Violet/Blaise; wherein the little evil acolyte is creepy
Violet
Blaise
The commotion in Izlude was enough so that Violet had no problem hiding herself amongst the crowds. In fact, while the idea of having so many people around her annoyed her, the situation was actually rather advantageous. She was sure that the Crusader General and his goon squad wouldn't be looking for her here of all places.
And really, what uniformed man would bother to check a toy shop for a fugitive? Even if said fugitive was a fourteen-year-old girl with a penchant for dolls.
The doll section was where she sat at the moment, taking advantage of the fact that it was currently being neglected by both customers and the shop employees in favor of the fake swords and other tournament-esque toys. She had the fifth doll in a series that she'd pulled down from the shelves in her lap right now, and was playing with its hair. The others lay scattered at her feet.
Violet was seething. She'd watched that woman be torn apart. How in Nifl was she alive?
Blaise knew Izlude well enough to find his way to the toy shop easily, even if it was one of the places he scarcely visited. Unlike the streets of Arunafeltz, he was able to pass almost unnoticed. He was glad it was close to his brother's shop, meaning less of a chance of being caught in a crowd. Meeting Violet somewhere else was also adventageous, if only because Quinn trusted no one.
A string laden with bells jostled with a light tinkle as he opened the door to the shop, and he was hit with a wave of overly warm air the moment he stepped inside. The door closed on its own, the floor creaking with each step he took. How omnious, he thought, smiling thinly the moment he spotted his best friend's little sister.
As she'd expect, he swooped into a crouch in front of her, courteous as he could possibly be. His smile didn't reach his eyes as he met hers. "Lady Violet." His voice was no louder than a whisper, his fingers brushing the face of the doll in her lap, "this one looks like you."
Violet looked up at Blaise. Normally she'd be excited to see him, especially since of all the Montague siblings, Violet spent the least amount of time with him. It probably wasn't right to say she was jealous, but there was something to be said about sharing. Lord Brother Darien was not very good at sharing Sir Blaise...
"Sir Blaise." She replied, and without flinching, dug her fingers into the head of silvery blonde hair of the doll and ripping half of it out. "It does not any longer."
She tossed the doll to the side and instead reached out to Blaise, taking his hand. "I thank you for coming to find me."
Well no, it certainly didn't look like her any longer. Amusement finally reached his eyes as his smile grew into a grin.
"No need to thank me. A Zaibel can't resist a woman in distress." She'd either resent him for saying she was distressed, or focus on being called a woman. He wondered which it would be. While contemplating what would happen should it be the former, he turned her hand, pulling it close to kiss her knuckles. "Do tell me what's wrong."
She smiled, focusing rather on the woman aspect of his statement than the distressed one. Though she did have to admit, she was indeed distressed. She moved just a bit closer enough to rest her head on his shoulder. "My dolls are usually perfectly effective, Sir Blaise. I do not understand what happened."
She reached down to pick up one of the dolls she'd cast away, a little redhead. As though she were plucking the petals off a flower, she started pulling the posable fingers off of the doll. "She should have been dead. I watched them. I watched them take her arm off, hack into her. She went still, she should have been dead."
She threw the doll down, then grabbed ahold of Blaise's shirt, as though she'd shake him, but instead nestled under his chin, shivering. "It is not fair. It is simply not fair!"
He wanted to tell her that one couldn't always have their way, but he'd spent enough time with her older sister to be wary of saying such things to the females of the Montague family. Hell, even Darien didn't like to hear that sort of advice. Instead he simply watched her move, relaxing enough to let her move him as she saw fit.
He was amused by the way she pulled the fungers from the doll, and surprised when she nestled against him. He brought a hand around to the small of her back and squeezed her gently. "Her day will come." I could always volunteer...
"Her day has come! It has come and it has went! She should be in Niflheim, a gift to Hel! Why..." Violet gritted her teeth. "She will have told them. Before I would have been able to stand a chance, before I would be given doubt, but now the family name may perhaps be in danger and I will be to blame, Sir Blaise! I shall be to blame if Montagues are turned away from that wretched church and its disgusting worship of Odin, and yet it is the only place close to home that acolytes may study..!"
