Chapter Fifty-Six
There was something in the air of the capital that made me grin and smile to myself. Going at it by flight was far quicker than using a carriage, and as I nimbly left Freedom to the stables by the gates, my hair went to its usual camouflaged green state, which I then used to my great advantage to step into the Fairy Charming Inn. Very, very calmly I smiled and headed for the counter, my hands clasped together as I grinned in the direction of Scarron.
"Oh my! Mi Mademoiselle was starting to worry about you!" he giggled as he neared with a pitcher of his best red wine. "Have you been doing fine?"
"I have," I answered with a nod. "Though I've been having a bit of a snag recently," I said as I easily accepted the glass of red wine and drank half of it, the smile on my face taking on a mellower tone of happiness and bliss. "Someone's been following me, and I can't get a point on them," I acquiesced. "I'm pretty sure they're someone I know, but-" I shook my head, "They're making my life so difficult, tattling off where I've been. Can't a man enjoy a drink in peace, Scarron?"
"I wouldn't know about that, François," Scarron replied with a giggle rather than a chuckle, which while it was wrong, it still was endearingly honest to hear. "If you want, I can have a room prepared on the upper floors to drink alone?"
"Drinking alone is kind of sad," I remarked dryly. "Drinking is done to be merry, and to talk to other people," I grumbled. "If I wanted to drink alone I'd break the door of the cellar and drink straight from the barrel," I snorted, nursing the drink. "How are things going for you instead, Scarron?"
"My little girl's all grown up!" Scarron said with both of his hands clasped together to the side, "She's turned eight recently," there were tears in his eyes, "And she's already recoiling from daddy's kisses," he whimpered. "Why! That's so sad, isn't it!?"
I laughed, shaking my head in disbelief as I spoke, "Now, now, it's just a phase." I smiled gently. "I'm sure she'll grow out of it."
By the time I stepped out of my little oasis of wine and heavenly delight in sightseeing, I walked in the direction of the foreign goods shop. It was a nice day, and I had time before having to saddle up once more, so why not enjoy a bit of exotic goods? The shopkeeper grinned as soon as he saw me enter, "Oh, good evening my lord, may I interest you in a recently acquired exotic plant?"
I raised an eyebrow. "And what might it be?"
"From the lands of the east, it's a beautiful decorative plant-" and then I looked at the plant in question. It didn't matter what the man called it, because I was pretty sure I knew what it was by sight alone. I chuckled, and then shook my head. It was one thing to get coffee. It was another to return home with a potted plant of marijuana. I couldn't help the giggle though, even as I ordered the usual bag of coffee beans.
And then I stopped, and looked at the exotic decorative plant once more.
...
This is a sign of the gods, isn't it?
Then, I'll gladly take this, if you won't mind. Who am I to refuse the offer from the gods to solve my present conundrum?
As I walked out with a potted plant of pot in my arm, the bag of coffee beans in the other, I already had a glorious idea for how to solve the problem of my mother's incredibly lacking leniency.
I'd stone her into compliance, and by stone I didn't mean I'd throw rocks at her. No, I'd get her so stoned she would be able to lift her wand, and maybe, who knows, she might turn lax?
When I returned home later that evening, I whistled innocently enough, even though my mother's disapproving glare at dinner told me she knew that I had simply avoided coming back once the task had been over with. Still, I smiled.
"You must have come up with a nice trick, if you are feeling this confident," Karin said after dinner as we gathered in the courtyard, her wand raised just like mine, even as I nodded and quietly used telekinesis to drag the potted plant from the sides of the courtyard -where I had left it- in front of me. Karin's eyebrows rose. "That's...a plant. Without flowers."
"Nothing deadly, I hope," Pierre piped in from the sides, to which I snorted.
"As much as I dislike mother's draconian temperament, I'm not so angry I wish to see her dead," and as I dutifully said that, I lit on fire the whole pot before swiftly throwing it forth with another gust of wind, even before Pierre gave the start to the duel in question. The air hammer easily smashed into bits the incoming projectile, but by then my wand had already gathered the air currents to fully burn the marijuana more, creating a thick dense white fog held within its confines, and which Karin easily avoided.
Only for it to explode in all directions as I quietly sidestepped an incoming air blade by using a half-formed air hammer to deflect the attack.
"Creating fog to obscure my vision is one thing," Karin said. "But if you think this will be enough-"
I hummed, and then kept my defensive pattern as the fog dispersed in the air, Karin looking no worse for the wear.
To buzz someone, one needed a hot box situation. Thus, the air around her gathered the fog once more at my command, and threw it back right against her face. She might have not noticed, or she might have noticed and not cared, since it felt like smoke and nothing more, but as I dodged another slicing air blade, this one came with a tiny bit of strength more than previously. It was then that I realized the folly of this plan.
Karin needed to stay concentrated in order to keep her power in check.
I was slowly eroding her concentration.
"Go big brother! Go!" Louise said excitedly, Henrietta joining her too as Cattleya simply cheered every time I dodged a blade, or an air hammer. I had gotten really good at dodging those blows, or softening them up with a counter.
"Why you-" Karin growled suddenly, and then swished her wand down. The incoming blade of air actually cracked the ground, to which I answered in turn as my heart skipped a beat, rising up to my throat.
