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TheDevilsTrick — Privateer Chapter 112
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Published: 2024-03-03 15:48:42 +0000 UTC; Views: 2643; Favourites: 9; Downloads: 0
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[Older Than Stones]
Ecchs had arrived several hours ahead of schedule, while Clyde and Belix were still eating breakfast. He apologized for the early arrival and helped to bandage up Belix before carting her off to a hospital, and, while she was being examined, he ran off to a clothing store and came back with a veritable pile of fine clothes. She sorted through them, all the while being bombarded by facts and etiquite to observe once reaching his parent’s summer home. Clyde, for the most part, stood to the back of whatever room they were in and was largely ignored.
While Belis was still picking out her outfit, Clyde stood in front of the mirror and straightened his own clothes. He had been wearing most of the outfit for some time now, the jacket and the linen shirt, but the pleated vest felt strange now, not uncomfortable, but confining, tight across the chest. He was considering letting it out when Belix walked in on him, nervously wringing her hands when she stepped into view.
“So…” she asked, anxiously blushing, “What do you think?”
He looked her over sincerely, considering the design of her simple sundress, the colors, the pink and the yellow, and how it reflected against her skin, contrasted against her eyes.
“The coat’s a nice touch,” he mentioned of the hip-length, white, dinner jacket, “But you’re not wearing heels?”
“Should I?”
“Do you know how to wear heels?”
“...well...no…”
“...it would fit with the illusion of elegance you’re going for, but, it’d be pretty quickly undone if you were tripping and stumbling all over the place.”
“I was actually trying to convey innocence, but,” she muttered, scratching at the bandages under her sleeves, “Elegance… I guess… that can work.”
“You’re not used to this are you?” Clyde noticed.
“Is it that easy to see?” she scoffed.
“Yes,” Clyde stepped forward, “You’re nervous, you’re shaking…”
“I’m not shaking!” she snapped, “I’m just...sore…”
Clyde stepped forward, a weary smile on his lips, he offered his hand and Belix took it, letting him pull her in front of the mirror.
“The clothes,” he told her softly as he pulled the dinner jacket off of her shoulders, “They’re not important,” he saw her wince as she looked at her arms, bound wrist to shoulder in thick medicinal cloth, “Stand like this,” he squared her shoulders, moved her chin, “And, when you look them in the eye, it’s the same look you give to the man at the other end of a gun.”
Her expression changed, more relaxed, her eyes grew harder, angry.
“Not aggressive,” he coached her, “But calm,” he placed a hand on her collarbone, “When you breathe,” he told her, feeling Belix’s heart start to race, “You do it slowly, evenly, betray nothing, project, nothing.”
Belix’s face switched to that of an impassable mask of indifference.
“Good advice,” Ecchs called out to them as they were practicing, “But you’re forgetting something,” he mentioned, stepping into the room through a side door, “The situation, you have to be aware, paying attention to everything around you.”
“So…” Belix watched as Clyde pulled away to stand immobile in the corner, “You’re saying I need to be even more stressed out?”
“The opposite actually,” Ecchs told her with a smirk, “Relax, be at ease, and project that to your surroundings,” he gave her a once over and smiled, “You look magnificent by the way.”
“Thank you,” Belix mentioned, as she watched him circle around her, “Just hope your parents like it.”
“They’ll love you,” he whispered in her ear, “But, your outfit is missing something,” he reached into his own jacket and pulled out a black choker with a number of golden studs embedded into the band, “I do believe this...would complete it.”
He tied the choker around her neck and stepped back, clasping his hands together.
“Beautiful,” he chuckled, smiling warmly, “Now come along before we’re late.”
Ecchs reached out to Clyde, demanding the dinner jacket he was still holding, and slipped it onto Belix’s shoulders. He even opened the door for her, and waited for a long time after she had left the room, seemingly daring Clyde to leave first. When the other man finally stepped forward, Ecchs stopped him at the threshold.
“Would you just fuck her already!” Ecchs snapped.
