Ever The Contrarian

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Mercury woke up with a sore back (??). As she stretched, her back cracked in 5 places at once. Spinal damage..? are you okay, Mer? "Ow ow ow!" Mercury screeched, leaping up like a monkey. No more stretching for her, I guess. Maybe today's just not her day, poor thing.

Oh, well, Mercury, You're certainly not the first person to just not have a good day. Join the club, girl! Anyway, Mercury decided that she'd spend the entire day confined in her room and lazing around. There's been enough chicken-dancing, sword-swinging, and blackmailing in the past few chapters, so let's just take this one easy, alright?

Nada. Nope. That's what she decided, but if I was gonna let that happen then this would have ended with the sentence "Mercury spent the rest of the day doing exactly that - lazing around" and we would be at the next day right now. There's no way that's happening, sorry. Get up, Mercury, You're gonna face some more drama today. A lot of drama. Sorry, what can I say? I desperately need views, so you're gonna have to sacrifice your sanity for it. On cue, Mercury stopped stretching out her back opened the door to her room, and peeked out curiously.

Literal tumbleweeds. There was no one there. No one watching her, that is, Nice, then! Time to snoop around. Mercury took off her bathroom slippers and tiptoed down the hallway. Ohohoho, got you now! almost instantly she heard voices. yeah, eavesdropping! possibly the rudest thing ever, but she gets a pass since she's the main character. Mercury held her ear up to the door and tried to listen in. Shucks, the wood was too thick!

Nada. Nope. Again, you thought I'd let that happen? Suddenly, the voices rose a bit higher and drifted past the wood - and into Mercury's ears. ("That was my doing, by the way, Mercury, be grateful. you can hear now." The author sighs, looking up from her typewriter.) "What are we going to do about the girl?" A voice asked. Seedy. "Who?" another, slightly lower-pitched voice asked. "Rue, I think her name is. I've seen her with the douchebag prince a lot. They might be planning something." Internally, Mercury wanted to burst through the door and hug him. Douchebag was right! Finally, someone understood! "Should we just kill her?" another voice asked, and Mercury froze. No more hugs for them. "Nope, that prince is too sharp. Especially their friend of his, the blond-haired noble bloke. They'll track us back to the emperor too easily." Mercury unfroze. Phew! I got worried for a sec there, too! As long as she wasn't getting killed, she was fine with anything. "Hmmm. then? should we try to get her on our side?"

Ooh! two-timing! Mercury could help the crown prince out that way (even though she was technically already two-timing as rue... three timing?), and then she'd just hand them over to the crown prince once she was done with deceiving them. Yup, sure. "Yes, we should try to recruit her. What more news do you have?" the deeper voice, who had asked to kill her earlier, said, and the higher-pitched voice sighed. "Intel is slow this week, so that's all I got. Sorry." Footsteps echoed towards her. Exiting the room. The meeting was done. Mercury was standing in the grand middle of the doorway. What the heck! Mercury desperately glanced around, and then grabbed her sword out of her belt and gave it a serrated edge again, like she had when she first got it. Stabbing that into the wall, she used it as a handhold to scale up to the beams on the roof, where she perched and prayed that they wouldn't look up. stuff like this only works in novels, Mercury, so you're lucky that this is a novel. As the door opened, two figures stepped out. Mercury squeezed her eyes shut. Come on, Mer, loosen up. You don't have bad luck like me (the author has the worst luck on the planet), so you're relatively safe. The figures pulled up their hoods and covered their faces, and then opened the window and casually leaped out. (????) After a minute, Mercury checked to make sure all was quiet. "Good riddance! I hope you break a leg from that fall or something!" Mercury sighed, shifting off the large oak beams and down the wall once again. As she was about to touch the ground, the crown prince walked in behind her, looking typically fancy. wow. How do you even wear that? dude? Mercury gaped at a silk tie studded with rubies, and a black suit lined with gold paper. Wow, she could bet that the outfit alone was a fortune, dude. Forget wolfskin rugs, if she sold the crown prince's hide, she'd be set for life! "Uhm.... isn't that heavy?" Mercury asked, blurting the first thing that came to mind. She then slapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. "Not really." The crown prince dismissed, and suddenly Mercury grinned like a cat. (????? Maybe I made this MC too unpredictable. Sorry.) "Whatever. I was waiting for you. I have something to tell you!" And then the story of everything that had just happened ran out of her mouth.