Colette walked behind Antoni, her mind racing as she fiddled with her satchel. It was no longer heavy the way it was when it was full of the fruit she'd given away, but it annoyed her shoulder still- the bag comically large for a young child to carry around.
Instead of the mission merging seamlessly, it was as if the system split off the love interests between herself and Colette. She wasn't worried about if something would necessarily go terribly as the orchard was only ever dangerous at night- but she was just so worried about if Manon could contain herself and make proper choices if she had to answer Remy.
As she contemplated this, the deafening silence continued, the feeling similar to having your ears plugged. Colette and Antoni only heard their own breathing and barely their steps as they made their way down the path.
"Miss Colette." Antoni suddenly spoke, making the girl flinch out of her thoughts.
"Yes, your highness?" the girl replied, sky blue eyes wide. Antoni did not look back at her and she was forced to stare at the back of the prince's head as he spoke again.
"Do you know why I need the sapling? I find your….competence…rather suspicious." He said, long strides- especially for a child- becoming difficult for Colette to truly keep up with. She sped up her pace but Antoni himself slowed down. Colette calmed herself as she engaged with dialogue she was familiar with. But in order to have the best outcome, she would have to tell the prince a white lie.
"Well- there was a vendor in town who claimed to have seen someone with golden eyes. I just assumed…as there isn't any other reason for an imperial noble to come to Dales. I remembered the Madame of the orphanage scaring us by telling us we would get lost in the orchard if we ran away." Colette said. She did not know if this was true or not, as again, Colette did not have the original Colette's memories prior to that first afternoon at the orphanage- the beginning of the tutorial.
"But..I am not sure why you desire the golden sapling specifically…" She trailed off, leaving it open ended to have Antoni possibly explain as he normally did at this stage. However, he did not immediately robotically flow into a long explanation the way she anticipated.
Instead, the prince looked back at her, stopping until she was at his right side. He did not look happy, but he smiled.
"It would be better if you did not force a noble to explain themselves, especially as we are not so familiar yet. I asked if you knew, not if you wanted me to tell you." His words were sharp and cut across Colette's mind ruthlessly. Nonetheless, even though she was wide eyed and worried, his AP did not decrease, and he put a hand on her shoulder.
"I tell you this because I find that behavior insolent, as would many nobles. I think you are…very resourceful. Do not let arrogance limit your progress until you are great enough for it to be acceptable." He said, eyes lingering on Colette's progressively messy hair. Colette checked again. No increase or decrease in AP.
[Prince Antoni believes Colette could be useful. He intends to see how she reacts to being corrected.]
Ah- she had forgotten. This- was like a test to Antoni. He was testing if Colette suited his preferences, as a connection. Someone he could call on later. His dialogue was unfamiliar, but she knew these characters like the back of her hand. Colette just nodded, her lips pressed into a tight smile. Antoni grinned at this.
"Ah, I shall tell you though, as you must be curious." He chuckled, a bit sarcastically which unsettled Colette as he began to walk again. He waited for the redhead to catch up while she smoothed the messy top of her hair down.
"The Empire is in a power struggle. The current Empress, Natya Lumin Le Blanc Orléan…she is a Saintess and the daughter of the current Pope- adopted, of course as she has commoner blood. Against the Empress Dowager's better judgement, she allowed the marriage of the Saintess and my father who was the Crown Prince at the time, in order to accept an exorbitant amount of money from the church as her dowry." He told the story, his voice smooth and light, metallic eyes trained ahead at the endless trail between the apple trees.
"As you can imagine, this created a great imbalance. With the Saintess in a high position, the church became overconfident in their influence and power, and created many…facilities such as yours. Making adoption a premium shopping and entertainment experience for nobles. The church makes over 600 Million Thions from their twisted adoption scheme every single month. This expanded when she became Empress, and now they also extort the Imperial family and commoners by forcing us to pay exorbitant rates for healing potions- which are only possible to create using divine power or divine plants…the only one existing outside the church in all of the Empire being…this golden apple sapling." He continued.
"The Emperor wishes to strike a trade deal with another Empire or Kingdom that has access to other divine fruit, but the church's influences span far and wide, and it is proving difficult. The Empress wants to pay her family the money- too much money. Poor villages and towns are suffering due to the church hoarding healing materials hoping the Imperial family will simply pay….I cannot allow this insolence to continue any further." Antoni's eyebrows furrowed, his frustration evident for the first time.
"In addition, the Empress has been looking to get rid of me. Finding and breeding the golden apple sapling to make more- it will solve this issue once and for all…." He turned his head to look at Colette. "Do you know why I told you this, with many details?"
Colette nodded slowly, her neutral expression through the entire discussion not going unnoticed by Antoni.
"Because you want me to help you later. Like Remy is already doing."
A wide grin split the prince's face.
"Indeed."
….
….
….
Manon had a short dream.
In her dream, there was a beautiful woman. She had long black hair…exceptionally long. It dragged on the floor as she walked through a white void, clothed in a dark green robe…an interesting design similar to a thin hanbok, but with an added layered garb that made her think it was a hanfu at first. Manon watched as the woman walked away from her, as if waiting for her to turn around.
And turn she did, revealing a pair of eyes similar to her very own.
Heterochromic, brown and deep green.
…
"..."
"...mmoth…."
"..mmy…"
"...up!"
…
"WAKE UP."