Her nails dug into his chest through his shirt as she seemed torn between clawing him and cuddling up to him. Her voice became raspy as tears threatened to escape her eyes. "Papa will be so angry with me."
"Crusaders are worthless without two arms. There's no priest who can fix that. Montagues before you have done worse things. Their church loves zeny far too much to deny your family." He let her claw at him without protest, his hand moving to stroke her silver hair. He wondered idly how she ended up with such a rare colour.
"Your lord father may be angry, yes." He pulled away slightly and moved his fingers beneath her chin, tilting her head up just so. "I doubt he will be for too long. You were only doing what you've been taught to do."
Her eyes welled up with more tears at his words, though her frown turned instead into a smile of relief. "You are quite right, Sir Blaise. Papa will understand... Nothing will hold the Montague family down."
Even so, she still ran her nails down his arm, feigning shock as they caught on his skin and gave him a rather small cut near his wrist. "Oh I am so sorry, Sir Blaise. I was simply so upset..."
She brought his wrist up and gave the cut a dainty lick. "I can be oh-so clumbsy."
"Of course." His eyes slipped shut and he flinched when her nails cut him, though he made no sound. To say he was surprised at her behaviour would be a lie; it was the reason he tried to keep a polite distance from the girl each time they met. She was still so young, even a man such as himself drew a line somewhere...
His eyes fluttered back open, his face carefully blank. "That hurt, you know."
Violet's fingers glew gently as she healed the wound, her own expression still much too lascivious for a girl of fourteen. Even if he never gave her the pleasure of an unguarded response, she could tell the way she acted around him left him unsettled. What had been amusing at first had grown into a near obsessive game for her that she had to take advantage of when she could. And yet her brother always had had Blaise about, to do with as he pleased.
Perhaps jealousy was a good way to put it after all. Violet traced the spot where the wound had once been with the tip of a finger. "You will visit me in Arunafeltz, will you not, Sir Blaise? I would look forward to seeing you much more often."
It wasn't necessarily the way she acted that unsettled him. That she could easily be his undoing was what truly got to him. Her lady sister was easy enough to control and manipulate with enough flattering words. Her lord brother had more control over him than even Darien knew, but it was a predictable sort of control, and one he didn't mind in the least. Violet, on the other hand, was impossible to know completely. Even the way she healed him was some sort of message.
He felt the hairs on his neck rise in response to her touch. "I'll try. I'm not welcome there. Lady General Katrin kicked the both of us out herself."
Violet pursed her lips at that. Kicked out of a whole country? She and Sir Blaise had something other than their religion in common, didn't they? "Would you care to elaborate upon what happened for such a thing to occur?"
Violet nestled close to him again, giggling softly, darkly. "It sounds as if both yourself and Lord Brother were rather naughty boys."
"Your lord brother insisted on calling the General ser every chance he got. I thought it was rather fitting. Her jaw is more square than mine." She was far less unnerving nestled against him, and he leaned back against the bench behind him. "They didn't much like the sort of friendship your brother and I have, either. Called us heathens." He moved to wrap an arm around her waist and chuckled with her.
"I've never claimed to be a good man."
"Hmm, it does indeed sound like a backwards place. I will surely have to have a good amount of fun there." She traced a circle on his chest with a finger. "It seems Hel is the only Goddess who does not dictate her followers' relationships. Such stupid little sheep, these Odin and Freya followers. They are only fit to be slaughtered in the end..."
She trailed off into a dreamy little giggle. "I do hope Lord Brother takes good care of you, despite his inability to keep his mouth shut. It is quite unfortunate I am not yet old enough to... patch your wounds more often."
Blaise laughed quietly. "You're too right. I would think worshippers of a fertility goddess would be less... prude."
He looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. "I can't say I mind his mouth too much when it's open, Lady Violet." That was likely too much information for her ears, by anyone's standards, but he knew she was no little girl. "There are far worthier people out there than myself."
"I shall indeed have fun with them, if that is the case. The prudeness of Odin's flock knows no bounds, we shall see how Freya's vermin handle what I give them to work with." Violet clicked her tongue. "We shall see how they handle pins."
