Bonded Alloys

Sabine was not comforted by the realization that Mercury had concrete evidence of the Midian princess’ unbecoming behaviors during her time in Bellum. She began to speak between pinched lips as Themesycia held the woman, desperately trying to plead with Mercury over the matter, but of course the Silver Wolf mage ignored her. The time for trying to fix things had long since passed for Sabine, and it was far too late for authentic apologies and genuine begging. Mercury went on with her list of built up thoughts, suggesting that Sabine work on learning how to accurately read relationships between people. Her cutting off Vandrad before he could get the chance to refute Mercury’s claim about their friendship was met with chuckling all around the room, including from the prince himself who seemed far too entertained by the spectacle to interrupt it for anything.

But it wasn’t until she got to the heart of what had really irritated her and set Mercury off about the woman that the show took a truly dark turn. Sabine screamed in pain as the Silver Wolf mage threw her to her knees on the unforgiving quartz floor, locking her up in a contraption that was somehow both futuristic and archaic looking at the same time. It was the only sound Sabine had made so far that Mercury appreciated, adrenaline pumping through her veins like heroin. The princess was so terrified that even without the restraints she probably wouldn’t have been capable of moving, her terrified eyes locked on Mercury in total fear. The Xocili put her threat forth, practically wishing that Sabine would try to call her bluff then and there. What Mercury wouldn’t do for the chance to rip the woman’s rib cage open, leaving her to die slowly in utter agony as she bled out all over the floor…

Instead, Sabine did nothing, too petrified to speak or even make some sort of physical gesture by way of acknowledging what Mercury had said. All she could do was stare and cry, tears pouring down the Midian woman’s face to a completely uncompassionate audience. It wasn’t until Themesycia slipped in enough to get the woman’s attention that Sabine looked away, the duchess rather simply informing Sabine that it was in her best interest to swallow her fear and give Mercury some kind of confirmation. And for her part, Mercury hadn’t looked away from the Midian once, aware that Themesycia was there but only vaguely in the back of her mind, with the parts of her that weren’t currently overshadowed by unchecked rage.

Even after Sabine finally nodded in quiet subservience it took Mercury a second to find the control to pull herself away. Themesycia helped by calmly and politely letting the Xocili know that she would handle things from there. Mercury shot Sabine one final dirty look before waving her hand and allowing the restraints to disappear. They had already served her purpose anyway, unbeknownst to anyone present, as dozens of tiny tracking and auditory devices had been buried beneath Sabine’s skin, unable to be seen by the naked eye, nor tracked through most means of magic.

Thankfully, as the duchess went on to reprimand the foreign woman with a much more regal attitude, reality started to set in on Mercury to the point where she didn’t even hear what was being said. A very real panic was starting to rise up in her, even though her face was still stoic with anger. Stars, what had she just said? She had been so angry that words had escaped her mouth before she’d really gotten the chance to think of them, and now the Silver Wolf ace was scrambling to try and remember what all she’d said. Most of it she didn’t care about, but one thing in particular quickly dawned on her with the full weight of a crushing hurricane: she’d let slip the origins of that song in front of nearly a dozen people, revealing more about herself than she’d meant to and painting a potential vulnerability for everyone to see.

Remaining as composed as possible, Mercury calmly turned away in the middle of Themesycia’s chat with Sabine and walked toward the nearest door that she knew would take her outside without having to pass immediately by any of the others. Along the way she may eye contact with no one, especially Vandrad. Pushing her way calmly out of the room and into an adjacent hallway, she used her sensors to verify the quickest route to the outside and made her way that direction as quickly as possible without outright running. She practically burst out into the courtyard, nostrils flaring as she sucked the cool afternoon air down them, feeling claustrophobic even now that she was no longer in the building or surrounded by people.

Mercury allowed herself only a brief pause as she tried to decide where she was going to go, knowing that she needed to put some distance between herself and anyone that might be trying to follow her. Because she knew someone would… and they would have questions. Unfortunately, the panic was starting to settle in and it was rattling her brain. She felt like she was going to explode. What had she just done? “Fuck…” Mercury swore under her breath.

Her feet started moving again without her really thinking about it, walking just to get away and put some distance between herself and the embarrassment she’d just created for herself. How could she be so fucking stupid? Mercury was going to catch hell for this. The last thing she was supposed to be doing on this planet was making friends and shouting information about herself to high heavens. She’d let her guard down, and now she didn’t know what to do about it.

The slayer was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn’t realize she’d made it to the house until she was standing in front of it, her mind having subconsciously taken her there as the only other place on the island that she knew of outside the palace. Rather than head inside, however, she walked around to the back and onto the rear porch that faced the ocean waters lapping at the bottom of the cliff face below. It was there she finally stopped, resting her hands on the railing that hung over the cliffside and gripping it so hard her knuckles had turned white. Her face was cast out toward the open waters in the horizon, looking at it without really seeing it as she tried to calm herself down enough to think straight.

The way things stood now, Mercury had two options. Her reports had to be sent out once a week, complete with uninterrupted copies of the footage from her ocular lenses. Her allowing herself to get so fired up over something personal, mixed with the amount of opening up she’d already done over the last twenty four hours, was going to be a red flag. She had been working long enough in the field that her superiors would easily spot how off balanced she was behaving. There was always the chance she could take to simply leave out key parts of her footage, to protect herself… but that would be equally as damning, if not more so. A willful act of insubordination. Either way, it was already too late. She’d stuck her foot in her mouth, and sooner or later the consequences were going to catch up to her. She just had to try and figure out which avenue would lead to less… horrific results…

If either of them would.

She was busy comparing the two options against one another in her head, analysing each of them against what she knew of the behaviors of those she worked for to try and reach the most suitable conclusion, when her sensors gently pinged that someone was heading in her direction. Mercury couldn’t tell exactly who it was, but if she had to place money on it she would assume it was either Vandrad or Themesycia. Honestly, Mercury wasn’t sure which between the two of them would be harder to face in that moment. She didn’t think either would really pry all that much, but the duchess was exceptionally intimidating with how well she could read people, and Vandrad… Well, Mercury wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with him. He’d been acting differently for most of the trip. Hell, both of them had, as much as she hated admitting it to herself.

Still, the Silver Wolf mage was relieved when it was the prince that slowly joined her up against the rail, rather than his mother. He didn’t say anything right away and neither did she, her gaze remaining forward as she tried to figure out what to say. There was just no way Mercury could brush this whole thing off. Not only would he not buy it, but it would be disrespectful for her to even attempt it, and at this point the last thing she wanted to do was insult him that way.

He broke the silence first to ask if she was okay. The question put a small lump in her throat that she couldn’t quite peg where it had come from. It wasn’t the first time someone had asked her that question, but it was the first time it had ever been asked to her regarding her emotional state rather than a physical one. And even then, other times in the past had been rare and coming from people that didn’t really care about her very much. Vandrad didn’t really give her a chance to answer right away, which was just as well since she wasn’t sure how to respond. He explained that he hadn’t been sure whether she would want to be alone or not, but felt it best to at least come and check on her, even offering to leave again if she didn’t want his company.

Shit, Mercury thought to herself. This was exactly what she’d been afraid of, exactly the reason she wasn’t supposed to get attached to people. Nine out of ten times, this man was a surly stick in the mud that was only just barely starting to find a sense of humor, but oh that tenth time… apparently that tenth time, he was so caring and attentive, even downright tender in a way that Mercury had never been exposed to before. It confused and even scared her a little, her instinct from years of training screaming out danger.. Yet at the same time, she couldn’t help but be drawn to it, despite everything she believed about her supposedly lacking the need or desire to connect with anyone. She was starting to realize that if she spent much more time around the man he was going to rip down every single wall she had with little more than a compassionate look or comforting hand.

“I don’t know,” the slayer finally told him quietly, in answer to his question as to whether or not she was okay. It was an honest answer, though the truth was probably far more concrete than she was necessarily willing to admit to herself right now. The question really came down to how honest she should be; how honest she wanted to be. If she started talking, even just a little, Mercury was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop herself and would once again say too much. On the other hand, if she said nothing at all it just… felt like a betrayal to his trust. Especially given how much she now knew about his own past, without his being aware of her possessing the knowledge. That damn story was going to haunt her, as much as she appreciated hearing it and letting Themesycia get the chance to talk about something she’d clearly needed to get off of her chest.

