Chapter LII: A 'Pleasant' Morning

(Reyvin's pov)

I awaken with a tired yawn.

The meeting yesterday took almost the entire night and I only got a good hour of sleep. Thankfully I am not quite your usual mortal so I wouldn't have to spend the entire day feeling drowsy.

With a flick of my hand, I levitate myself up from my bed and go to grab my clothes.

Maybe I should soulbind them as well? Nah, that would be way too lazy even for me.

After making sure I looked presentable I make my way toward Sybille's room with a cheerful whistle tune leaving my mouth.

I knock a couple of times and hear a "Come in!" as I enter I can smell paint, and a somewhat disheveled Sybille leaves a different room with her hands stained in said paint.

She notices me staring and looks away for a moment, but then refocuses and gives me a smile "Why good morning Reyvin, here to invite me for a walk I take it?"

I raise an eyebrow and give her a wry smile "Not to be an ass, but you look like you need sleep more than a walk..."

She blinks a couple of times and looks herself over, then sighs "I may have gotten a tiny bit carried away last night..."

"Got a stroke of inspiration?" I ask, genuinely curious.

Once again she looks away for a moment, almost as if uncomfortable, and once again she quickly catches herself "I guess you could say that." She smirks "Now, unless you are here to join me I am going to go and clean myself up."

I shake my head "You go on ahead, I will cook something up."

Her smile brightens and she leaves.

Gooood, soon you too shall be addicted to caffeine... Wait, can vampires even get addicted to anything but blood? Hmmm... definitely something to experiment with in the future.

I get to work and she joins me after a while, now looking like she didn't spend the entire night either listening to Erikur or painting something with her face. We spend a leisurely morning chatting about yesterday's events and making mocking comments about Helm.

The man was a pretty good warrior, but a noble he most assuredly was not.

When I finally got to mention the part where Sheogorath was there she merely gave me a long dry look and pulled out a bottle of something far stronger than coffee.

As I was about to get to the part where I recruited Minthara we heard a knock at the door. And lo and behold there stood Davos looking like I pissed in his morning beer but still managing not to glare at me.

"Davos."

"Boss"

"The less whiny servant."

"B *Cough* Miss."

"What was that?" Sybille's eyes narrow.

I raise a placating hand and look at my vassal "What is it Davos?"

He sighs "I have to ask, did you really have to send me back to the cheese merchant's house?"

Sybille snorts.

"Why of course I did." I say cheerfully.

Davos takes a deep breath "I literally just sat there the entire night being stared at by the mad god while he raved about drowning the dragons in mozzarella..."

I hold back a laugh "So nothing happened to your charge?"

He nods "Nope, apparently there were some rumors about those who dared annoy 'Uncle Sheo' Word is they all turned up dismembered in random people's beds." as he explains his voice turns more and more dead "And you had me spend the night in that creature's presence..." he narrows his eyes "I can tolerate a lot of shit boss, but this is getting out of hand."

I nod slowly "Understandable. You can take a week off if you like and I swear to explain my reasoning for sending you there sometime soon."

He sighs "Thanks boss, and sorry for complaining."

"No, no." I wave him off "I kind of did take your service for granted. You can go do whatever when you bring Minthara and her 'sister'."

He gives me a grateful nod "That was the second thing, they are waiting downstairs in one of the garden pavilions."

I turn to Sybille "Want to help me out with healing some random slum girl?"

She gives me a dry look and huffs "Fine, it's not like I was enjoying just sitting here spending my time with you, might as well stop that for some random peasant."

I chuckle "Ah, but you are mistaken, my lady. For is it not far more interesting to spend time together AND practice our venerable craft at the same time?"

She faux-sighs "Very well, I have been convinced. Lead the way good sir."

We share a chuckle and follow a somewhat dumbfounded Davos downstairs.

---------------

(Minthara's pov)

Where in oblivion is he?! I think as I frantically pace around the uncomfortably clean and beautiful gardens, while receiving confused looks from the nearby guards.

Bella is laying down on one of the benches sleeping peacefully.

A gardener arrives and gives me a very odd look before turning to the guardsmen, who quickly inform him about it being 'Court Mage business', he leaves while grumbling about disrespectful youngsters ruining his work.

I barely contain an amused snort at this.

Soon there is a commotion and Davos, whose face I finally saw last night, leads two very well dressed individuals toward me.

