The Reborn Witch had a nice 'Tea Time' with the Dragon Queen today
Chapter 61: Frost’s Lullaby

Chapter 61: Frost’s Lullaby

The tension is so suffocating that the massive block of ice that is ’556’ cannot help but shiver and melt. Selene joked as she darted between ’556’ and Demond, the witch’s icy diamonds threatening to crack under pressure. In her years of living as an adventurer, from the cackling laughters of goblins to a sneezing chortle from the Tyrant Dragon, infuriation is a bygone emotion for her years, yet she finds herself sparing some for that shade-tinged smile of the Dragon inside the child’s body.

"Is this a threat?" If so, she will still refuse to give in. She would save the elf if possible, but cold logic dictates the town’s safety to come first. But judging from the sickening mechanical tilt that seems more robot than the robot herself, the witch could almost envision the serpent that coiled around 556’s body, and her chest toiled into itself for how she recognised it’s a mere observation of her unease that fed this serpent.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Either would not have saved this child from <flooded>, and now with me using this child as the <main server>, her mind must have imploded with more junk data." The calm frequency of her voice measured not to the gravity of her word. The scientist knew full well she had more or less killed someone, but that someone remained a someone in her mind.

"Ah, so? For a coward only known how to hide behind another child, this mattered less than Rouen’s fate to you, right?" A snarky retort from the witch, as ice trail leaked from her bare feet again, a icefield that cackled the restaurant’s ground, and she could almost hear the elf’s screaming’s of loss for her restaurant, overlapped only by this serpent silent, tranquil and utterly unsettling smile.

"Indeed. I would claim myself as a coward, a coward petty enough to take ’revenge’ on the defeat I sowed myself." The doll’s neck creaked as she nodded, the wheel inside has rotted, the limbs a tattering clock of stutters and clutters. Soon, very soon.

"However, allow this scientist to clarify: I would never have allowed myself to kill innocents if the situations allowed. Another subject lost means another loss of growth that I need no monitors. Alas, this is not one of them."

The witch’s brows crackled at the almost subdued regret in her voice, the hypocrisy ever a stain in her pure, iced heart. "Then let her go. Her eyes are not for your leisure but to merely scratch up tea spills and cookie crumbs in the restaurant. Or are you going to eat your own word, Dragon Elder?"

The icefield seethed as it ferried Demond’s wrath, as the field meets the block of ice as if to purify the venom from inside a sealed monster. Coriel chuckled, the hoarse gear in the throat rusting her voice into a million pieces, like organic cogs splting into each other’s skins.

"I am not, but allow me a final word." Coriel’s shoulders loosened, and her head nodded as the purple hair tickled the plastic skins, the only sensation this child was left with before her death. "In an average lifespan for a <flooded>, 30 years would be considered a long one, and this child...has suffered through myriads till this point. So..."

Is she pitying her? The pitiful tone incurred a storm of outrage, each swirl of tornado a slice on her drickling patience, and each second wasted by this scientist spouting nonsense hurts this child more than this scientist ever could afford.

But the rusted lips merely smiled another grace. "So, what a beautiful end this child has received for an otherwise ordinary life."

A snowfield of silent rage twirled around Demond, the simple need of skinning the serpent from skins to skins marred her lasting rationality, yet as the venom-like <color> drifted away from 556’s body, her haunting smile slowly widening to reveal another soul inside, Demond took a deep deep breath, before subsiding the raging storm and the block of ice along with it.

Eyeing Selene, the knight’s confused steps stuttered only once before catching the elf mid-fall, her wide, signature smile, unchanged and untainted, yet the meaning behind it was different, as the oily limbs and cracked neck rustled uncomfortably, the large pupil shivering as if aware, and unaware of her fate soon enough.

"Customer...customer! Customer...." The hoarse throat of the automaton attempted to squeak out whatever strength she has been left with, the distorted ruts in her voice an utter disrespect to the poor attempt of a soul trying to untangle herself.

