeve said - which was funny, seeing as how she was Sorissa’s inquisitor, and all. “We simply need to carry out her orders. Find Princess Lonna, and bring her home.”

“Who said anything about bringing her home?” I demanded. “Not-Mom just said we have to stop her!”

“And how better to stop her than a reunion?” Mama Maeve asked. “Surely, once she’s back in her mother’s loving arms, her little tantrum will come to an end. The two of you can even be reunited.”

“Don’t wanna,” I said, trying not to feel grumbly. I didn’t like to feel grumbly. I wasn’t supposed to feel grumbly. I was supposed to be happy. “It would be much better to just grab the scale before they can. Then we’d have a proper gift to give Not-Mom.”

“You’re just after her approval,” Stubborn said.

“And you aren’t?” I asked, tilting my head to the side.

“I never said that,” they replied. “But I’m not going to challenge the scale’s guardian out of nowhere. But don’t worry. I’ve got a plan to put us in the perfect decision to decide.” She grinned. It looked kind of evil?

Not that I cared. I was way more interested in the local tailor’s shop. I couldn’t wait to visit it, after our meeting with the Countess… Probably tomorrow, though, considering it was getting late at night. The Countess would probably demand we stay the night…

Boring. 

Maybe I’d sneak out?

***

Lonna

***

I hummed to myself, happily going through the various saddlebags to see what goodies the Countess had thought to provide. Some of it was boring shit - a few weapons, probably meant to train Melissa, a map, a compass, and There were rations - dried berries, dried meat, and… well, I guess seeds were basically dry by default, but yeah, dry seeds. There were also some relatively fresh ingredients, though - like salted pork, alongside stuff I could cook like rice and beans. I was thinking up a pretty simple dinner, incorporating the last three ingredients, when Melissa came up behind me.

“Uh, Lonna?” she asked, idly wrapping a few strands of hair around her finger. 

I wondered why she did that. Or if she knew it was kind of cute. 

“Yeah?” I asked. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to ask… if it’s alright… Um. Why do you want to kill your Mom so bad? Is it just because she’s a bad ruler, or-”

“That monster is not my Mother,” I spat out, interrupting her. Which wasn’t something I did lightly - I mean, I was trying to get on her good side, here - but some things I just couldn’t let go. “She killed my real Mother a few months ago.”

“Your… real mother?” I asked. “I thought… I mean…”

“It’s complicated,” I muttered, looking away.

“Explain it to me?” Melissa asked. “Please?”

…Normally, I wouldn’t. In fact, I'd normally snap anyone who tried to push me like this in two. But I was sort of asking Melissa to kill someone, here…

“Alright, so maybe it’s not that complicated,” I admitted. “Sorissa raised me until I turned thirteen, when I finally ran away. A lapsi by the name of Maiar took me in - just like she’d taken in Talith, before me. She raised me for the next eight or so years, until Sorissa burned down our house and killed her, all to leave me a message.”

“A message?” Melissa asked, looking properly horrified by the information.

“Yeah. It didn’t even involve the house, really. I was just standing in front of it, gawking, when someone came up to hand me a note. It just said two words. ‘Come home.’ So I did - I went back to the castle. Just long enough to steal Sorissa’s precious scroll, so that I could summon the Heroine. You.”

“So that I could kill her,” Melissa added, quietly.

I shrugged. “So you can kill her. Yeah.”

“...It must have been hell living under her. If everything I’m hearing is true.”

“...Yeah,” I muttered, not quite meeting Melissa’s eyes. “It was… difficult.” I didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about the late night bedtime stories, the hugs, the forehead kisses. The way she’d tucked me in at night, telling me I lit up her life.

She loved me. I knew it. I hated it, but I knew it. She loved me. At least in her own twisted way. But that love didn’t extend to anyone else. No matter how important they were to me.

“...I’m still technically the Crown Princess, you know? I think it’s the real reason why the city guards never tried to touch me. Even if the rank and file didn’t even know who I really was… There’s a rumor you hear sometimes. About someone who dared to touch the Runaway Princess just… disappearing. Not even dying. Just every speck, every bit of evidence they’d ever existed wiped off the map. I want to think they’re just stories - nobody in the village I lived in ever disappeared, at least, no matter how mean they were to me - but… visitors? There was a merchant who cheated me once. Wouldn’t give me back my change. I got so mad… I never saw that merchant again.”

“That’s… It could just be a coincidence,” Melissa pointed out.

“It was a coincidence,” Talith insisted. He must have finished setting up the tents.

Joanie, I noticed, was busying herself with starting a fire and not saying a damn word.

Probably for the best.

“Look,” I said. “It’s fine. Even if she did do something to a… handful of people who annoyed me over the years, it’s not like it’s my fault. She’s just crazy. You should have seen what she did to my childhood friend, after he stole my first kiss… heh.”

I could still remember it. His body, hanging limply from its chains. Blood dribbling down his face, from a cut Sorissa had made. The manic grin on her face, as she held the butcher knife out to me, and asked if I wanted to join in.

“Come on,” I said, instead of voicing any of that. “Make room, so I can make dinner.”

