Chapter VIII: Consequences of Nobil

I stared down at him for a moment and then I closed my eyes and pulled my blade from his chest. I had to put my foot on him to do it. I eventually managed to get it and almost fell on my ass doing it. My eyes fell on the blood that painted my blade. The etchings made it look like the blood was alive still. That it was moving. I felt sick. I wiped the blade off on his shirt and felt even worse. I rushed past the crowd who parted in front of me. I think they were cheering. I could not tell. I was not able to hear anything but the blood pounding in my ears. I rushed off to the room they had given me and stripped off my shirt and threw it on the ground, blood staining the floor. I reluctantly picked it up and then I realized I had trailed blood with every step. I closed my eyes and got into the tub. There was not any water and I could not make it appear like Emilia. Nor did I want to find a servant and ask them.

A while later, it could have been minutes, it could have been hours, Emilia came in. I glanced at her and realized she had been crying. I did not meet her eyes. A few unwilling tears had stained my face as well. She walked briskly up to me and leaned over the tub. "Johann, why did you do that?"

"He challenged me. He attacked me. I didn't mean to..."

"No, not that, you idiot." She pulled my chin up and looked me in the eyes. "Why did you have to make a scene?"

"I'm sorry. I just... You've been so nice to me and I just couldn't take them being rude to you. And for what? Your skin? Your ears?" I scoffed and turned over. "I tried to warn you. I tried to warn all three of you. I shouldn't be in this world. I don't mesh with how things are supposed to operate." I spent a moment and gathered myself. "I'm sorry. I'll leave you be."

"No!" She crawled into the tub with me and pried my face from the metal side and looked me in the eyes. Every time I tried to pull away she just found another way to meet them again. "I don't think you know what you just did."

I shook my head. "I can't leave you alone now. Never again." Emilia said.

"What? Why?" I asked, trying to back away from her. She was essentially sitting on top of me. I realized I was trapped.

"Because," she gazed down at my bloody arms and shoulder. She poked it and a light pink glow flowed from her fingers to the wound. I felt it close on a scale smaller than I could have ever conceived of before. I shuddered. After a moment, all of the wounds were closed. She spoke as she did this. "I'm a special subset of elf. Elves don't marry, but you did the equivalent of proposing to me twice."

"What? No I didn't."

"Oh, I see you became a master of Blood Elf culture when I wasn't looking. That's good to know. You'll be able to do the other rituals to ensure that we have bountiful rain and hunts in the desert." I just looked at her blankly. She smiled and leaned down to rest a cheek on my chest. "Our ears are some of the most intimate places we elves have. Some believe them to be more intimate, more erogenous than anywhere else. Some, most even, only share that touch with their Nutes. Additionally, one of the old blood elf traditions is to face down a challenger on behalf of their intended, usually it's another suitor, but an enemy isn't unprecedented. Face it. You're betrothed to a half elf."

"I didn't know any of that!" I exclaimed. "I didn't know about your ears. I was just..."

  "Not keeping your hands to yourself," she said, grinning. Somehow, her grins were always lascivious.

  "You literally never keep your hands to yourself. I thought it was a game."

  "It is a game," she replied, shifting herself against me. "And you've won yourself a Hanwa Nute. Once we complete the bonding ritual. Until then, we're just intended."

  "But I was already betrothed! To two women! One of which just beats me up and calls me 'blacksmith'." I all but shouted. She closed her eyes and rubbed her face into my chest. "How can I be intended to you, too?"

"That's kind of my fault, honestly."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, after Queen Meryl fulfilled the first prophecy she read the rest and found out that she was going to have three lovers in her life." She said quickly. Maybe even a little sheepishly. "She was nine and just as confused as you are. She thought you could only have one lover. I explained that elves don't do that as much. We... They have a lifebond that lasts as long as we live, but we can share that with as many people as we like. She became obsessed with it. And due to... A pretty similar situation to yours and mine, she ended up bonded to me when she was 16. Not that I was upset with that. I grew up with her for the last five years and she's... Well, she's amazing. She always has been. She was already really close with Lady Carmella at that point. That was when I found out that they had done more than enough to establish a lifebond. After a couple more years passed, I developed the same bond with Carmella. Though I was the one that initiated it that time."

"Okay. But if you all are bonded already, then why do you need me?"

"Because you're the last person. Meryl will have three lovers. That's what the prophecy says." Emilia said in a way that made me feel thick.

"But who is to say that it is all at the same time? Who is to say that I needed to be involved in all of this?" I said quickly.