Mercury sighed softly, closing her eyes and lowering her head, a single hand lifting up to rub her temples like she was getting a headache. Already, she knew this was going to be a bad idea, one that would come to bite her in the ass at some point, but it didn’t stop her. “I’m… embarrassed. It’s been a long time since someone has made me that angry, and over something so stupid.” He’d probably be able to hear the frustration in her voice over how annoyed she was with herself. Instinctively, she flicked her wrist to conjure her cigarette case, her body craving something to help sooth the jitters she felt coursing through her veins. Mercury even went so far as to tap one of the sticks out, starting to raise it to her lips…

It never made it to its destination. She paused halfway up, brows twitching in some kind of inner battle within her mind before she lowered her arm once more and resorted to simply fiddling with the thing between her fingers. “I don’t talk about myself. Ever. To anyone,” Mercury told him, trying to figure out some kind of cohesive footing to stand on. “A lot of things I can’t talk about. The rest… The rest I don’t know how. I’ve never spent enough time around anyone for them to ask, not that I would have been likely to answer if they had.” That felt strange to say around Vandrad, who was arguably starting to become the only person who had been successful in getting her to answer anything about her life. She realized that probably sounded discouraging toward him doing so in the future, which just settled wrong in her stomach, but Mercury didn’t know how to fix that without sounding like an idiot so she just kept talking.

“I just don't know what the hell I'm doing, anymore. I never had anyone to rely on other than myself. No allies, no comrades, no family. It never bothered me, and it still doesn’t. Not really. I never really had the time to care about those things too much. Honestly, you know more about me than anyone ever has.” A striking statement, and a rather sad one given how little Vandrad really knew about her at the end of the day. She was a woman who kept everything close to the chest, something he already knew but now he’d start to get the idea of how deep that ran.

Mercury had always been alone, for her entire life. As little as Vandrad had connected with the people in his, he’d always had his family, even those under his command while he was in the army, to rely on. He’d even admitted that no matter how badly any of his plans to carve his own path had failed, he would always have those failsafes. Mercury had never had any of those things. And from her tone as she spoke, he would get the impression that she wasn’t trying to complain about it -- she had long since made peace with her lot in life, or at least as much as a person truly could. It was what it was. But clearly, she was frustrated because things in her life were changing and she didn’t know how to handle any of it.

She shook her head, rolling the unlit cigarette between her fingers, upset with herself. “I’m just not used to losing my cool like that. I didn’t even know the damn woman. She died long before I was old enough to remember her. The only knowledge I have of her is her name and that dumb song. Fucking stupid thing to get so worked up over something so… insignificant.” With a resigned sigh through her nostrils, Mercury finally gave up on the cigarette and shoved it back inside the canister.

There were a few long seconds of pause as silence built between them, the air still tense though arguably less than it had been before she started talking. Mercury could feel Vandrad’s eyes on her, which she refused to meet. The metal canister fiddled between her fingers, softly sliding the lid open and closed as she stared out over the ocean. When the prince spoke up he gently told her that he didn’t think it was as insignificant as she claimed. In fact, if he had known the origins of the song the night before when Sabine had thrown her jealous hissy fit, Vandrad would have hurt the Midian in a much more permanent, and likely more fatal, fashion. He understood not being too attached to a song itself, but whether it was the only piece of a puzzle she had to her mother, or one of many, it still had meaning.

Her head hung a little. As much as Mercury wanted to speak otherwise, she knew Vandrad was right. Just because she hadn’t met her mother or been able to build a connection to her didn’t mean that the woman was nothing to her. If anything, the fact that the song was the only thing she had of her made it all the more valuable. It was more than she had of anyone else she could be related to. A few of her people still lived but not many, and any records that once existed of them had been wiped out, which meant there was virtually nothing for her to go off of to track down even a name of who her father could have been. She’d never had the time or luxury to put much stock in tracking the information down… but that didn’t mean a part of her, no matter how deeply it was buried, didn’t want to know.

Vandrad reminded her that he wasn’t much for prying. It wasn’t in his nature to go searching for information that wasn’t readily presented to him, not unless doing so served a very specific purpose that he deemed worth the effort. And in a lot of ways he was similar to her in that he didn’t exactly broadcast much about himself either, stating that even if he wasn’t trying to hide his identity in Fiore he would still keep a low profile about it if only to avoid attention. They had both been loners their whole lives, even if his experience with it wasn’t quite as severe as her own.

Despite this, however, the prince informed her that she was somehow still the reason that he was starting to realize it wasn’t necessarily wise to only rely on himself, and that sharing parts of himself with other people wasn’t a bad thing. Her eyes flicked toward him slightly, resting on his arms out of the corner of her vision without turning her head. Vandrad admitted he didn’t understand what about her she could and couldn’t discuss, not knowing what her circumstances were, and he was never going to demand to know anything about her. However, the things he had learned meant a lot to him. By his own words, he enjoyed the opportunities he got to know more about her, definitely more than he had enjoyed meeting her.

The joke wasn’t missed, and to his credit it did draw a soft snort from her, the smallest of smirks tugging up one side of her mouth. “Hey, I was all sorts of fun,” she teased him back dryly. “You were the one being a stick in the mud.” Lifting up the canister, Mercury lazily tossed it over the balcony where it disappeared into whatever interdimensional space held such things long before it could fall the hundreds of feet down into the ocean. She was already starting to feel a little better, but he took the conversation a step further than she was expecting by telling her that he wanted her to think of him as an ally the way he did with her.

A lump formed in her throat again, the smirk settling back into something more sober. Vandrad admitted that he wasn’t exactly the most personable of individuals, knowing full well how broken he was, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to be the one thing she’d never had: a companion. A friend. He didn’t say the word, but the intent was there beneath the surface. He wanted to be by her side to help her weather the storms that came, as long as that was where she wanted him. Neither of them knew what they were doing, but for him it wasn’t as scary knowing that she was there with her. While her face was perfectly stoic, her heart was running rampant inside her chest. Mercury was completely overwhelmed by his words, words of genuine caring and compassion that she’d never heard before. Since she had no idea that he was able to sense that kind of stuff, she made no effort to keep the feeling locked away even if her expression was a flawless mask.

For the second time that day she felt like crying, though this time nothing managed to claw its way out of her eyes, thank the stars. She didn’t know what to say to him. Of course she wanted him there, but how was she supposed to express that without it coming across as pathetic or needy? Emotions sucked. Life was so much easier when she didn’t have to worry about this kind of shit, but she couldn’t deny that it also felt less… well, hollow. Mercury could feel his eyes on her again and she fought the instinct to look back, something inside telling her that if she looked at him in that moment there was going to be trouble the likes of which she wasn’t prepared for.

But then he brought the performance from the night before back up, complimenting both the song and her deliverance of it, calling both beautiful. It meant a lot to her, more than she would ever be able to express with words. “Thank you,” Mercury told him, her voice quiet. Against her better judgement she turned her face enough to meet his eyes. If it had just been a compliment to herself then it probably would have been easier for her to keep from looking at him, but he’d paid respect to the song itself, and by extension her mother -- the only part of her past that held any importance to her. For her mom’s sake, she found the courage to accept the compliment respectfully, meeting his gaze and letting him see by her eyes how much his words had meant to her.

She looked up at him in silence for what had to have only been a few seconds, but it felt like hours. It was like they’d gotten stuck on him, a warmth spreading through her chest that she’d never felt before. Somehow, Mercury managed to find the wherewithal to pry her gaze away, though that did nothing to ease the side effect that had already come along with it. In an uncharacteristic display of comfort she slowly leaned over until her head could rest lightly on his shoulder as she looked back out over the ocean again.

It took awhile for her to say anything, and for a time it probably seemed like she wasn’t going to. Really, Mercury was just trying to collect her thoughts over everything he’d said to her. When she did talk, her tone was about as soft as he’d probably ever heard it before. “I don’t think you’re broken,” Mercury said. “Just because you’re not like everyone else doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. Maybe they cover their insecurities up, but that doesn’t mean they have them under control. They just lie about it better.” She would know. She lied about how she felt all the time, or at least hid it masterfully. “If you’re broken, it’s no more than I am, or anyone else for that matter. You’re just… stronger than the rest of us when it comes to acknowledging it. You don’t pretend to be anything other than who you are. Maybe I’m wrong, but that doesn’t sound like someone who is broken to me…”

There were a lot of things Mercury wanted to say to him. She was slowly starting to understand that she wanted him to pry and ask questions about her, to actively get to know her and encourage her to start conversations , to encourage her to push past her own limitations. The only problem was, there were other factors involved in her life that she earnestly couldn’t tell him about, things that would put him in danger if she didn’t continue to do as she was commanded. Mercury was already probably on thin ice for a lot of her prior reports that she’d left things out of. None of today, or even yesterday, was going to help that.

Perhaps later she would fret about it, but right here, right now, she just didn’t care. She was at a miraculous moment in her life where she was learning how it felt to have someone other than herself caring about her best interest and emotional state of mind. It was terrifying, and exhilarating. It had been a big step for her to rest her head against him. While Mercury certainly wasn’t afraid to touch people, it wasn’t something she did very often without provocation or a very specific cause. But even then, she had never reached out to anyone in search of physical comfort, nor had she ever expressed her respect for someone as profoundly as she just had for Vandrad.

