(Vol 2) Chapter 5: Precious Declarations

Samantha stood cloaked within her illusion, perfectly still, at odds between the glee of being there and the adrenaline-fueled urgency from the scenario at play. She certainly didn’t want to fight, since that would involve a lot of last-second crunching to make work efficiently. More than anything, she was invested in the dramatic scene like everyone else present.

Dart certainly was. The treant’s dark eyes were wide and its hands flat together up to its mouth, enraptured.

“Of course you are, Azure,” Andemen finally said, suddenly soft, suddenly smooth. His eyes ignored everything else but her right then. “We can make this right. You’ve more than made your point. I’ve been a fool… and to you, my most precious jewel. I’ve neglected you. Taken you for granted. I’m… sorry.”

Azure’s eyes widened in shock. She was speechless in the pause he’d created. Apologizing was obviously not something he did normally.

“Oh no he didn’t,” Dart sent to her mentally.

“Shh!”

Taking a few steps forward with his horse, Andemen leaned down, somehow seeming like he was right next to her despite the distance. “I’ll give you every choice from here on, just come back to me. I can make the contract null and void… you could leave whenever you wish. I’ll prove to you how special you are to me, and if I fail you, so be it. Give me another chance. Give us a chance! For the love that was once new, for the love that could be again.”

Azure was obviously having some ancient heartstrings pulled. Emotional currents stirred up inside her as the man attacked her where she was truly weakest. She glared at him, struggling with herself, with those layers of loathing — loathing of him, loathing of how she’d been treated, loathing of her reanimated feelings despite it all.

The man tried to move even closer, and Samantha had Deidara shift in response, roots growing up out of the ground in front of the horse, covered in nasty-looking sharp brambles.

Andemen (or perhaps his horse) stopped short, holding his hands up to indicate he’d approach no further, without ever taking his eyes off of his target. He smiled. A dashing thing, truly. “We could have a wedding. I’d make you a lady in full. In truth, my wife is not needed anymore. We could simply have her taken care of.”

“Taken care of,” Azure repeated darkly, and it seemed to snap her out of his spell. She looked away.

Quickly, he shrugged it off. “A figure of speech. Out of the way, is all. She’s getting up there in age. We’ll figure out something, hmm? Just come with me, my love. Let’s discuss your conditions somewhere more… pleasant.” And he held out his hand. “Take my hand. Just as you did once before, in a time of youth and possibility. Let’s reclaim that… together.”

Azure looked at the hand, then looked up at him. She sucked in a deep breath, and it seemed like her body was poised to walk forward… Her legs to move practically of their own accord, as though compelled.

But they didn’t.

Letting out the breath, she said with vehemence, “No.” The wind blew in another great gust right then, highlighting the gravitas of her declaration. “You missed your chances again and again and again, when you had all control to give me one shred of hope. Hope for those things you once made me a giddy idiot for. All you had to do was dole out a morsel of time, of love, here or there, and I’d have stayed a pathetic sap subsisting off of them.”

Face cast with her pain, she shook her head at him, furiously trying to fight back tears trying to bubble forth. “Instead you ignored me. Let our love dry and die like a forgotten prune.

“I’d look out the window, missing you off wherever you were sating your lusts, and I forever hate the glee I’d feel at the doomed dream spawned in my head once you’d returned: that I could see you. That I could be with you. I tried every dress, every cut, every look and fashion and face in the mirror to draw your attention…”

Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she wiped them away instantly, hating them. “I was old and ugly in that mirror because nothing I did worked. I annoyed you with my desires! You told servants and guards to turn me away! You had me locked in my room so you didn’t have to deal with me!”

Andemen opened his mouth to respond, but Azure held her hand up. “Don’t! Don’t. I won’t hear it.” Glaring, taking another breath to compose herself, she said with finality, “I never want to see you again and I will never forgive you.

“You want my choice? That’s it. I want you to go to hell. Failing that, go away and stay away from me. That is the last and best way you can apologize to me. Consider it your penance.”

With that, she turned her back on him and walked toward the manor doors, head held high despite her tears.

Andemen’s mouth opened as if he might say something, but nothing came out. He watched her go with a stricken face as his held-out hand closed. He leaned back up slowly on his horse, watching Azure calmly walk all the way through the door and pass into the darkness, never once looking back.

His eyes passed over the others — even as they glanced at the ‘druid’ there was none of the fury of before. He barely even seemed to see them. After a moment of staring down at the mud, he turned his horse around to leave.

Suddenly, the young woman Enshaea, still behind the soldier on his horse, barked a derisive laugh. “What a stupid bitch! Who would pass this up? Who would ever leave? I wouldn’t, not ever.”

Hint, hint. Unbelievable…

Andemen scowled at the girl like a piece of shit on his boot. “Leave that guttertrash here with the rest of her ilk.” Then he ‘ya’d’ his horse off to a trot back down the muddy road.

“What?!”

She was soon protesting, screeching, and resisting as the soldier twisted around and pulled her off of the horse. Such was her furious resistance that when the man inevitably still wrestled her off screaming, she fell into the mud on her ass with a nasty splorch sound.

By the time she got herself out of the mud, they were long gone down the road. With a panic-stricken face, she glanced at those still standing around, eyeing her rather balefully.

“Run along girl,” Nestor said with a sad frown and a shake of his head, probably speaking to placate the women around who looked about ready to beat her ass back into the mud. “We won’t brook traitors here. You’re lucky not to be hanged. Go and find work in the city, if you can. Don’t you ever come back here.”