The Witch frowned, a pang of guilt for an innocent to be involved, yet the war veteran knew better than hesitating as she met Selene’s sorrowful gaze. "Put her down on the floor, Selene. I will encase her body in ice till we can find a way."

The trembling, puppy-like violets with half-shed tears nodded frantically, the franticness unfollowed by the tenderness as she laid the elf’s back and head onto the floor.

"Customer...customer....loading...did you...enjoy our new product?"

Our product...right, she has spouted our instead of my when she introduced her cookie, even if Demond is sure no other automatons could create such a bizarre product of Undine’s making, yet despite that, the inability to lie suggested a strong sense of belonging and fulfillment, as if all her achievement, all her happiness...belonged to her automaton sisters, just as it belonged to her.

"Yeah...it was ridiculous, but yes, I did enjoy it." A soft smile curled up on ice witch’s expression, her guilt and pity for the child a perfect blend of expresso in her lips. For a moment, the wide smile stuttered, faltered, yet it never dropped. Instead, the elf merely smiled wider, as wide as she can afford her plastic, rustled cheeks allowed, her teeth desperately clattered against her own skin before the lips curled into an innocent grin of a child.

"Thank you...thank you. Dear...Customer..."

Demond nodded, the heaviness that taunted her neck a submission to reality, as her staff pulsed with power raised for a <tale>, the <tale> a child who survived against the harshest winter, by living with the snows instead of fighting them.

"Small ember aflame. Innocence Retained. Creeps of frost Pertained."

Clusters and veins of frost crept up on the child, yet 556 felt merely tickles, almost as if the winter played a giggle on her skin, much like her heart cookies to her customers. The frost clusters craddled her as it engulfed her legs, body, arms, and face, like a child who plays and revels with winter.

"Engulf thy for not rage. Embrace thy for not mercy. But weave thy coldness for a brushing lullaby."

The coats of frost seeped deep into the child’s skin, the freshness as each drop of oil and each cluttering of gears halting for not an upcoming dread for an abyssal dread, but a glazing comfort of playfulness and protection, like a mother to a child, like...the <Motherbrain> to her and her sisters before her slumber.

"So in a cocoon not of darkness but of pure glace, may thy static rest this child for a tender slumber."

The frostly tickles engulfed and seeped into the child’s eyes as they were closed, her veins, body, and soul now encased within a cloak of ice, her plastic out of reach until her slumber awakens for a living tomorrow.

The restaurant was now left without its owner, as the elf’s comforting expression eternally froze for a new dawn that would eventually arrive. The cookie crumbs, still embedded on her palms, spoke of a hard-working puppet, tied to her sister, prideful of her sister, waiting for her sister, so that one day, she may share with them the happiness, the fulfillment for another ordinary day in the cafe.

Selene’s shoulder tightened in a solemn embrace, the wide grin of the child now a peaceful curve that awaited a new beginning, a haunting reminder of her failed duty as a knight. Her violets met the icy diamonds, the witch merely nodded her head, her eyes fluttering as if witnessing an old friend in the child’s icy shadow, one never to return, the other encased in an eternal embrace of the winter.

"Uncle Demond..."

The icy eyes blinked as the witch shook her head. How unbecoming of her, for such a moment is time for action, not grief, so that more incidents with the child will not come. She gazed back to Coriel, a newfound resolve alit even amongst her cold, rational heart.

"Let’s go. To Adil. Adrei hasn’t returned, and I’m afraid there’s something else impeding her steps."

With a nod from Selene, the ice witch dashed out the cafe, steps in sync for not another innocent life to be lost. Together, violets and diamonds stared back once again, the name ’Cherry’s Bliss’ still ridiculed and humourous, yet a solemn charm now marred their jokings for the cafe’s name, the wide smile of the owner never leaving their lingering thoughts as they rushed toward Adil’s mansion.

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