Last Born Of The Desdemona-Chapter 37: Garden

Chapter 37 – Garden

The darkness of the night had receded, the morning sun gracing the sky, blazing like a flaming yellow disk on white snow.

The early birds were already chirping, flying across the sky in search of their daily sustenance.

An inspiring sight, if one was willing to sit and think about it.

Ananke was not. Her whole attention was fixed on Isolde’s room, where the couple was eating breakfast and glaring at each other.

Watching the scene, the Goddess — now labelled Queen of Fate by her Blessed — couldn’t help but wish, just for a moment, for popcorn and a drink.

Even without it, she was thoroughly enjoying herself, laughing in a way she hadn’t in a very long time.

"This is simply ridiculous." Cassius said, narrowing his eyes at Isolde. "How in the Queen’s name can you not sleep without slamming your arms and legs into my face?"

"I did no such thing." Isolde hissed. "And I told you to keep your distance from me, didn’t I?"

"Woman," Cassius replied, taking a sip of the poisoned tea, "I stayed as far away as humanly possible. And that still didn’t stop you from rolling over to my spot to box me with your limbs."

"Your spot?" Isolde arched an eyebrow. "Mind you, bastard, this is my Pavilion, my room, and this—" she pointed at the bed "—is my goddamn bed. I sleep however I want in it."

"Just admit you are a restless sleeper." He said. "You should have told me that from the start."

"You want to talk?" Isolde pressed her lips into a thin smile. "Let’s talk about your snoring then, shall we?" She grabbed her head as if reliving the whole night. "I swear on Vorn’s wicked eyes I have never heard anything so irritating. It sounded like a broken carriage being dragged across an uneven rocky road."

Cassius’s lips twitched. His eyes narrowed stubbornly. "I do not snore."

[Yes, you do, Cassius.]

"You absolutely do."

He fell silent at the combined answer of both his Goddess and his soon-to-be wife. They didn’t know it yet, but it was the first time Ananke and Isolde had been on the same wavelength about anything.

"It can’t be that bad." He countered, unwilling to concede. "Not as bad as you boxing my face in my own spot, certainly. And honestly, I would have preferred a hug with—!"

"Stop right there." Isolde warned, pointing her eating knife at him. "One more indecent word and you will regret it."

Cassius said nothing for three beats, then smiled, parting his lips at the same moment he launched himself backward with a small burst of fire.

"A hug with something heavy against my back!" He said with a mocking grin, already at the door.

Isolde’s face went red. She froze for a moment, not expecting him to actually say it, and that moment was all Cassius needed to disappear out the door.

Isolde bellowed in anger, leaped over the breakfast table, and followed.

"CASSIUS!"

He heard it perfectly, laughed, and didn’t bother to respond. He kept running, small bursts of fire under his feet carrying him through corridors and alleyways.

He had no idea where he was going. He was just following the amusement that had taken hold of him.

Ananke shook her head at her Blessed’s childishness.

After a moment Cassius glanced back and saw Isolde closing the gap with a speed considerably greater than his. She would catch him quickly, he could tell.

He didn’t particularly care. Instead he raised his eyes overhead, looking at the two Snake Loops hovering.

The First was a hair away from closing. Just a hair, but the loop had stopped making progress entirely. This was the Adaptation of Isolde’s presence. He needed something significant to close it. He had an idea what, though it would be difficult given her personality.

He wouldn’t give up, though.

The Second Loop was the Adaptation to Isolde’s poisons. He was grateful she was being restrained enough to use just enough for him to feel it and dispel it after circulating his essence for a few minutes.

The loop was progressing, albeit slowly.

’It feels like she is deliberately making me immune to them.’ He thought, the wind slamming against his face just as a completely different view opened in front of him.

His eyes widened slightly. He leaped forward and entered a small garden.

"Bastard!" Isolde shouted behind him, then stopped just the same way, as if only now realising where he had gone.

The two of them found themselves standing in a small garden, purple flowers blanketing the ground. Green and black bamboo trees jutted upward on all sides, a small clear-water pond sitting in the middle. Crows flew peacefully overhead.

A path made of rocks led toward the pond and Cassius stood at its beginning. Isolde walked slowly to his left.

Her anger, or rather her embarrassment, seemed to dissolve entirely at the sight of her garden. A small unconscious smile crept to her lips.