One of the other girls, scowling, called, “I hear there’s plenty of back alley brothels hiring! S’where you belong!”

“Go fuck yourself, Delina!” Enshaea retorted. “Not even your momma can handle your ugly ass face, she told me so!”

At this point the women were going for rocks to throw, the men barely able to hold them back. Enshaea wisely took this time to make her way quickly through the mud back onto running ground and leave the area, with a few rocks narrowly missing her.

“Wow, was that whole thing compelling or what?” Dart blurted out audibly.

“Th-they talk?!” a woman said, eying the treant wide-eyed.

Meanwhile, Yadmin ran back into the house to go see Azure.

Nestor tried walking up to the druid… tentatively offering a hand. Sammy had a sudden, surprised hop and ran over to ‘step into’ the spot Deidara took up, so she could actually offer the shake. It did cause some shimmering in the air, which made the man blink in puzzlement.

But she shook his hand, grinning behind the image. It felt good. He’d been willing to lay his life down for her high priestess. He had to know she might run. All of them did.

Smiling, Nestor nodded his head awkwardly to the strange, armored entity before him. “Thank you kindly for saving our butts, Mister Archdruid. Sorry If I don’t have your title right… not too familiar. Your kind are, well, legends. Really didn’t even believe my eyes for a straight minute, if I’m being honest.”

“It is nothing. All was as fate ordained. Tell her I will be waiting.”

“Understood. Thanks again.”

To the amazement of Nestor and the others still outside, the druid Deidara began sinking back into the earth along with his summoned creatures. But ‘he’ did whisper, “Art is an explosion,” right before his head dunked under. Nestor just blinked in further bewilderment as he turned to proceed back inside.

A couple of the more martially-able men were getting on horses, likely to do a patrol of the property. Others were making sure the hay fire nearby didn’t spread. It was nearly spent, in truth.

“Did you see that frame on him?” a woman still hanging around whispered to another. “Mm.”

“And the long blonde hair! I bet he’s an elf… and dreamy…”

“Poor Yadmin, he never stood a chance…”

Sammy fought desperately to keep from laughing at that, and pointed a warning finger at Dart, who somehow made a treant face look mischievous. He obviously wanted to comment. His sagged down shoulders of disappointment made her bubbling snickers even harder to repress.

In truth, she felt absolutely giddy.

I’m breathing real air! I smell horses and burning hay! The warmth of the Calrenazzord summer is baking me in this armor! And it feels fucking great.

Naturally, for ‘layer 2’ she’d made a flawless, shiny, mirror-like breastplate, with significant… give on the inside to accommodate her bust. It was a style she’d seen before. It sloped in a slight ‘V’ rather than contouring directly, which created an excellent, if angled, ‘square’ at the front for a nice mirror.

Otherwise, she wore bits of plate over a mail hauberk/skirt, also over padding. Her helm was ‘like Magneto’s’ in shape and style, but with a hinged visor and faceplate that could come down over the front.

She had an ‘Outfit 2’ slot that could be changed to on a dime once she set it up, with a 5-minute cooldown. She was probably going to use it for a less ‘heavy’ ensemble.

Dart had shapeshifted into a black cat. He was sitting on a rock and staring at her with his crystalline blue eyes. “Hey,” he sent to her mentally, “What’s the dirt on Azure? Are you watching? Lemmie see!”

“No, I’m not watching, Dart! Or eavesdropping either! I’m sure she’s having a little talk with Yadmin as she packs. I have no reason to be a voyeur there. Fuck, I’ve been a voyeur for over a week fucking straight, I’m enjoying flesh time for a bit.”

“That makes it sound dirty.”

“Shut up! It does not. That’s just you.”

The cat squinted at her, then licked its paw. “Yeah, but you created me, so obviously-”

“Drop the subject, Dart!”

“Fine, fine. So she’s leaving after all, then?”

“Of course. I can protect her better than they.” It felt supremely good to say that and be able to back it up. Hypothetically. “We can, that is. And she’d just endanger them if Lord Farkwad comes back. There’s no way I’m just gonna trust him to let it go. Much as I wish to not have to worry at all…”

And if he ever tries something again… he will pay. Dearly.

“Anyway,” Sammy continued, “Let’s move over to the forest. Away from here, and wait on our cool girl to meet us finally. Meet for real!”

“Hell yes, Babe Magnet Supreme! Team Hottie, ‘bout to take the world by storm bitcheeeees!”

Sammy laughed as they moved out for the cover of the trees, cloaked by her illusions making nothing more than an unusual shimmer, which might just be shrugged off as tricks of the summer heat by any onlookers.

It was finally time to meet a Follower in the flesh, and she absolutely couldn’t wait!

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« (Vol 2) Chapter 4 | Table of Contents | (Vol 2) Chapter 6: Glamour Us Pretenders »

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Note: Stat sheet next chappy! Has the quest completion and all.

Inspiration:

New meanings to the words I feed upon
Wake within my veins elements of freedom

Can't break now
Well, I've been living for this
Won't break now
I'm cleansed with hopefulness

'Cause precious declaration reads
Yours is yours and mine you leave alone now
Precious declaration says
I believe all hope is dead no longer

Once I jumped through hoops of fire
Was high and far as you required
I was blind but now I see
Samantha has discovered me

- "Precious Declaration" by Collective Soul - Link
(Edited one word, I'm sure you can guess which ;-) )