She hadn’t really meant it to be sentiment. Even as she spoke it, Mercury didn’t really seem to understand the depths of what she was saying to him. The woman was just speaking to what she saw, and it just… didn’t seem fair to let him discredit himself by thinking he was broken, not when that wasn’t how she saw him at all. Sure, he had a horrible and traumatic past, and it had certainly played a major role into shaping him into the man he was today, but she saw a lot of things in him that she wished she could see in herself. It wasn’t right to let him talk so little about himself like that, so she’d merely voiced her thoughts so he could maybe see himself from her perspective: a man that had the strength to face himself, the good and the bad, and not be daunted by it or try to hide any of it.

Her words had carried a deeper impact than she’d expected. At first Vandrad teased her a little, playfully mocking about how she always had to be right. She chuckled a little as he prodded her head with his shoulder. “Well, one of us has to be,” Mercury jabbed back lightly. She wasn’t expecting his other hand to come around, cupping her cheek and turning her face so that it was once more looking up at him. This time she didn’t make any attempt to keep her gaze from meeting his, mostly out of surprise and confusion to the rather intimate gesture. For all the times his hand had felt warm on hers, it was practically fire against her face, whose cheeks turned a slight rosy hue at the way his eyes met hers.

He told her, if somewhat indirectly, that even though she hid most if not all of her insecurities behind a facade of confidence and lies didn’t make her weak. She’d only been behaving the way that life had taught her to, doing what it took to survive the circumstances she’d grown up in. And maybe, just maybe, all she’d needed was someone else to come around and help her see her strengths past all those fears. Or perhaps, in spite of them. Mercury could only watch him, brows gently twitching with emotion as he explained his thoughts that he believed he understood her better than she was giving him credit for, like he could see right through all of her walls and barriers to the scared, angry, violent, lonely little girl inside. And like her when it came to all his less desirable personality traits, it wasn’t doing anything to push him away. He was still there.

Mercury gulped so hard he probably saw it. It was a statement she didn’t really know how to process, which wasn’t helped by the fact that her head was starting to fog up from the way he was looking at her. Her heart was practically in her throat. She felt like she’d been put under some kind of enchantment that kept her from having full control over her mind or body, though she knew there wasn’t any magic at play here. He started to say something but stopped, unable to find words, and then before she knew it he was leaning forward and placing his mouth gently against hers.

She’d had her fair share of kisses. Mercury wasn’t the most physically -- or emotionally -- affectionate of people, but she did engage in sex when the mood and opportunity struck her, which wasn’t as often as he probably assumed of her. But all of her interactions with people in this manner before had been born out of playfulness or downright lust. It had always been something fun, flirty, light hearted.. Something to enjoy in the moment for what it was before walking away and moving on to other stages in her life. This was… different. Her eyes widened only slightly and briefly in surprise, a split second of shock causing her brain to scramble for some kind of appropriate reaction.

And then, throwing caution to the wind, she relaxed. Her own eyes fluttered closed and Mercury seemed to melt both into his lips and into the hand that still cupped her cheek. A soft sigh rushed through her nostrils. Trembling a little from the absolute surge of emotion and lightheadedness that washed through her, Mercury somehow found the courage to return the gesture, kissing him back sweetly with a tenderness she certainly never thought herself capable of. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she should stop, but damn it she didn’t want to. She did nothing to escalate the situation, content to stand there and enjoy the moment for however long he saw fit to let it linger, for once in her life letting someone else take complete control over the situation and surrendering to… well, whatever the hell was happening.

They kissed for a long time, with neither of them pushing for it to be anything more than that. The thought did run briefly through her mind, of course. The curious part of her nature recognized that if this lead somewhere it would be completely different from any such interactions she’d been in before, and the piece of her buried deep under layers and layers of denial and trauma that longed for a deeper connection with someone desperately wanted to know what it felt like to be treated with tenderness. But somehow the thought of doing anything to lead this beyond a kiss felt like it would… cheapen what was happening here.

His other hand moved to her side and gently pulled her closer to him. Mercury did nothing to stop it, letting herself fall against him, both hands almost timidly reaching up to rest against his chest. Everything over the last day had been filled with a lot of unexpected feelings that Mercury was unfamiliar with, and this seemed to very much be a culmination of all of the weird tension that had been building. Time felt like an illusion to the point where she briefly wondered if Vandrad shared his uncle’s ability to pause it. Mercury tilted her face slightly as their lips moved softly against one another, her fingers putting the barest of pressure against his chest above his shirt. All she could think about was how much she didn’t want the moment to end.

But it did have to end eventually. Vandrad pulled back enough to give them a couple inches of space between their faces, Mercury following him for only a fraction of that space before accepting that it was time to stop. She didn’t open her eyes right away, intimidated by what she might see in him when she did. Instead, Mercury turned her face gently into his hand, nuzzling against it tenderly. It was only once he slid the limb down from her face, the palm running down her shoulder to her other hip, that she finally opened her eyes and chanced a glance up at him. He was looking at her with about as much apprehension as she felt, not embarrassed or regretful over the moment but certainly not knowing what to make of it.

An uncertain chuckle bubbled its way from his throat, drawing the barest of shy smiles from her. He spoke up to mention that it was probably in their best interest to head back to the palace. And thank the stars, too, as Mercury had exactly zero idea what she was supposed to say to any of what had just happened and was more than happy with putting it behind them to deal with it later. However, he did state that she could still have time to herself if she needed it, indicating that he could return without her to at least keep the rest of the family from putting out a search party for them.

“No,” Mercury told him, perhaps a bit more quickly than she should have, her soft voice a bit coarse. Clearing her throat a little so she could at least sound more sure of herself than she actually felt, her hands on his chest relaxed a bit, sliding down only an inch or two along with her gaze. “No, I’m… I’m okay now. I promise.” She found the courage to look back up at him so he could see that she meant the words, even if she was still somewhat overwhelmed by everything else. He didn’t really seem to want to part from her, his hands remaining on her sides, and likewise she made no effort to pull away. If anything, like him, she wanted to stay right where they were.

They both knew they had to go back though, and eventually he did slide his hands slowly from her, taking a step back without really putting much more space between them. Mercury reluctantly followed suit, her own hands pulling back from his chest to cross uncertainly in front of her own, not entirely sure what to do with them, now. Vandrad told her that he liked these awkward moments between them, despite how weird it was to admit. Like her, he didn’t understand them, but they made him look forward all the more toward the chance of getting to know her better. He even expressed his sentiment that he believed such chances would do more to bring them closer together.

And apparently, that would make them a fairly formidable force. Mercury smirked back up at him, a hint of her normal mischief glimmering in her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she informed him, her tone playful even if it was still a bit soft. “I’m already undefeatable. Or have you already forgotten how I dutifully wake up earlier than any sane person to come kick your ass every other morning?”

The smirk lingered a moment longer before she finally let out a soft sigh, accepting that the moment was all but passed and making her peace with it. Her gaze shifted behind them toward the house, taking it in again. “Do you… want to see the house before we go back? Since we’re here anyway…” Mercury asked him hesitantly. “Unless you’ve already seen it before.” She forgot that he and his family owned all this property, and it was highly likely he’d already been inside or seen most of the homes in the area. Then again, he wasn’t really the type to get out much or put a whole lot of interest in such things, so maybe he’d never set foot in any of them.

Assuming he expressed an interest, a small smile would find its way to her face. Despite how much she was still having to take in about the gift, Mercury was clearly still able to find some excitement and pride in having something to essentially show off to him. It was probably tiny to him, but it was bigger than anything she’d ever expected to have and she was obviously happy with it. Her expressions were as subtle and muted as they ever were, but there was a brightness and innocence to her eyes that wasn’t a part of her normal repertoire of emotions. She would let them in through the back door that led into the kitchen and walk through it with him at whatever pace he wanted. Mercury explained that Themesycia had given her permission to change any of it however she wanted, but at the moment she was uncertain what, if anything, she would do in that regard. Aside from the basement, which she did express her interest in turning it into a personal lab and work space for her to tinker around with her electronics and gadgets if she could.

Once they were both ready, they made their way back to the palace. By that time she seemed back to her normal self, and anyone who asked if she was alright would just get a simple explanation that she’d just needed to step outside for a while to calm down. Thankfully, it seemed it was in the nature of the entire du Wolff family to not pry, so no one really pressed the matter or brought up its specifics, letting her brush the embarrassing moment behind her and try to forget about it. There were still a couple hours before it would be time to finish the prep work on dinner, so Mercury would follow Vandrad’s suggestions on how to fill that time, content to just spend some leisurely time with him and his family without the weight of Sabine finally being gone.