"Oh, the prophecy doesn't specify. Not one bit. Just said that they existed. So Meryl made a decision. She decided that they would all be with her for as long as possible. She says that prophecy is vague and as long as she doesn't break the spirit of the prophecy, she can manipulate it. She figured since she already had two by the time she was 16 there was no need to wait for the world to find her one. She could find one herself. At first, she was looking for a woman blacksmith. There are a few here and there. She thought she had a type because of Carmella and I. But none of them felt right. She said that none of them felt like us."

"Yeah, but that could just be because she didn't know them like she did you two." I put in.

"Yeah," she said, simply. She patted my chest approvingly. "That's what we said. But then she said that she always knew about us. The reason that she brought me to the castle after my parents... Well, she said the reason was because she knew I was special. Like no one else. And not because I was an elf. She said she had seen elves before, but she could pick me out of a crowd of a thousand."

"That sounds like a post hoc rationalization." She leaned up and looked at me confused. "I... I read every book I could back home. I wanted to be a writer. But no one wants to hear from a writer who has never traveled past the far hills."

"Well, you have now." She said, laying back down. "Still. I thought that too. Then she proved it. Five times. She did the same with Carmella. And she spent years looking at blacksmith after blacksmith. Sometimes, it would take her a while to realize that it wasn't right. Sometimes it was immediate. But when she found you, she came to us immediately. She brought me to look and I watched you for a while. Carmella, too. Carmella wasn't convinced for the longest time. She said that you were like every other blacksmith that she had seen. Even when you gave most of your money away. What sold it to her was your plan to get out of making a sword for Meryl."

"Why is that?"

"Because it was clever. She thinks all blacksmiths are fools. They just beat things into place and don't have the ability to think themselves out of problems."

"Well, that's rude."

"Yeah. But she liked the idea. She also liked that you accepted it didn't work. You were willing to change your mind when it came to it. So, she volunteered to bring you back. To make sure that it wasn't some kind of fluke."

"Yeah, but she hates me."

"No," Emilia said, giggling. "She just doesn't know how to express herself to new people."

I thought about it for a while. "Okay. That explains Meryl. How she found me. But what about you two? Why are you so..."

"Willing? Truth be told I wasn't really. I wasn't sure I wanted to be involved with you at all. But I knew that I had to give it a shot. You're cute, even if you're a little thick." I sighed and she looked up at me. "I'm kidding."

"No, I was just hoping there was an out. You guys deserve someone smarter. Better. More capable." I responded. Someone who isn't a murderer. The thought bubbled up and echoed in my mind again and again. She leaned up and kissed me. In order to do so, she needed to reposition herself and ended up straddling my waist, legs on either side.

"Stop that. I won't have you bad talk my Hanwa Nute." I looked at her quizzically and she rolled her eyes. "My bonded. You are my Hanwa Nute. Meryl and Carmella are my Inya Nute."

The door burst open and Meryl strolled through. She was alone. "What in the hells were you thinking?"

"I, uh, I wasn't. I'm really sorry." I stammered, barely managing to get the words out.

"You could have been killed!"

"I don't know! I just wanted to protect Emil- What?"

"You could have died. What were you thinking, accepting a challenge like that? Then not finishing it when you could have. You damn near died half a dozen times in that fight! He was a Babryckian blades merchant!"

"He was a what now?"

"They're merchants from Babrycg that sell the special blades created by the best blacksmiths around. They are trained from the time they can stand to hold a blade."

"Oh. Sounds like I should have been allowed to use my dagger, then."

"You shouldn't have been fighting at all! Don't go provoking fights!"

"Hey! They were treating Emilia terribly! And that guy called you, the queen, a traitor."

"Yeah, and if you hadn't accepted the fight, we could have had him tried for that."

"Oh."

" 'Oh' is right." She sighed and leaned down, her hand going over to the maid's hair and stroking it. "Is he okay?"

"He'll be fine. He would have been fine sooner if he hadn't run away."

"Yeah, well. Why did you do that?" Meryl asked.

"I just killed a man. I... It wasn't... I didn't have to. He could have yielded."

"Babryckians never yield." She turned her attention back to Emilia. "Get him cleaned up. He's coming to dinner tonight. Now that he's done playing with swords. Gods."

Dinner was mostly uneventful. People made small talk. Some commented on my swordsmanship. They were impressed. Some insisted I had gotten lucky. I readily agreed with them. Meryl rolled her eyes every time it was mentioned. Emilia giggled. She still wore her hair down. Which was nice. Carmella came in halfway through the dinner, donned in her full armor which was dirty and had blood splashed across it. She came over to Meryl, whispered in her ear and gave her a subtle kiss before making her way to her room. Meryl had a servant bring her food just after.