Using all her willpower not to look down, Trickmaster Fors, who was wearing simple yellow robes with light blue accents, clenched her jaw slightly.
'What are you doing here?! Again?!' Shouting so loudly in her mind that she stunned herself, the writer gulped.
Sitting next to her on the comfortable sofa, her best friend and sister from another mother and father, Xio Derecha, held the bridge of her nose and sighed heavily.
Since she only worked until noon on Saturdays, she wore more casual and comfortable clothes: tunics that came down to her knees, cotton slacks, and shoes.
Looking up, the Sheriff looked flatly at the man on the opposite couch, "What are you doing now, Kenway?"
With an unbuttoned shirt showing a bit of his chest and his rusty collar, Adryan Kenway, with his red hair tied in a high ponytail, rolled his shoulders.
"I'm bored." He said casually, turning to the next page.
'Bored?' Xio and Fors looked at each other, sharing the same thought.
If you're bored, why do you have to come to our house?
Neither of them said what they clearly thought, but their expressions said all they needed to.
'Are we that much fun to bother?' The writer failed to keep her eyebrow from visibly pulsing. Her lips tightened a little.
"Yep!" Adryan clicked his tongue and cheeks with that, the corners of his lips raised in a smirk. Easily smelling the annoyance in them.
Being that he could no longer act like Harvey Wayne or go as often as he was doing, he and Flora had nothing to do other than sleep and eat.
Something that while it was extremely comfortable and he honestly enjoyed. He knew that a little variety was necessary. At least not to melt into bed from the time they spent lying down.
Oh, and speaking of his dear worm...
The manuscript in his hands disappeared at some point, its apparent destination apparent once his eyes naturally moved to the white head.
Flora, who was sitting next to him on the couch and wearing purple robes, leaned back boredly on the free armrest.
"Like all feysacs, you read too slowly. " Jacob commented, turning the pages of the manuscript with decent speed.
"I was enjoying the portrayal of myself. What's wrong with that?" The redhead chuckled a little and rested his cheek on his knuckles.
Honestly, he could tell that Fors Wall was a talented writer. Not only did she manage to capture the essence of James Holmes quite well, but she came close, with some flaws, to how he thought when his identity was still hidden...
Although, some things brought a little chuckle out of him.
Even on ink and paper, it was clear that the woman was still terrified of him. Something that he found very funny and amusing, he couldn't lie.
Remembering that, he couldn't stop the smile on his face from growing a little bigger, "Heh..."
A horrible shiver went up her spine, and the writer pursed her lips a little.
Did he not like what she had written? She had heavily relied on Jerry and Serena's testimonials to complete it, so if an error or inconsistency had crept in, it wasn't her fault!
Of course, she doubted the man was truly upset or anything of the sort. Being familiar with his personality, Fors knew that what he was doing was only to scare her.
Knowing this truth and like a master at deflecting attention being a Trickmaster, she said with elegantly concealed nervousness.
"By the way, Mr Kenway, apart from your boredom, is there any other reason why you decided to come precisely to us?"
Discreetly, Xio glanced sideways at her friend. Her face didn't show much emotion apart from slightly raising an eyebrow.
The smile on Adryan's face softened a bit, becoming a normal, calm one even.
"Because I want to have a better relationship with both of you, of course."
"..."
There was a moment of silence in the room.
The pair of Trickmaster and Sheriff looked at him, their eyes a little dazed. Thinking about his words, they managed to see sense in them.
Of all the members of the group, the two of them were, in a way, the most distant from him. While not to the point of being strangers, they didn't know each other well enough to be anything more than good acquaintances.
While Zombie Maric and Wraith Sharron's personalities and paths isolated them a bit, they had a good rapport.
With Fors getting help from the Wraith to trick Alan Campbell and Xio for the mission to deal with the Tamara family problem. That's not counting the visits of little Jerry, Opera, and Serena and Nathan to discuss the manuscript; their relationship with Adryan Kenway hadn't grown much...
Xio frowned a little, 'No, it's not like that...'