Speaking of which, she still had a few of her little dolls with her. She dug her hands into her bag before pulling out a little doll fashioned to resemble a priest with some hair sewn to its crown. She plucked out her pin case, and collected a couple of pins, holding one in her teeth while she drove one into the stomach of the little doll. She then took the second pin and placed it on the forehead of the doll, right between the eyes. "Father Harris has been having migraines and stomach aches for the past few months for no reason at all. It would seem a shame to leave without saying good bye."
And she went to work on another doll, fashioned to look like an acolyte. "Perhaps I will dump them all in the ocean on the trip home..."
"They'll handle them no better than any other mortal, to be sure."
It was old habit to wince as each pin was pushed into the doll, though Blaise felt no pity for this priest, wherever he was. Her abilities weren't uncommon on Byalan, but that made them no less fascinating. "Where's the fun in drowning them if you're not there to enjoy it?"
"Of course. Yet perhaps they will give me some more interesting ways to use them..."
In a country where womanhood is superior to manliness, there were bound to be a decent amount of them waddling about pregnant. She'd have fun with them...
Violet sighed in a melodramatic manner. "Ah, if only my voodoo were that powerful, Sir Blaise. The most I may do is give them nightmares of drowning." She grabbed hold of the acolyte doll's arm and tore it off with a good hard yank. "The best that shall do is give the subject a rather painful cramp for a few days."
She leaned back and lifted a hand, pressing a finger to his lips. "Do not tell Lord Brother, though. He puts such... confidence in my skills."
"Mmm, I'm sure you will." The heat inside the toy shop was positively stifling, enough to make him ite back a yawn.
"I admit, I'm rather uneducated when it comes to sorcery." He moved to grab the severed doll's arm, giving it a close look. It looked and felt no different than any other doll arm, and he let it fall to the floor. "Only a cramp? Tsk." She silenced him with her finger almost coincidentally.
"I'll tell no one." It was impossible not to move his lips against her finger like a kiss. She was playing him like an instrument, he knew. He grabbed her wrist gently and pushed her hand away, thumb brushing against her palm as he moved. "When do you wish to go back to the island?"
"I am so happy that I may count on you, Sir Blaise." Her hand lingered on his own a moment, fingertips whispering along his own palm before she brought the same finger to her own lips in an almost painfully false gesture of coyness. "As soon as possible would indeed be ideal. I do miss Papa terribly."
She pouted, even as she took a third doll from her pack, a crusader who she began puncturing with multiple pins to different limbs and body parts. The pout vanished and her eyes seemed to light up a bit as she drove one of the pins between the doll's legs. Still, she went on casually. "And I do suppose that I should get the scolding from Lady Mother over as quickly as I may."
It was all he could do to ignore her gestures. "I can arrange a ship within two hours."
"Scoldings and lectures are an easy price to pay. Quinn's shop is closer to the docks than this place, and far warmer than waiting outside. I'm sure your Lord Brother would love to see you." Five dolls, and I'll be paying for each of them. Likely extra. He untangled himself from behind her. "You can grab three more of those, I suppose. For the wait. I didn't bring enough zeny for more."
Violet grinned and tucked her voodoo dolls back into her bag before standing and hurrying to scoop up three of the undamaged dolls. She didn't seem to act like any other little girl who enjoyed dolls, though, grabbing them roughly by their arms with no particular interest in their hair or eye color or poofy dress. What did it matter? She'd simply tear them apart anyway. The ones with the marble eyes were her favorite, though, if only because they could be poked out and made a rather satisfying sound when they hit the ground and rolled about.
"You truly are too kind to me, Sir Blaise." She leaned in and, well, that peck on the cheek lasted just long enough to be inappropriate. "I think I will keep you," she giggled in his ear before heading up to the front of the store, her chosen dolls bundled in her arms.
"It's no problem at all." He would have added Lady Violet to the end of that, if he hadn't been completely thrown off by the kiss to his cheek. She was easy to please, that much was certain, but he had a feeling he'd never figure out how she worked. Once she was gone it took him a moment to gather his wits and stand, moving to the front of the shop behind her.
"Eight dolls altogether. There's a bit of a mess on the floor there. I'm sure you'll clean it up for an extra zeny." He dropped enough coin to pay for the toys -- plus one -- and turned to leave, the bells on the door tinkling as he held the door open for Violet. It was going to be a long evening.
