“Remember what we said in the arena, we realized that it would be unnatural for a man like Lord Ainz to have only one wife.”  Albedo said, holding up one finger, and then adding a second.  

That brightened the expression of the child sized guardian, and Shalltear gave those words a thoughtful nod.  “Still, when will Lord Ainz choose?  He has been out of the tomb almost constantly for weeks now, and when he is here, he…”  She killed the thought.

Albedo revived it, “Lord Ainz hasn’t chosen to see you, any more than he has me.  Has he?”  The succubus asked.  “It’s torture, it made me wonder if we did something wrong.”

Shalltear bit her lower lip at that and looked up at the demoness, asking a quiet, “Did we?  Maybe?  Without knowing it?”

Albedo’s answer was spoken with hushed horror, “That question has haunted me more than I want to admit, Shalltear.  First him going away with Lupusregina, and when they first came back, she barely visited with her sisters, she remained with him in the arena, ‘training’.  I concerned myself with the idea that a mere maid was stealing his affections and I questioned Cocytus, but to no avail.”

“Cocytus wasn’t there, or wouldn’t say or…?”  Shalltear probed, but Albedo’s answer brought some relief.

“Cocytus confirmed our Lord and Lupusregina were in fact merely training, our master was honing ‘warrior’ skills, just like he said at the meeting, but why there was so much of it… I sensed he was holding something back.  Something large, but he said he could say nothing.”  Albedo gritted her teeth, “Even you know what that means.”

Shalltear’s answer was quick, “Lord Ainz himself ordered silence.”

Albedo didn’t say anything right away.  She became pensive.

“You know something, don’t you?”  Shalltear asked when she saw Albedo’s face.

The vampire guardian crossed her arms over her chest, the comfortable cleansing of the bath was forgotten in an instant at the possibility of answers to the mystery of their master’s absences and constant warrior training.

“I do, but also I don’t.”  Albedo admitted.

Shalltear furrowed her brow, her red eyes stared unblinking up at the face of her superior.  “I don’t understand.  Have you concluded something from some sort of hint?  Did someone say something… please… Albedo.”  Shalltear asked with quiet urgency and a bite to her lower lip that drew a drop of blood that blended into the red almost imperceptibly well.

Albedo swallowed and rubbed her forehead with her right hand, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and confessed.  “Every night he was away, I was visiting our master’s room to roll around in the sheets so that when he returned, he would have my scent to enjoy.”  Without intending it, her voice became a little more proud and her chin went up a tiny bit, “A succubus’s scent is naturally alluring, I hoped to please him, entice him to fulfill his desires.”

Shalltear looked down into the clear waters of the steaming bath, “That’s cheating.  We had a deal, no using skills or powers.”

Albedo couldn’t help but smirk, “No, I didn’t, this happens naturally, I can no more change this than you can stop being a vampire.”

“Still.”  Shalltear groused, but her thoughts returned to Albedo’s alleged insight.  “What happened?”

“Nothing… the bed went unused while he was away.  But he must have stayed the night here at least once, because another natural emission reached him.  I had… a dream.”  Albedo dropped the word like it was a bomb, but Shalltear only held her blank expression.

Albedo rolled her bright yellow eyes, “Right, you wouldn’t have done this.  Listen to me.  I am a succubus, dreams are one way we unconsciously use our powers over those we desire.  An erotic dream at night asleep makes them easier to seduce during the day, do you get it?”

“Ah… you mean you ‘sent’ him a dream?”  Shalltear asked, “That definitely feels like cheating.”

Albedo shook her head with vigor, “Again, no, I can’t directly control it, or at least… I don’t think I can.  I’ve had many erotic dreams of our master, but this was different.  It was like it reached him, like we shared the dream.”

“And this didn’t happen before?”  Shalltear probed, the beginnings of understanding began to rise within.

“No, it didn’t.  I went to his room after he was gone again, and I smelled him, but not him.  It had to be Lord Ainz, but… there was the scent of flesh, man’s flesh.  I think… I think he’s found some way to give himself a form that can do things!”  Albedo let out a tiny squeal of excitement and clasped her hands together as if in prayer, she gazed to the heavens and let out a longing sigh.

