Tales of Death´s Daughter

With a quiet ‘ding ding’ the door to a rather cozy place opened in front of us. Hannah did not want to go inside with us at all, probably already fearing the worst I could put her through.

But at least the twins were delightfully unaware of the terrors about to unfold.

“How can I help you three ladies in such troubling times?” A rather short lady asked behind a counter, her head barely sticking out from behind it.

“Troubling?” I asked innocently which immediately did put her off a little. Surely, she might have already guessed my real identity from just that, but chose not to say anything.

“Hmm … I heard most of the guards put down their work which is usually a bad sign for us but … well, the criminals are apparently in awe of your beauty. But enough of this, are you three here for a few new dresses?” Ignoring all the issues at hand was indeed a standpoint I could get behind quickly. I nodded towards her a bit thankful and retrieved the key from a small purse.

“Indeed we are. But we also came for the chest your ancestors were given. I assume you still have it?” I showed her the presumed size of the item I was looking for with my hands.

“I … do not know what you are talking about.” Luckily, this turned out to be a rather blatant lie. She knew very well what her ancestors gave her, that was for sure.

“It has a three pronged crown on it … it should be pretty obvious. How about you search for it in your back room?” I pointed through the room towards a closed door.

“I will look for it at once.” The seamstress bowed respectfully, scooted through the presentation room full of colourful dresses and fabric and went towards the back room. Thankfully, she didn’t hide it there as the twins and I had to wait several minutes for her to come back with a small golden chest, the key fitting perfectly inside its lock. A satisfying ‘click’ later, the lid opened for the first time in hundreds of years. The seamstress looked with barely hidden interest inside – after all it was their family heirlooms – but couldn’t contain her disappointment as she saw a black stick laying on the ground, runes engraved into it.

“What is this?” The seamstress asked while I grabbed into the box and retrieved the cold black stick.

“Back in my days, people needed wands to use magic.” I told her with a rather cheeky smile on my face.

“Really?” Clara asked a little surprised and eyed the stick with exceptional desires in her eyes.

“No, not at all.” Giggling a little, I threw the stick into the air, caught it again and placed it on the counter. “But enough of that. Clara, Clarice, did anything catch your attention?”

“The black one!” Hmm … no. Surely, that dress would look nice on her but we weren’t there for just a single dress.

“You can wear that on my twelf thousand’s funeral.” I told her and pointed towards a red one. “Wear that.”

Ahh … the joys of forcing others through the same pain the old Mary put me in was truly great. Seeing them in different ill fitted attires was truly healing my heart. White, yellow, orange, green and even pink were all colours they despised from the bottom of their heart even though they looked so cute in them. I just couldn’t help but smile whenever they wore a new one, partly because they were suffereing so brilliantly, partly because I could skip on that for the day. I already had my wardrobe in the capital city while they only had a few attires with them and none fitted the requirements I had.

Well, I wasn’t so keen on presenting them to the public either, but one might never know.

Two hours later, the twins had worn anything remotely fitting them, their gaze filled with barely hidden hatred at me the whole time and yet I couldn’t help but smile.

“We’ll get you something nice to eat in a little bit.” I told them which did seem to put them in a better mood. “Miss Schneider, thank you for your serive to this country. Please deliver the dresses as soon as possible.” And with that, the twins were freed from their shackles and dashed outside, ringing the bell on the door involuntarily once more. “Have a great night!”

It was people like the seamstress that made me believe it was the right decision not to destroy every bridge I had to the ‘normal’ world. She was simple and most importantly, helped me immensely with the twins’ attire. Sure, I could have done so myself but that would take a lot of time I didn’t have. Relegating tasks was a good idea on the evil side of things as well, but good luck finding an acceptably skilled seamstress there.

“Hannah, she bullied us! Please, do something.” Once the twins were just a few metres away from me, they immediately complained to Hannah who sat on the bench on the outside and read the newspaper under the shine of a magical lamp.

“Bohoo. You know she likes it even more when you show her how much you hate picking out dresses? She is thriving on your despair. Lucy, did you get everything?” Hannah told them with amusement written all over her face.