Blaise
The commotion in Izlude was enough so that Violet had no problem hiding herself amongst the crowds. In fact, while the idea of having so many people around her annoyed her, the situation was actually rather advantageous. She was sure that the Crusader General and his goon squad wouldn't be looking for her here of all places.
And really, what uniformed man would bother to check a toy shop for a fugitive? Even if said fugitive was a fourteen-year-old girl with a penchant for dolls.
The doll section was where she sat at the moment, taking advantage of the fact that it was currently being neglected by both customers and the shop employees in favor of the fake swords and other tournament-esque toys. She had the fifth doll in a series that she'd pulled down from the shelves in her lap right now, and was playing with its hair. The others lay scattered at her feet.
Violet was seething. She'd watched that woman be torn apart. How in Nifl was she alive?
Blaise knew Izlude well enough to find his way to the toy shop easily, even if it was one of the places he scarcely visited. Unlike the streets of Arunafeltz, he was able to pass almost unnoticed. He was glad it was close to his brother's shop, meaning less of a chance of being caught in a crowd. Meeting Violet somewhere else was also adventageous, if only because Quinn trusted no one.
A string laden with bells jostled with a light tinkle as he opened the door to the shop, and he was hit with a wave of overly warm air the moment he stepped inside. The door closed on its own, the floor creaking with each step he took. How omnious, he thought, smiling thinly the moment he spotted his best friend's little sister.
As she'd expect, he swooped into a crouch in front of her, courteous as he could possibly be. His smile didn't reach his eyes as he met hers. "Lady Violet." His voice was no louder than a whisper, his fingers brushing the face of the doll in her lap, "this one looks like you."
Violet looked up at Blaise. Normally she'd be excited to see him, especially since of all the Montague siblings, Violet spent the least amount of time with him. It probably wasn't right to say she was jealous, but there was something to be said about sharing. Lord Brother Darien was not very good at sharing Sir Blaise...
"Sir Blaise." She replied, and without flinching, dug her fingers into the head of silvery blonde hair of the doll and ripping half of it out. "It does not any longer."
She tossed the doll to the side and instead reached out to Blaise, taking his hand. "I thank you for coming to find me."
Well no, it certainly didn't look like her any longer. Amusement finally reached his eyes as his smile grew into a grin.
"No need to thank me. A Zaibel can't resist a woman in distress." She'd either resent him for saying she was distressed, or focus on being called a woman. He wondered which it would be. While contemplating what would happen should it be the former, he turned her hand, pulling it close to kiss her knuckles. "Do tell me what's wrong."
She smiled, focusing rather on the woman aspect of his statement than the distressed one. Though she did have to admit, she was indeed distressed. She moved just a bit closer enough to rest her head on his shoulder. "My dolls are usually perfectly effective, Sir Blaise. I do not understand what happened."
She reached down to pick up one of the dolls she'd cast away, a little redhead. As though she were plucking the petals off a flower, she started pulling the posable fingers off of the doll. "She should have been dead. I watched them. I watched them take her arm off, hack into her. She went still, she should have been dead."
She threw the doll down, then grabbed ahold of Blaise's shirt, as though she'd shake him, but instead nestled under his chin, shivering. "It is not fair. It is simply not fair!"
He wanted to tell her that one couldn't always have their way, but he'd spent enough time with her older sister to be wary of saying such things to the females of the Montague family. Hell, even Darien didn't like to hear that sort of advice. Instead he simply watched her move, relaxing enough to let her move him as she saw fit.
He was amused by the way she pulled the fungers from the doll, and surprised when she nestled against him. He brought a hand around to the small of her back and squeezed her gently. "Her day will come." I could always volunteer...
"Her day has come! It has come and it has went! She should be in Niflheim, a gift to Hel! Why..." Violet gritted her teeth. "She will have told them. Before I would have been able to stand a chance, before I would be given doubt, but now the family name may perhaps be in danger and I will be to blame, Sir Blaise! I shall be to blame if Montagues are turned away from that wretched church and its disgusting worship of Odin, and yet it is the only place close to home that acolytes may study..!"