“How he could have done it, I don’t know, but… I’m sure he has.”  Albedo added.

Shalltear thought that over, ‘flesh’ was just not as appealing to her, and so exciting as it was in its own way, she needed more.  “So… why hasn’t he done anything, he could have summoned either of us to his bed at any time?”

“Perhaps he wants everything to be perfect, perhaps he is worried about getting lost in bliss and forgetting to take the world over the thrill of taking Nazarick’s treasures for his decadent pleasure.”  The succubus shuddered with wanton desire.

But Shalltear’s doubts were unabated.  “That sounds wrong.”  She said in a small voice, “I don’t doubt your senses or the change but… I don’t know.  Have you talked with Demiurge or Pandora’s Actor about this?”

Albedo shook her head, “No, you’re the first.  We did agree to share information, and this is as much as I can offer you.  I’ll also add that you should keep it secret as well.  He’ll tell us formally when he’s ready, for now… just be ready for our final battle to see which of us is by our Lord’s right hand… and which is merely the seat on which he rests himself.”

Shalltear had the sudden vision of herself on all fours, her master planted firmly on her back… a mere chair to a Supreme Being, she began to breathe harder… ‘It would be… such bliss… a reward like nothing else…’  

“I call first seat!”  Shalltear exclaimed, then caught Albedo’s expression of outrage, clearly the thought came to the winged beauty just as quickly.

“No!  That honor will be mine!”  Albedo exclaimed, the splashing of water going on and on for quite some time.

A stone’s throw away, Aura scratched her head and remained back out of sight, “Great, I’ll need a bath ‘after’ my bath thanks to those two… this’ll be one of those days.”  She crinkled her nose, and waited for the battle of women to end.

 

---

 

Arche’s slumber was heavier than full plate armor, but that didn’t stop her mother from waking her up.  She felt the shaking of hands rocking her body back and forth, soft fingers clinging to her biceps.  Despite the fact that the manicured nails dug into her skin, there was no pain, only an awareness of sharpness and pressure.

The young magic caster’s eyes began to flutter open and found the slender features of her worried mother hovering a few feet over her face.  Worry lines were etched on her, and to her mother’s credit, Arche saw a semblance of shame in the face of the woman who bore her.

“Did it work?”  Was all the matriarch of the family asked.

Arche closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.  “He- He didn’t want me.”  It was the truth, and it stung the young mage.  She squeezed her eyes shut so she wouldn’t see disappointment on her mother’s face.

But closing her eyes did nothing to hide the bellow of her father’s anger out in the hallway.  Arche’s eyes flew open and her face turned to look past her mother toward the door, the knob was rattling as her father tried to open it.

Arche began to sit up, her mother moved backward to allow her daughter’s legs to swing over the bed, it wasn’t lost on the young woman that her mother’s hands were shaking.  She whispered her next words to her mother, “He had to come too?  Wasn’t I humiliated enough, being thrown to a man older than my late grandfather like a piece of meat?  My father has to come yell at me because I wasn’t…”  Her face scrunched with disgust, “tasted”?  

“You had one job for this household!  One job!  Be a desirable marriage prize!  If you’d done that years ago we might still be nobles!  If you’d been a proper daughter we’d be safe now!”  Her father’s voice kept bellowing from out in the hall, his flabby fists couldn’t break down the door, his soft body however, could make a lot of noise.

Arche ignored both him and her shaking mother in favor of putting her gear on.  She snatched up her staff from its resting place against the wall, and was no longer the daughter of a fallen house, but felt herself for who she was.  ‘An adventurer.  I’m an adventurer now.’  She said to herself, and the quailing of her childhood when her father yelled at her, the shame of her mother’s disappointment, began to recede.  She ignored the invectives thrown at her for her previous evening’s failure and gave her mother a long steady stare.

