I sat outside the tent, enjoying the night breeze for a few moments. The starry night sky illuminated the other tents, standing a good hundred metres away and turned the landscape into a beautiful scenery. It was one of the few moments where it felt truly peaceful inside the army … if I ignored the screams of agony coming out from the tent behind me.

The area around this tent was surprisingly empty, no animal nor human, except for the guards, wandered around here, leading to a very calm atmosphere in the middle of the camp that otherwise spewed with activity, even at night … if I ignored these cursed screams behind me.

A few flowers bloomed under the moonlight which graced the ground with a gentle and peaceful light. It was so beautiful, so unlike purgatory that I just needed to take in the scenery fully. I breathed in slowly … and breathed out. Everything was perfect … goddamn, couldn’t she scream a little bit quieter? Others were trying to take a break, but this selfish whore just had to ruin everything …

A bit disgusted by her, I stood up and entered the tent again, ready to give what I promised Arthur. It wasn’t normal torture I intended to do, but one even more sinister, even more evil, that doesn’t hurt the body. We wanted to torture the mind. Before I pulled the cloth to the side, I closed my eyes and imagined the person I needed to be: A friendly noble who had everything under control.

With a shocked expression already on my face, I pulled the cloth to the side and screamed. The woman was still in agony, but awake enough to notice my arrival. Arthur turned around swiftly, just like I ordered him to do. I wasn’t entirely sure if he could act on the level I needed him to and thus gave him a very simple role.

“Arthur?!” After a few seconds, I seemingly calmed down enough to question the duke.

“Lady Griffin, I didn’t expect you to be around here at this hour.” His voice was deep and sounded a bit threatening although he had a huge grin plastered onto his face. It was a good decision to make him turn around as his act was entirely unconvincing.

“I am here to enact the will of the king. Your evil actions haven’t gone unnoticed. Per kings decree, you are hereby sentenced to death for torturing and murdering innocent civilians.” Without waiting for his reply, I went closer to the captured woman and looked at her wounds a second time. During all this time, I had to control my urges to gag. Playing the good person was certainly not to my liking. “The guards are awaiting you outside, may the gods be with you in the afterlife.”

Arthur let his shoulders hang downwards and slurped out of the room without replying, apparently completely defeated by the good noble. Everything was going according to plan as the woman looked at me, completely tired, but also full of hope. She didn’t realize one second we were betting exactly on these feelings. Meanwhile, I was staring into her eyes, not because I found them so beautiful, but because I thought I saw something in them.

No, not really in them, but rather behind them. A green hue spread behind her blue eyes, painting a rather confusing picture. I saw her blue eyes, but also this green that seemed to live, have a will on its own and wriggled around behind her eyes. I have never seen anything like this before, at least not consciously,  and stared a bit too long into these mesmerizing eyes.

“Oh … I am deeply sorry.” I immediately unfastened the leather straps that bound her to the table and helped her to sit on the table. “You are safe now.”

“Thank you.” She teared up and showed me more of this green I couldn’t put into words. I have seen this strange colour that even glowed a little bit before, but I couldn’t point a finger at where I did. It was a nearly unsolvable mystery as I never saw it before, or completely missed it previously as I was never so close to another person as I was at that time.

“He should have some medicine in one of these chests. Don’t move, alright?” I immediately rushed towards a chest, opened the lid and indeed found a few tinctures inside. I immediately grabbed a small glass flask and hurried back to her. “By the gods … it is a wonder you are still alive. Here let me help you …” I didn’t have a cloth at hand and splashing the supposed medicine on her wounds wouldn’t help much either. After looking around a few times, I couldn’t find a simple cloth either and smiled helplessly. Filled with an unimaginable amount of kindness, namely zero, I started to undress.

What a development! Doing a striptease in front of a hurt woman wasn’t my intention though. I needed cloth and still wanted to have my dress replaced. At least I could pester Arthur after that to get me a new one.

“Milady?” As soon as I heaved the dress above my head and saw her surprised face, I noticed how the green in her eyes was fading, replaced by a deep blue. Her face showed how surprised she was and I couldn’t help but to connect the colour in her eyes, or rather behind her eyes to her emotional state.

“It is the bare minimum I can do for you after what you have gone through.” In underwear, I splashed a bit of the content of the flask on one shoulder of the dress and gently placed it against a wound of hers. She yelped as the clothing rubbed against her open wound, but still let me do as I pleased. The wound obviously didn’t heal from that alone. Neither the cotton of my dress nor the water inside the fabric had any healing properties, so the pain she had to live through was all for nought.

“I have never heard of such a kind noble.” She said while I had to hold back my laughter. The irony was on point.

“We are like vegans that eat meat. We exist as the broad majority, but we are not a very vocal one.” I already confirmed that veganism wasn’t a thing here, so my explanation was largely confusing for her. And yet, I couldn’t hold back this stupid joke at all.

“I … understand.” Did she? I honestly doubted it. With a comforting smile on my lips, I helped her to sit on the ground and begun to press the disgusting shoulder part of my dress at another open wound of her while I knelt behind her back. Sadly, I couldn’t look into her eyes this way, but the play had to go on, at least for a little while. My head crept closer and closer to her neck until my breath tickled her hair.

“You are a strong woman. Surviving this amount of sloppy torture isn’t that common.” I said in a lower voice and wiped her neck clean with another part of the dress while making sure to avoid touching the shoulder parts.

“Thank you?” She seemed to have picked up the slight change in my behaviour, but it wasn’t enough to distrust me yet. Maybe my next words would be …