Dying Lily & Wilted Rose

Interlude: A Story From The Past

(Loop 10)

Callisto all but sauntered out of the banquet hall. His was face calm, but his blood boiled.

I wonder, if god was real, would they be kind enough to finally make that witch keel over dead?

He entered the maze garden, looking for something to take his anger out on. And from the tall hedges, he heard a sound.

Sniff.

Curious, Callisto walked over with his sword out.

It was a woman. The mad dog of the Eckarts, to be exact.

The woman was sitting on one of the benches, rubbing her eyes furiously as she cried.

"What's the point? If you want me to die, then just let me die already!" She sobbed.

"You said you wanted to die?" Callisto said, by her side in a blink.

The Eckart lady snapped her head up, and there was split moment where her turquoise eyes were all Callisto could see.

Red around the rims and a mad whirlwind of anger and heartbreaking sadness.

He blinked, taken aback by their intensity.

"What do you want?" The woman exploded at him, the crown prince. "Can't you see that I'm having a very private mental breakdown? Get lost!"

Callisto nearly found himself bursting with laughter from the sheer absurdity of the situation. He was pretty sure that no one but the empress would ever have the gall to say such words towards him.

Out of spite, he sat right next to her on the bench.

The woman held nothing but contempt for him now, and shocked him by pulling her shoe off and began hitting him with it.

"Go away! Scram! Fuck off! Crawl back to hell where you came from!"

Okay, now he laughing.

"Crawl back to hell, where did you learn this vocabulary!" Callisto cackled madly.

The woman abandoned her shoe and began beating his back with her fists, though barely packing any punch.

"Quit it! Move your ass!" She screamed, and then in a lower voice said, "Just leave me alone."

Callisto stopped laughing, his grin quickly slipping.

The Eckart lady's face was still stained with tears. He reached out a hand out to brush them away, but when he moved to touch her face, she flinched.

Not just a motion of her head or anything, but a full-body flinch. As if she was expecting to be struck.

Frowning, Callisto took her face in with both of his hands, using his thumbs to wipe her tears.

She looked at him in surprise and confusion.

"The lady's reputation is so notorious that you're all I ever hear about when I return from the battlefield. So why is the wicked woman who doesn't spill any blood or tears so pitiful looking?"

The Eckart lady yanked her head away and stood up, glowering. "The wicked woman got sick of taking shit," she snapped before moving to leave the garden. "Not that it's any of your business."

Her gait was wobbly because she was missing a shoe.

Because he was generous and oh so forgiving, Callisto returned it by hurling it at her.

The Eckart lady responded by throwing both shoes this time, followed by a very sharp hairpin.

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