Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Conquered

The Hero Became a Mousegirl
Chapter 7: Conquered

 

Standing before the closed door of my bedroom I reached behind myself and pulled on the fabric of my dress. I’d never worn anything like it. The way the fabric cascaded from my hips, draping around but not touching my legs made me uneasy. It felt as if I was only half-dressed and I couldn’t stop the fear that I was about to make a fool of myself from bubbling forth.

It didn’t help that the dress didn’t have a hole for my tail to slip through. Which meant I had to exercise control over an appendage I’d had for only a day. Otherwise I risked flipping the skirt of my own dress, a disaster I desperately wanted to avoid.

I pulled on my skirt a few more times, before finally leaving the safety of my bedroom. Descending the stairs with the gravity of an inmate being led to the executioner’s axe.

“Caelan!” Myra squealed as I reached the first floor. “You look so cute! I knew it, I knew that dress would look perfect on you.”

A hesitant smile crossed my lips as I gazed at Myra. She’d opted for a yellow sundress with shoulder-less sleeves. It was a far simpler design than the dress she’d given me, yet it worked perfectly to accent her natural cuteness. “You’re cute too.”

“Glad you think so,” Myra grinned walking around me in a circle. “Hmm… If your tail is as expressive as a catkin’s you might be in trouble. Would you like me to fix that?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t want to damage your dress. I can control my tail, it shouldn’t cause trouble.”

“You’re free to keep the dress Caelan. After all, I don’t think anybody wants to see you in baggy second-hand clothing again. You’re too cute to be swallowed up by so much excess fabric.”

“It’s such a nice dress though,” I gazed down at myself, clutching the fabric of my skirt. “I wouldn’t want to take it from you. Something like this is just wasted on me.”

“Wasted on you how?” Myra giggled. “I mean, have you seen yourself? You’re adorable. I’m seriously jealous.”

I wanted to tell Myra that no, I had in fact not seen myself. At least not in a mirror. I could look down at myself and piece together the basics. But I had no idea what other people saw when they looked at me.

Telling her that however, was only asking for trouble. It didn’t make sense for a girl my age to have never seen a mirror. Which would invite more questions about my upbringing, questions I was incapable of answering. The last thing I wanted to do was admit to being a reincarnated hero from a millennia ago.

“Shall we get going?” I asked attempting to steer Myra back to the task at hand.

“Oh! Sure thing,” Myra smiled and grabbed a dark gray cloak off of a nearby hook, clasping it around her neck. A moment later she seemed to blur. She was still right beside me, I knew that, but it was hard to actually take notice of her. It was as if my brain now saw her as a random pedestrian not worthy of notice.

“What… is that?” I gazed at her in befuddlement, struggling to find out what was going on.

“Oh?” Myra giggled. “Did you think goblins were a common occurrence in this city? So cute. No Caelan I’m just as hated here as I’d be wherever you’re from. Thankfully Syene is a very talented Artificer and made this cloak for me. So nobody pays enough attention to find out.”

“What about the battens? Does yours not say goblin?”

“Hmm…” Myra placed a finger to her chin and it took every bit of willpower I had to notice it. “If I remember correctly mine says I’m a gnome.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s forged obviously. Kind of like your band, seems Syene makes a habit of helping special cases like us. Whether she likes it or not.”

“Does Aurhert know about yours?”

“No. Though she did say one of the guards was aware your band was going to be fake. I’m guessing this Aurhert is the one huh?”

“Yeah, he was not happy about it.”

“Well no reason to worry about it. I’m sure Syene will take care of him if he becomes a problem.”

“Is Syene not loyal to the guard?” I asked following Myra out of the house.

“Of course not! If she was I wouldn’t be here. Syene is just a researcher from the College of Artifice. She’s good at her job so she was forcibly volunteered to work as a state artificer for the city.”

“That’s terrible.”

