Chapter 370: Chapter 370
Nua's heart immediately raced and her eyes snapped open when she awoke to feel the hand on her breast. 'No!' She cried inside her mind when she felt her nakedness and the form of a male body nestled against her from behind. Then it all came back, the sleepy fog of dreams lifted like the morning haze, her eyes eased close again, far slower than they opened a moment before. 'Am I…? Was that a dream too?' She asked herself, and reached up to touch her throat to find her collar was gone.
The skin there wasn't exactly smooth, the long years of wearing leather and metal against her, sometimes loose enough to be forgotten, sometimes so tight that every swallow of food reminded her of her status, but now… it was gone.
'He kissed my throat, a human, it was two humans who saw me set free… I never would have imagined that. And my… yes, all that really did happen.' She interlocked her fingers with his and closed them together, then felt his body stir against her own.
"Good morning." He said to her, and she made to roll onto her back while he gave her space, Nua half expected a lecherous face, the existential dread of finding a second Lord Hodge came up… and then was gone, there was only care on his face, his rough brown beard framed a tender smile traced out of his lips.
"Are you… okay?" He asked, and she relaxed, inching herself closer to him, she put a hand up to his chest and traced her palm over the skin there.
Her ears gave him a teasing wiggle, "I am, and so are we… but before we go any further, there are two things I need to know."
He kept silent, waiting in expectation.
"Last night, I know you… you felt by touch what I've always kept hidden, the entire point was to make it so ugly that I'd prefer to be on my back… so ugly even some overseers pitied me and were… relatively gentle in their overseeing me. I can never get rid of it. It's part of me now. If you really want me to… to stay with you, before we have to part and I speak for the Allfather, and maybe after when things are peaceful, I have to know you can look at me without revulsion. If you can't, nothing about last night changes, I'll remember it happily. If you can…" She sighed, "Fuck, I'm just rambling." She cursed herself and flung the blanket aside and rolled to the left over onto her belly so that the entire back of her body was exposed.
The flesh ripped up and down her back had become just what his touch told him, mountains and valleys of bulbous, ridged scar tissue. Nua lay her head on the pillow and looked away from him, toward the door to the room.
"Even Aalon didn't like to look at this." She said in a still, quiet whisper, "Most of it… Hodge did, most of it. But not all. No, not all. I was always good, I never fought, I just wanted to be happy, this is what made 'him' happy. Now this 'art' of his, is his legacy." She said, and groaned, "I'm rambling again… fuck."
She felt his hand on her back, his fingers spread open, tracing over each ridge and valley where flesh and bone had once torn open, only to heal with slowness and pain.
"Raymond?" She asked, and then closed her lips, when she felt his. His lips kissed a ridge over her back, and then the valley beside it.
"You don't… wait…?" Nua's ears went down, "You're not one of those perverts who get off to the grotesque, are you?" She asked.
She felt him laugh as he straddled her lower body, it shook the bed a little, and another little kiss came down to another mark. "No. No, I'm not. But this is just an unkissed part of you, an untouched part, whether it is here, or not here, can be taken away and renewed, or is yours forever, it's part of you now, so of course-" He stopped, and kissed another spot.
"So you don't mind them… I admit I'm- I didn't expect this. Not even tears, or sympathy or-?" Nua's ears went down again, "I'm not sure how to take that."
"I've got a fair few myself, I was a Black Scripture, and scars mean strength, scars mean you survived. We of the Black don't mind scars. I'm not a pervert, as you put it. But this-" He traced his hands over her hardened flesh, "Is strength proven. And for the rest, would you really want that, from anyone, especially from me?" He asked and flopped beside her again.
"No, I suppose not." Nua said and rolled away so that she could face him. "But, as much as I'd like to stay and enjoy you more, you were sent here to watch the fighting in the arena and learn about whoever would become the new Emperor, not to lie in bed all day drinking wine and being debauched."
Raymond laughed when her ears wiggled in opposite directions of one another, a crude imitation of thrust and counterthrust. "I suppose not." He answered, "We'll go and observe, and when the time comes?"
"We go our separate ways, for a little while at least." Nua said and put her fingers over his lips just as they began to move, their eyes bound each other as if by magic. "But whether we meet again or not, I know I want to. However, there was the second thing." She added a second finger to the covering of his lips.
"The man you call a friend, he is a monster. It wasn't even about enjoying what he did, for him, it was a religious duty to make sure I was broken. He will never let your country change, not as long as he lives. Kill him. Kill Cardinal Dominic. Give me his head on a silver platter, so that there is only one man alive who knows my body. Will you do that for me, human who says he loves me?" Nua asked and brought her lips close to his, dragging her fingers down from his lips to allow him to speak again.
'No Cardinal has killed another Cardinal in six hundred years… does she know what she's asking me to do?' He wondered, but he could see in her eyes that she did.
"Are you asking for it as a wedding gift?" Raymond asked.
She was silent. "Your faith prohibits you from marrying me." She argued.