Without another word, he left the room, closing the door in Clyde’s face. Biting back on a retort and taking a deep breath, he reached for the door and followed them out.
Ecchs carried them through the streets in a pair of brightly colored, gilded carriages, that, somehow, managed to handle the cobblestone streets with remarkable ease. They quickly exited the main city, and headed into the hills. After several hours of uncomfortable silence the carriage disappeared into a cavernous opening in the side of a cliff. The drivers lit torches along the sides of the coach and carried them through the pitch darkness with an unerring certainty.
Soon, their path was illuminated by a glow in the distance, glittering gemstones burning in hidden sconces in the walls. At first you could almost mistake them as stars in the night sky, but soon they joined, their light grew, like the noonday sun and there, at the center of the inescapable shining light, was a large house. A mansion more than anything else, surrounded by large garden plots and grassy fields, and a large roiling river that encased them all. The carriages pulled them across a massive, arching, wooden bridge and let them out at the base of a long marble staircase.
“And this is the summer house?” Belix couldn’t help but scoff.
“Actually,” Ecchs mentioned as he opened the carriage door for them, offering his hand to Belix, “We spend most of our time in this one, we...cherish our privacy.”
“Is that you son?” a woman’s voice called out to him slowly, elegantly stepping down the stairs to meet them.
Ecchs turned around happily, hand in hand with Belix as he walked to meet his mother. Clyde grabbed their luggage and brought up the rear.
“Odd of you to show up early,” the gorgeous blonde woman mentioned as she reached out, touching his face and smiling.
“Still fashionably late, I hope,” he joked back, touching her hand as it crested his cheek and kissing her palm.
Discretely, Clyde and Belix shared a look, both having recognized the same thing, the woman was blind. In difference, not wanting to make a fuss or overstep their bounds, neither said anything, but she seemed to read their thoughts, her head snapping around to glare at them with her eyes still closed.
“And who are they?” she asked somewhat flatly.
“Mother,” Ecchs bowed as he guided her hand to Belix’s wrist, “This...is today’s honored guest…”
Gingerly, her fingers traced a crooked path up Belix’s arm, slipping across her throat and then grabbing hold of the elfin girl’s chin. The older woman held her there, that same, strange, eyeless glare, restraining Belix from moving, then suddenly, her expression softened. Ecchs’ mother placed a hand on Belix’s shoulder, a single tear leaking from her tightly shut eye, and she hugged the Elfin girl close.
“Oh you poor thing...are you in much pain?” she asked, her sorrowful voice barely above a whisper.
“Um...no more than normal,” Belix could only respond awkwardly as the human woman’s arms practically crushed her.
“So...tragic…” she turned, seeming to finally notice Clyde who did what he could to remain still, “How very tragic...and who is this one.”
“Our porter,” Ecchs supplied before either of them could respond, “Her servant, no one of import.”
“Oooooh,” the lady walked towards him, a deadly, sinister edge in her voice as she approached, “You serve this young lady?”
“I…” he caught himself, and responded curtly, his voice flat and matter of fact, “To the best of my ability ma’am.”
“And your ‘best’ means that she be harried as such?”
“...no ma’am.”
“Then how did she come to be injured?!”
Clyde kept his silence and closed his eyes, he had served enough high-minded and judgmental women to know what was coming next.
“Ma’am,” Belix stepped between the two as the woman raised her arm, “I will thank you to restrain yourself, the fault was mine, not his, and his failings, real and imagined, are mine to punish.”
The woman glared back at her, but relaxed her arm and stepped back. Seconds later, Ecchs took his mother by the arm, smirking the whole time as he led her up the staircase. Belix and Clyde both let out a collective sigh, Belix actually bent down to help him with their bags, but Clyde pushed her hands away, hefting the load himself. At the top of the staircase, the pair of them watched as the front door was pushed open. A middle-aged man with long spiky hair, shot with gray streaks, and a girl, a blonde child, affectionately clinging to his side rushed out to greet her mother.
