Tales of Death´s Daughter

What a beautiful day it was! The birds were singing outside the window, the sky was so orange, it was incredibly tempting to go into the garden and relax for the rest of the day, however short it may be. Well, it was Sunday, so there were no workers at the mansion, and yet, I was still inside, laying on my bed with a question inside my head I couldn’t answer the whole day.

To stab or not to stab, that was the question. And I was unsure what to pick. Could you imagine me, a righteous noble, to hold a dagger above someone´s heart? And I was incredibly tempted to simply end Lucinda´s life the whole day, just like she wanted.

If I learned one thing about her during the last few hours, then that she desperately wanted to be my family, whatever that meant in her twisted way of thinking. And the letter, titled with ‘A way of stopping an elven human war’ and its contents certainly proved that. Her logic was undeniably unique but strangely realistic in a way. It could be pulled off with or without Lucinda´s help. I only needed to sacrifice most of what I had if I chose to do it alone.

I just had to lynch her in her sleep and this nightmare would be over. It was only a few centimetres through her dress and into her heart … I couldn’t. What right did I have to murder her if I didn’t even know a thing about her? Sure, she was cruel, I knew that and she liked to draw the worst out of everyone, including me. Heck, I felt great as she slaughtered the maid in front of my eyes and so many years of suffering under Arthur were beginning to come to an end. As soon as she went to war though, these feelings changed because, in the end, I was the reason for someone to die.

She corrupted everyone around her, knowingly or not. And now, it was apparently my turn to fall for the dark side completely, either through killing her or through accepting her and eventually the actions she committed.

“Yo.” I yelped as a male voice resounded right next to me that shouldn’t be there. I obviously closed the door, but I must have been so deep in thought that I didn’t realize how Tom sneaked into the room. “Can I have that?” Tom pointed towards the letter to my right with great interest.

“Ehm … aren’t you worried that I … you know, stab her?” I pointed out and ignored his brazen intrusion into my private rooms. He thought about the question for a second, leaned back onto a wall and then scratched his cheek.

“Nah. She deserves to get stabbed if she lets her emotions run rampant. Can I have that now?” He was still more interested in Lucinda´s plan than her life which made the whole situation incredibly bizarre. For good measure, I grabbed the letter and pulled it closer to me so that he couldn’t wrestle it out of my control easily.

“What do you mean by letting her emotions run rampant?” I asked and eyed the outside suspiciously. His timing was certainly not random as the time we were able to converse was incredibly short.

“Uh… how should I put it. Whatever she did before meeting this girl in the army, she probably never had to deal with these stupid emotions like familial love or friendship. And you know, she is really not great at controlling her emotions if she isn´t in danger. Can I have that letter now or not?” Tom was incredibly persistent on reading that letter which I didn’t understand at all. I thought Lucinda and he were in the same boat all the time and Tom knew what was going on, but apparently, this wasn’t the case at all.

“Tom, what do you really know about her?” Lucinda didn’t seem to like small talk that much and rather kept everything about her closed behind an iron gate.

“Not much, now that you ask. Please give me the letter, I really want to know what she planned.” He seemed almost disinterested in her past as if it didn’t impact him in any way. And yet, he was willingly following her for some reason.

“She told me she was raised by a god.” That should be something he should be concerned about, no matter what he claims. He scratched his cheek, stared out of the window and then simply shrugged.

“That sound incredible. The letter?” He sounded incredibly bored as if he didn’t care in the slightest about her past.

“She said she was whipped.” I said and watched his reaction intensely. Nothing. He wasn’t even blinking, but rather stared at me with a bored expression.

“Where are we going with this? L.E.T.T.E.R?” He finally said, a bit annoyed by me.

“Tom, what will she do to this world when she has the power to do so?” I asked bluntly. If she was going to ruin everything, there was no way I wouldn’t stab her right then.

“Well, considering that she saved the world once already, I doubt she wants to destroy it if you mean that.” His words sounded illogical as I couldn’t believe that this little smiling devil, resting peacefully in my arms, would ever do something beneficial for the world.

“She saved the world? How?” I asked, not really trusting his words at all.

“Alright, there was this parasitic worm thingy spreading in the army and she dealt with the problem. The. Letter. Please.” Now that he mentioned it, it did seem completely illogical to murder everyone in the whole army. The whole army certainly suffered greatly under the defeat and if she wants to use the kingdom in the future, which I assumed given her current plans, then her actions were detrimental to her. There is only one solution I haven´t thought about.

“She isn’t evil?” I blurted out, not really believing these words myself.

“What? Are you insane? A good person would try to save everyone while she simply sent them all to die. It was the easiest solution to her problems … I don’t doubt one second she liked it though. She was probably drooling from the chaos she spread.” He claimed. I didn’t understand the world anymore. He could have just nodded and maybe I would have started to believe Lucinda somewhat, which was exactly what she wanted.

“You told me she is pure evil. Did you change your opinion?” I asked, slightly confused.

“No, not at all. She is a flower that blooms through bloodshed. I have never seen someone laughing hysterically like her as she murdered one bandit after another. Or the glee in her eyes as she sent her knights out on a suicide mission, that was beautiful as well. But she never used useless violence so far, it was always with an intent, always calculated all the way through. So in a sense, you are in a very unique position. You will never be able to drag her out of the darkness that shrouds her whole being. Once you look away from her for one second, she will murder, she will drink human blood and she will spread terror wherever she goes. So please, throw her away and watch the world burn.”

Tom was frustrated. That was it. He was against Lucinda´s current course of being friendly to me and what was even worse for him, was that he could do nothing against it. If I understood it correctly, then they weren’t the team I made them out to be. Instead, Tom was thirsting for destruction while Lucinda … well, that was the question. He didn’t know what she was up to, and neither did I. She was a mystery through and through.

“There is another option and that is to kill her right now.” I claimed and worryingly watched how the last sun rays were about to disappear.

“Do it. Do it and fall for the kind of darkness you will never be able to shake off. You will feel the kind of darkness that creeps into your sleep and torments you until you die. Trust me, you don’t have what it takes to be a ruthless killer, not even remotely. In all honestly, you don’t even want to kill her. She is the person that dragged you out of your misery and you know that without her, you will go back to your stale, boring life.” He said as if he knew what he was talking about.

“A boring life is better than watching the world burn.” I claimed enthusiastically.

“Debatable. You have one minute until the sun sets completely. It´s now or never. You cannot break free from us in the future without dire consequences.”

“… I …” There was no good decision. Objectively, it would have been better to murder Lucinda right here, but this girl … I had to admit she already crept into my heart at least a little bit. Time and time again she tried to befriend me through her own ways and even went so far as to risk her life for it.

“… cookies …” Lucinda was just waking up and immediately started to mumble about food again. This girl was seriously unique in every regard. Even in her drowsy state with barely closed eyes, she was truly a force to be reckoned with, I understood that much. Tom on the other hand was either a masochist or saw his chance as I laid the dagger away. He scrambled towards the letter laying exactly beside me, just to get smacked on his head by Lucinda who looked at me, barely awake. His face was pressed deeply into the mattress as I grabbed the letter once again and held it away from him.

“I dreamt about lasagne. Do you want some Mary, I´m kind of hungry right now … oh, the offer goes for you as well Tom. Sorry, didn’t see you at first.” Lucinda said nonchalantly as if she really didn’t see him and just reacted to the approaching sounds earlier.

“Make lasagne for four. We have two guests you will be interested in.” Tom said as he rubbed his head. They were here sooner than expected, but at least they came after we knew about them.