Chapter 233: The Misguided Resolve
Yes! An elf!
Frieren was an elf! And Teacher Serie was an elf!
Her head snapped up, and the light in her eyes was now rekindled. It was just as she had thought. Elves were emotionally distant creatures. Their long lives had made them... obtuse, when it came to the fleeting and complex emotions of a human.
A thousand years? So what? A thousand years of a companionship... was there really any 'love' in it? Probably not. And even if there was... Serie would have surely not noticed it. But she... she was different. She was human, just like him. She was the only one who could truly understand the "human" side of him. Serie may be powerful, and she may have been with him for a thousand years. But did she truly understand what it was to love? Like Frieren, she could not even comprehend her own feelings, and could only offer such meaningless and... wrong... words of a comfort.
And in that instant, all of her sadness was gone, replaced by a new and a terrible resolve, a resolve that had been born of a profound misunderstanding. She could not compete with her teacher in terms of a power or of a time. But she could... open a new front. A front that only she, Flamme, could enter.
"Frieren, thank you!"
She grabbed the other girl's hand. Her words had been no comfort, but her own lack of an emotional understanding... it had given her a new and a terrible purpose. Her eyes were now burning with a new and a fanatical determination. The tears were still on her cheeks, but they were now overshadowed by a new and a desperate courage. "I think... I understand now," she said, her voice a low and an intense sound. "I understand what my own advantage is. And I understand... how I must fight."
"Understand what?" she asked, a look of a pure and an unadulterated confusion on her own face. She had no idea what she had said that had triggered such a dramatic transformation.
"I understand where my own strength lies. And how I must now fight for what I want," she said, and then, she let go of her hand and stood. "Good night, Frieren. And thank you again."
And with that, she lay down in her own bed and closed her own eyes, but the rapid rise and fall of her own chest was a clear sign that her own mind was far from at peace.
Frieren looked at her, at her own now-feverish and an almost-manic state, and her own small and a simple mind was filled with a new and a different kind of a question.
Human emotions... they were a million times more complex than the most intricate of a magical spells.
In the end, she gave up.
The dawn came, and the long and a terrible night was over.
But for Flamme, the night had been a restless one. She had not slept at all, and the scene on the terrace had played over and over in her own mind. And her new resolve, her new fighting spirit, born of her own, now hopelessly-misguided, conversation with the other girl, had now taken a firm and an unshakable hold of her own heart.
She got up, as quietly as she could, so as not to disturb the other. But the other girl... she was also awake. She went to the mirror and, with a new and a deliberate care, she began to arrange her own, fiery red, hair, and tried to tame the few, stubborn, stray strands that were sticking up.
In the mirror, the girl's own face was a pale and a weary thing, with a dark and a faint shadow under her own eyes, but her own, green and a vibrant, eyes were now shining with a new and a terrible light.
She had never been one to care about her own appearance. But when a girl... it could only mean one thing.
"Are you awake?" she asked with a new and a different kind of a gentleness. She had not meant to wake her.
"Yes. Or rather... I haven't really slept," the other said with a yawn. The other girl's own tossing and a turning had kept her up all night. And she was now so, so tired. She did not understand what she was doing. To get up so early... and to be so... preened? Was she... going into a battle?
"Then go back to sleep. And don't go out. I'll have someone bring you breakfast later."
"Okay."
She went back to her own bed and, with a final look at her own reflection, the girl, with the air of a warrior who was about to go into a battle, pushed open the door and left.
The hallway was a quiet and a silent thing.
She crept to Serie's own door, like a thief in the night, and she pressed her own ear to it, and she listened. There was no sound.
Good.
She had drunk so much last night. Even with her own, elven, constitution... she would surely be in a need of a long and a restful sleep.
A small and a wicked smile touched her own lips.
"Lady Serie and Lord Rhodes were in a very late... meeting last night," she told the handmaiden, her own voice now a firm and a serious sound. "She is not to be disturbed, under any circumstances."
The handmaiden gave a respectful bow and said nothing.
As for Sister Ela... she was a lazy one. And the other girl... she was now a prisoner in her own room.
The plan was a flawless one. And now... it was a time for just the two of them.
She went to his own door, her own heart now a pounding drum in her own chest. She was about to just push it open, but at the last minute, she held back, and her own hand, it was a now a soft and a tentative thing as it knocked.
A few moments later, the door opened. He was still in his own, comfortable and a flowing, robes, his own hair a little disheveled, and his own, now clean and a refreshed, self now stood before her.
"Flamme? So early?" his own voice was a little hoarse, but to her own ears, it was a perfect and a beautiful sound.
"Good morning, teacher," she said, and her own voice, it was a little... shaky. "I was just wondering... if you would like to have breakfast with me."
He saw the nervousness in her own eyes, but he did not think much of it.
"And the others?"
"Oh, they..." her own heart skipped a beat, but her own voice, it was a now a calm and a level sound. "They are still sleeping. I will have someone bring them their own food later."
"And Serie?" he said, and was about to go to her own room. "I will go and wake her."
And the smile on her own face, it now froze, and her own, carefully-constructed, composure now began to crumble.
(End of chapter)
~~~
Get early access to 20+ advanced chapters on Patreon!
https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
~~~
Every 150 Power Stones = 1 extra chapter