The Reborn Witch had a nice 'Tea Time' with the Dragon Queen today
Chapter 51: Really, Mommy Issues again?

Chapter 51: Really, Mommy Issues again?

It is an irregular day for Manasseh, the vampire merchant. Ah, now just a vampire....well, half a vampire. The blood-seeking fiend who sat amongst beside a window sighed a breath of frost to leave behind an unfeeling fog that scathed her heart, frost laylines beneath her throat pulsing of magic stolen, mana interwining to form shared breaths of warring humanity and vengeful vampirism, as her sharpened bond with mana braided her eyes to the truth that braided itself to the truth.

Their kins....those damning runes of Adil...they all deactivated. Manasseh remarked as her eyes narrowed, the silk no longer proving its function to protect her, as the itch that came with stepping on the rune hollowed out with a non-sensation, her human-like sense of mana, so used to the whispers of grief from the vampires that were robbed rest, now ceased as the last vampire coiled towards itself, the emptiness without a purpose was like a heartbeat forgetting to skip, and she hated...hated this drumming heartbeat so much, she could rip her heart out and tear it to shred.

Marred by her bloodlust towards the tinted sense of her own unwanted ’humanity’, the vampire seethed her teeth before opening to invite another cookie in from the table. ’Cherry’s Bliss’. A restaurant whose title would have the witch Demond fuming and stomping her legs pouting, had teas and cookies fitting the high noble’s taste, as Manasseh crunched on the snack, each crumbs sprayed in her tongue reminding her of the sickly sensation that would come with a human’s anger, yet the constrasting sweetness encoded a memory deep inside her that she was ever eager to visit again.

Manasseh’s blue-tinted eyes darted at the pink hues that surrounded the cookie in her hand, its dishonesty golden-brown edges and soft centers belied the unique formulas embedded within, a promise of seduction for guests, a taboo-like secret that resulted in no harm. The cookie is a spell, literally, As Manasseh chewed and closed her eyes, the pinky hues seeped like soft tendrils around her chest and lungs, her hips craddled by a warmth unasked for but fully welcomed, as she leaned in for an embrace with no one.

The cold sensation that came spoke of not indifference, but of a towering mother that waited for her child amidst the countless centuries of blizzard, as the child quietly vowed to finally, finally bring the peace, the resolution to her clan’s impairment, the rotted pain, suffering and futility that followed were merely waved off in the blizzard by the innocent child. Wait for me, she told her mother. I will not allow the vampire’s era to end as a footnote in a historian’s page.

...yet look at her now. The sweetness of that innocence merely gorged out the somber bitterness from the lone vampire, the loved one she made a promise to was no longer with her, her noble dream burnt to the ground with embers that ground the vampires into dusts. And now....even her final duty, as the last Daughter of the Bloodhound, robbed and humiliated, the disenchanted runes spoke of only her family’s release, yet merely retained an abyssal chain of irony and cruelty for the vampire merchant who sacrificed all to release her kins’ sufferings.

The cookies sat quietly within her hand, the pinkly hue between her fingertip giggled of the addiction that knew it served its purpose. Manasseh sighed, the indifferent fog on the window forever taunting how she suffered the fate of a human, to worry and to be emptied, as she invited another cookie into her mouth.

The sweetness...for the first time, it almost seemed too overwhelming.

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In a bedroom that smelled of perfume instead of snack, Selene kicked off her bedsheet as she groaned into the pillow, the knight’s manner be damned as the manga book sprayed over her face uncomfortably, a sign of a late reading that immersed her to the wondorous romance of not only between forbidden love, but also slumbers in the most profoundly unknightly sprawls. Had Adil seen this sight, she would have casted a root to the side before yanking Selene out of the window, before coldly declaring ’12 hours’, and then she will obediently exhaust herself by running ciricles in the mansion for a morning exercise she never asked for.

Her eyes fluttered open, the necessity of an awakening for her ’responsibilities’ hammering away her mind, as her sloppish legs landed themselves on the soft carpet that she would find another good spot to sleep on, pattering her clothes, before her ears perked up tiredly at the slight hammaging, for the commotion outside the room as chatterings and mumurings gutting at her half-asleep mind, half-toiling stomach that begged for breakfast, as she wobbled herself over to the door, opening it to reveal panicking maids and servants.

"Hey....uh, what is it?" Her eyes slinted as she yawned against the ceiling, against the risen sun above the ceiling.

