After a long silence Clover shrugged and took a bite out of her mutton, eyes turning back to Daniel as she seemed to lock into a stare with him while chewing her food. His words echoed in her head, renewing her hopes of being seen in his eyes as more than just a traveling companion.
“What’s the big deal?” she asked before swallowing and showing a faint smile on her face. “After all, I just look rough on the outside.”
Chapter 13
The Two Guardians
In the world of Eden it was often required to stand and fight for those who were important or loved. Defending them from a dangerous enemy, protecting them from any peril that drew near, shielding them from harm no matter how difficult or dangerous it would be. To lose those who were so precious would be a fate worse than death, and the mere thought of being separated from them would give even the most gentlest of cats the will to fight like ferocious lions. It didn’t matter if those they were caring for were good souls or not, if they were right or wrong, or even if they had done great or evil things in their time. As long as they shared a close bond, a loving connection, that was all that was needed.
Love could give anyone the strength to fight against anything.
*****
“Star,” a woman called out playfully.
Inside a large mansion a jinx was mewing happily to the rhythmic ticking of an elegant grandfather clock, the finely crafted timepiece standing at the end of the entryway foyer while a plush red carpet was laid out leading towards the double doors of the estate. Candlelit lamps adoring the walls and overhanging chandeliers with dozens of softly burning tapers illuminated the gothic architecture of the stylish manor while moonlight from the sky came in through a few stein glass windowpanes in the angled ceiling high above the floor.
Sitting on the soft carpet that she lightly padded with her hands Star watched the swinging pendulum swaying gently inside the clock, her twin tails swaying about behind her while she was dressed in a fine silk blouse with her skirt neatly resting down over her thighs without a single tear.
“Star.”
The jinx kept her eyes on the timepiece, following its movements constantly while she cocked her head side to side in sync with each gentle tick that echoed out from the clock.
“Star.”
She was happy as she mewed to the beat of the clock, not a single concern being in her head as she enjoyed another peaceful day inside her home.
“Star.”
After one more swing the pendulum then came to a stop, the clock becoming still and quiet as everything fell silent in the hall. Star mewed curiously as she saw the weight had stopped, something that had never happened before and puzzled her. She moved closer to the clock and meowed again, waiting for it to start moving again which it didn’t. Slowly she held out a finger and hesitated for a moment before tapping the glass, which caused it and the entire grandfather clock to crack apart with a loud snap. Quickly looking behind her with fright Star meowed loudly before everything flashed to white, the sound of the woman’s voice sounding off again as a hazy echo while the world faded away around her.
“Star…”
“Star?” Daniel asked, seeing the jinx looking down with a saddened frown as she sat before him. Standing in front of the cat in the main court Daniel scratched his head as the girl appeared to be lost in thought about something and didn’t hear him saying her name a few times.
“Star? Are you listening?”
Star blinked then looked up at him with a curious mew.
“I said it was very rude of you to eat all the fish like you did, especially since they’re Specca’s favorite,” Daniel lectured crossing his arms. “If you’re hungry we’ll gladly get you something to eat, but don’t just eat everything you can find in our home. Alright?”
Star slowly nodded and lowered her head with a single meow. She then jumped a bit as Daniel pet her head, her eyes quickly looking up to seeing him smiling kindly at her.
“I’m proud of you, Star,” he said, with Star mewing quietly in response. “You demonstrated self-control this morning and didn’t try anything bad with me. You surprised me, but mostly you amazed me. I’m really glad to see this side of you.”
Star meowed with a bright smile while quickly reaching out and grabbing hold of his crotch using both hands, his smile slowly fading as the jinx mewed at him with gently swaying tails.
“Star, self-control, remember?” he dryly reminded her.
The jinx looked to what she was cupping in her hands then glanced to the side, seeing the other girls standing together while staring at her in silence. Luna had a curious expression on her face, Doku was slowly shaking her head with a frown, and the other girls were showing anger in their eyes as they glared at the cat who was fondling Daniel in front of them. Only Clover and Pip weren’t present as all fell silent in the hall except for the gentle ticking of the grandfather clock. Star blinked then slowly lowered her hands with a nervous smile at the girls before Daniel chuckled and pet her head some more.
“Just try to keep in control of yourself, Star,” he encouraged. The cat looked up to him with a curious mew as he winked at her. “I have faith that you can do it, just as I had faith that there was a kindhearted girl inside you.”
Star watched him with eyes of wonder as Daniel smiled at her before he headed over towards the other girls with hands held up defensively and words of reassurance that everything was fine in order to keep them all from charging the cat. While he tried to calm down the girls Star turned her head to the grandfather clock next to her, watching the swinging pendulum and hearing the rhythmic ticking that became pronounced in her ears. She turned to face the clock as she sat before it, the sight and sound of the timepiece once again drawing her into a memory that she always became lost in.
“She grabbed you,” Specca growled in discontent.
“It was done on reflex,” Daniel reasoned with a weak smile. “Star just got a little excited. But she let go, all on her own. She’s learning to control herself. It’s alright.”
“She ate all the fish in the kitchen and she grabbed your crotch, it’s most certainly not alright,” Specca argued with a flustered stomp of her foot.