Her nails dug into his chest through his shirt as she seemed torn between clawing him and cuddling up to him. Her voice became raspy as tears threatened to escape her eyes. "Papa will be so angry with me."
"Crusaders are worthless without two arms. There's no priest who can fix that. Montagues before you have done worse things. Their church loves zeny far too much to deny your family." He let her claw at him without protest, his hand moving to stroke her silver hair. He wondered idly how she ended up with such a rare colour.
"Your lord father may be angry, yes." He pulled away slightly and moved his fingers beneath her chin, tilting her head up just so. "I doubt he will be for too long. You were only doing what you've been taught to do."
Her eyes welled up with more tears at his words, though her frown turned instead into a smile of relief. "You are quite right, Sir Blaise. Papa will understand... Nothing will hold the Montague family down."
Even so, she still ran her nails down his arm, feigning shock as they caught on his skin and gave him a rather small cut near his wrist. "Oh I am so sorry, Sir Blaise. I was simply so upset..."
She brought his wrist up and gave the cut a dainty lick. "I can be oh-so clumbsy."
"Of course." His eyes slipped shut and he flinched when her nails cut him, though he made no sound. To say he was surprised at her behaviour would be a lie; it was the reason he tried to keep a polite distance from the girl each time they met. She was still so young, even a man such as himself drew a line somewhere...
His eyes fluttered back open, his face carefully blank. "That hurt, you know."
Violet's fingers glew gently as she healed the wound, her own expression still much too lascivious for a girl of fourteen. Even if he never gave her the pleasure of an unguarded response, she could tell the way she acted around him left him unsettled. What had been amusing at first had grown into a near obsessive game for her that she had to take advantage of when she could. And yet her brother always had had Blaise about, to do with as he pleased.
Perhaps jealousy was a good way to put it after all. Violet traced the spot where the wound had once been with the tip of a finger. "You will visit me in Arunafeltz, will you not, Sir Blaise? I would look forward to seeing you much more often."
It wasn't necessarily the way she acted that unsettled him. That she could easily be his undoing was what truly got to him. Her lady sister was easy enough to control and manipulate with enough flattering words. Her lord brother had more control over him than even Darien knew, but it was a predictable sort of control, and one he didn't mind in the least. Violet, on the other hand, was impossible to know completely. Even the way she healed him was some sort of message.
He felt the hairs on his neck rise in response to her touch. "I'll try. I'm not welcome there. Lady General Katrin kicked the both of us out herself."
Violet pursed her lips at that. Kicked out of a whole country? She and Sir Blaise had something other than their religion in common, didn't they? "Would you care to elaborate upon what happened for such a thing to occur?"
Violet nestled close to him again, giggling softly, darkly. "It sounds as if both yourself and Lord Brother were rather naughty boys."
"Your lord brother insisted on calling the General ser every chance he got. I thought it was rather fitting. Her jaw is more square than mine." She was far less unnerving nestled against him, and he leaned back against the bench behind him. "They didn't much like the sort of friendship your brother and I have, either. Called us heathens." He moved to wrap an arm around her waist and chuckled with her.
"I've never claimed to be a good man."
"Hmm, it does indeed sound like a backwards place. I will surely have to have a good amount of fun there." She traced a circle on his chest with a finger. "It seems Hel is the only Goddess who does not dictate her followers' relationships. Such stupid little sheep, these Odin and Freya followers. They are only fit to be slaughtered in the end..."
She trailed off into a dreamy little giggle. "I do hope Lord Brother takes good care of you, despite his inability to keep his mouth shut. It is quite unfortunate I am not yet old enough to... patch your wounds more often."
Blaise laughed quietly. "You're too right. I would think worshippers of a fertility goddess would be less... prude."
He looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. "I can't say I mind his mouth too much when it's open, Lady Violet." That was likely too much information for her ears, by anyone's standards, but he knew she was no little girl. "There are far worthier people out there than myself."
"I shall indeed have fun with them, if that is the case. The prudeness of Odin's flock knows no bounds, we shall see how Freya's vermin handle what I give them to work with." Violet clicked her tongue. "We shall see how they handle pins."