Myra turned to gaze at me. It looked as if she was smiling but my focus was starting to fail me so I couldn’t be certain. “I wouldn’t say that. If she hadn’t been forced to work with the guard, you wouldn’t be here.”

“And?” I chuckled. “You’ve known me for all of a day. Don’t tell me you’ve already grown attached.”

“Hmm,” Myra pouted and despite her cloak’s magic I was able to make out her puffed cheeks perfectly. “Perhaps you won’t understand, but I get a good feeling from you Caelan. If I didn’t I probably would’ve run away from you and hid when it became obvious Syene didn’t warn you about me.”

“Ah, I guess it was a little strange that you held your ground, thinking back. Especially when you were weaponless and I had a sword strapped to my back.”

“A sword and a golem companion who is so tall they barely fit in the house.”

“Yeah… Kaphis is very intimidating. Especially at our height.”

“How’d the two of you meet?”

“Eh,” I hesitated. Kaphis and I had never discussed a backstory for how they and I came to travel together. Which meant that any lie I told had the possibility of quickly unraveling. Until I had the chance to get Kaphis up to speed with what I’d said.

Unable to think of anything else, I simply leaned into what Kaphis themself had already said. “Kaphis was a treasured companion of my father. They hold him in such high esteem that they follow me in hopes to pay back old debts.”

“So then your dad?”

“He passed on years ago.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It’s okay,” I said with a wry smile. “He was gone before I came to be.”

The two of us stepped out onto a busy street so packed with people that I could hardly see more than a meter ahead. I worried what might happen if Myra and I got separated for less than a second before I felt her hand in mine.

I gazed down at our clasped hands. Myra’s grip on me was tight but I didn’t find it to be at all painful, instead it filled me with a comforting warmth. The kind I could only remember feeling when allied flags came into view after month-long crusades.

“You okay?” Myra asked. Raising her voice to overcome the steady whir of conversations all around us.

“Yes. Sorry for spacing out.”

“It’s okay, just stay close. I know where we need to go.”

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Guiding me down the street Myra weaved between people. Utilizing our smaller statures to flow through the crowd like a fish swimming lazily along with the current. She stopped the moment something caught her eye, guiding me the right sharply.

“Well if it isn’t Myra,” a middle-aged human man chuckled. The skin around his lips folding in on itself like old leather as he smiled. “Who’s your friend?”

“She’s my new sister, Mister Kaspar. I promised to treat her to some sweets.”

“Well the first one is on me,” Kaspar grinned turning his attention to a small metal bowl at his side. Inside the bowl were ashy coals still red with fire. Atop it was a crisscrossing mesh of metal wires, above which were several pastries.

Kaspar wrapped two of the pastries in a cloth before handing them to Myra. “That’ll be two copper coins missy. Since you’re only paying for one today.”

“Here you are,” Myra handed over the requested coins and took the pastries. “Thank you, Mister Kaspar.”

“Anytime. I’ll see you ladies again soon!”

“Now then, let’s go somewhere less crowded to enjoy our treats.” Myra led me further down the street before slipping into an alleyway.

“What kind of pastries are these?” I asked as Myra held mine out for me to take.

“Mister Kaspar fills them with a cherry jam and a bunch of chocolate. Of all the street vendors in the city I think his pastries are the best.”

“Cherry and Chocolate huh?” I mumbled reaching for my pastry only for Myra to pull it out of my reach. A grin so devilish on her lips that even her cloak’s magic couldn’t mask it. “Wha…?”

“You fed me yesterday right?” Myra noted holding the pastry out at chin level. “I think it’s only fair that you let me feed you today.”

“You say it as if feeding you was some kind of reward for me. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

“Feeding a cutie is always a reward. You got to do it, and now I want to do it. So how about it Caelan? Say ah.”

I stared at the pastry in Myra’s grasp, feeling my cheeks grow hot at the thought of what she wanted me to do. Never in my life had I been fed by another’s hand. It felt deeply intimate, yet wasn’t part of any courtship rituals I knew of.