Eyes shot open, one shrouded in darkness behind an eyepatch, and the other wide and brown, staring up at the features of a handsome young boy with stormy irises poised with annoyance.
Manon coughed up something, the chunk falling into her palm as she sat up, almost headbutting Remy who backed away just in time.
"The hell, Mammoth. You nearly made me toss you in the river." The boy complained as Manon stared at the chunk of yellow apple in her hand. The last thing she recalled was biting into a disturbing fruit that looked like an apple- but was definitely not an apple. She recalled the unsettling imagery of the juicy grains and wanted to puke. Not that she needed to recall it, because Remy had it in his hand, dripping wet with water as if he had just fished for it, and suddenly thrusted it in Manon's face.
"Did you seriously eat this clearly weird ass thing? That's sick. Take a good hard look, pipsqueak. This is one of those psychedelic varieties created by mages. The pink is off and there's no yellow on the skin at all. Don't eat it. Your dumb growth stunted body can't handle that shit. Would've died of an overdose if I didn't detox you with that yellow one." Remy ranted, shaking the nasty fruit in her face. As she opened her mouth- Manon wanted to die. Actually. Because she saw a familiar blue window forming.
[A. Sorry, Remy. Thanks for saving me]
[B. Sorry, I had no idea!]
[C. Did you feed me?]
None of these options were appealing to the brunette. She wondered why there was no option to smack the chaos fruit out of his hand and kick him in the-
"Hello???" The boy waved his hand smugly in her face.
"FU- Sorry Remy. I had no clue and was just eating whatever." Manon resisted the urge to roll her eyes back in her head as her crash-out was thwarted by the system forcing her to act out their intended response. Option B was terrible, but thanking Remy for something or gushing over being fed would have made her pass out from disgust. The boy seemed to accept it though, probably because it made Manon sound like she was admitting how dumb she was.
[AP: 18]
"You're welcome. Now get up. You're gonna help me find what I need before his highness and little fox return." Remy hauled Manon up with a grunt, the small girl able to stand without too many issues.
No window. She wanted to scream.
With no choice of response and with Remy already heading west, Manon brushed the grass off her dress skirts and followed behind him, the boy not bothering to help her over the roots like Antoni had done for Colette. Manon huffed through her nose, her brown eye narrowed.
This was going to be good…
….
….
…..
"Remington is constantly adopted in order to recruit nobles to the Imperial family's side. Especially the Aristocrats. But you- I want you to do something else for me. Will you?" Antoni looked at Colette with an earnest- but somehow still unreadable expression.
Colette opened her mouth, about to respond to the Prince when something caught his eye. He immediately turned fully in the direction they had been walking, eyes wide. Colette slowly followed the prince's gaze, her copper brows furrowed in worry.
Standing about 30 feet away was a figure.
In broad daylight, the sun shining down on the orchard, was a single shadow figure.
Colette's breath hitched, and she was extremely confused.
There should be no entities during the day in the orchard. That was why they had to leave before sunset. That's why she was so sure Manon was fine. So why was there a shadow tilting their head at her and the prince right now?
"Miss Colette…" Antoni began, but all of a sudden, the shadow ran.
It ran to the right, into the cluster of orchard trees. And almost immediately without so much as a warning of his actions, Antoni strayed from the path and followed, running at top speed and in between the same trees the figure had.
"Y-your highness! We'll get lost!" Colette yelled after him, grabbing onto her bag and following as fast as possible as to not be separated. She couldn't hesitate the way she had wanted to- tearing between the trees to follow the running prince, hot on his heels. "Please, your highness- we can't follow!". The path was already gone behind them- signaling they could not and should not turn around now.
"We can and we will!" Antoni called back. The two tore through the trees that all of a sudden seemed to become a thick forest, fallen apples attempting to trip them every other step and branches constantly almost whacking them in the face. Antoni himself was maneuvering with precision, already carving himself a path with his sword he unsheathed which was the only reason why Colette was even able to follow the boy without getting stuck between low hanging branches.
The figure was not visible to either of them anymore but they could not stop in the middle of the orchard off trail or they would surely never find their way back. Colette tried to remember- had they gone to the left? They had been east so the next path would be…South? At some point, Antoni stopped and waited for Colette for just a few seconds before kneeling.
"You're too slow. Get on, now." Colette's body moved without a second thought, and with a slight amount of fear and knowing- she realized Antoni had used his imperial power on her- absolute command. His eyes glowed a pristine golden light similar to holy power but more raw. Colette was on his back in less than a second, hanging on for dear life as Antoni began sprinting and slashing through the trees. The boy was unnaturally strong and nimble, hair flying away from his face as he speared through the foliage and avoided apples.
They were almost at the next path- they had to be. Colette could see more light peeking through leaves the closer they got, Antoni speeding up as he realized it too.
With three more strides, they burst from the apple forest- the prince's right foot leading, landing on the grassy path first.
But instead of the first thing they saw being another apple tree, Antoni stopped his sprint abruptly, his face coming inches away from the very shadowy figure they had been following.
"...."
One breath was all the two children had as reprieve, for immediately after, the grotesque black figure, with what looked like a melting, dripping substance smoking off of their unstable form, opened up what seemed to be their mouth.
Wide and uncanny like the vertical stretched entrance of the pink lady tree entrance, the shadow released a blood curdling scream a mere 3 inches from their faces.
…..