“You were right about one thing mother, we do have duties.  This is mine.  I have a job to do.”  Arche said without remorse, and went to the door.  She flung it open and found her father’s fat fist held overhead ready to pound on the door, he froze, his mouth open to hurl whatever he planned to next, but he was struck dumb.

Arche’s hand came out, and she struck him with the back of her palm across his cheek, her eyes full of tears of rage.  “Go die in a fire.”  She hissed.  She was no warrior, and her slap would have been like the gentle tap of rain to someone like Hekkeren or Roberdyck or even Imina.  But it staggered her soft bodied father at a pace, and he brought his palm up to the red spot on his cheek where her hand fell.

“I’m going to meet with my team for a job.  Don’t expect me back for some time.”  She said with the utmost contempt, “And when I come back, count yourself lucky if you get a single coin out of me.  Go use your own body for gold if you love it so much.  I’ll never do that for you again.”

She spun on her heel and left the weeping and bellowing figures behind her.  It was only their noise that followed her out of the house.  

So nobody saw when she went straight next door to the estate of the House of Tian, knocked on the door, and was admitted in by the most beautiful maid Arche had ever seen.  ‘She’s like a doll…’  Arche thought, looking over the maid that introduced herself as ‘Solution’.

That one managed the walk that Arche could only fumble through, everything about the woman was exotic, erotic, proud and beautiful.  Golden curls bounced with every rolling of her hips and every single step seemed designed to entice the watcher.  ‘If I could have moved like that… no, no wonder I failed.  Even if I could move like that, Lord Tian has ‘this’ to occupy him, no wonder I couldn’t win him over.’

It was a somewhat unpleasant line of thought that carried on until she was led into a study.  The slender arm of the maid waved her in, and she then retreated, leaving Arche alone with the target of her failed seduction.

It was enough to make the mage blush at the memory, and shuffle her feet a little like a child caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to.

Sebas waved her to one of the chairs in the study, unlike her library, this one was filled with rows of books that were slid tight against the shelves.  Arche looked at it with open admiration, and when he saw what she did, he spoke.

“My… father, he was very, very wise.  He had a saying, that ‘the best bookends are two walls’.  I suppose I inherited my love of reading, from him.”  Sebas didn’t smile when he spoke, but there was a sparkle to his eyes that made Arche comfortable when she looked at him.  

“Lord Tian, about last night-”  Arche began, but it was waved away immediately.

 

“You never need to mention it again, I understand.  People will do a great deal for those they love, it’s why I’ve chosen to give you a chance.”  Sebas said, and Arche closed her mouth in silent confusion.

Sebas read in silence for several minutes, leaving Arche’s eyes to wander.  Sebas was dressed in the same style of formal suit as he wore the other day, with silver cufflinks and polished black shoes.  He read on, his eyes moving over the page, glasses on his face that he hadn’t been wearing the previous day gave him an even more distinguished look.  

The room was without carpet, but had polished bright wood that matched the walls and long glass windows that let in ample light from the rising sun.

Finally he finished his reading, marked his page with a strip of silk worth several days of a normal job’s pay, and snapped the book shut.  “First, tell me everything about your family debt, who holds it, how much, when do they pay, everything.”  Sebas commanded.

Unable to bring herself to refuse, Arche told him what he wanted to know.  But when she was done, she had to know.

“Lord Tian-”  She began, looking up at him, but he cut her short.

“Call me ‘Sebas’.”  He said with a pleasantly open air about him.

“Sebas… how will this help my sisters?”  Arche asked, cutting to the heart of her true concern.

“Simple, in a few days, they will be in this house, until then, you will remain within these walls, you can consider yourself my guest, or you can assist Solution with the housework, do as you like, but do not venture out.”  Sebas said, and reached over to the silk rope that would ring for help.

Arche’s heart raced.  ‘So soon?!’  She asked herself, but found no way to disbelieve by the time the radiant maid returned.

“Show our guest to her quarters for now, then return, I have something for you to do, Solution.”  Sebas said, and the quiet maid inclined her head to the master of the house with a smile that froze Arche’s blood.

‘A beautiful monster.’  Her instincts screamed at her with every step as she followed the quiet woman out.