When Myra had eaten the battered sausage from me, it was flustering, but harmless. Now that the situation was reversed it felt as if I was about to give up something. Like swearing fealty to a lord, I was submitting to Myra by eating out of her hand.

Did I trust her enough to allow that to happen? She’d been nothing but kind to me. Far too kind given how long we’d known one another. Was there something more to it? Eynhilda’s figment had suggested my wish may have not fully resolved, was Myra’s actions yet another ripple caused by the scepter?

Was she just this kind, or being compelled? If it was the latter, what was I supposed to do? Was going along with her actions even right? She had said she felt a positive feeling around me. Perhaps that was all it was.

Maybe it was just her intuition telling her we’d get along swimmingly and she was just trying to force our relationship to advance. It seemed as if few other than Syene knew what she was, perhaps she wished to remain close to those with her secret. After all if I thought poorly of her, it could bring trouble to her doorstep.

“Caelan?” Myra’s tone was laced with concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I chuckled bashfully twirling a lock of my hair between my fingers. “Sorry.”

“You keep drifting away. Like your body is here but your mind is off on one of the moons. Are you sick? Nervous? Do you want to go home?”

“No. I’m sorry Myra… people I’ve known for years haven’t treated me as nicely as you’ve treated me. When I think about how we’ve only known each other for a day, I can’t help but feel a little suspicious. And… I don’t know. This is all so new to me.”

“It’s okay to be suspicious,” Myra wrapped the pastries in a cloth and slipped them into the pocket of her cloak. “I told you Syene found me in the woods nine years ago. To be honest, she nearly killed me when the two of us met.”

“What?”

“A lone elf in the woods, no help as far as the eye can see. It makes sense she’d attack any threat she came across. I started sobbing and begging for my life after she blasted a hole through my shoulder. That was what saved me. Goblins aren’t really the type to beg for their lives.”

“I’m glad Syene didn’t kill you that day. But why tell me this?”

Myra stepped forward and enveloped me in a hug. “The only difference between me and every other goblin Syene had ever come across was me begging and crying. There is no way she wasn’t suspicious, or scared. But she took a chance on me and here I am. So, I guess I’m asking that you take a chance on me too. Let me prove to you that I’ll only bring good things into your life.”

“I’m trying Myra. Though… I don’t know if I’m comfortable with you feeding me just yet.”

“One bite.”

“Eh?”

Myra stepped back and grinned. “Take one bite and I’ll hand the pastry over to you.”

“Myra—“

“Consider it payment for the dress.”

“Eh?”

“Let me feed you one bite and that dress is yours. How about it Caelan, you look so cute right now, I’m sure you’ll want to wear that dress again.”

I sighed in exasperation. “You’d let me wear it anytime I wanted if I asked. This isn’t much of a reward you know.”

“But?”

“But… I’ll do it. One bite. That’s all you get.”

“Yay!” Myra jumped for joy before pulling one of the pastries out of her pocket and holding it out to me.

My cheeks grew hot as I leaned forward. I could feel the warmth of the pastry on my lips as I drew close, my heart beating so rapidly I could feel it reverberating in my fingers and throat. Closing my eyes I opened my mouth and allowed the pastry inside. Bitting down once I felt I’d taken in a respectable portion.

The flaky pastry struck first. Bringing my tastebuds to attention with a wash of butter before the sweet oozing chocolate coated them. Drawing up the rear the slightly sour cherry jam cut the sweetness of the chocolate. Together they road along my tongue and down my throat as great conquerors. Claiming me for themselves.

Opening my eyes I had to suppress the fervent desire for more long enough to snatch the pastry from Myra. So that she could not have the satisfaction of feeding me more than we’d agreed on. Simply because the pastry she’d offered was the most delectable thing I’d ever consumed.

“They’re good aren’t they?” Myra giggled.

I answered her by devouring the rest of it.