Weak To Fire

1

Mereoleona was always in a bad mood when she had to take the odd trip to the capital of Clover. It was usually for something that she knew ahead of time was really going to annoy her or frustrate her and rob her of every last ounce of sanity she had left. She really, really hated it. But unfortunately it was necessary every once in a while. There was family business that needed to be taken care of, there were official functions that she couldn't dodge (unfortunately) and sometimes there were emergencies when she was simply needed for whatever reason.

This time it had been a mix between a family emergency and an official function. There was some sort of funny business going on with Leo - her youngest brother - and for whatever reason Fuegoleon wasn't enough to scare him not to get into trouble again. So he had called for her to set the poor boy straight. Mereoleona couldn't care less about what kinds of bullshit Leopold got up to, as long as he stayed safe while doing it, but Fueggy seemed to think differently. And since he was mainly looking after Leopold, Mereoleona was happy to oblige, as long as it meant she could live out most of the year in her own little patch in some forest.

The official function - sort of - was Nebra Silva's birthday. Since she was Mereoleona's cousin, she was somewhat obliged to go to her birthday party. (She wasn't really Mereoleona's cousin, but some sort of distant, distant relative from some time way, way back... either way, what mattered was that Mereoleona was still expected to go to her birthday functions and she hated it.) The party wasn't much of a party, even. It was just... it was just exhausting. Sure, Mereoleona's idea of fun and exciting could involve a lot of fire and a lot of explosions and maybe murder, but she would have settled for less... but she didn't even get less.

It wasn't that she hated her distant, distant cousin. She didn't. Not really. She just found her incredibly infuriating. The entire Silva family was going to drive her insane some day, especially Nozel. Mereoleona just knew it. And if she was honest, there wasn't really anyone that Nozel wasn't driving insane. He just had a talent to make people incredibly, unreasonably mad at him. Maybe it was because he could be a real asshole, that might have been the reason.

Nozel hadn't always been like this. At least Mereoleona seemed to vaguely remember a time when he was actually a somewhat nice person. But after his mother died... well, he just became insufferable. And it seemed like everyone just let him get away with it for way too long, because they were feeling bad for him. Mereoleona always thought it was bullshit that he got a pass for everything. She spent a lot of time with his mother, too. She was grieving, too. She didn't get a pass for anything. And she never would have asked for a pass for that kind of behaviour. Not when she knew exactly that Acier would not have stood for any of this if she had still been alive.

But that was in the past. It was honestly time for Nozel to just get a grip already and get off his high horse. The problem was that his siblings all followed his example. They all became incredibly bratty and condescending little brats. All except Noelle, who seemed to just be pushed around by everyone a lot. Just thinking about that family was giving Mereoleona a headache at this point. She was glad that she got out of there as quickly as she could and was finally on her own again.

Alone, by herself, far away from the capital and its petty little squabbles. Surrounded by nature and nothing else. No awful people, no relatives, not even her own family. Just her and herself. That was what Mereoleona liked. She liked her own company and she didn't feel like she was missing out when she wasn't constantly around people. People just irritated her. They always found some way to make her angry and once she got angry she just... she just blew up. She had a bad temper and she knew it, but at least she was doing her best to spare herself and everyone around her a lot of grief by being on her own, somewhere where she could relax.

Plus, out here, surrounded by some rare magic she could do a lot of training. And harnessing her magic was one of her favourite things to do since she had first started using it. She didn't even want to do anything with her magic in particular, she just enjoyed getting stronger and stronger for the sake of it. She liked being able to release all the anger and the frustrations she had with her magic. It was a great outlet for her and it got her a lot of respect (or fear, but Mereoleona wasn't too picky about that).

And out here she could let her magic run free without having to worry too much about injuring people with it. She could bask in natural mana whenever she wanted, she could wreak havoc if she felt like it. She could eat a whole chunk of raw meat and no one would bat an eye at it, because there was no one around who could judge her out here. There was no one around to place any stupid rules on her that were pointless. It was so freeing to just be with herself.

She wasn't exactly sure how far into the forest she had walked before she found a spot she liked and where she thought she might like to settle down for the night. It was a nice little clearing that had a beautiful lake in the middle of it. There were enough trees around to hang up a hammock in a sheltered place, so she could sleep under the stars and look up into the night sky until she got drowsy. It was perfect.

It was so perfect, in fact, that Mereoleona sent some of her magic up into the air in the form of a huge fireball. It scared a good amount of birds away from the clearing and Mereoleona felt a little bad, because she hadn't really intended to disturb anything, but she was just so happy to finally be back out in nature and by herself with no one around to annoy her or try and mess with her. No annoying etiquette, no family meetings, no crowds hovering around the capital thinking they were the next best thing. It was so relaxing to just be out here. Alone.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

Mereoleona's eyes narrowed and she turned around towards the lake. Was she imagining things or had she just heard a voice? The stress in the capital must have really gotten to her if she started hearing voices... and she hadn't even stayed that long this time. She had made sure to leave really soon, because she knew that she could be insufferable when she got stressed out.

It took Mereoleona a while to see where the voice came from, mostly because the person (if that was a person) was blending in with the water in the lake. But if she looked closely, Mereoleona could make out the shape of a woman standing in the lake and slowly floating towards the dry land. What the hell was going on? Sure, in areas where there was a lot of natural mana some weird stuff was happening from time to time, but Mereoleona hadn't seen anything like this before.

"I asked you a question." the strange water lady said. Mereoleone grinned. Whoever that girl was, she sounded pissed. Mereoleona was more relaxed since she had gotten out of the city, yes, but that didn't mean she wasn't still frustrated. Hell, no. If the lady of the lake wanted to argue with her, then she was well up for it. And she knew that she would win. Mereoleona always won arguments.

"Who the hell are you?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and eyeing the other woman up. She seemed petite and... flowy. Not just because she was covered in flowing water, but just... the way she moved. Once she stepped on dry land, the water slowly moved away from her skin until there was only enough left to form a long, flowing dress around her body. She had dark hair and deep blue eyes and her skin seemed to shimmer in all kinds of different skin tones. Mereoleona had to admit that she was objectively pretty. Not that she cared much about any of that.

"I live here. I think I should be the one asking the questions here." the woman replied. Mereoleona raised her eyebrow again.

"You live here? Like, in the lake or what?" she wanted to know in a mocking tone. The woman gave her a sharp glare.

"Yes. In the lake. I'm a water spirit and you're a nuisance and I want you gone."