I showed her the black stick I got from the seamstress and threw it over to her carelessly.

“Great, with that we can retrieve it.” Hannah said.

“What are we even searching for?” Clarice asked wondering.

“The weapon of weapons. A way to make even Lucy here do everything whatever the wielder wants.” Hannah explained laughingly.

“Is it destructive?” Clara was honestly way too excited and still stared at the black stick with desire, copying her sister fully.

“Absolutely. It’s tearing families apart like no other weapon.”  Truly, what we were searching for had the capacity to do that. As such, the twins basically followed us without shutting up at all. They were eager to know more about this weapon, so much so that they listened to every word we uttered on the way.

This time though, we were recognized by several people thanks to our conversation and my recognizable voice. Interestingly enough, the commoners were less inclined to blame us for everything and some didn’t seem to mind the king´s death at all. In fact, they were more interested about the future than anything else which was kind of refreshing if I was entirely honest.

But that also sadly slowed our pace down quite a bit, which was why we were running late as we arrived at the next spot on my list. It was a tavern. I mean, what else could it be?

As a group of four, we strolled inside and were immediately recognized by the owner of the place, also known as someone who smuggled magical artefacts.

“Mr. Sammler, it´s a pleasure to meet you.” I told him and sat down on the stool in front of the counter along with my friends.

“The pleasure is all mine, my saint.” He immediately eyed the black stick in Hannah´s hand who then carefully slid it over towards him. “Impossible. I thought you were making fun of me … the saint visiting my humble tavern with … with a twig of the dead world tree … how did you get that?” Well, considering the elves protected that tree with their lives on the line, his stunned expression was to be expected. But still, did he seriously believe us to tell him our trade secret?

“I asked kindly.” It wasn’t mine in the first place. It was Tom´s and I asked for it. As such, I didn’t even lie. But seriously though, I didn’t even know how he got his filthy hands on it, but whatever. It was basically useless anyway as it value mostly came from its symbolic nature. Otherwise the elves could apparently do some crazy shit with it, but Hannah didn’t seem to know what to do with it as she never lived with them. As such, it was quite useless for us and we could give it away easily, as long as we got something back for it.

“Hmm … we haven’t talked about the price, did we?” He inspected the twig closely but couldn’t find anything suspicious. As far as I knew, it did have some magical properties which I was too normal to feel.

“I guess not. It’s yours as long as you hand out free beers to everyone tonight.” I proposed with a wide smile on my face. I thought the payment was acceptable, even though the job wouldn’t be risk free.

“That’s too good to be true.” He told me with a healthy dose of suspicion. And truth to be told, he was right.

“Oh and you have to entertain the twins tonight.” With my thumb, I pointed towards my right as the twins looked at me dumbly.

“Huh?” Both of them said in unison.

“That’s the answer to your questions. Alcohol is tearing families apart like no other weapon.” They were searching for it and now they got the answer. And yet, they weren’t exactly happy about the revelation at all.

“But … you made fun of us the whole time? We weren’t going to retrieve some awesome weapon?” Clara grabbed my arm stupefied while I laughed loudly.

“Nope, tonight you will learn two things. One is to socialise with normal people and the other is to be more independent.” I wasn’t certain they would need to learn that, but it was better save than sorry in that regard. I certainly didn’t want them to follow me around scaring all the others after all.

“But that’s unfair! We want to follow you!” And I wanted to live freely as well, but nobody cared about that either.

“I’m just choosing your grave in case you hurt anyone. It’s going to be boring. Mr. Sammler, I entrust these two to you. Have a great night.” Clara let go of my arm reluctantly after I gazed towards her. Happily, I turned around on that stool and hopped off it. “Free beer for everyone sponsored by the saint herself! Have a great night you all!” The visitors were kind of surprised to see me there, but erupted into cheers nonetheless. It didn’t matter who I was for them as long as their mugs were filled. “But please, do talk to these cute girls here. And don’t be shy, they don’t bite.”

Laughing a little bit too happily, I strolled out of the tavern with Hannah in tow despite several attempts to entrap me in a useless conversation. Even though I wanted to polish my image a little, I had other, more important stuff to do as well.