Vandrad snorted at her comment about how she supposedly kicked his ass at training all the time, eliciting a slightly larger grin from her as he informed her that they were, at best, evenly matched. She was more than welcome to prove him wrong tomorrow morning, though. The two of them went through the house a bit, and then it was back to the palace where Themesycia found them upon arrival. The duchess informed them that Sabine had been successfully escorted away. Thankfully, she didn’t bring up Mercury’s awkward removal from the earlier situation, but Mercury hadn’t expected her to.

With everything set, she led them back to the study where the rest of the du Wolffs had gathered, explaining that they were more than ready to watch the video footage of Vandrad’s so called spar with the woman. Even though everyone else had watched it unfold life, they were all still quite eager to rewatch it. So, Mercury had whipped up a way through her magic to feed the footage directly to the large lacrimavision in the room where all of them got a great laugh once again at Sabine’s expense. They watched and rewatched the scene as a group, playing it in several different modes with Mercury even using her skills to add hilarious music to it for montage purposes. In fact, she was sorely tempted to send some of it to Sabine herself.

And from there the conversation stemmed into the list of other arranged marriages that had once been set up for the prince. Some of those had some equally cringy story moments to them, though not all of them were bad, and those that were certainly didn’t top Sabine. But Mercury quite enjoyed hearing about all the other times where Themesycia had tried to set Vandrad up with other ladies that all failed to capture the man’s attention for this reason or that. She teased him mercilessly about many of them when the opportunities presented themselves, which happened fairly often. Granted, the prince was an easy person to tease a lot of the time. He took it in stride, however.

They all spent the time merrily together until the hour arrived where dinner was ready to be prepared. Vandrad took her back down to the kitchen, along with Everance and Bartrand, where the four of them got to work with their various projects. The prince and Mercury went back to the freezer to pull out the meat, wheeling it back to the counters before he pulled out a number of spices and herbs and other items that could be used to season it. She eagerly went over each thing he showed her, using her heightened senses to take in their rich scents and even sampling tastes from some things where it was appropriate. He invited her to pick one or more things to work with, which was a bit daunting, but he was able to easily pair the stuff she selected with other things that would work together and heighten the taste.

They made a large mixture of seasoning and he showed her how to apply it as a dry rub onto the meat. It was a bit of a messy process, which wasn’t exactly her favorite thing in the world, but for once it didn’t really bother her. She was in a great mood, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. A culmination of things, probably. Once the seasoning was on, he taught her how to wrap it in stuff referred to as cheese cloth to keep anything from falling off. Between the two of them, the meat was prepared and ready to go in no time, leaving the both free to help the other two family members. Vandrad helped Everance with preparing potatoes to be cooked and mashed, along with a number of pots worth of mixed vegetables.

Bartrand, on the other hand, was going to town a giant bowl of some kind of chocolate mixture that he called a mousse. According to him, the recipe was one that he constantly used to draw the attraction and interest of other ladies, comments that weren’t veiled at all in their attempt to catch Mercury’s own eye. She merely grinned at the young man, making it a point to reward his flirtations by offering to lend him some assistance while Vandrad worked with his aunt. Frankly, she was a bit fascinated with everything going on in the kitchen, having never been a part of this kind of activity before, let alone to the scale which they were preparing.

Once everything was ready, they moved outside where Mercury was introduced to the biggest fire pit she’d ever seen in her life. Hell, it was bigger than any pit she’d ever imagined, not that she necessarily spent an overabundance of time thinking about such things. Since at this point the family knew that she had an affinity with metal of some sort, she elected to help Everance setting up the rods that would hold all the pots for cooking the potatoes and vegetables even as Vandrad hefted an absolutely gargantuan skillet into his own corner of the pit. Bartrand lit the thing, and away they went.

Once all the food was in place where it was supposed to be, there was little from that point that Mercury could do to help. They were the experts, and she didn’t want to get in the way, so she contented herself taking up a spot on a boulder near Vandrad and just chatting with them until other people began to show up. The rest of the du Wolffs showed up first, but soon the area was crowded with a number of other people that Mercury didn’t know, only recognizing a few of them as faces she’d seen working in the palace since yesterday. She soon found herself chatting with a great deal of people, mostly members of the family but the people she talked to would fluctuate as they moved and gravitated in and out of various groups. Quite a number of them had actually been at the ball the night before and came up to introduce themselves, complimenting both her dramatic entrance and the song she’d sung.

It was overwhelming, though not necessarily in a bad way. Mercury had just never been around so many nice people before, let alone all at once. The gala had been different because most of the noble guests had kept to themselves while the staff had been working, and sure she’d gotten plenty of attention at the orgy, but that was entirely different -- and also entirely Vandrad’s fault. This was more of a community feel, and it was yet another thing that Mercury had never really been exposed to before. A part of her wondered if her people had done things like this together before the invasion.

She was distracted enough with everything going on socially that she didn’t really get the chance to check in too often with Vandrad, who was pretty focused on cooking the main course anyway. Most of his glances toward her went unnoticed, but she did catch his eyes a few times, giving him a couple smirks or even making faces at him once or twice before turning her attention back to the people she was talking to. She was most interested in Sabine’s former ladies in waiting, who were more than eager to reveal to Mercury quite a number of juicy secrets and embarrassing stories about the Midian woman, while also going into great detail at how angry Sabine had been from being dismissed the night before, particularly at Mercury herself.

When Vandrad finished cooking the meat, cutting it up and putting it on serving plates, Mercury broke away to join Themesycia and Simon in serving out the food. It was strange to her to actually want to act in the capacity of a servant, but something about the genuine generosity of the du Wolffs just… made her want to be a part of everything they were doing. So rather than taking an opportunity to be served, she worked with them to pass everything out to the others that were usually in the serving role for the family. Once everyone else had been given their portions, she and the duchy members served themselves and took up spots around the fire that was now burning just for the sake of enjoyment and atmosphere.

The dinner was absolutely amazing. Mercury was utterly floored by the first bite of the vulcan meat, a look of shock crossing her face before she shot Vandrad a playful glare. “You really have been holding out on me,” she accused him. “I’m going to hit you again. Right after I finish this.” After that, Mercury went right back to eating, as content as the rest of the family to sit in happy silence with their food. No one really started getting chatty until their plates were nearly empty. A great number of the household staff insisted on taking care of the clean up, leaving the family to rest in relative peace with all the cooking long since out of the way.

It didn’t take long for the drinks to start coming, and eventually someone suggested a drinking game of some kind. The nature of it was that each of them would take a turn posing a statement scenario of something they’d never done before, and anyone who had done the activity was required to take a drink from their alcohol. It sounded like a fun, if dangerous game, so Mercury agreed to play, simply hoping that nothing that came up would be things that would cause her to reveal too much of herself -- though at this point she had already decided that she wasn’t sending any footage from today to her superiors, so they wouldn’t know about anything that transpired anyway.

The game started off fairly innocently, bringing up smaller activities and such that were really more surface gleanings than anything else. But it didn’t take long for things to start getting dirty, which came as no surprise to Mercury even though she’d never played the game before. Even less surprising was that most of the du Wolff family outside of Vandrad had to take drinks at nearly every turn. Mercury herself actually took a fair number of drinks as well, though probably not as many as most of them expected her to. They learned a number of things about her in this regard, including that she had slept with both men and women in the past, had slept primarily with strangers or acquaintances, had always been sober for all of her dalliances, and had engaged in at least one threesome.

Of course, there were a lot of things they also found out she hadn’t done through the mechanisms of the game. She’d never had sex twice in one day with two different people, nor had she engaged in sexual activity multiple times in one week, or even in one month. She almost didn’t have to drink for one scenario someone had posted about sleeping with the same person more than once -- at first she thought she hadn’t, and then she remembered there was one or two times she had and wound up taking a drink with others. And despite the good amount she’d imbibed throughout the game Mercury was, at best, buzzed.

Not everything was necessarily about sex, though. While Vandrad had certainly been able to contribute more to the game than if they’d done this before Desierto, he still had only had sex the one time so there was only so much he could drink for, despite the vulgarity of their affair. The current hot topic was skinny dipping, which seemed to be swimming naked with other people, not to be confused with bathing. While most of the du Wolffs easily laughed and took their drinks over it, Mercury’s own glass remained set on her lap.