Speaking of which, she still had a few of her little dolls with her. She dug her hands into her bag before pulling out a little doll fashioned to resemble a priest with some hair sewn to its crown. She plucked out her pin case, and collected a couple of pins, holding one in her teeth while she drove one into the stomach of the little doll. She then took the second pin and placed it on the forehead of the doll, right between the eyes. "Father Harris has been having migraines and stomach aches for the past few months for no reason at all. It would seem a shame to leave without saying good bye."
And she went to work on another doll, fashioned to look like an acolyte. "Perhaps I will dump them all in the ocean on the trip home..."
"They'll handle them no better than any other mortal, to be sure."
It was old habit to wince as each pin was pushed into the doll, though Blaise felt no pity for this priest, wherever he was. Her abilities weren't uncommon on Byalan, but that made them no less fascinating. "Where's the fun in drowning them if you're not there to enjoy it?"
"Of course. Yet perhaps they will give me some more interesting ways to use them..."
In a country where womanhood is superior to manliness, there were bound to be a decent amount of them waddling about pregnant. She'd have fun with them...
Violet sighed in a melodramatic manner. "Ah, if only my voodoo were that powerful, Sir Blaise. The most I may do is give them nightmares of drowning." She grabbed hold of the acolyte doll's arm and tore it off with a good hard yank. "The best that shall do is give the subject a rather painful cramp for a few days."
She leaned back and lifted a hand, pressing a finger to his lips. "Do not tell Lord Brother, though. He puts such... confidence in my skills."
"Mmm, I'm sure you will." The heat inside the toy shop was positively stifling, enough to make him ite back a yawn.
"I admit, I'm rather uneducated when it comes to sorcery." He moved to grab the severed doll's arm, giving it a close look. It looked and felt no different than any other doll arm, and he let it fall to the floor. "Only a cramp? Tsk." She silenced him with her finger almost coincidentally.
"I'll tell no one." It was impossible not to move his lips against her finger like a kiss. She was playing him like an instrument, he knew. He grabbed her wrist gently and pushed her hand away, thumb brushing against her palm as he moved. "When do you wish to go back to the island?"
"I am so happy that I may count on you, Sir Blaise." Her hand lingered on his own a moment, fingertips whispering along his own palm before she brought the same finger to her own lips in an almost painfully false gesture of coyness. "As soon as possible would indeed be ideal. I do miss Papa terribly."
She pouted, even as she took a third doll from her pack, a crusader who she began puncturing with multiple pins to different limbs and body parts. The pout vanished and her eyes seemed to light up a bit as she drove one of the pins between the doll's legs. Still, she went on casually. "And I do suppose that I should get the scolding from Lady Mother over as quickly as I may."
It was all he could do to ignore her gestures. "I can arrange a ship within two hours."
"Scoldings and lectures are an easy price to pay. Quinn's shop is closer to the docks than this place, and far warmer than waiting outside. I'm sure your Lord Brother would love to see you." Five dolls, and I'll be paying for each of them. Likely extra. He untangled himself from behind her. "You can grab three more of those, I suppose. For the wait. I didn't bring enough zeny for more."
Violet grinned and tucked her voodoo dolls back into her bag before standing and hurrying to scoop up three of the undamaged dolls. She didn't seem to act like any other little girl who enjoyed dolls, though, grabbing them roughly by their arms with no particular interest in their hair or eye color or poofy dress. What did it matter? She'd simply tear them apart anyway. The ones with the marble eyes were her favorite, though, if only because they could be poked out and made a rather satisfying sound when they hit the ground and rolled about.
"You truly are too kind to me, Sir Blaise." She leaned in and, well, that peck on the cheek lasted just long enough to be inappropriate. "I think I will keep you," she giggled in his ear before heading up to the front of the store, her chosen dolls bundled in her arms.
"It's no problem at all." He would have added Lady Violet to the end of that, if he hadn't been completely thrown off by the kiss to his cheek. She was easy to please, that much was certain, but he had a feeling he'd never figure out how she worked. Once she was gone it took him a moment to gather his wits and stand, moving to the front of the shop behind her.
"Eight dolls altogether. There's a bit of a mess on the floor there. I'm sure you'll clean it up for an extra zeny." He dropped enough coin to pay for the toys -- plus one -- and turned to leave, the bells on the door tinkling as he held the door open for Violet. It was going to be a long evening.