“Come now Rin!” her father chided the girl with a lackadaisical humor, “You only saw her a moment ago.”
“Mommy!” the little girl responded as the older woman swept the girl up in her arms.
“I suppose you won the bet my darling,” the mother mentioned as she hugged her daughter closely.
“I told you Big Brother would be showing up soon!” Rin declared happily as Ecchs’ hand tousled her hair.
“Always had faith in me huh?” Ecchs chuckled.
“Someone needs to,” Ecchs’ Father stood at attention in front of his son.
“Good to see you too father,” Ecchs joked but assumed a similar stance.
“Hmm,” the Father nodded his approval, then glanced over at Belix and Clyde, “And that is the woman of the hour?”
“Yes Father,” Ecchs nodded respectfully.
The Father sniffed the air and a frown creased his face.
“Have you been beating her?”
“Come now my husband,” the mother scoffed still carrying their daughter, “Why must you say such awful things?”
“Because I know him,” the Father responded coldly, and waited for a response to his question.
“He didn’t hit me,” Belix supplied for them, “Well, not recently at least…”
The mother made a disgusted noise in her throat, but Rin was already examining the guests, her eyes fell on Clyde and her head tilted to the side.
“Who is that one?” she asked, pointing at him.
“This is no one,” Clyde insisted, bowing before the family, the bags still in his hands, “If you may call me anything at all, you may refer to me as ‘Clyde’.”
“Noted,” the Mother scoffed while the Father merely let out a depressed sigh.
“You place a stain upon my house,” he muttered, then laughed, “The Help has better manners than our own family,” he whipped his hand out, slapping Ecchs upside the head, “Introduce us boy!”
“Husband!” the Mother chided him.
“No...no,” Ecchs rubbed the bruise that was spreading across the back of his skull, “He’s right, excuse me, my love,” he reached out and pulled Belix forward, “Mother, Father, this is the woman I have chosen as my first wife, Belix Leliana Taft.”
“Your… um, Lordship?” Belix bowed awkwardly and ground her teeth to keep from saying anything stupid.
“Hi Lady,” the daughter waved to her jovially, “I’m Rin!”
“My darling little sister,” Ecchs smirked, “And my father, who shares my name…”
“You may call me Rio,” the Father bowed in return, “Our word for ‘grandfather’.”
“And my mother, Drucilla.”
“A pleasure my dear,” Dru mentioned, finally placing her daughter on the floor, “But, our manners fail us again, come inside then, let us begin our meal.”
All the while, Clyde remained bent over, bowing in difference even as their footsteps began to reseed. Noticing this, Rin ran back towards him and patted the penitent man on the head.
“You can get up now!” she declared.
“If that be your wish,” Clyde stated as he stood up straight, “Can you please tell me where our rooms are?”
“Aren’t you going to eat with us?” Rin wondered curiously.
“Of course not,” Clyde smiled warmly, then noticed her father glaring at them, “If you would pardon me, I believe you should go join your father now.”
“Oh, right,” she hopped and scrambled off to join her family.
Rio ushered her in through the door, continuing to stare hatefully at Clyde, then snapped his fingers summoning a new servant to join Clyde on the steps. The new man was a small, red colored Gremlin who quickly bowed to his master, then ran over to Clyde to help him with the bags. However, Clyde simply pulled them away, glaring at the new man.
“Just show me to the room please,” Clyde insisted and the red Gremlin timidly hopped away to scurry towards the door which it dutifully held open.
Clyde followed him into the lavishly decorated mansion, across marbled tiles that glittered like crystal, and over white stone staircases cloaked in soft, plushy velvet. The red Gremlin brought him to the room where he could deposit the luggage and then ran away as fast as he could. Blinking in surprise, Clyde went inside, opened the chest of drawers, and expected more than heard Rio entering the room. He tried his best to keep his face blank as the Father stared him down.
“You’re not a servant,” Rio observed.