When the dessert came out, Mercury was more than ready for it. Bartrand had done an excellent job talking up his recipe, and she was eager to see where all his bragging landed him. Not that she doubted his abilities. Far from it. If there was one thing she’d come to learn in the two days she’d been here, it’s that if the du Wolff family members bragged about something there was usually a reason for it. And apparently, it was tradition to pair dessert with appropriate liquors, which Mercury certainly wasn’t going to complain about. She enjoyed a glass of smooth whiskey with her plate, openly humming over how delicious the meal was. “Okay, I’m starting to see how you get laid over this,” Mercury told Bartrand, half joking and half very serious.

The drinks paired well with more than just the chocolate mousse, however. The drinking game went in full swing, with even Vandrad opting to play which Mercury was sure was far outside of his normal behavior. It was Simon that both posed the game and launched them into the naughtier version of it, starting the chaos with a question that Bartrand immediately dubbed as a cheap shot at all the women present. Vandrad took a moment to playfully jab at his two female cousins, surprised that they’d slept around. Ophelia immediately retorted that they weren’t as prudish as he was, even stating that she and her sister had dated identical twins not that long ago. Twins that had even taken the time to switch themselves out for one another so each of them could try to sneak their way into the other sister’s pants. “Brilliant,” Mercury said with a wide grin, clearly pleased by the brothers’ strategy even if the girls had caught onto it.

Though apparently, that hadn’t stopped Ophelia and Cecilia from engaging with them anyway. Cecelia followed up with a cheap shot of her own, reversing the cards back to the men, as well as to Mercury, Themesycia, and Ophelia. Mercury was the only one not terribly surprised by that, if only because she didn’t know Ophelia as well as everyone else here did, but the younger woman got a few impressed looks from her family and even a vocal teasing from the duchess. Ophelia played it off as a phase, explaining that it hadn’t exactly been the most femanine of women anyway. Then she went on to point out that no one was giving Mercury any grief for sleeping with women before. The Silver Wolf mage shrugged. “Sometimes you like both,” was her only explanation, revealing that she was at the very least bisexual. Truthfully, she was more pansexual than anything else, but those two affiliations overlapped in many places.

Themesycia commented about how she’d been trying to lure Mercury into her bed since the night before, and was still hoping to do so, longing to be another female notch on the Xocili’s rap sheet. The lavender haired woman shot her a flirty, knowing smirk. “Even if daddy let me out of his sight long enough, I’m pretty sure I’d have to fight for your time between six other Midian maidens,” she teased. Dudley, ever the enthusiastic one, took a moment to celebrate and draw attention to the fact that for the first time ever Vandrad had been able to take a drink with them over an illicit act. He called for a toast, which everyone joined in on, especially Mercury. She grinned wide, wiggling her brows at him over her glass as she took the drink, enjoying the site of him rolling his eyes as always.

Ophelia seemed to be in the same boat as Mercury when it came to their levels of deviance, both women partaking in enough drinks to confirm some rather lewd things in their past but not to the extent that one might think of them, especially Mercury. In fact, the Silver Wolf mage nodded in agreement to the darker hair sister’s words that she just didn’t really feel the need to go out of her way for it all the time, as much as she enjoyed the activity. “Same,” Mercury told her with a shrug. “Sex is fun, but not really something I go searching for. In fact, I’m not sure I ever have. Usually I don’t even think about it until someone I’ve apparently been flirting with too much starts putting more serious moves on me.” She chuckled a bit at her own silliness, knowing full well how weird it probably sounded to them that a woman as flirty and sexually inclined as she seemed to be really didn’t expect her behaviors to wind up resulting in anything most of the time.

A lot of the questions were geared specifically to trying to get as much dirt as possible on Vandrad’s liaison with Mercury, the family making no effort to hide that they were prying. With each question that she knew they would both have to drink for, she always gave the prince a side eyed, chesire grin to watch and make sure he was honest. And to his credit, he owned up to it every time, no matter what teasings and reactions he got out of it. By his own words to her the night before, he did take pride in what had happened between them, if a “sick” one, so even if he wasn’t as wild or overt with his expressions regarding the incident Mercury knew he wasn’t completely hating his life over the game.

Once enough information had been gathered by them about the encounter, the rest of his family had collectively decided that it was easily the best story out of all their collective first times. “Now you know why I was so shocked when I found out,” she told them all, particularly Themesycia who had been the reason Mercury had learned of it in the first place. “I had no idea. He certainly hadn’t acted like it was his first time, and he was way too intelligent to tell me afterward because he knew I would never let go of it. There are just some things people should never tell me, eh?” She reached out with one of her feet and playfully toed at his leg.

When the topic turned to skinny dipping everyone, even Vandrad, took a drink aside from Mercury. Everance expressed her surprise and even Mercury gave the man an impressed look. But as he casually explained, soldiers often had little choice about when and where they bathed, nor who with. It was often a survival thing, too, to make sure none of them went missing as a result of being out on their own. It was a sentiment Mercury could more than understand, even if she hadn’t found herself in that kind of situation before, and she showed her respect for it by not teasing him about it. Not that she thought he would be upset by any teasing, of course, but as someone who understood the necessities that came with being a cog in a great war machine it made sense to her.

Cecilia didn’t waste a moment to comment on it though, the blind woman being exceptionally drunk by this point given how much more of a slut she apparently was than her sister. Mercury giggled a bit in amusement over the woman’s slurred questions about Vandrad seeing other women’s boobs and asking if he liked them. She even commented on Mercury’s, which drew a flirty grin from the lavender haired mage. “You could come over here and find out first hand,” Mercury told her with a wink. So far, her budding friendship with Vandrad’s female cousins had been more sisterly than anything else, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t share a few moments here and there.

It was Bartrand who brought things back around to point out the fact that out of everyone present, it was surprisingly Mercury who hadn’t been skinny dipping before. The younger man took the opportunity to eagerly remind her that there was a pool within walking distance and that they could easily rectify that. She shot him a somewhat naughty smirk. “Careful, I might just take you up on that.” Then she chuckled to herself. “Swimming naked in a pool shaped like a dick. There’s so many jokes there I can’t even pick one.”

Cecilia piped up again in Mercury’s defense, drunkenly giggling to herself as she said that perhaps Mercury didn’t like swimming. Still staring at the Silver Wolf wizard’s chest, she added that perhaps the woman didn’t even know how to swim at all. Mercury smiled a little, amused despite herself, but her gaze did drop for a moment. She wasn’t entirely used to openly admitting her vulnerabilities in front of one person, let alone a group of them, but… this was a safe place, with people that weren’t going to judge her or use the knowledge against her.

“I… actually don’t know how to swim,” she told them, her voice still playful and clear but still with a slight element of embarrassment to it. “There weren’t any large bodies of water where I grew up, so I never had a reason to learn. In fact, I’ve only been in water too deep to stand in once and I almost died because I couldn’t figure out which way was up. Even if I had been able to orient myself, I doubt I would have made it anyway -- I’d drained all my strength trying not to get eaten by a massive sea snake.”

Vandrad and Mercury’s death defying story against the ocean dwelling serpent was one of the few that hadn’t come up in conversation yet. Not that either of them had been avoiding it so much as neither had a reason to tell it so far. In fact the only mention of it had been during Mercury’s introduction to Themesycia at the ball the night before when she had jokingly commented that Vandrad was probably wishing he’d left Mercury to drown in the oceans outside Ca-Elum, which would lead the duchess to probably figure out pretty quickly that Vandrad had been there the one time Mercury had been exposed to deep waters and nearly drowned in them.

Mercury didn’t openly indicate that Vandrad had been there, though. It was the one story of theirs where they really had almost truly died, and sometimes those kinds of stories were a little more tender in the telling. Granted, now that Dudley had heard about a fight with a sea serpent he was probably going to demand to hear the tale, given how much he loved stories of adventure and danger. Were that the case, she would only shoot Vandrad a brief glance to convey that she didn’t have an issue with him telling it as long as he didn’t.

Ceclia rose to meet Mercury’s challenge, not wasting even a second at the offer to get a bit more familiar with the Silver Wolf mage’s rack as she somehow managed to make her way drunkenly over. She plopped down enthusiastically and shoved her face right in Mercury’s boobs, electing to get a feel for her chest through methods other than simply copping a feel. The lavender haired woman could only laugh merrily, clearly more than a little amused by the drunken antics, as Cecilia rubbed her cheeks against her chest and made herself comfortable, vocally exclaiming that her assessment of Mercury’s breasts had been correct.

Mercury slipped an arm around Cecilia and pulled her up close with a grin, figuring if the woman was going to be there awhile they both might as well be comfortable. Bartrand made a joke about it to which Cecilia promptly informed him that they were cuddling, and while cuddling anything else that happened still constituted as such, presumably no matter how dirty. And that apparently was the perfect lead in for Ophelia to comment on how that situation was how Cecilia had lost her virginity, drawing laughter all around the campfire. “Oh, is that how that works? I should try cuddling more often, then.”

