Tales of Death´s Daughter

Sitting in the middle of the village where everyone had been murdered, I was surrounded by corpses on all sides. Death still lingered in the air, enough to heal my mental scars superficially, but far from fixing the underlying problems.

For several minutes, I sat in the mud, breathing in the chilly night air and looking at the stars.

“It’s time.” I told Hannah a little ominously and woke her up from a shallow slumber with that. Yawning loudly, she stretched her limbs for a minute or so and then gave me the thumbs up.

“It’s not raining, the twins are fed and the army is still cowering behind these walls … there isn’t a better time but now, is there?” She swung her sword around a few times to shake off the last bit of tiredness.

“Maybe tomorrow? My head still hurts …” I scratched my head which felt like it would explode any second now … which would be kind of funny in all honesty.

“Stop procrastinating.” She told me in a rather mean tone, but couldn’t help but to smile herself as I saluted like a soldier.

“Yes mam!” I shouted out and giggled a little, especially when she saluted back. “Let us gather the rest of the army at once!” There wasn’t any undead around anymore as they were all standing guard around the capital city, letting nobody inside or out. But the army I meant consisted of two girls, tearing a corpse apart as much as they could.

“It’s mine!” Clara shouted as soon as I opened the door, her hands grabbing onto the right arm of the corpse hanging in between the girls.

“Give it back! Theodore belongs to me!” Clarice didn’t back off at all, but rather pulled on his feet as much as she could.

“Since when does he have a name?” I asked a bit flabbergasted. But as they didn’t react to my words at all and rather continued to fight for the corpse, I grabbed Clara by her collar and Hannah dragged Clarice away from the corpse. “You two had enough fun. It’s time for work.”

“I hate working.” Clara shook her head in denial, but didn’t resist as I pulled her out of the tavern.

“You may kill a single person.” Both of them looked at me with bloodlust in their eyes, but none of them wanted to show their happiness too openly.

“Just one? Lucinda, that’s so mean!” Clarice complained, but there was nothing I could do, at least for this single night.

“I am not here to become a tyrant, understood? My reign will be just … for the most part.” I told them a bit threateningly. I would put them to good use, that was for sure, but I also couldn’t let them stroll around doing however they pleased. Just for the populace, I needed to be a somewhat just ruler.

“Cuteness is justice!” Clarice told me, hoping to get away with doing whatever she wanted.

“Strength is justice.” I told her while grabbing Clara’s neck a little tighter.

“How mean!” Clara added a bit desperate to get free from my grasp.

“Okay, cuteness is justice. But I can also be pretty cute, so I win.” Letting go of her, I gave the twins the sweetest smile I could muster which didn’t impress them that much.

“But you’re old. Old people aren’t cute.” The audacity of Clara was rather interesting, but I still could t hate them for their words. Smiling rather cruelly, I stared into Clara’s eyes and knew exactly what I needed to do.

“My sweet two dogs, I can assure you I will punish you for misbehaving. I will take your food away from you until you start licking up your own blood from the floor. I can assure you it’s not going to be a fun time.” I was once at that point … and I hated it. “And then, I will feed you again. If you still misbehave, the same thing will happen again, so please give me a reason to torture you.”

“Uhm …” They looked at each other a bit uneasily, but none dared to complain yet.

“But if you do behave, I can assure you I will make you happy. So kill who I need to die or go crazy from all the thirst you will experience.” I presented them with a fact. They had driven themselves into a corner in which they had no other choice but to obey me, just so that I would feel something for them. And yet, they didn’t seem to mind it that much.

“So … we are like assassins then?” Clara asked happily.

“Kind of.” I was honestly a bit stunned about their easy going attitude, but I shouldn’t have been too surprised. They just wanted to have fun in their life’s and someone who would take care of them in one form or another.

“Clara, we need black clothing.” Clarice stated as eager as her sister was.

“And throwing knifes!” Clara added and danced around happily while Hannah shook her head in desperation. These kids just didn’t level up their stats, but apparently also their resistances, especially the learning resistance.

“Girls, did you understand me?” I asked slowly and made sure to keep eye contact with the two of them.