“I’m not sure if her eating your fish is making you more upset here,” Triska commented with a raised eyebrow.
“Have Kitten come out and teach her a lesson,” Specca begged Triska. “Please, that cat needs to know it’s not acceptable to eat my fish like that.”
“But grabbing Daniel’s crotch is okay?” Alyssa flatly asked.
Specca clung to Triska’s shirt and cried into the teen’s chest, her sobs echoing in the court as everyone watched her breaking down again over her loss. Triska glanced to the side and saw Kitten’s image in her mind, the demon cracking her knuckles with a smug grin on her face.
“It’s so nice to be wanted,” Kitten politely said. “Triska, be a dear and honor her request. I’ll teach that troublesome cat a lesson and then some for poor Specca.”
‘You don’t care that Star ate Specca’s fish, you just want to torment her because she touched Daniel.’
“Torment doesn’t even begin to describe it,” Kitten bitterly said with a furious scowl.
“First she tries to rape Daniel,” Specca sniveled into Triska’s bosom. “Then she wrecks the library, and now she’s eaten all my fish. I hate that cat so much.”
“But she’s being good now, isn’t she?” Luna wondered. “She didn’t try to take Daniel’s seed this time. She’s being nice.”
“She has changed a lot since yesterday,” Kroanette agreed. “I’m actually quite curious what brought about this sudden change in her. Yesterday she was like a wild monster, and now she’s perfectly tame even with Daniel near her. I wonder what happened.”
“It was Daniel,” Doku praised with a warm smile. “I do believe his words of humans actually caring for and loving monsters such as herself reached her. She had the perfect opportunity this morning to rape Daniel, and yet she did nothing. Star wa
nts to be good and find someone to genuinely love her, I’m sure of it.”
“You really think she changed like that overnight?” Falla skeptically asked. “Aren’t jinxes supposed to be intelligent and crafty monsters? She could just be tricking us again, she could be pretending to be nice to lure us all off guard. She could be plotting her next move to steal Daniel away right now.”
Turning to point at the jinx accusingly Falla then blinked and watched with a blank expression along with everyone else as they saw Star once again rocking her head side to side while she mewed in rhythm to the ticking timepiece.
“She doesn’t really seem that… crafty,” Kroanette pointed out shaking her head.
“What is it with her and that clock anyway?” Alyssa asked in puzzlement.
“She seems to like it a lot for some reason,” Daniel reasoned with a shrug.
“I hope it breaks,” Specca muttered with a dull glare at Star. “I hope that damned clock breaks so she knows what it’s like to have something she likes taken away from her.”
“That’s pretty cold coming from a ‘kindhearted’ girl,” Clover mentioned walking out from the dining hall. The group watched the elf approach them with Pip merrily flying around her in a fast moving blue blur. “Aren’t you supposed to be a pacifist, Specca? Wishing harm or misfortune upon others doesn’t seem like something a good girl would do.”
Specca muttered something as she turned away from the elf while Daniel smiled curiously at seeing Clover glancing to him with a small blush on her face.
“That was real kind of you to offer Pip a meal this morning,” he commented. “You know it’s not your responsibility to do that though, right? She’s our mate, not yours. You don’t need to handle her special needs for us.”
“I offered to make breakfast for you all and so that’s what I did,” Clover snapped before looking away with her arms crossed. “I wasn’t going to exclude her just because she’s different. She was hungry too, you know.”
“Well, thank you,” Daniel complimented before Pip landed down on his head. “Did you enjoy your breakfast, Pip?”
“Yes I did!” Pip cheered waving her arms around. “She’s so tasty! I love her juices of life!”
Clover blushed and held a hand to her cheek to hide her face while the group looked at her curiously.
“With the way you were gulping it down I could tell, you glutton,” Clover quietly added.
“She’s so delicious!” Pip cheered as she quickly zipped around the elf in tight circles. “I think she even tastes better than Luna and Falla! Hee hee!”
The group watched Pip with confusion then Clover as she took a moment to fight off her blush, the elf then casually brushing aside her bangs before glancing to Falla and Luna with a twitch of her eyebrow.
“Take that.”
“What?” Falla cried out. “That’s bullshit! Giant butterflies taste the best between the legs, everyone knows this! There’s no way Clover’s juices are better than ours!”
“With the way you were eating her out this morning I’m not so sure,” Alyssa giggled.
“Alyssa!” Falla yelled out before whacking the witch upside the head, knocking her hat off and sending the little girl to the ground. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that ever again!”
Alyssa growled and stumbled to her feet, pulling her hat back down on her head as she glared at the butterfly girl. Squeak held Falla back while Triska held Alyssa by the shoulders, with Daniel smiling weakly at them before seeing Clover looking down timidly with one hand tugging at her skirt. She glanced to him then quickly turned away, her long golden hair waving behind and resting against her rear while she fidgeted her hands together in front of her chest.
“It’s not often we see you with your hair let loose like that,” Daniel commented, with Clover jumping a bit then glancing back to him. “Is this part of the new Clover as well?”