Not counting or forgetting everything he had done for her in Backlund... The promise he had with her, how he had fulfilled in finding a way to save Fors from the ravings of the full moon and Blood Moon... And adding how the madman had practically paved her way to Sequence 4...
Letting out a soft sigh, the corners of her lips lifted a little.
"What's there to improve, Kenway? I thought we were already friends."
Fors blinked owlishly and turned her head to look at her. Her huge sapphire eyes searched for what had happened to her, if a fake had replaced her.
The Sheriff raised an eyebrow, "What? I'm right, aren't I?"
Her mouth dropped open, wanting to tell her that she wasn't, that this madman wasn't her friend. That if there had been the opportunity, she would never have been associated with him.
But, despite how deeply she searched inside herself for a way to tell her best friend no, nothing came up.
With that, realization hit her, and her disbelief turned to horror, then to disgust, and finally to bitter acceptance.
She, too, already saw him as a friend.
Not as close even in dreams as Xio, but that madman was no longer just that, but had at some point become her mad friend.
Her head sank, and the writer covered her face with her hands.
"Oh, by Steam... What's wrong with me?" Fors grumbled through her hands.
Pat Pat
A hand gently patted her head, comforting her.
"Xio, even that won't work now." The writer mumbled.
"It's not me."
Her friend's now distant voice said from what she quickly noticed was the kitchen.
Fors froze.
The clear implications of what that meant hit her like a cold night's wind.
'Oh no...'
Slowly, she lifted her head from her hands. Darkness faded, and the first thing she saw were scarlet eyes glowing with amusement.
"Not who you expected, eh?" Adryan laughed complacently, patting her head with his left hand.
Fors just closed her eyes in surrender; there was nothing she could do anymore at this point.
Turning a page, Flora said without much interest, "He doesn't look it, but he has a heart of marshmallows."
The female couple may not have noticed, but she did.
As soon as the dwarf admitted that they were friends, her princess's eyes had sparkled a little.
Fushi Fushi
The sound of flapping reached his ears, and the smile on the redhead's face took on a strange tone.
Stretching his finger a little, the thread that was tied to the kitchen window pulled a bit, opening it. A little gray and black bird flew in.
"Hey! Not inside my house!" Xio complained, glaring at it as the troublesome bird swiped at Adryan's forearm.
"Sorry, Miss, but I wanted to take advantage of being around here to do it." Adryan winked in apology.
Taking what the little bird had brought in its peck and closing his fist so it wouldn't be seen, he stroked a finger over the little animal's head.
"Good job, you can rest."
The bird straightened up and waved with his wing, "Pi!"
Following that, it dissolved into golden dust that melted on his forearm, forming a tattoo on his forearm.
Fors looked somewhat dazed at him. Not because the bird had dissolved into dust, she was used to that, but because of what it had brought.
Since the red-haired man was in front of her, the others could not see what it was, but the writer could. She even recognized it, but it took her a moment to process it.
"T-that..." She stuttered, her mouth suddenly dry and cheeks very warm.
"Shh." Adryan lifted a finger and brought it to his lips, with a wink, he added, "It's a little surprise~"
Fors' eyes couldn't help but drop down to the man's ample chest for an instant before looking up again, her mouth opening and closing awkwardly.
With nothing more to say, Adryan turned around and walked deeper into the house, "Miss! I'll use your bathroom for a moment, I won't be long!"
Setting down the tray with the drinks on the small table, the Sheriff looked at the man's disappearing back. Sighing, Xio returned her attention to her friend and looked at her blankly.
"What's wrong with you now?"
With lost eyes and a deep blush, the writer looked like she had suffered a sudden heat stroke.
"Coug. Cough. Nothing, nothing! I'm fine." Coughing into her hand a little, Fors looked away, still clearly in disbelief.
Flora looked at this and narrowed her eyes slightly, her gaze moving to where the princess had disappeared.
Whatever the soldier had brought certainly stunned the writer. While there was no warning of her spirituality, the Jacob knew it was somehow related to her.
She had managed to see that it was something golden, but no more. It wasn't valuable; her Marauder instinct didn't warn or point anything out.
'It's a strange thing, but how strange is it? To make a writer like 'salted fish' react like that, it has to be something quite personal...'