"Young lord. We find...Lady Adil fainting in the garden tattled with blood!"

"Oh it’s mother...just send her to the office, she will heal herse..." The lightness of her words almost belied her non-hesitation, before the syllable that mercilessly dumped back responsibilities to her mother trailed off, as a sharp glint of utter trembling shock scarred into her eyes, as if unearthing an injured tiger within a field of weeds.

"...where is she now?" The murmur is a plea, a plea that the tiny giant still woke steadily with defiance, unsuccombing to even the most defiled act and violence imaginable. After nodding to the servant who answered, she rushed towards her mother’s bedroom, the hallway steps were fuelled by another kind of steadiness, the wobbly steps of laziness now long been casted by the sole need to see her mother still breathing strengths for scolds and scowls. The echoing footstep, the drumming heart of a daughter, and the empty hallway lacking a certain witch and a dragon, it all flashed before her, as she arrived at the familiar oak wood door gasping for breath, before she turned the door handle.

The familiar scent of orchid and lilies dashed her nostril, as she found her mother calmly reading papers on the bed, bandages of both fabrics and woods covered her legs, arms and limbs, her nonchalent expression not befitting a survivor that just walked out from a frost-fire hell unscathed. Selene’s eyes shook, the slight gap between the bandages thread-like scars that sickened her, as she stepped forward with one, single question.

"Who hurts you, mother?!"

The young avenger, now burning with a cause to fight against the enemy who dared hurt her second family, brushed against the carpets as if roots will call to the amateur’s wraith. No orphans could bear to be made an orphan for the second time, and Selene dared no evils who would willingly hurt her families.

The silvery steady gaze once again looked away from report, and what it found was a mere pub with scowls that resembled more of a puppy than a hound, the cutely naivety softening the iced remenants of her frost-bitten heart, as she merely glanced back to her report, before uttering a name that would surely buzz off her daughter.

"Demond did. It was a spar of old rules with no mercy, or do you care enough to chase for a revenge for me?"

The name of her mentor hung her mind as it dangled and flickered her wraith-like smolders, as a ’ha?’ escaped from Selene’s throat. What follows from her surprise, was the memory of the ’human elevator experience’ Demond graciously ascended her, the heaven’s cry in the sky quivering in her bones till this day, as she folded her arms onto the side of her forehead, afraid of the unshed tears that she thought will spill out again.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad packing as a second orphan? At least she could sleep whenever she wanted. Selene gasped as she shook away that darkly entertaining dream of slumbering without her mother’s sterns, as she faced her mother’s wounds again with newfound vigor. This time not of worry or anger, but of curiosity for such a catastrophic batterness, the urgency in her tone washed away by not just her knightly resolve to run away from troubles she cannot afford, but also specifically run away from Demond’s playful frown if possible.

"Isn’t this....too far for a duel?" Selene asked, her lips curling up into a wry smile, orchid’s freshness in the air further undermining the tension in the room that she realised she should not have caused.

Adil glazed over another line from the report, the ’autopsy reports’ that Selene brought in from Manasseh’s guild, before muttering. "The garden just happens to need trimming, so we merely used it as an arena."

"....the garden?" As if listenning to not tigers found among weeds, but now this time as if witnessing the entire field of weeds has been set on fire, or ice...? The darting confusion in Selene’s purple eyes hoped for a denial, for it is not, exactly, what she imagined.

"Mmm. You might want to take a look at the garden yourself."

And with that, the newfound sense of urgency was founded upon Selene’s legs, her mind fluttering the childhood giggles when she would talk with the lilies as she bolted out of the room, this time tears actually shed for years of efforts, love and care undone, ungrateful for the miraculous monstrosities that so graceciously bestowed the blessings of destruction.

Still so rash and young, as always. Reprimanding once again like grumply old woman, her silvery pupils merely blinked exhausted as if the gesture could blink away the knawing relief of seeing her daughter out, as she glanced back at the reports that started it all.

Each lines from the Autopsy Report spoke of tragedies she was partly responsible for, partly allowed for under the dealings with Coriel the Dragon Elder. Her town, once stood and praised by the pope as a holy fortress, now a perfect disguise for her enemy to hide in the most daringly genius corner, biding times for tabooed experiments that would finally succeed. Adil sighed again, the final report’s name ’Manasseh’ hovered over her vision, as the mind of protecter was swarmed not with vengeance for the first time, but with complications she could not disguise even with decades of wisdom that came with her age.