“We all serve in our own ways,” Clyde replied evenly.
“Don’t toy with me,” Rio shook his head, then stepped closer, “Do you think I can’t smell it on you.”
Rio’s eyes glanced down to the round cuff links on Clyde’s arms. Clyde balled his hands into fists and did what he could to stand strong as the Father bore down on him.
“You think you can stop me if I try to take them away?” Rio wondered.
“I think we’ll find out,” Clyde told him through gritted teeth.
Rio scanned his face, examining the younger man. After a moment, he stepped away, shaking his head.
“Do you even know what they are?”
“They belong to my mother,” Clyde stated.
Studying the boy, Rio backed away, nodding, and he leaned against the door frame.
“Tell me, how does a common girl like that wind up with a servant such as you?”
“She is my friend.”
“That’s not an answer,” Rio chided him, then smirked, “Tell me, what she did, how did she foster your loyalty?”
“...she is my friend,” Clyde repeated.
“Child,” Rio scoffed, “I could make you tell me.”
“I don’t think you could,” Clyde retorted, “You’d probably kill me first.”
Rio glared at him, a burst of flame wafted from his nose and faded into smoke. Finally, Rio shrugged and stood at attention, arms clasped behind his back.
“Do you come in peace boy?” Rio asked.
“Of course, sir,” Clyde nodded.
“Do you know what will happen if I find out that you’re lying?”
“I believe I do, sir.”
“That’s enough for now,” Rio turned away, then paused, “You do know why she’s here don’t you?”
“I… believe, you she is engaged to your son,” Clyde surmised.
“If you wish to remain with her, after the wedding, you would have to swear fealty to this house,” Rio drew himself to his full height and balled up his fists, “Do you find that acceptable?”
“No, sir,” Clyde responded.
“So...you intend to leave?”
“No...Sir!” Clyde snarled back, bracing himself for the attack he knew was coming.
An aura, orange and burning seemed to well around his body, roiling and flickering like fire. Steam poured off of him, and Clyde could feel the tidal waves of heat filling the room and shoving against him as it scorched his skin. Then, much to Clyde’s surprise, it vanished, the heat, the flame, gone as though someone had snuffed a candle.
“Heh, good answer,” Rio scoffed, smirking at Clyde over his shoulder, “Join us at the dinner table, when you’ve had a moment to collect yourself.”
At last, Rio exited the room, and Clyde very nearly collapsed at his absence. He found a coffee table and sat down on it while cleaning the sweat from his brow.
“Alright asshole,” Clyde muttered, still glaring at the doorway, “That one I’ll give you…”
Minutes passed and he joined the others in the dining hall. Belix was already sat down with the others, at a long table, next to Ecchs, across from another couple who Clyde assumed had to be Kyo and Greta, a willowy thin Elf with extremely long ears and dark purple hair, and a blond man who had Rio’s burning eyes but his mother’s soft nose and ears. Nearby, Rio, Drucilla, and Rin sat close, all having themselves a happy little chat as they enjoyed their meal. Clyde decided to keep himself separate and found a cozy nook in the wall to tuck himself into as the family conversed.
“How do you two know each other again?” Drucilla asked, cradling Rin in her lap.
“We...um… we worked in the same city at the same time,” Belix stated bluntly.
“Are you a prostitute as well?” Rio wondered as he picked at his food, taking little bites from an elaborate sea-food dish.
“Husband!” Drucilla chided him, rolling her eyes.
“It’s a good question,” Rio insisted.
“It is,” Belix admitted, “But, unfortunately, no.”
“She worked the door,” Greta put in, her voice soft and pleasant, almost betraying the deep, haunted look behind her dark blue eyes, “She kept things civil.”
“She was a bouncer?” Rio surmised, then glanced over at Clyde, “You know, your man over there was rather tight-lipped when I asked him how you met.”
“Oh?” she glanced back at Clyde and shrugged, “Well, if he didn’t tell you, guess it’s none of your business.”