While it wasn't an important detail at first glance, considering the kind of books Fors Wall wrote, it revealed much more. She wrote mostly romance, with everything that went with it.
There was a part of Flora that wanted to steal it for a moment to see what it was. All she had to do was reach out, and what the princess was hiding would be hers. Why bother with that, though? With her current level of decryption, she could easily figure out what it was.
Something extremely simple for her current self, and yet, Flora chose not to do it.
'This will be interesting.' The corners of her lips turned up slightly in amused curiosity.
It was something that was related to her in some way, and, honestly, she wanted to see what nonsensical thing the princess would surprise her with this time.
Twisting her wrist, one of the cups on the tray disappeared and reappeared in her left hand. Taking a soft sip, she lowered the manuscripts to her lap.
"I don't have much to say other than it's considerably better than Stormville Mountain Villa. You need to try to avoid using descriptions so similar to the rest."
While the story was entirely centered on the princess being a 'White Knight,' some of the people who appeared were very familiar.
Her 'best friend,' Xio Derecha, was almost described on a one-to-one basis, with the only difference being that she was taller in the manuscript. The same was true for Sasha, the boy with a woman's name and the ungrateful brat. The only differences were hair or eye color; beyond that, they were the same, down to personality.
Fors sighed loudly as she grabbed her favorite mug, a light blue one with little star drawings, and tasted some of the chamomile tea.
Creating characters from scratch was difficult, so she often relied on people she knew for that.
"I know, it's a bad habit I've kept since my first novel, I'm trying to give it up."
"You don't seem to be," Xio said without much ado as she sat down, her cup in hand and a paper bag at her side.
"Are you sure you're not my enemy just in case?" The writer grumbled.
Already knowing how to deal with this, Xio extended the wrapped package towards the blue-eyed woman without opening her eyes.
Smelling the sweetness coming from it, Fors's frown disappeared, and she quickly grabbed it.
"Oh? What is it?" The writer chirped with clear happiness as she opened the bag and peered curiously inside.
Before answering, Xio took the paper bag from her hands again and placed it on the table, much to the grimace of the writer, who watched curiously as she removed its contents and placed them on the table.
There were several handmade pies. The dough was golden, with a lattice pattern in the middle and red sauce grated underneath. They were perfectly sized to fit in her palm.
Xio took one and popped it into her mouth. She took a bite and enjoyed the strawberry candy. She nodded and finally replied, "Pastafrola."
Fors nodded somewhat absent-mindedly as she grabbed one and took a bite. She paused for a moment and looked at the pie in her hand, her eyes shining.
It was delicious. While it was sweeter than she was used to, it wasn't excessive. The dough was still warm and quite soft; she didn't have to try to bite into it.
'Pastafrola... That's one of Lenburg's typical foods, isn't it? One of their desserts...' Being a writer in a new environment, absorbing details of where she was going helped a lot in her writing.
Taking another bite, this time larger, Fors looked curiously at the redhead. "Where did you buy these from?"
"I didn't buy them."
Fors paused, "Huh?"
Xio held up a finger and pointed at the man coming from the bathroom.
Seeing them, Adryan laughed indulgently, "Oh? You're already trying them out? How are they?
"I may not be a dessert master like Opera, but there are still some I can make."
"..." Fors said nothing; she just looked deeply at the pastafrola in her hand.
"..." Silently, she closed her eyes and took a slow bite, ignoring the origin of these.
They were too tasty not to finish them...
"You have to make them more often, princess, and in larger numbers," Flora said casually, dignified as always. A few crumbs on her cheeks.
The redhead took his place on the couch and nodded, a small smile on his face. "I'll keep that in mind, dear."
While his grandmother's tongue favored more salty foods, she also knew how to make a few desserts—the same ones she taught him how to make.
Grabbing one of the pies and the coffee cup, he ate one. Nodding internally at the taste, still somewhat disappointed.
'When I go to the South Continent, I have to look for guavas. Strawberries are a good replacement, but a pastafrola is not one without guava candy... Would the fruit even have the same name?'
Well, it's not like it's an easy fruit to confuse either. The smell alone was enough.