“I prefer to have it tied up,” Clover quickly snapped before looking away. “I just need to wash it before doing so. It’s a real pain to keep it managed while it’s down like this, I don’t like it.”
“Well the bath is all yours. Feel free to take your time in it and relax,” Daniel offered with a wave towards the bathing room.
“Can’t right now. I’ve got a fucking mess to clean up, remember?” Clover flatly replied as she walked off towards the dining hall. She stopped under the archway and paused, her deep blush not being seen by anyone as she glanced to her long hair resting down her side before she shook her head and quickly headed into the kitchen.
Everyone watched as the elf vanished into the hall then turned to Star as the jinx was still lost in her rhythmic mewing in front of the clock. Doku smiled a little then quickly hugged Daniel close.
“I’m going to go help her. I’ll see you later, my darling husband.”
“Doku,” Triska growled through her teeth.
“Right, sorry, I’m going,” Doku hastily insisted before rushing off. “Don’t worry, we’ll have it taken care of shortly. I promise.”
“That’s not what-” Triska started to argue with before the harpy disappeared into the kitchen. “-I was going to say. Dammit, she always does that.”
“Was it just me, or was Clover acting weird again?” Alyssa asked.
“Something is really different about that elf this morning,” Kroanette commented. “Both she and Star are… being so nice now.”
“She ate my fish,” Specca cursed, holding her hands to her face and trying to calm down. “She is not being nice at all.”
“It’ll be okay, Specca,” Daniel assured. He gently held the nixie close and lowered her hands, wiping a few tears from her cheeks before brushing aside her bangs. “Star knows she misbehaved, she was just hungry and didn’t know better. And we’ll catch more fish for you the next chance we get. There’s no need to get worked up over this. Everything will be fine.”
“Thank you, Daniel,” she softly said before resting her head on his shoulder. Her tail slowly coiled around his leg and pulled him closer, something that he smiled at while holding the girl in his arms.
“I know what will cheer you up, Specca,” he mentioned, with her looking up into his eyes as he winked at her. She blushed and smiled timidly, her hips shifting side to side slightly while her tail tightened around his leg.
“I know where this is going,” Falla chuckled.
*****
“I didn’t know where this was going,” Falla sighed. She shook her head while fluttering in the air next to a tall bookcase, the butterfly now being inside the library along with everyone else after Daniel had brought Specca there to cheer her up. And he was doing just that as he was seated at a table with the nixie in his lap, the girl cuddling close to him while reading a book with a gentle smile on her face.
“I could have sworn he would have taken her to the bedroom instead,” Falla said scratching her head.
“But Specca likes it in here,” Luna reasoned while fluttering around near her. She was eyeing the books with a curious smile before looking down to Daniel and Specca. “And look how happy she is now. She’s completely forgotten about the fish.”
“Squeak, no,” Kroanette scolded as the ant girl tore out a page of a book to examine it. “Why must you keep doing that? Books are not meant to be taken apart.”
Squeak looked at the paper with words that seemed indecipherable to her then squeaked at the centaur and pointed at it.
“Every book you pick up you rip the pages out of,” Kroanette sighed as she snatched the paper and tome out of the ant girl’s hands. “These are Twilight’s in case you’ve forgotten, you can’t treat her property like this. Oh dear, now we’ll have to fix this one as well.”
“Add it to the pile,” Alyssa casually said while sitting at a table with a book opened in her hands. She turned the page and continued to read with a calm gaze while resting on the table before her were several books with various pages loosely sticking out from where they too had been ripped out by the curious an
t girl.
“I don’t understand,” Kroanette sighed as she trotted over and placed the damaged book with the others. “She speaks so eloquently when her spirit is lifted by Doku’s magic, she’s very sophisticated behind her guise of being a dirty worker, and yet she has no idea how to read a simple book.”
“Why would she have ever read before?” Triska asked from a table next to them, the teen having her legs propped up on the counter while she was eyeing her sheathed blade that rested in her lap. “She grew up in the tunnels digging and testing men in their mating den. That was all she ever did, reading probably never came up in her life. I really doubt they even had books down there.”
“And the way she speaks is probably because that’s how her queen talked,” Alyssa reasoned with a shrug. “Queen Victoria was very well-spoken. I bet all her subjects speak with such cultured words when they’re squeaking at each other.”
“I suppose that does make sense,” Kroanette admitted. She looked over to the side and saw Squeak again pulling a page out from another book and examining it curiously with a few small squeaks. “Squeak! For crying out loud, stop doing that! How is tearing the pages out going to help you understand them better anyway?”
As the centaur rushed over to lecture the oblivious ant girl once again Pip soared around the ceiling of the vast library in a streaking blue blur. She zipped down and weaved around the tall bookshelves with a happy giggle before running into Luna’s chest to which she sprawled against with wide arms.
“Boobies!” she cheered as she crawled into the butterfly’s bosom.
“You’re so cute,” Luna complimented before looking around at the books with a curious eye again.
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know,” Luna said with a shrug. “I don’t even know how to read that much. But I always wanted to learn. Daniel reads a lot, and he’s really smart. Maybe if I learn how to read I’ll be smarter too.”
Chronicles of Eden - Act VIII Page 42