One is a tall Breton woman with dark brown hair, wearing a beautiful yet functional black and red dress, her most striking detail however were the almost glowing red eyes... since when do Bretons have red eyes?

The other person I notice is an even taller Dunmer with long black hair and a scar across the left side of his face, his eyes of red and gold focusing intensely on me.

"I see you managed not to get murdered Minthara." A voice pleasantly calm yet still inured with the usual gravely traits of the Dunmer leaves the elf's mouth.

I blink "Do I know you?"

He chuckles and in the blink of an eye his clothes are replaced with armor and robes, and that same crown I saw yesterday now sits on his head, as his robes appear his voice switches from being calm to being dark and terrifying "This jog your memory?"

Everyone, including myself flinches on instinct. The woman, who I presume is the other court mage glares at her colleague and kicks him in the leg, not caring one bit about the armor.

I was expecting her to flinch away in pain, to start cursing at herself for being an idiot. What I was most assuredly not expecting was for the damn elf to flinch away in pain while she smiled smugly at him.

"Gods damn it woman, can't a Mer have his fun sometimes?" His crown disappears as he clutches his leg.

She giggles into her hand "Maybe next time make sure not to hit me with your aura, I don't like even the remnants of that filthy soul anywhere near me."

His glare lessens "Fiiinee" and as if nothing at all just happened he turns to me with that same relaxed cheer he carried with him before he almost got his leg kicked off "Now where were we?"

I deadpan "You were going to heal my sister and make sure all my siblings had somewhere to live?"

He nods sagely "Indeed I was."

The other mage gives him a strange look "I didn't know you were opening a charity Reyvin."

He shrugs and waves her off "Even if I was about to do that you know damn well I could feed a small hold and still have money left over to arm its guards."

I clear my throat forcefully.

He turns to me as if he forgot I was there "Ah yes, little dying peasant girl." He claps his hands completely ignoring my glare "Lets get to it then."

The two mages take their time looking over Bella, they mutter something between each other and soon share a nod.

The woman casts some kind of green spell at her, followed by a rose-ish red one, then a blood red circle appears around her hand as she yanks it back forcing black-ish blood to rush out of Bella's mouth in amounts that seemed far above what I consider healthy.

I am about to rush at her, to stop her from whatever she was doing but a hand grabs my shoulder and I turn to see Davos shaking his head "Just be patient kid, they might be completely loony but hey know what they are doing."

I take a deep breath and nod, turning back to the mages just in time to see that damned flaming bird appear again and both him and his master start casting bright golden healing magic, for a moment I feared he might be hurting her with all that power, but the color returning to her pale skin soon calmed my worries.

After a while the veritable storm of magic stopped and they shared a nod.

The Dunmer, while 'wiping his hands' in satisfaction approached me and started explaining with surprising seriousness "She had a growth in her lungs that kept slowly destroying them. Honestly I am not sure how she survived up to this point."

My thoughts drift to all the times I stole potions from the 'traders' as a small smile forces it's way onto my face.

He continues "So Sybille had to basically rip it out of her with blood magic while I regenerated her into a state where it would not be a problem again."

I blink at the information, but he gives me no chance to ask questions as he closes in and gives me a serious look "Now I want you to know that that kind of procedure is usually reserved only for the nobility."

I gulp, I see where this is going.

He sighs "Now I am not going to force the issue, I just wanted you to know that I did you quite the service just now, so all I ask is a bit of trust and patience from you." He smiles "That fair?"

I nod dumbly.

He claps his hands "Capital!" and looks at Davos "Can you please get Ingvar to assign her lot some place to live, tell him I have no problems with paying."

Davos sighs and mumbles "Free week my ass."

"Oh come on, its just a short trip." the mage pouts, actually pouts!

"Yeah, yeah boss." Davos turns to me "Come on kid, lets go get your lot sorted."

Before I can ask about Bella, the Court Mage waves to the guards "Come on lads, help the young lady on her way."

One of the guards gives a shallow bow and speaks with surprising amounts of respect "As you say Flame-tongue." immediately he and his colleague pick Bella up and form up behind us.

What did he do to earn such respect from my people? Who is this mer? And most importantly, what in oblivion does he want with me?

----------------------------------

Surprise normal stone request!

If you want to support me directly and get access to 30ish chapters (Just under 60k words) in advance visit my patreon page patreon .com/Rastislav156

If you want to discuss the story or just meme about join my discord server: https://discord. gg/Q4vCUvntB