"Air blade!" I roared back, my own blade of wind pulsing forth before I took the battle to the close range quarters. Karin might have been old, but I had the feeling that after that one time I had fought her in close combats, she had begun practicing her swordsmanship once more. It was evident by how her attacks came with far more fierceness and precision than before, the sparks of blades intersecting mixed with the noise of my barely audible words meant for a chant.
It wasn't a current of air as much as a freighter train that hit me suddenly in all of my body, sending me to skid backwards right on the opposite side of the courtyard. My back hit the ground and as I skidded across it, I came to a halt on the opposite side, gasping for air.
"So it's-" Pierre began, only for me to stand back up.
"Not bleeding yet!" I said, dusting myself off. "And since I'm not bleeding, we can go on!"
"Very well," Karin said with a light giggling noise that made me blink, just as much as it made Pierre blink too. Even Cattleya couldn't help but stare at the giggle that had left Karin's mouth. The broken remains of the potted plant were near her, and as the smoke it emitted had kept on pouring out, she had breathed it in herself, the exertion from the sword-fighting forcing her to use her mouth to breath.
I stared. This was-no, no, not good.
Small currents of air began to form as Karin's eyes narrowed, her cheeks red as she understood just what she had done. Then she looked at the burning plant, and realization dawned on her that it was the plant's fault, which in turn meant that it was my fault.
"Unforgivable," she said darkly, her wand pointed straight at me. "Henry, this is...unforgivable."
"Oh merciful earth, save me in the name of the Founder!" I yelled, but even as I tried to disappear below the ground, strong winds started to gather to rip me away from it, "Oh merciful earth! Merciful earth! Merciful earth!" a small column of dirt rose up as I felt like a child being pulled out by the scruff of the neck from the water, if with far more unyielding strength.
Then, suddenly, the wind arms stopped their hold as I dropped down through the poorly constructed column of dirt and mud, which collapsed under my weight as I landed on the ground, my entire body sore.
"Still not bleeding?" Pierre asked carefully from the sides, to which I replied with a thumb-up of sorts and a groan. "Still not bleeding." Somehow, he wasn't happy about that.
"Where did I go wrong?" Karin said, "One would expect a duel to be something honorable, but this underhanded trickery! In front of her highness too! I'm ashamed of you, Henry! Ashamed! My little wubbly-Henry can't be this shameful, I didn't grow you up like this-" as she spoke, I blinked. She blinked in turn, and then lifted her wand once more to utterly pulverize the plant. "I said nothing," she said quite firmly.
"She said nothing," Pierre nodded most wisely.
I began to laugh, shaking my head as I stood back up and began to slowly near her. "Mother, you're the best."
"Eh?" one of Karin's flawless locks of hair fell out of position as her cheeks turned red. "That's-Henry! You shouldn't say stuff like that-though I'm a bit happy about it to be honest," she fidgeted with her fingers, and I was sure that I was either hallucinating, or whatever form of marijuana they grew in the far-east had to be magically enhanced to absurd degrees. "Why am I saying this sort of stuff? I destroyed the plant didn't I?" she looked at Pierre, "Pierre! Our son's so shrewd-he took that from you, didn't he?"
"I swear I had nothing to do with this," Pierre said, "but Henry...tell me the name of that plant and where you bought it later, will you?" he mouthed the last part, but still Karin saw it and narrowed her eyes.
"You're all so unforgivable," she grumbled. "You're sleeping on the floor, Pierre. And as for you, Henry, you'll be going without wine for the rest of your life if I have any power over it!"
"Of course mother, of course, you're the wisest in the family after all," I said offhandedly as I was already close to her, "if it weren't for you, the whole family would be lost," I hummed as I swiftly went for a feint, her swordwand coming up as a reflex, to which I answered by swatting it away and closing the distance for a quick peck on her forehead. "That's why I love you lots, mom!" I said with the brightest, most childish tone I could ever manage.
The next second, my absolute victory was declared through virtue of Karin's absolutely paralyzed brain.
Take the Tsundere, disarm the Tsun-potential, hit on the Dere side.
I then calmly walked back towards the traumatized expressions of Pierre, Cattleya and Louise, while Henrietta was blissfully unaware of the amount of steel balls one would require to do such a thing, and thus simply clapped with joy at such a show of mother-son affection.
"Son..." Pierre said as he stared at the utterly paralyzed Karin. "I think you broke your mother."
"You think she'll allow me to go back to school next year?" I remarked offhandedly, to which Pierre chuckled.
"I think she will, if nothing else because she won't be able to calm down otherwise," Pierre said.
"So brother won?" Louise said, and to that, I grinned and bent down towards her.
"Go hug mother and tell her how much you love her, Lulu," I whispered into her ear, "She's going to love it."
Louise beamed me a smile and rushed to do just that. As the sound of a strangled, half-choked dying woman soon reached my ears mixed with the noise of shame, I couldn't help but start to chuckle.
"Brother..." Cattleya mumbled, "That's so cruel of you."
She then stood up from her wheelchair, and smiled. "I'll go too!"
I sighed, and watched as the dying noises of Karin's poor self-control burned down with the shame of being hugged by her two daughters, while in the presence of the princess.
Meanwhile, I simply smiled.
Revenge truly was a dish best served with hugs and fluff.