17

O(I)O(I)

Pief was told growing up kids who are siblings are supposed to hate each other but at a certain point in their blossoming path to adulthood they stick together like hot wax or the bones smelted to make war hammers, however, the same couldn't be said for her and Lenisa. They were estranged only sending a letter every fortnight to assure the other they were still alive and breathing, but for Lenisa all Pief had to do was find two men running in the street exclaiming about the show her beautiful sister was going to be in.

Lenisa has been getting all the attention ever since she was born only one year before her petite sibling.

When she was only one she radiated like the sun and everyone loved her. Through that love her parents tried to conceive another child hoping it would be just as primadonna as her sister...

After seeing what their second child looked like...their father immediately cut off his ability to produce children as not to create the same mistake with a vial he obtained from a shady position shop.

Now here they were—the child who always radiated confidence and beauty with the child who gloomed until she let her work speak for her—eating cake and drinking tea with Pief waiting for the moment her sister would ask her for a favor.

"Can you take a few weeks off from your job?" Lenisa asked.

Pief stirred her finger in a spiral in her tea both trying to show how uninterested she was in the conversation she was having with her sister and trying to take out the tea bag. Although Lenisa still looked like a picturesque model like she was in her posters there was a wriggle in her eyebrows trying not to let her image look any grungier.

"I know all parts of me are coquettishly hard to look away from, but you can look at more than my eyebrows."

"I cannot take any time away from work." Pief tilted. "My pay: everyday I come in and work I make 65 smik, save half of it for my rent which is 900 smik a month, and every week I buy groceries which are 50 to 100 smik. Ergo, I have to earn 1300 smik by the end of the month and to do that I would need to work twenty days at minimum a month, and I had to take three days off this month for...reasons."

Again, Lenisa's eyebrow wriggled. "But sis...you must have some smik saved up for your rent and groceries when you get—"

"EXACTLY!" She roared, for a fleeting moment her eyes were burning yellow like sulfur.

Lenisa's bodyguards moving their hands about to shield her if the situation escalated. It was only when Pief raised her cup by the handle, fluttered it to her neckline before she poured the tea on her plate. Pief glared at her sister just looking at bodyguards even after they diverged from her. Irked, Pief raised the plate to her mouth and tilted it until the tea was spilling down into her awaiting mouth.

Even after making a scene, people mostly old people with geriatrics handcrafted by none other than dwarves themselves and couples holding hands were gawking in confusion at her, Pief handed her sister the cup before cuffing her hands out like a beggared.

"Pour me, now."

Lenisa would've been embarrassed over Pief behaving like a spoiled brat if they were anywhere near her opera; people finding out they were siblings would make her want to throw herself off a cliff. After a prolong amount of Pief seething out tumultuous growls awaiting her tea, one of Lenisa's bodyguards reached down to be the one who would fulfill Pief's request only to be caught off-guard by his bosses' arm moving a lot faster than his.

She poured, Pief drank, and those hale yellow eyes receded back being replaced with her normal color.

"Feels good to be loud to me when we're not vying for mom and dad's attention, doesn't it?"

Lenisa had only begun to vent, and it was a good thing Pief had something to tingle her mouth while she lamented.

"Mom and dad always told me to look out for you. They spent more time with you than they ever did with me. They gave you more hugs and taught you to never do anything to draw attention—do you know how many times I needed you by my side when their was a crowd of people leaving me entrapped in the spotlight? No, you wouldn't, because you never even try to act like a sister who has a shred of empathy towards the only other person who ever tried to get close to you."

Pief waited until her sister was done since she and many other siblings had a habit of interrupting one another, and then she spoke.

"Mom and dad also never spent what they couldn't get get through hard work, but you spend eighty percent of what you make from a show on dresses, shoes, perfumes, and let's not forget the big F: filigree."

Enraged Lenisa was, especially when Pief was a part of her spending problem, but she wasn't so enraged she couldn't hear one of her bodyguards talk about a date with a man that didn't go very well. Once Pief was done, she handed her a scroll rolled up with a red ribbon.

"It's funny you would talk about my filigree because I called you here specifically so I could get you to help me find something no other filigree has: a soul. And this soul has a name, Yàobān."

Pief had so many questions, but before she could ask her sister those questions she first had to examine what was in the scroll.

It looked like a perfectly black stenciled sketch of a tiara but instead of gems or jewelry had golden bars conjoined with black slits. And in the center was a short haired woman's face with braids and three eyes instead of two with her eyes closed.

"This is just another dwarf trinket. Why don't you go to the underground city Bién and ask one of their craftsmen to make you one of their 'guarantee to last forever' stuff they give names and souls too?"

She tapped her fingers against the table before she bothered answering her sisters' question.

"Because this one was already made; I just need to find it. My plan was to originally ask if you could post a job on the board for an adventurer to find it, but I know you, Pief, and I know you can find just about anything when you really try. So help me find it, please."

Pief could give it to her sister; she was the only one who could make her stomach feel foul just by giving her a compliment. Her brain processed this information until a gust of wind caused her mind to jolt like the hammer of a giants' fist!

"Okay, I'll do it. I'll help you get the filigree than we can discuss my reward."

Lenise smiled for a fleeting moment before she scowled.

"Let's get out of here, boys."

Lenise tried to saunter back to her hotel, the luxury one most hard working simple folk couldn't afford even a night in, but she was blocked by her sister, being the one who was scowling now.

"Thanks for the cake and tea, sis. I don't think I'll ever have that again; even on your birthday."

Pief said what was eating inside her conscious; she left. Behind Lenise her bodyguards started murmuring to each other.

"Did your date go well?" The bodyguard on the left asked.

