Welfare and Warfare

Chapter 32

Roughly Fourteen Years Ago

Ivette had made a plan this time. This time Maria/ Emerald will stay. She ignored all of Salim's warnings that nothing would work. Maybe they didn't work because it was him. Maybe she would stay because it was Ivette, Ivette would be different. Within the time between Emerald's escape and the new identity would be thrown down into the Abyss, Ivette ensured that the new trading post she had established with Emerald was as welcoming and inhabitable as possible, which was easy considering she kept all of the changes Emerald had made, all of the green decorations and cuddly toys and her belongings, alongside the large stash of special stew food packets. All she had to do was first to convince Emerald, or whatever new name she would take, that the outside world was too dangerous. If she stayed at the trading post forever, she would hopefully never consider going to the rock spire at the beach where the portal appeared. Was a bit of manipulation, a trick, wrong if it kept Emerald safe and happy? To prevent her from ruining her life repeatedly by escaping and having her mind wiped? No, this was right... right?

Salim told her it would not work; that Emerald hated being lied to, to have this hidden from her, but all Ivette had to do was stop her from finding out... for as many years as Emerald had left for her sentence. According to Salim, Emerald's and his prison sentences had been extended for the nobles' amusement, throwing money to make them both stay here for an unknown time. They had both been here for around a hundred years; they could be free tomorrow or perhaps in another hundred years more. Regardless, Ivette had made up her mind to stay with Emerald until that time, even if she was free to go.

"You love her, don't you?" asked Salim solemnly.

Ivette tried to retort as she made Emerald's bed with freshly clean sheets, everything green, but it came out as an angry splutter. "The girl just need someone to save her from the water nymphs when she arrives and introduce her to the Abyss before she makes her own way. And if she decides to stay here..." Ivette shrugged. "Well, I suppose she can."

"You think of her as a granddaughter?"

"Granddaughter!" Ivette snapped. "You said she is far older than me!" She muttered some curses before mumbling in shyness, "you should have said daughter to be more polite. I suppose you thought of her as your own child too." Ivette bit her lip as she let slip the word 'too'.

"Yes, I did."

"Well, if you are asking for joint custody after all these years of just standing on the side-lines and doing nothing, then I think I deserve some paid child support. You owe me a lot of food packets; she is a handful."

"I just do not want you to be hurt again-"

"And I want you to stop sounding like a broken record," Ivette snapped back. "If you're not here to buy anything or pay my deserved child support, then you can leave my shop."

Salim obeyed and left the trading post and Ivette continued to set everything up for Emerald's upcoming arrival.

Emerald arrived through the same portal as before, dropping into the dark waters infested with water nymphs that tried to drown her. Ivette watched, ready to save her in case but the green-eyed woman managed to save herself and reached the shore.

No matter, Ivette had planned accordingly. She needed Emerald to trust her and rely on her for surviving in the Eternal Abyss, but she had to make it seem like it was Emerald's decision to do so.

Plan B was for the pack of seven imps to attack Emerald and for Ivette to save the day. She had paid the imps in the food packets and trinkets to threaten Emerald and then to be scared by Ivette who came in and they retreated. It worked as Emerald clung to Ivette, thanking her after receiving a few scrapes from the imps' spears; that was not part of the plan, the imps were only meant to scare her, not actually hurt her, but Ivette went along with it, and it worked in her favour as Emerald followed her back to the trading post and Ivette tended to her wounds.