Apparently, despite the fact that everyone else had been to this home far more times than she had, Mercury was the only one who had picked up on the rather distinctive shape of the pool. It was Everance who touched on the comment before Ophelia spoke up and playfully demanded an explanation from her aunt. Themesycia simply shrugged, explaining with no small amount of smug amusement that it had been a subtle way to flip off all the haters that had decided it wasn’t a woman’s place to be a solid unit of war like she was. Or perhaps, those who seemed to think that she should be more femanine despite her talents. “I’ll drink to that!” Mercury said in regard to the duchess’ final interpretation of the statement behind the pool, raising her glass in a salute before taking a swig from it.

But eventually the topic had returned to skinny dipping and the potential reasons why Mercury had never done it, and the slayer made the surprisingly conscious choice to divulge to them the real reason behind it. She felt Vandrad’s gaze move to her a bit pointedly, which was weird. Really the only reason she hadn’t given the prince a look herself during the admittance was because she had honestly figured he knew. After all, he’d been the one that had saved her from dying. It hadn’t really occurred to her that there were other possible excuses he could have thought up to explain why she’d drowned. Even if he wanted to ask about it here, which would have surprised her, he wouldn’t get the chance anyway as Dudley latched onto the topic vigorously, demanding to hear the tale.

She could see that Vandrad was going to protest, but when he caught her look he reconsidered. Mercury wasn’t necessarily encouraging him to tell it, of course, just leaving the ball in his court and making it clear she was fine with whatever he decided. In the end, he elected to give very minute details that simply stated how they’d been attacked on their way to a job in Ca-Elum and had proved to be difficult. He undersold the truth about how close they had both come to dying pretty heavily, telling Mercury that while he wasn’t concerned about acknowledging that event had happened, he wasn’t exactly keen on reliving the details. Hell, he even fully left out that he’d been the reason she hadn’t died that day -- although that wasn’t terribly surprising. While he was full of bravado on most such stories of his fights, somehow it made sense to her that he would downplay being a hero, of sorts.

Where Dudley might have pried for more details, Themesycia distracted the man with such ease that Mercury wondered if it had been an intention conversation change. It was smooth, so not even she could know for sure. Either way, neither of them had to say much more than what had already been presented as Dudley confirmed his own past with the creatures and Ophelia took the opportunity to give everyone an impish grin and pose a drinking question that screwed over Vandrad, Themesycia, Dudley, and Mercury alike. “Booo!” Mercury teased with a grin, taking her drink dutifully.

By the time the game ended, Cecilia had fully passed out on Mercury. It was a bit strange for the Silver Wolf mage to just be sitting around holding someone like this, though not necessarily unpleasant. At first it had been easy, then after a bit she wasn’t sure what to do when the woman stayed, and after a while she wound up finding some place of acceptance for it. Every once in a while her emerald gaze had flicked down to the top of her head as if still a bit surprised by her being there, but the way it was usually followed by the tiniest of smiles indicated that she was pleased with it. It was the most extensive physical touching that she’d ever engaged it that wasn’t related to sex in some form. Given that Mercury had even less exposure to platonic affection than she did sexual, it was more than a little strange… but it gave her a weird sense of peace that she wasn’t used to, a sense of feeling like she was wanted just as herself and not just out of a physical attraction.

And granted she’d been getting a fair bit of that from Vandrad, too, on this trip, but it wasn’t quite the same. Their relationship wasn’t romantic or even sexual outside of the one encounter, but it also wasn’t entirely platonic. She really wasn’t sure what was going on. But cuddling like this with someone who had no real interest in her sexually and was just content to hold her close and share her warmth and comfort… well, it was unexpectedly pleasant. But eventually Simon and Ophelia decided that it was probably time to get the other woman to bed, and they came over to help pry the passed out Cecilia from where she was plastered to Mercury, who grinned and did her best to help them get her up without jostling her too hard. Not long after that, Dudley and Everance left with Bartrand, the latter of which took one last opportunity to remind her that he was available at any point of the night if she got the whim to skinny dip.

Then, it was just Vandrad, Themesycia, and Mercury, enjoying what was left of the flames. The duchess commented on how nice the evening had been, earning a small nod from Mercury. “It has…” she said, perhaps somewhat softer than she’d meant to, her emerald eyes lingering on the dwindling fire with a peaceful smile. There wasn’t much on her mind at the moment, for once. She was content to simply enjoy the warmth against the cool night, learning that there was something almost supernaturally calming about sitting around a campfire in the dead of night with a glass of alcohol and the company of others.

Of course, that didn’t stop her from picking up on Themesycia’s wish that Vandrad and Mercury could stay a little longer, not eager for either of them to leave the next day. It was exactly the set up that she’d been waiting for per their earlier agreed scheme, though the Silver Wolf mage was honestly surprised it hadn’t come up sooner. Her gaze flicked over to them casually as Vandrad agreed with his mother that it had been a while since they’d been able to spend any quality time with his family. However, he did protest -- if softly -- stating that he had matters to take care of back in Fiore and presumably so did Mercury.

She swirled what was left of her current drink, eying the glass before speaking up. “I mean… not really. I actually wasn’t joking when I said that I was concerned that you had come back here so abruptly without leaving word. I had honestly thought that something urgent had come up, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t something you could use any help with. Using it as a means to confirm and tease that I did know your real identity was an added bonus, of course, but not the only reason.” Mercury flashed him a grin. “But I told Silver Wolf not to expect me back for at least a week. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned I’m on vacation until the end of that timespan. So I mean, you can go back if you need to… but I’ll probably stay for a bit longer.”

Her smile settled into a knowing smirk on him before she innocently told him, “Don’t worry. I’m sure your family will take great care of me.”

He did look pretty surprised when she spoke up and stated that she actually didn’t have any plans for the remainder of the week, her thoughts before leaving Fiore having been that she may be needed longer than just a day or two. She finished up her comment with a rather transparent tease to state how well she was certain his family would take care of her in his absence if he elected to return home. Really, Mercury wasn’t making any effort to hide the implication that leaving her alone in Bellum would likely result in her sleeping with one or more of his family members. Themesycia chuckled, raising her glass in a mock toast before making it clear that Vandrad was more than welcome to go back by himself, insisting that she would, indeed, take very good care of his companion.

There was a moment of pause as he shot a confused look between the two before his own lips curled into a smirk. Vandrad taunted them about whether that was really the best they could offer by way of ploy, going so far as to deem it sloppy. While his mother seemed surprised, Mercury didn’t. In fact, her smirk only grew into a wide, toothy grin. Themesycia may have considered the strategy flawed given Vandrad’s ease in seeing through it, but really Mercury hadn’t intended for it to not be see through. Besides, there were few things she liked more about Vandrad than the fact that he was pretty quick on the uptake with all of her immature schemes and pranks, constantly giving her grief over them even as he enjoyed their fruits.

The duchess attempted to question his comments and all he did was brush it aside and relent, stating that if Mercury was truly on vacation there was no reason for them to go back so quickly. The responsibilities he had in Fiore weren’t so important that they couldn’t wait a few more days. Finishing the rest of his drink, he added that clearly he couldn’t leave Mercury here alone anyway with practically his whole family trying to get between her legs at this point, which he even admitted wasn’t that difficult of a feat. Still grinning, she told him, “Oh I’m sure you’re mother is more than aware of how easy I am at this point.”

Clearly Themesycia would know this because of the game they’d all just finished playing.

Still, the older woman relented, stating that if she didn’t need to put any more effort into it that was fine, she was happy just to have the few extra days. Which also meant that she apparently didn’t feel the need to linger at the campfire with them any longer, particularly with a small gaggle of Midian women waiting for her back inside the castle. Mercury chuckled, quite pleased by the masterful stroke that the duchess had played in further humiliating Sabine even before the woman had been fully dismissed from the premises. Before she left, the duchess wandered over and gave Mercury a teasingly long kiss on the cheek, eliciting a small giggle of interest from her even as the woman made it clear that there was room for one more in her bed if she managed to sneak away from her son in the middle of the night.

Then mother and son bantered a little before she went over to bid him goodnight as well, taking his empty glass and giving him a kiss on his own cheek. When she thanked him with a bit more gentle sincerity for staying, Mercury turned her gaze away with a small smile, pleased by how happy the duchess clearly was but also feeling a bit like it was a private moment of gratitude that she didn’t really need to be a voyeur to. So instead, she elected to give them their moment in relative privacy as she leaned back in her seat and looked up at the stars, finishing off her own drink. She only turned back once the duchess straightened out and turned to leave. “Goodnight!” Mercury would call gently.