Ugh. I was totally going to have nightmares tonight.

***

Kylee

***

I hummed a little tune to myself as I strolled down the streets. A song often sung by a girl I used to know. It gave me funny feelings, thinking about her, to be honest. Feelings like anger, and frustration, and abandonment. Things that weren’t happy.

I didn’t really get why I was humming it. It just seemed to happen, sometimes, when I was alone. By myself. With my thoughts. Walking down the street, late at night. 

It did help draw entertainment, at least!

“Hey, lady,” Entertainment said, a nasty looking scowl on his lips as he stepped out of a nearby alley. “You new around here? A pretty girl like you shouldn’t be wandering alone at night.”

“Is that so?” I asked, tilting my head a little to the right. Enough to look adorable, without giving myself a horrible crick in the neck. 

“Yeah,” the man said, nodding. “I mean, sure, it’s safe enough during the day, but there’s some real rough types who wander around town. You never know what trouble you’re going to get into.”

“That’s…” I paused. “Wait. Are you actually warning me? Or attacking me?”

Silence. Then a smirk, as Entertainment drew a knife. “Guess I got too into the role, huh?”

“Ooh, goody! I get to claim the moral high ground this time!” I giggled, reaching up to my ear, and removing one of my precious earrings. It was a pretty thing - a small, twisted vine that glimmered in the moonlight as I held it upon my palm.  

“...Lady, if you think one measly earring is going to do anything, then you’ve got another thing coming.”

Instead of answering, I simply shifted my palm to let the earring tumble down to the ground, while the man looked at me in confusion. Then, I stomped it into the ground.

“Lady-” he began, only to stop when I removed my boot.

More specifically, he stopped when he saw the light shining from the broken trinket I’d stomped into the ground. A trinket that reconnected itself, forming a proper vine once more, before beginning to slowly swell in size. Leaves and branches sprung forth as the vine shifted, knotting in on itself, twisting and turning until it had formed something akin to a wolf. If wolves were green, with leaves for teeth and maws that leaked an orange liquid - one that burned the very ground beneath its feet as it dribbled down to the earth below.

“Wh-what the hell is that!?” the man shouted, even as the wolf pounced.

I just giggled in reply, watching happily as my pet fed. “You get an hour of free time for being a good girl,” I told her, petting her. 

I couldn’t help but notice how she stiffened under my touch - as if out of fear - but a moment later she was back to happily consuming and dissolving flesh.

“Go wait outside of town when you’re done, okay? And no causing trouble for the locals! Or I’ll have words to say.”

With that, I spun on my heel and began to hum to myself, again - a different tune, this time. Much less structured, much more fun. Like insanity put to song! Discordang and wonderful and oh so happy.

Eventually, though, my trip - and music - came to a stop. In front of the tailor shop! Of course, it was closed. The lights were off… but ah, what if there were living quarters attached to the shop? What if they could hear me, if I knocked loud enough? I had to try, didn’t I? To do otherwise would only leave regret on the mind!

Besides, worse comes to worse, I just punched out the glass and headed inside.

Alas, even as I drew my hand back to knock upon the door, it suddenly sprung open to reveal a blonde figure - a lamia, in a green blouse with a belly that seemed to poke ever so barely out from underneath. Her blonde hair was a mess, but her eyes were shining bright as she looked at me.

“So. I was going to give you a talking to about proper business hours - my alarms don’t go off unless someone’s lingering for way too long to be a random pedestrian - but first… can we talk about your outfit?”

“My outfit?” I asked, blinking at her.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “I mean, first off, pink and frills? Bold move for a government official. I love it.”

“I’m more of a princess than an official, really,” I pointed out.

“But you’re here on business, aren’t you? The sort of business where people need to take you seriously? And yet you’re wearing a frilly pink dress, ribbons, and… I think your socks are slightly mismatched, but that might just be the lighting. Anyways, it’s a good look for you - like, regardless of whether it makes you a badass to walk into a meeting with the Countess like that. It feels like you’re missing something, though….”

“Missing something?” 

“Yeah…” the girl said, rubbing at her chin for a moment, before snapping her fingers. “Got it! A pink parasol.”

“A pink parasol,” I repeated, a little amused despite myself. Intrigued, too. It wasn’t often I got to talk to people about fashion.

Ever, actually. Nobody I hung out with really cared…

“Unfortunately, we don’t have one in stock,” she told me. “But I could direct you to the right people if you want to get it made? Mention my name and they’ll give you a discount.”

“Your name?” I asked, tilting my head to the right.

“Oh right… silly me, it’s Clattara,” she said, holding out her hand.

I took it, a smile on her face. “You know, Clattara, I think you’re right about the umbrella…”

“Yeah?” she asked, a grin on her own features. It started to fade a little when she realized she couldn’t take her hand away, though.

“Yeah… and I think I know just where to get one.”

~~~

Author's Notes

This is the first chapter I've had to write from scratch, and I was a little scared going in... How did I do? I'd like to think I did a decent job with Lonna, and Kylee, but the training wheels just came off so I wouldn't be surprised if I stumbled here or there....