The Villainess was Loved

Chapter Eighty: The World as We Know It.

Mitchelle Sinclair Lundossa

“So, what is your plan?”

She asked as casually as possible as she handed Rheyes his favourite gin on the rocks, hoping that this would somehow make him forget her prior outburst.

It was foolish of her to react so powerfully when she had nowhere to return, and even more ridiculous to accuse him of cheating when they were not together yet…. yet despite knowing that, she couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

Before her, was irrevocable proof that he did not love her, that her love for him was one-sided…

It was too much to bear.

She was the one who decided to follow Elora’s words, to wait for the long game, because once they mated, he would have no choice but to love her yet…

She sighed once more, then blinked her still tender eyes.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes…no…I don’t know.”

She answered, then plopped herself next to him in their suite.

Whenever he addressed her in the deepness of his voice, she always felt herself squirm girlishly, an image he did not have of her yet.

Since she was twelve, the crush she held for him meant she needed to mature faster to be his type.

So, she did her best to be ‘perfect’, ‘graceful’, but all that did was limit her manners of expression and as such, she had no way of showing she desired him as a man.

How could she do that?

Was it perhaps her failure to appeal to his primitive side that sent him to the arms of the Countess?

It was evening now, and though the moon’s reflection on the sea was astonishingly spectacular, her heart still hurt. It still settled on a pain so tangible her throat clogged itself up.

“It feels as though you can use this more than I?”

He handed her the drink she had made for him.

Gin tasted hideous, but even though she had made it for him, he gave it to her…to comfort her. She couldn’t help but feel touched enough at his act of kindness to sip it.

“My plan...you ask.”

He repeated, then sunk himself exhaustedly on the leather seat.

“First, I need enough evidence of negligence from the countess to garner full custody of the child without manipulating the system.”

“Wait…you want to take the child?”

“Of course, I do. What does a human know about our kind?”

Perhaps the stress of the semantics made him forget her birthday yesterday; he never once did before.

The burden on her shoulders lightened enough that she could focus on the matter at hand.

“Rheyes, if we mate, you might end up-”

“I know. And I know the courts will reason that way, so I need her neglect to be large enough to overshadow that.”

“And then what? After you have the child, what next?”

“I will give him to the old king and queen; they are his great-grandparents, so their affections will be maintained to him.”

“Rheyes…they are racist, though.”

“Yes, but they would rather take care of their child than have them fall into the hands of a human; plus, aside from my mother and me, they are the only remaining hydras I know. And they still raised me. I am half, yet their love outweighed my origins.”

He turned to face her.

“You said if ‘we’ mate, does that mean you do not plan to leave?”

‘That simple?’

‘Will he not ask if I love him? Nor grant me one of his famous speeches, especially after my evident outburst? Does he think I was mourning my loss of position?’

‘No…in the end, I have nowhere to go…no, not that, but in the end, I love you. I want to be with you. Even if I have to feign the fool until your gaze matches mine.’

Her hand reached to his much larger one, and he squeezed.

“I will stay and help you.”

*

*

*

Arusei Evergreen

There was no way to describe the space I was in.

It was dark, rather not dark but empty and devoid of light, that would be a way to say dark…but it wasn’t.

It was the kind of space where if I thought of a chair, it would pop up.

A dream? Perhaps that is the best way to describe it.

“Phew! Finally, you are here!”

The voice came from seemingly nowhere and just as the question dressed my mind, the entire space dissipated so that we were just on the edge of a galaxy, one too beautiful to deem ours yet not quite foreign that the blue-green-purple-black and white gradient mix did not dress the space.

“Can you see me?”

The voice asked.

“No. I cannot.”

“Hmm… let us fix that.”

There was a loud click that echoed in the space, it was as though, despite the largeness of the space, we were still cubed, or at least enclosed enough that the ricochet of sound was possible.

Then before me, spiralling leaves formed an all too familiar image, an image of me, but not me.

“Arusei?”

I asked.

“You must be Hafsa. We finally meet.”

A frown dressed my face, perhaps one that warranted her to confirm my identity once more.

“Hafsa Cyrille, one brother, younger, raised by your grandfather till the age of sixteen, when he died from a terminal illness, leaving your brother to your care. You would have left school, but you were on scholarship. You have a photographic memory, yet your only achievement was in the field of biology when your bio-engineered genetic alteration of sugar cane was-,”

“Enough! I am she. How-, what are you? How do you know about me?”

“What a question! Do you also not know about me?”

I turned my gaze around the space.

“Where…where are we?”

“Somewhere where we can converse when the setting is…how do I say this, convenient?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we are outside the script, outside the plot.”

“Are you here for your body? Take it.”

She smiled and, after granting me a sympathetic look, she finally spoke.

“I am afraid that is not possible. I do not want that life.”

“You think I do? Did you do this to me?”

“I did not. Rather, not intentionally.”

“So, you had something to do with this!”

She opened her mouth as though to answer, but something she said earlier still tugged at my mind.

“Before you answer that, you said that we are outside the plot? Does that mean the game is over? I mean the main characters have gotten together…wait, does that mean I get a reward, like something I want? Or rather does that mean that I can just die?”

“You seem to be confused, so let me clarify. Yes, I will grant you a desire in the end, no matter what outcome you choose. However, this is not the end. Young one from another realm, the script refreshes.”

Arusei answered calmly.

“‘The script refreshes’, what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Arusei, with a gentle expression only seen in-game when she conversed with Étienne, tilted her head to the side, and snapped her fingers.

Crrrk!

The scene changed, it was as though, before me, an entire movie played.

I could recognise Regina and some of the maids around her but that aside, the scene before me was muted.

“This entire world exists for Regina, my- your sister. Not a single pebble belongs elsewhere. Let us assume the world is a play, and we are all actors. When you, as the key antagonist, step outside the stage to let the actors play, the play becomes dull. There is nothing for the hero and heroine to overcome, nothing to glorify her, nothing for her to admonish, so the script running the core of the world adjusts.”

“Adjusts…? As in a new antagonist is made or chosen?”

I asked, and after a while, as though gauging my reactions, she answered.

“No. As in the stage comes to you.”