"No. It was like right before we were about to head to a hotel...he wasn't attracted to me anymore." The other bodyguard said, slumped his shoulders looking depressed.

The other bodyguard patted him on the shoulder.

"Don't let this date deter you. Your a good guy. If I was interested in men too, we could have been-"

His friend gingerly touched his fingers before prying them off.

"I'm not gay for you!"

O(I)O(I)

The king was blessed with more than a magnificent castle that towered over shops and homes all small and quaint. The king had a daughter...who was a bit of an inner shell.

Her skin was wheat white, her eyes orange like the peaches she found so plump and juicy. She wore a sleeveless frilly pink dress with an aquamarine tutu. She had porcelain earrings that resembled the pried out jagged teeth of a shark; and walked with ballet white shoes one laced and the other untied.

Before her stood none other than her uncle and two guards armored from the weird looking helms that resembled a Chinese dragons' face, their gauntlets all silver except for the black tinted metallic metacarpal in the middle, arrow tips etched on their breastplates with an outline of white and an inside green pointing up from their chainmail pants to the neckline with a garter belt cowl.

Her uncle stood 6'4", a lanky man with barely any belly fat, wore green robes speckled with white shapes all over mostly in his shoulder area, four horns protruding that were really just blonde hair only bull-esque in appearance, tanned, had a goatee, a five o'clock shadow, and crimson eyes. He stared at her with a straight face; the same one he would make if they were in a board meeting.

"Lumina, I know it's distressing only getting to see your father three days at most out of the week, but you still must respect the rules and not disturb him when he doesn't want to leave." Her uncle spoke in a monotone voice. It irked her having him act so highly and mighty; she was a princess and he was just a record keeper.

"My father isn't grieving. He has a mental disease; he needs to get out of bed. His castle, his village, and I need him."

To her surprise what she said actually convinced him to let her through. He opened the door for her and she walked in-keeping her eyes fixated on the trio of men as she tiptoed inside the room-and what a murky pigs nest it had become from the swath of wine stains on the floor to the smell of pig feces wafting throughout the room.

There, just wriggling in the bed sheets, was the silhouette of her father. It was hard to see him but she remembered every miniscule detail from his looks to his filigree to his attire and his one big tattoo.

He was always a grizzled blond man even before he underwent weeks without shaving and lubricate his face with chicken and potatoes. He was caped with the fur of the largest, ruthless beasts that were destroying the ecosystem with their ravenous hunger devouring any animal in a one to fifty mile radius; mostly a white-stripped only black furred chimera-panther. Although he was always fat he had muscles the size of a slime. He could only wear another cape to hide his giant legs. His eyes shimmered amber like the only currency he didn't give away to his people. Now-he was jus a trembling, massive lump that would react to even the slightest touch.

"Father? It's me, Lu-"

"FWOOSEEEHH!"

Instead of being greeted by his adventurous, positive voice he used too have she only saw him flail in his bed like a pig hanged upside down with its tiny paw caught in a noose.

He swayed his giant lump rear end, scratched frantically against the bed sheets with his fingernails, and bellowed out that disturbing sound that left his daughter utterly petrified; she was speechless while her arms quivered with a ghostly chill.

Most people would be horror-stricken seeing someone behave this way—and Lumine too would run if she didn't remember all the hardships her parents went through.

She stepped back, raised her heels back against the door, then dashed a short distance before jumping off leaping on top of her father and then they both left the area when a popping sound (popped from her ribs.

The sound reverberated from the room into the hallway where her uncle encompassed the door leading inside. His eyes twitched, his shoulders started to stiffen, and he stood still while an orange sheen flitted in his eyes.

He told the knights "My brother and my niece have vanished."

Both knights turned to face the other like they were about to murmur something to the other, but in the end the left knight spoke to his "teacher".

"Does that mean control of the village falls on you?"

He stared stationary before he nodded.

A glimmer of joy was shown on their faces when both the knights smiled.

"Hooray." The one on the right exclaimed. "You get to—"

"No." He responded with a cold tone and raising his right hand to their faces. "There is no joy being a ruler with no family. I may be in charge now, but every smik that is collected via taxes and donations will be sent to the people who need it: the peasants down the road, the guilds, and the orphanages. As for the church...we will collect their art and their vases and give them to those who deserve it." That last remark really surprised the knights almost as much as everything he said before it. "We never needed a building to tell us how history was made or how we should have faith...all we need is a good book."

O(I)O(I)

Yesterday night was a very unpleasant sleepover for Saitama-even though he was staying with good people they didn't have a comfortable bed-but tonight he was sleeping in one room of a two story inn with purple bedsheets and sheep wool covers.

Moonlight cascaded through the window showing a one bed and a desk with no books or quills for him to write with. The air inside was very clean with very any lint or cotton balls fluttering in the air even though there were no vacuum cleaners in this world and even though it still smelled great inside the food was terrible; too many bones in anything that had to be killed and cooked, or at least just the fish Saitama had for dinner, and to add insult to his country...he didn't even get to eat it with chopsticks.

Although the service was dreadful it wouldn't have bothered him if he just got at least six hours of sleep; he tried to avoid those displeasing slurping noises...

"Wait...they gave me nothing to drink with my meal," he said out loud realizing how ludicrous those sounds were.

With his mind racing at full tilt, questions he had he couldn't doze off with until they were answered, he stiffly moved his body upright before darting his beady eyes side by side-almost immediately he discovered the source of the noises: two ghostly white/transparent girls drinking cups also white and transparent in a way that annoyed the nihilistic hero.

The one on the left, the one with pigtails tied at the end with rings, gazed into Saitama's eyes and smiled.

"Hello, great hero. We just came to thank you for finally helping us achieve peace—and we just want to stay a little longer to help you with one more mission."