Book 3: Chapter 52 (1/2)

Grimmy stared down at the unconscious girl who was lying by his front paws. He was looking at her, but his mind seemed to be elsewhere. A few moments later, he blinked before yawning, his tail stretching and arching as it rose off the ground, piercing the ceiling. With a crash, his tail hit the ground as he smacked his lips a few times. He turned his head to the side, dropping down and resting one cheek on his paws, nearly crushing the armored girl underneath. “When’s she going to wake up?”

“Why would I know?” Lindyss asked. She was running a brush through her hair as she sat on a stump. It was light out, the sun barely peeking over the horizon. Beside her, two phoenixes were huddled against her waist, shivering in the breeze. A frown appeared on the cursed elf’s lips as she lowered her head and glared at the two trembling birds. “How is it that you two are cold? Aren’t you phoenixes?”

“I’ve been stripped of my down,” Emile said. “It’s only obvious that I’d be cold!”

“I have to pretend to be cold or Emile will strip me too,” Susan said. “I’m actually very warm.”

Lindyss’ expression darkened as she moved her hair away from the two birds. The ends were curling from the heat coming off of them. “Since it was your down, you should know when that girl will wake up.”

“I don’t know…,” Emile said as he followed after Lindyss’ hair, walking across her lap. “You beat her up pretty bad. It’d be normal to never wake up again after that, you know? If we weren’t around, you’d be a murderer.”

Grimmy snorted. “She’s already a murderer, one more body doesn’t matter.”

Emile’s eyes widened as he froze midstride. He trembled as he tilted his neck up, making eye contact with Lindyss. She smiled at Emile, causing a few feathers to fall off of him as he trembled. “Calm down,” Lindyss said, reaching out to pet the poor phoenix. Emile tried to dodge, but Lindyss’ hand flashed and clamped down on his skull, preventing him from moving. “Grimmy was just joking. Does someone as sweet as me seem like she’d be a murderer?”

“No, of course not,” Emile said, his voice stiff.

“That’s right,” Lindyss said, her smile widening. She turned to face Grimmy as she released Emile. “See? This phoenix knows…. Are you stripping her?”

“Yup,” Grimmy said as he used the tips of his claws to pry off Mary’s armor. “If you won’t let me play with her sword, I’ll take her armor.”

“Is her armor even special?” Lindyss asked, raising an eyebrow. “I thought it was her blood.”

“She’s only been imprinted by a turtle,” Grimmy said as he slid a second gauntlet off of Mary. “That won’t make her blood resistant to magic. It’s the armor and sword that have built-in null-magic effects.” He pried off Mary’s sabatons and raised one of them up, bringing it to his eye. He blinked and placed it down. “It’s really been a long time since I’ve seen blood magic like this. There used to be a bunch of lunatics on the southern continent that loved this kind of stuff. The head of that cult probably fled over here. I always wondered where he went, but it seems like that mystery’s cleared up.”

“You don’t believe the natives of this continent independently developed blood magic?”

“Nah,” Grimmy said, shaking his head as he dug the tip of his claw into the crack by Mary’s waist between her upper and lower armor pieces. “I recognize these runes because I taught that crazy fellow how to make them. He wanted power and I thought it’d be interesting to give him something like this, but he ended up hating me for some reason.”

“For some reason,” Lindyss said, rolling her eyes. “I wonder why.”