♤♡The HALFLING Heir◇♧

Chapter 10: Spares

An eerie growl reverbs throughout the closely packed trees sending a ripple of shivers down Lisa's spine, she doesn't remember how she got here especially when it was the dead of night. It didn't feel cold which was strange because Lisa knows how chilly autumn can get in Middlend. The woods looked rank and thicker here but it seemed familiar in a way she didn't like, she blinked back the night in her eyes as her vision tried to adjust with the little light she had whilst her feet took her to a particular flowing brook. The stones were darker and seemed to whisper to her in low wispy voices.

The Midde princess noticed how lanky her arms were, the muscle she built over her stay with the militrikes seemed to have dissipated. Lisa however didn't have the time to contemplate about her loss of height and strength as her legs seem to have taken a life of their own, taking her across the stream of water and to a mangled, bloody corpse slumped on the thin grass.

As she closed in, her heart leapt through her throat when she realized that the corpse was a girl. A once untouched Tai beauty, it was her Nini... There she was, Jennie in her beautiful dress, lying lifeless by the riverbank. Maggots settling in her left leg where the blood was thickest.

Lisa wanted to scream, How. Did. This. Happen. Lisa kneeled in front of Jennie's corpse, bawling and weeping into Jennie's dress. Her hands coiled around the Taito's ribbons all but covered in blood and bits of flesh.

"How could you let me die, Lili?" She swears she heard Jennie say, looking at her with bloodshot eyes and a pale expression. Lisa was unable to find the words to reply because she couldn't believe that Jennie was her in front of her, she had not seen her in years and now she found her dead by the river of their childhood.

Lisa was about to reply when she saw that devil bear from her nightmares emerge from the thicket of Banyan trees, its eyes red from the blood spilling out of its head. She gasps as she realizes that the metal thing poking out of the bear's head was her uncle's dagger, the same weapon she used when she was 14 to kill it. Lisa realizes what it came here to do...

-to finish the job it couldn't do years ago. To kill Jennie and to take its revenge. On the girl that killed him. To her. Come then, kill me.

In a split second, its jaw closed in on her and then everything went dark.

Lisa jolts awake, her hand traveling towards her naked chest feeling her heartbeat thump with a speed like a hummingbird's wings. "Jennie..." she breathes, as she runs her hands over her sweat matted ashen brown hair. "Fuck."

It was a dream. It was only a dream, she reminds herself and her heart, hoping that her body could listen to her and calm down. There was no danger here. The Taito duchess was off on Westen shores, happy, safe and asleep. At least she hopes she is. Leo mewls at her, pawing at her sheets like he was laughing at her silliness. She must have woken him. Yeah, I was just being silly. She thinks she must be under so much stress after Bambam's letter. Her peaceful and simple life outside royalty was starting to turn to shit.

"Manshee. Could you stop looking depressed?" Shinji scowls at her, throwing a pea at her cheek. "Seriously Manoban, what the fuck has gotten you looking so glum? I'm starting to hate my curry just by looking at you."

"And you know how much he loves his curry." Lee snickers, taunting the Tai as he slurps the remaining soup on his bowl. Rice covering the mole he has on top of his lip. "You should just marry it if you're eating it out like that. I wish someone would eat me out like that!"

Shinji grimaces at her crass words and stops eating altogether.

The two of them snap her out of her self misery. Lisa gives him a mocking frown and continues shoveling rice down her mouth. "Well, if you REALLY want to know..." she began, not evening caring if her team saw the chewed up food in her mouth but Lee interrupts them by setting her cup down on their table, rolling up her maroon sleeves.