… dear gods…
She is not a child, she is a spawn of the lowest pits of hell…
Remember that time I guarded the Neck for a week, diary? And I kept vomiting over the wall because I saw such disgusting things? Yeah. Today was worse than that entire week put together.
I began my job shadowing with Eve, like the rest of the guards and royal guards, in the throne room. The king gave us a long-winded speech about cooperation and awesomeness while we all nervously eyeballed one another (the guards were nervous, anyway - the royal guards looked annoyed), then he sent us off to perform our duties.
Eve didn't speak to me at first. She just walked, and I followed, and we made a circuit of the keep. Nothing happened.
I waited 'til we were in the nobles' wing before I asked anything. "Eve, sweetie… why'd you kill all the rats?"
"I shall coax a thousand daggers into your still-writhing eyeballs," she replied. Try as I might, I couldn't decipher THAT answer into anything loving or, hell, intelligible.
Eve left the keep and patrolled the roof, with no obvious destination. I tagged her every step, persisting with my questions. Most of the time she didn't say anything, and when she DID it was always horrifying, religiously epic, completely opaque, or a blend of all three. Yeesh.
That wasn't the gross part. We didn't hit the gross part 'til she came across the pigeons.
Castle LookyLoo is infested with pigeons. They love to nest on the ramparts, and since they can fly, we have trouble getting rid of the things. Our archers are crappy shots. And, hell, now that they're on the Beefiary's menu, the officials in the castle don't wanna get rid of the pigeons. Apparently they taste delicious, once you burn away all the disease.
Eve didn't bother with burning anything. The moment she spotted a cluster of sleeping pigeons about a hundred feet away, she unsheathed her broadsword, bent it into an arc with her bare hands, and WHIRLED it at the birds. At least a dozen of 'em exploded into a bloody mess, and a good half of that mess came boomeranging back with Eve's ruined sword.
Okay. I have problems with this scenario. First, I've seen swords being made, and I've seen 'em break. They are NOT THAT BENDY. Yet Eve managed to somehow force the metal to bend into a perfect arc, as if the sword was afraid of defying her wishes. Add EXPLODING PIGEONS on top of that and you've got a troublesome situation!
Also, she feasted on the still-writhing corpses as I watched! Oh my lords of all the heavens and nether pits, the vomit that spewed forth from me!
But that was just the beginning. Apparently quite happy with her new boomersword, Eve travelled calmly around the castle, slaughtering damned near everything she came across at a range. Only animals, mind, but that was a lot of animals, diary. Her precision throws had guts spilling out on flagstones in every sector. People were trying so hard to hide their animals before she could kill any of 'em.
And she ate every freaking animal she killed. Or at least parts of every animal she killed. I… I guess she's… a little picky… she really seems to like… nibbling…
BARF
I'm SO SORRY diary, I got a bit of yak on you from THINKING ABOUT IT TOO MBARF
ugh
pant
pant
Stop… stop writing everything in your diary, Dragomir… you must look… like a lunatic…
Ugh. Sorry. I'm back under control. Ew, this page is gonna be stained yellow forever, now. I really am apologetic, diary.
Around 3 o'clock we got summoned into the king's presence, in his throne room, for what he called a 'royal inspection'. Apparently he's been doing this a lot lately: he asks Eve to come before him, he prattles on to her about noble stuff she needs to learn before becoming Logan's wife, and he TRIES to make her act, er, womanly.
Today, he asked her to try on a dress. Just a simple sundress. He said she could flop it on over her armour, if she wanted. And every word that came out of his mouth was careful, controlled, and… pleading…
I've described King Jeffrey's manner of speech before. I've WRITTEN his speech before. He's a boisterous dude. He likes to yell a lot, even when he's happy. So to see him act so timid… especially when he's surrounded by guards… it's humbling, diary. Humbling to know that your daughter is scary enough to frighten one of the most tyrannical kings of all time.
Eve did not try on the sundress when it was handed to her. She barely even looked at the thing. No, she just stared straight forward as she HURLED the pink-and-blue piece of fabric skyward, flinging her boomersword in its wake.
A gentle rain of tattered cloth covered the court. No sundress.
All this is enough to say that, yeah, we did not bond today. We will not bond tomorrow. I fear that we will never bond, and that I, I… I don't really have a daughter. I never will. Not so long as she's a daughter like Eve.
Ugh. I… I still don't feel so good.
Sincerely,
Dragomir the Guard
I think all he's got to do is just share he interests. Like, eat something freshly killed and raw. Of course he couldn't kill it himself, but still, once she sees that Dragomir is willing to make the effort to do things she likes to do, she'll open up more to him as a father. Like he could also start talking to her with violent and cryptic phrases (but in an non-threatening way), and she just may open up...I hope he really does get a connection with his daughter. They are obviously an odd couple but opposites DO attract! He just needs to SHOW her that he accepts and loves her for what she is.
ReplyDelete