“You put a lot of faith in that man,” Drucilla observed.
“He’s earned it.”
“I think what my father’s trying to ask,” Kyo put in, “Is how did a bouncer end up with a manservant?”
“Well, you remember that old ship I was always trying to get off the ground?”
“That hunk of junk,” Greta scoffed.
“The Autumn Clover!” Belix snapped, glaring at her, “I got it working, took it to Styx, set myself up a little, um, transport company.”
“You were a pirate then?” Rio asked, seeming intrigued.
“A Privateer,” she corrected him, “After a fashion, there was a lot of bits in the middle, but we eventually got sponsored by Serriquiesse.”
“You worked for the church?” Kyo wondered.
“For a spell,” Belix shrugged, reaching out for a drink, “Then I gave the captaincy to my first mate, the pay was good, went to some pretty sweet parties,” she looked back and smirked at Clyde, “But, it was too much of a hassle,” she shook her head, “I prefer to handle my own rudder, you know?”
“And...what made you decide to tie the knot with my boy?” Rio asked, casting a side-eye at Ecchs who pulled back, nervously.
“Well, I’m not getting any younger,” Belix mentioned, taking a bite from her meal, “And I like to travel, but it’s nice to have a place to come back to.”
The dining hall became eerily quiet, Belix picked up on the changing mood and looked around curiously.
“What did I say?” she asked.
“As first wife to the Lord,” Drucilla explained, “You would be… confined is the wrong word, but, hidden, kept safe.”
“I can take care of myself,” Belix scoffed.
“I’m certain you can,” Rio nodded, “However, it’s not for you to say, as first wife,” he glared at his son, “You take a special position within the family, a viable target for our enemies, one we would loathe to risk.”
“Okay...but I thought that was just for the breeders,” she pointed at Drucilla, “No offense.”
Drucilla shrugged, unmoved but Rio’s expression became stern.
“What do you mean by that?” the Father demanded.
“Husband…” his wife tried to calm him only to be silenced when he grabbed her shoulder.
“This is important,” Rio insisted, “Now explain yourself.”
“I’m a Mao,” Belix told him, a hint of anxiety in her voice.
“I thought you were a Dark Elf?”
“I am...but…” she winced, withering a bit under his harsh stare, “When a Dark Elf is born, they are… I mean, they are either Mao or Drow, and, well, Mao’s are sterile, it um...it’s why we haven’t overrun the world yet,” she chuckled nervously, “That was, that was supposed to be a joke…”
“Hilarious,” Rio turned that withering gaze on his son and abruptly stood up from the table, “May I speak with you in the other room, son?”
Ecchs opened his mouth to argue, but Drucilla lifted her hand to silence him.
“Don’t make it worse,” she warned him.
Nodding, Ecchs stood from the table and followed his father from the room.
“Did I…” Belix started only for Greta to cut her off.
“No,” Greta shook her head, “It’s his mistake, not yours.”
“As you can imagine,” Drucilla explained as she helped her daughter to eat her meal, “This family places a great deal of importance on bloodlines, you must share your blood with us, Be, of us, if we are to trust you, and the first wife of the Clan Lord, even more so.”
“You’re children would never be legitimate,” Kyo told her flatly, reaching out and grasping his wife’s hand, “But, the first wife must bear children, or the marriage would never be recognized.”
“We’re already stretching the rules to allow this… union, but, Ecchs has been insisting, and,” Drucilla paused, hearing raised voice and a loud crash emanating from the other room, “We do spoil him, perhaps too much.”
“Is big brother going to be alright?” Rin wondered, still reaching out for her plate.
“He’ll be just fine dear one,” Drucilla whispered.
“How do you know that the first son has finally arrived?” a man’s silky voice reverberated throughout the room, surrounding them, “The father breaks a plate.”
They all turned to see a new man standing at the opening to the hall, leaning against the entrance, laughing at his silly little joke.
“Cryak,” Drucilla sighed angrily, “You’re late.”