It was just the two of them at that point, and Mercury figured that he would be eager to call it a night given that he wasn’t nearly as much of a night owl as she was. Mixed with how late they’d stayed up the previous night, how long and exhausting both days had been on an emotional and physical level, she assumed he would probably advise that they should bank what was left of the fire and turn in as well. There was quite a look of surprise on her face, then, when he brought his younger male cousin up, and Bartrand’s numerous attempts at getting Mercury to go skinny dipping with him. Rather than express any teasing over the possibility, however, he simply stating that doing so would mean that she would need to learn how to swim and he was just the right teacher for the job.

He must have caught the confused and impressed look on her face, cause the grin he gave her was quite wicked as though he knew she probably hadn’t been expecting that particular twist. Hell, Vandrad even wiggled one of his eyebrows at her just enough to notice. “Really?” she asked, amused despite herself. “Here I figured an old man like you would be ready to go to bed already. It’s like ten hours past your bedtime, isn’t it?” Mercury honestly had no idea what time it was, but even to her it felt late. She was far too lazy to check any of her internal clocks, however, content to not feel like she was on a schedule of any kind.

A smirk spread across her own face then as she gave him a knowing look. “Oh, I see what’s in that head of yours. He wants to break that particular cherry of mine so you’re gonna teach me to swim… but considering we don’t exactly have any swimsuits on us at the moment, you’re also going to swoop in and steal that skinny dippy first of mine, aren’t you? Clever boy.” Whether that was true or not she didn’t really know, Mercury just enjoyed giving him shit at this point -- honestly about as much as he enjoyed taking it from her and giving it back.

She gave the proposition a little thought, though not a lot. For once she was actually feeling a little more tired than she normally did at this hour and probably could have been talked into turning in early, but his offer did interest her. It would be nice to learn how to swim, and not just for the purpose of ensuring that she hopefully wouldn’t drown again. But also because the thought of being able to do so seemed fun. She had watched a lot of his family playing in the pool that morning, looking refreshed and playful. It would have been nice to join them, and maybe with a little instruction she could do just that. Mercury was a fairly quick learner with most things.

“Yeah, sure. Let’s give it a shot,” she told him, not looking the least bit nervous or apprehensive about the idea of facing an activity that had nearly killed her the last time she’d been forced to try it. The idea was certainly much less daunting in a pool where she could see the bottom, and if he was there she knew she wouldn’t drown again. She stood and walked with him around the palace grounds to the other side of the house where the pool was waiting, no longer covered by the stage that Ophelia had built for morning spars. It looked a little different at night with a few lights on beneath the water that illuminated it enough so the area wasn’t in complete darkness. Picking a pair of chairs, she stripped along with him, pulling off the dress and the rest of the garments along with it, folding them all up neatly before setting them down, with the only item that remained on her being the ring. She also left her hair up, figuring it would be easier to deal with if the unusually long strands weren’t holding her head back once they would inevitably get wet.

Once they were ready she followed him into the shallow end of the pool, stepping in rather easily. She was actually unprepared for how warm it was, though it quickly dawned on her that with all the money and magic the du Wolffs had it made sense that they’d ensured they had a heated pool so they could swim at any point during the day or night without worrying about the temperature. Mercury waded in until the water was just above her waist. “Alright, professor... so how do we do this?”

“Oh, someone’s in a good mood tonight,” she said by way of a pleased response to his clap back at her inability to function in the mornings. Mercury knew she was a bear in the mornings and wasn’t afraid to embrace that, especially if he was going to give her shit about it.

She teased him about potential ulterior motives for the offer, to which he replied he was only doing it so that he wouldn’t have to worry about her potentially drowning again on any future jobs. And not for her sake, only for his own peace of mind that he wouldn’t have to waste energy saving her again. The way he carried himself made it sound like he really meant it, but there was a small smirk toward the end of the comments that alluded he was teasing in some form. She grinned. “I mean, if I drown I’m sure Bartrand will have no problem giving me mouth to mouth.”

Before long, they were stripped down and in the pool, Mercury getting her first taste of skinny dipping. The experience really wasn’t all that much to make a scene over, since the two of them had seen each other naked a couple times now. As such, they weren’t approaching the experience like a couple of rebellious teenagers getting all excited over the idea of nudity. They just stripped down and wandered into the surprisingly warm water.

Stopping only momentarily once they were a decent way in, she looked to him playfully for guidance. Vandrad smirked and told her that usually when teaching children the best method was to have them hold onto the side of the pool and paddle their feet behind them to get used to the motion. She grinned back at him, sure that he was quite pleased with himself for insinuating that she may potentially have to be taught like a child. But, then he offered her his hand, explaining that oftentimes a lot of people started by floating on their backs to get a feel for how bouyant their bodies were in water. Apparently, that method didn’t work for everyone though, and didn’t exactly do much to teach the proper way to actually swim.

She took his hand and let him lead her out toward the deeper waters, smirking at his humor but listening with rapt attention to what he was telling her. It was all about the limbs, he informed her. Much like walking, legs were most effectively utilized to travel through water by working in opposite tandem of one another. The arms didn’t necessarily have to be above or below the water, but they needed to move in a somewhat circular motion like a propeller. As far as physics went, it made sense. Whether or not she accomplished it with any sense of dignity or ease would be another matter entirely.

He drew her further into the pool until the water was up to their shoulders, he stopped them. Despite how calm the pool was in comparison to the raging ocean, Mercury could still feel the tug as the liquid ebbed and flowed from their passage through it, pulling her back and forth on her feet. Her balance wasn’t helped by the fact that, this far in, she felt the instinctive need to stand on her toes to keep her head above the surface, which gave her less stability. Vandrad suggested that she first try pulling her legs up and trying to float in an upright position, using her arms to stay up. That way, if she started to sink she could just straighten out and steady herself on her feet again, or barring that he would be there to help her reorient herself.

“Alright then, let’s see how much of a fool I make of myself with this.” Smirking with a bit of self depreciative humor, she tried lifting her legs up, curling her knees a bit toward her chest. She tried to move her arms in such a way as to mimic how he’d shown her before, but she hadn’t been moving them fast or hard enough to actually do any good. She started trying to pump her arms much harder after that, but it was already too late. As a result, she sunk almost immediately. There was a small, somewhat amused yelp from her as her face started to submerge beneath the surface before she finally managed to find the floor with her feet again and stand upright.

Mercury chuckled at herself. “That didn’t take long…” Well, at least now she knew she needed to push her arms a lot more forcefully than she’d tried the first time. A part of her was tempted to use her magic to make actual propellers on her hands and feet that would let her do this with ease, but not only would Vandrad never let her live that half assed approach down but Mercury would never be satisfied with it herself. Making sure she was steadied, she tried again. This time, rather than pulling her legs up so far she sank down a little further in the water and tried to use her arms to sort of… lift herself up, waving them back and forth under the water until she was doing so with enough speed that her feet could lift a couple inches away from the bottom.

It wasn’t a perfect strategy. She teetered a lot in the water as she attempted to get her balance right, her face coming precariously close to submerging again a couple times. It took her a few tries to fight the right speed and angle to pump her arms so that they could keep her at least above the surface, if a bit unsteadily. She did this until she was at least consistent with it and able to mostly tread water, even if she felt ridiculous and foolish with the wide, circular gestures she was making with her arms.

Mercury wasn’t even consciously aware of him slipping his fingers between hers, too focused on the way the water gently pulled her this way and that to do anything other than be thankful for the extra measure of stability. Not that it had helped much once she actually tried to follow through on the first of his lessons, biting off a bit more than she was ready to chew and nearly falling completely under the water right away. He teased her about how quickly she’d at least been able to get upright again, stating out it was better than last time given that he hadn’t needed to go get his cousin to give her CPR.

“I mean, if you’re that eager for Bartrand to make out with me, I can drown a little longer,” she teased back, flashing him a grin. Then, she set herself to trying again, this time with better results. While Mercury felt downright silly with the awkward, unfamiliar movement she was having to make with her arms to keep herself afloat, she managed to at least do so effectively. Vandrad made another small quip at her expense, but she continued to prove to be someone who could take the same amount of shit she dished out, at least with him, and simply smirked at him before he continued on with the lesson.

He told her that with her arms able to keep her afloat, it would make it easier for her to kick her legs under the water, which would give her more power behind being able to push through it and stay treading. The next task he wanted her to try was swimming toward the shallow end of the pool, instructing her to think of her legs like paddles to propel her through the liquid. She watched as he gave her a demonstration, sinking down into the water a bit and angling himself horizontal enough that she could see his legs clearly as he swam over toward the other end. Straightening up, he gestured for her to go ahead and give it a try to swim toward him.