"I did it." Isolde said suddenly. She regretted it immediately, unsure why she’d said it at all, but Cassius was already looking at her. She twisted her tongue inside her mouth before continuing.

"I took care of this garden myself from the first day I was given this Pavilion." She whispered, eyes moving over everything with a look full of melancholy. "I planted the bamboo trees and watered them. I tended the flowers. I laid this rocky path to the pond by hand."

Her voice carried a note of pride. The kind that came from doing something entirely on your own.

"You must have given everything to it." Cassius said, lips curling upward. "This is a beautiful place."

Isolde said nothing, hands clenched tightly behind her back, not knowing what to say. However, what words couldn’t express, her heart did perfectly as a wave of joy and sadness washing over her simultaneously.

Joy that someone saw the effort she had put into something.

Sadness that her parents hadn’t even bothered to come look, despite all her begging. She had wanted so much to show them she was still worth something.

Something only she could give, as Anesthesia was not the type to use her hands for anything like this.

But her parents had only asked why she was doing servants’ work. Why she was wasting time she could use to train.

Isolde had been more than disappointed, something in her pride and confidence had been permanently scarred by it. Over time she had come to avoid the garden because of the memories attached to it, even as she continued to tend it quietly.

She sighed and lowered her head.

"That makes me think." Cassius suddenly said, pulling her eyes back up as he walked toward the clear-water pond. "There are still many things I don’t know about you."

’The game never mentioned this pond. Ah...the game, the game! Cassius, for fuck’s sake, you are not in a game anymore!’ He berated himself for still half-seeing things through that lens.

This was not a game. And Isolde was not a character. She was a person with emotions, aspirations, and pain the game had never bothered to show.

He needed to stop telling himself he already knew her.

That was why...

"I know it’s a cliché but hey..." he chuckled. "How about you tell me about yourself?" Cassius asked, turning his head to look at her over his shoulder with a genuine smile. "I promise I’ll be a good listener."

Isolde stood transfixed at the scene: Cassius in his white sleeved shirt folded past the elbow, black pants, the sun shining directly overhead, looking at her with that smile.

She couldn’t help but admit it.

’He is beautiful.’

He truly was. But that wasn’t what made her heart speed up.

It was his eyes. His smile. His presence.

All of it fixed entirely on her, ignoring the beautiful garden around them, as if she were the most important thing within it.

She didn’t notice when, but her mouth was already opening, her feet already carrying her toward him.

"It will take time, you know." She said, her voice softer than she’d expected.

"We have all day."

"You will get bored. My life is nothing interesting. It’s just everything you already seem to know."

"Let me be the judge of that, darling."

She stood beside him, and drew a slow breath. "Will you share yours too?" She glanced at him. "You are nothing like everyone believes."

Cassius laughed. "Don’t you know the words in The Tales of The Fool?" He quoted quietly, "We are always made larger than ourselves by the world: some better, some worse, some only more complicated."

He looked at her, their eyes locking. "Am I worse, or better, or more complicated than what the world believes, darling?"

"All of them." Isolde answered immediately. "Which ultimately makes you more complicated."

"A compliment?"

"Depends on how you look at it."

He laughed. "So, will you tell me?"

"Will you?" She countered.

"Yes. I will."

Isolde nodded, strangely pleased. "Then I—!"

Their bodies reacted before their minds registered the presence. Both Cassius and Isolde spun around, trembling for entirely different reasons.

Above the garden wall, two beings stood.

A woman and a man.

The woman bore similar features to Isolde, yet was strangely different. She wore a black leggings, a white skirt, a sleeved shirt. Her presence was like something you had always wanted to see, impossible to look away from, with the dangerous smile and curving, laughing eyes.

The man beside her was seated on the wall, a sword, covered completely by a boundlessly dark lightless cloth, resting across his lap. He has golden hair more golden than the sun and blue eyes that sizzled like lightning yet ran deep as the sea.

Those piercing eyes were fixed on Cassius, frowning subtly.

Cassius instinctively stiffened, feeling Isolde trembling beside him.

Then they — or rather she — spoke.

"Are we interrupting something?" Anesthesia asked, smiling so brightly the sun seemed to pale beside her.

’Oh, Queen above...’

—End of Chapter 37—