Ash feels more tense than a boy meeting his girlfriend's incredibly overprotective, gun-owning father. She also feels more uncomfortable than the girlfriend who is then forced to physically restrain her father as he tries to reach his rifle.
The king is hugging her.
Please let her repeat this. The king, the almighty absolute monarch of the Sheris Kingdom, is currently suppressing tears as he wraps his arms around her with a desperate sort of persistence.
What has she done to deserve this?
Liesl died too early for her to encounter any of this bullshit. Ash has nothing to work with!
The king had already begun to act strange the instant he laid eyes on her, but after hearing her father's name, he immediately pulled Ash to his chest and trapped her within his arms. This may sound like the start of a crappy romance novel, but Ash can assure you that the daggers within the young missy's eyes promise pain.
She probably thinks Ash got close to her to reach the king, or something similarly absurd. To be frank, that doesn't matter; what does matter is that Ash very much dislikes hugs wherein she lies in the center of another's embrace. She'd much rather be the one doing the embracing, standing where her victim's neck is easily accessible and ready for snapping.
Unfortunately, the king is trembling and close to tears. Ash can't do much.
She could openly display her discomfort in the hope that he'd back off, but the king's current state is so unstable Ash cannot predict the outcome of that action.
In a last-ditch effort to resolve this situation before Ash's stomach starts churning, she turns her head ever so slightly, just barely catching the guard's eyes. Help me, she mouths.
In response, Bernard calmly looks the other way.
Ash sees red. When she is no longer caught within the embrace of a blubbering royal, Ash will ruin that man.
Even though killing him would make fulfilling Jade's demand more difficult, Ash diligently adds two slashes to his name in her mind. Ash has decided that ten slashes warrant a death sentence. He's currently at four.
Ash wants to ignore Jade's request out of principle more than anything else, but she doesn't have enough information as is. Refusing knowledge so readily provided would be foolish. Ash is too curious to walk away at this point.
(Though she calls it curiosity, the connotations of the word makes it one too light and playful to bestow upon the obsession rooted within her being. She doesn't want to know; she needs to know. Even after spending years and years in the shoddy aggregation of scattered concepts that calls itself a world, her store of information is severely lacking. She knows next to nothing. When one question is answered, two more appear. She has arrived at her final stage saddled with a blindfold she cannot remove. Ash has done her utmost to distract herself from her ignorance with menial thoughts, but soon she will snAP—)
Reluctantly accepting that she's on her own, Ash raises her head and gazes at the king's scrunched eyebrows and tightly pursed lips. "Your majesty? Are you—" Ash cuts herself off, trying to think of an adjective that wouldn't result in the immediate removal of her head from her shoulders.
She eventually settles for a simple: "Are you alright?"
If he tries to respond while she's held within his arms, she'll choke him out regardless of whether or not her head goes flying.
The king, suddenly realizing how strange his actions may appear to others, abruptly releases his hold on Ash. He takes a few steps back before he responds with dignity. Ash may have been impressed by it if she hadn't been subject to a first-hand expression of his overwhelming emotions. How lonely do you have to be to start sobbing when you see the child of a long-deceased friend?
YOU ARE READING
How To Screw Yourself Over
مغامرةAsh Harris, a blunt, chaos-loving scientist of questionable morality, is sent to save worlds when a past she can't remember and a far off future comes back to bite her. She doesn't mind nearly as much as she pretends to though. Ash has always thrive...