On an intellectual level, Mercury completely understood it. It was just physics, a field she was more than adept in. The science behind it added up, and she understood that the idea was about finding the right angle so that when she kicked her legs it would create enough momentum to move her in the direction she wanted to go. Meanwhile, her arms were meant to keep her up above the water and balanced. But like many other sciences, understanding how it was supposed to work didn’t always smoothly translate into the actual practice. Her first attempt was slow and a bit clumsy, as she actually found it a bit awkward and difficult to lay horizontally enough in the water to move herself.

But, she did manage to get there. Vandrad had watched her carefully the whole time, both making sure that she wasn’t struggling to stay afloat and to examine how she was moving her limbs so that he could give her a few critiques to improve herself. Once he passed along a bit of education in that regard, he suggested that she walk back to where she’d started and swim back to him again. This process repeated itself a couple of times, each round with her showing more improvement and ease in the process before she was at least moving steadily, if slowly.

From there, he switched things up again, showing her how she could be more active with her arms to move more swiftly. Vandrad helped her practice that for a bit until she was at least somewhat comfortable with it, and before she knew it she was swimming with relative ease. Not necessarily with any grace, but still accomplishing the task and proving herself to be a rather quick learner once again. When they finally relaxed toward the end, he told her that there were other types of patterns that she could swim with too, but by his own words he did not want to overload her with too much information. Instead, he dove down into the water and swam beneath the water until he could come up at the stairs, sitting himself down and inviting her to try swimming back and forth between him and the middle of the pool a few times.

“Show off,” she said with a smirk as he came up from under the water, having shot through it with next to no effort on his part. Then, Mercury did as he suggested and carefully moved herself back and forth through the pool, gaining a bit more confidence with each pass. By the end of it, she still had a bit to go as far as refining her technique, but otherwise she was swimming.

Feeling the effort in her muscles, once her last lap was done she moved to sit on the step next to him, eager to relax for a few minutes. “Boy, that’s a workout,” she said, taking a minute to stretch her arms out a bit, pulling one over her chest and then the other before doing the same behind her head. Her breath was steady to indicate that she wasn’t laboring to breathe by any means, but she was definitely starting to feel the tension in her muscles as they exercised in a way they weren’t used to. “I guess I don’t really have an excuse not to use the pool at Silver Wolf anymore, now.”

She shot him a little grin, and while there was certainly a fair amount of humor in her eyes from the comment a lot of her positivity in the expression seemed to be more pride than anything else, happy to have learned a useful skill that had evaded her for her entire life up until this point. Once she’d stretched enough to feel like she’d eased some of the weirdness out of her limbs, Mercury leaned back so she could rest her elbows on the step behind her and take it easy.

“You know, don’t take this the wrong way,” the slayer told him, giving him a look that was equal parts quizzicle and impressed. “You’re not exactly the first person I would peg for being a teacher. What with you not being the most social person in existence, and all. But you really do enjoy it, don’t you?” He’d already said as much to her earlier that day while they were prepping the food for dinner, commenting on how much he’d missed being able to train other people in the army. Teaching her how to cook Vulcan meat had been an enjoyable experience for him, and now here he was having just gone through the effort of helping her acquire a whole other skill, by his own offer.

She sighed and tilted her head up, eyes taking in the stars. There were a lot of them out in Bellum, the sky clear without the unfortunate side effects of pollution that typically came with areas high in technology. “I don’t think I’d have that kind of patience. Then again, outside of killing things I don’t really have that much to pass along.” It wasn’t a piteous statement, or even a lamenting one. She didn’t seem to be bothered by the fact that the vast majority of her skills were related to how to break and destroy other people. In fact, she was quite proud of those abilities. If anything the comment was intended to be a humorous one.

She smirked at him, thoroughly pleased with the shit he was giving her about the pace he thought it would take her to learn how to swim properly. Vandrad went on right away to explain a bit about how swimming was often considered a rigorous enough workout to serve as full cardio, since it exercised nearly every muscle continuously, while also building strength in one’s core and stamina. He slapped himself meaningfully on his own admittedly ripped abs, drawing a small snort of entertainment from her. Her comment about having to make use of the swimming facilities at Silver Wolf brought him entertainment in kind, stating that he was sure she would improve, even if she made him join her there to go over the lessons again.

“I do like to make you work,” Mercury told him with a grin. She had never really stopped to think about the fact that he hadn’t ever been to Silver Wolf. Even now it didn’t actually occur to her, or at least not as something worth really noting. She had always gone to meet him at Fairy Tail because Mercury was far more comfortable putting herself in other people’s places of security rather than bringing them in to her own. That, and she figured that if he had been interested in spending time with her outside of just training all the time he’d make the effort himself without needing any prompting. It wasn’t like Silver Wolf was exactly easy to get to, being up on the top of a snowy mountain. Up until this weekend, she figured his only interest in her was just using her as a means to get stronger and continue his endless training rather than just… wanting to spend time with her for the sake of doing so, like they were now.

The Xocili voiced her musings over how surprisingly good of a teacher he was, despite how he presented himself on the outside. The prince simply told her that growing up, his mother gave him some assistance from time to time but generally he’d focused on improving on his own, which was difficult. Looking back, he could see how perhaps the process could have been quicker or more effective if he’d let someone else help guide him. Still, he claimed to have an eye for talent and a respect for those who wanted to learn, and those things drove him to give to others what he had, in his youth, refused for himself.

Not that his methods were the kindest, Vandrad admitted. He could be quite hard on those he worked with, but if they could bear through it they would see striking results. A large part of his job with the military had been to pick out the recruits that could be molded into true soldiers, even if they were resistant to training and putting in the effort. But to her credit, he recognized that she was a quick learner that was greatly interested in taking in new information and knowledge about most things, so that made him all the more eager and willing to teach her, specifically.

There were reasons for that, not that he’d know them. Given that Mercury’s brain was quite literally a computer, she could process most information and collect data at frightening speeds. She was also capable of storing that information away for quick and easy access. Her slayer magic was more than just a talent learned to hone her interest and skill in electronics -- it had manifested itself that way because those were the elements that already made up her seemingly human organic body. Each element represented a part of her own biosynthetic makeup that she could now magically manifest into external representations and pieces of her body.

She made an offhand joke about her talent for killing being the only real skill she had to pass along, which he rebutted with a simple disagreement. Mercury watched him with curiosity from where she still sat back against the steps, even as he turned around and leaned back into the water to float on his back. He told her she was pretty adept with technology -- really she was much more than that, but again that was nothing he would have any reason to be suspicious of. But, it was a skill that a lot of people would be interested in learning. He also brought up that she had an ability to strategize with the best of them, which was also something worth passing along.

There was nothing she could really say to either of those points that wouldn’t open up a line of questioning Mercury couldn’t get into. Truthfully, Mercury would have no idea how to teach someone the art of strategizing because most of her tactics were quite literally encoded into her DNA, meaning that when she acted she oftentimes wasn’t even thinking about it, she was just doing it. It was the same when it came to technology. Mercury understood electronics and engineering on a level that few on Earthland, if any, would be able to comprehend. Technology wasn’t just something she was good at, it made up every fiber of her being, literally. Breaking down the intricacies of electronics and such would be very akin to teaching them how to dismantle herself, which was… an uncomfortable thought.

“Perhaps,” was really the only thing she could offer, not sounding fully convinced but also not necessarily ruling out the possibility. Mercury just wasn’t ready to get too far down that line of conversation, knowing that it would completely change… well, everything about their relationship. That, and put her and a fair number of other people in danger, including him. Thankfully, Vandrad didn’t seem keen on staying on that topic. He looked at her over his chest from where he floated, giving her a smirk and drawing a raised brow of interest from her. Her final skill he had worth note was how excellent she was at being a pain in the ass, going so far as to imply that none compared to her ability to get under someone’s skin and twist around. He was more than certain there was someone out there with both the interest and the stamina to learn from her.

She had been smirking back at him when the prince followed the playful comment up by splashing an absolute wall of water at her with one powerful sweep of his arm. Leaning back and comfortable as she was, Mercury didn’t have the reactionary time to do more than gasp and instinctively bring her arms up to block the water from hitting her face. But the rest of it slammed into her, soaking her after she’d semi started to dry off from just sitting half out of the water.

Emerald eyes fixed on him, ripe with a bubbling mischief. So that’s how he wanted to play, was it? In a flash, Mercury conjured a thick, metal rifle of sorts into her hand beneath the water, its clip little more than a tank filled with the water from the pool. Ripping it up and setting it to bear as she quickly stood to her feet, she pulled the trigger and loosed a steady, powerful stream of water at him, cackling madly to herself the entire time. Once the tank had been fully spent, though, she knew he was going to seek retaliation, so Mercury turned and made a mad dash for the steps to try and make it out of the water completely before he could get to her.