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll be nice vampires.” They told me at the same time which made Hannah sigh in relief.

“… don’t tell me I haven’t warned you later.” I wouldn’t hesitate to set out what I claimed I would do, not even if they would beg and promise to change themselves.

“Sure thing!” They admitted and gave each other a high five before smiling at me. It did feel as if they wanted me to take control of their lives, just like a parent looked after their little kids.

“Then clean yourself and get dressed. Your attire is on the second floor of the tavern.”  I told them and turned around myself, leaving them right in the centre of all the corpses they weren’t allowed to touch. Apparently, they also didn’t feel the need to do so as they hadn’t murdered them and the bodies were rather old already.

Shrugging a little, Hannah and I entered another rather crude wooden house with two dresses on its bed. One – the more functional of the two – was definitely for Hannah as she might need to fight someone, while I obviously got the one with a lot of frills and colours I still didn’t like. Silver and white.

Well, I wore them so often in the past that changing my muddied clothes into these wasn’t that much of an issue though. I was still a bit depressed as I met the twins in their pitch black short dress. Even worse, they could wear their blades at their hips while mine was morphed into a snake, following me wherever I went.

“That’s so cool!” Clara said, bent down and picked the dark snake up with her hands.

“Can we give it a name?” Clarice jumped around exited and patted my weapon a little which honestly just felt weird. That snake or whatever form it currently had was like a limb of myself … a bit different, but still a part of me.

“Whatever.” I told them while Hannah took out a few maps from a backpack.

“Mr. Huggy!” Clara proposed with Clarice agreeing right away. Calling a snake like that was a great testimony to their fucked up nature, but I also thought the name wasn’t that bad. I wouldn’t use it anyway. Doing so would only underline my mental issues I was struggling with after all.

“How about we stop talking about my sword and rather write Hisstory?” I proposed with a slight smile on my face to distract the others from my hand gripping my heart.

“She did it!” Clara jumped around happily while making sure to land on stones as to not dirty her dress.

“What have you done … that’s coming back to bit you … fuck.” Hannah didn’t think much about what she said, did she?

“And Hannah as well?! Clara, what is happening here?” Clarice couldn’t believe Hannah and I were making jokes at all. But I did have to admit that we scaled that down since a while ago, so they might not have witnessed that yet.

“Is it our birthday?” Clara grabbed her chin deep in thought, waiting for her sister to lie for herself.

“It is!” Clarice shouted out happily, dropped the snake onto the ground and extended her hands towards me. “My gift?”

“You don’t have birthday today.” I knew that for sure. Her soul wasn’t keeping still at all as she claimed that, a rather obvious sign that she lied.

“We do.” They both crossed their arms in front of their chest and pouted a little unhappily which made me sigh and look towards the exit of the village a little.

“No you don’t.” I shook my head in denial, wondering how I got from telling them that I would torture them to … whatever this was.

“Please?” They begged with puppy eyes which did soften me up a little bit. Rolling my eyes, I reached out to them and patted their heads a bit while they went on their toes to get the most out of it.

“Happy birthday.” And they enjoyed it. Even though they must have known themselves that everything was fake, they didn’t mind it at all and rather used that opportunity I gave them to hug each other and laugh happily. “Does that mean we can do whatever we want today?”

“Let me think about it for a minute. Definitely not.” I growled quietly and the pitch black snake stood up as well, eyeing the two threateningly on my command with its red glowing eyes.

“But it´s our birthday!” I was honestly completely stunned. Never in my life did I expect someone to be as broken as they were. Surely, I was messed up as well in more than one way, but at least I didn’t construct my own reality anymore. Because that last sentence Clara uttered wasn’t a lie anymore. In a matter of seconds, they had convinced themselves that they were born on this very day – or they didn’t know it beforehand and decided on this day a short time before Clara´s statement.

“Is it really your birthday, Clarice?” I asked wondering how far their bond went.

“Yes!” Not a lie either. Certainly … these twins were something else, reminding me of myself when I was younger. I also believed in a lie, just because it was easier to live with … and it still would be all things considered. It was just too tempting to forget all that shit Aska had done to me.