"I gave away my soul already." Raymond answered, and then pressed, "Or do I ask too much?"
"Even by human standards… that is… hasty?" Nua felt her breath cast every word with the haste of a stone from a sling.
"If I'm going to go as far as that, there is only one reason good enough, and life is short, maybe even shorter than usual for someone in my, no… our positions. So, your answer?" He asked her.
Nua gave a tiny nod, then covered his lips with hers and ruined their plans to leave bed quickly.
The fights went on and match after match, though few of the bouts were lethal, Calca saw none of them. "I let this happen. I shouldn't have brought him, he might have planned this from the very beginning."
"He didn't just die, he died for something." The Wolf Queen came over to her and put a hand on Calca's shoulder. "He sacrificed himself to promote the strength and will of your country."
"And what a promotion it was…" Queen Draudillon remarked, "No set of cheers has been as big as that one, not yet… he helped you avoid my fate, be grateful to him."
"Grateful?" Calca asked, looking up and casting an angry gaze toward the Draconic Queen.
"She's right." Albedo acknowledged, her hand lingering over her swollen belly, "Before, your son would have been the scion of a broken Kingdom rebuilt by a charitable marriage. People from as far away as the Beastmen Triumvirate have come here to fight and watch and before their eyes, your man showed that his homeland produces stubborn, worthy warriors. If not for his sacrifice, people who spoke of your Kingdom would only speak of it as a broken place that barely survived a war against itself, whose soldiers would surrender to save their lives. I don't believe they'll speak poorly of your country now."
Ainz remained studiously quiet, 'So much to learn still. So much to learn.' He kept his sigh confined to himself and did the one thing he could think to do. He agreed with the others. 'They do sound right, I think.' He assumed, and finally found his voice. "They're right." He said.
"As our lord no doubt knew." The Golden Queen added in. "Sad as it is, it had meaning." She reached up and dabbed her eyes with a little white cloth, appearing to all those present as if she were a distraught young girl mourning the sorrow of a friend.
"He could be restored to life but-" Ainz shook his head.
"No, he wouldn't want that. Being satisfied with the end of your life, knowing that you went out for something you valued, that's a good fate for a warrior, a good end, a good death." Neia argued, "Maybe honor him instead, give him a statue, or a holiday. I've been toying with the idea of creating a holiday in my Kingdom, a few of them really, now that things are settling down. Or name a beer after him and make it free to all paladins." Neia smacked her lips at that suggestion, and it was absurd enough that a tearful laugh followed the dragonid's idea.
"I will give you what you need to build a statue in his honor, if that is what you wish." Ainz offered, and Calca went quiet as she thought it over. "I-I'd like that, and I think he would approve of that much at least."
Brain felt a vague tingling in his body, a steady 'pull', weak, but persistent, as when Layali wanted him to go somewhere or see something. "I'll… be right back." He said, and tussled Layali's hair. He then leaned over and kissed Zesshi on the cheek and was halfway away before realizing what he'd done.
'I wonder if she's blushing?' He felt a giddy smirk come over him, despite having made love multiple times, it was little things that seemed to throw her off.
He was a hundred paces more before he wondered where he was going. 'Am I being controlled? Compelled? No… no I'd know if that were the case. That kind of spell feels very different, I feel different.' The tingle seemed to guide him on, prickling over his skin when he made a wrong turn, until he found himself reaching for a door to an isolated room deep in the undercroft of the arena.
"It's open. Come in." A young girl's voice relayed, and though he closed his right hand around the hilt of his sword, he turned the bronze handle of the oaken door and entered the room.
It was what one expected of a room meant for trainees to prepare, wash, and recover. Fountaining water flowed from the stone in a constant pace like a slow moving river, its babble echoing everywhere, from pillars and benches to walls and back again.
Sweat and blood mingled in places that were not as well cleaned as one might have hoped, and it frankly smelled like sweat and fear inside the room.
In front of him stood a young woman in red and white, with a wooden practice sword at her side and a girlish smile on her face. "Hi, I'm glad you made it." She said and waved a hand as if greeting an invited friend.
"Wait, I know you. Did you," he touched his hands together, feeling the tugging, tingly sensation there, "did you call me here?" Brain asked as the fog lifted.
"I did. You might say I'm a… a friend of Layali's. Or you might say that I'm the woman who will give you everything you want in the world, or you can call me Aureole, if you like. Will you listen, or will you draw that thing and have me demonstrate to you that it is useless without my help?" She asked, waving a relaxed hand toward where he still held the hilt of his blade in a tense grip.
He removed his hand.
"I'm listening." He said, and her smile lit up, she clapped her hands together before replying.
"What a marvelous decision, you can have your heart's desire… in exchange for your soul, your loyalty, and your everything, give what Layali and Zesshi have already given, and you will get back so much more… or refuse, and then… you know." She asked, while his brow furrowed in thought.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Ai_Evangeline
Ai_Evangeline Hello Guys...
Author
springpoweredtoaster
Discord
https://discord.gg/UvhdGv7p2V
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone