The Villainess Will Not Bring Dishonor To Her Family

146 - The Meeting of Wind and Water - Part 2

"The foul wolf and sly ram and sweet little lamb is just ahead."

The three wind gods swirl through the hallway of the castle eagerly as they try to catch each other's tails. Occasionally they circle about near the floor and create tiny twisters.

Lumere is just watching them quietly, taking on an outwardly neutral appearance as he swims about in the shape of a fish.

I greet the regularly patrolling guards while following the happily curious wind gods and in turn find that they must have been... more than mildly excited to find someone to talk to. In the meantime they've taken to the nickname 'priestess' for me.

"Priestess, this one is sinful. Sleeps with his wife's sister."

They start swirling around the guards we walk past and casually start spewing out secrets in what appears to be sheer amusement.

"I wonder why he does it," asks one while staring into the guy's face.

"His wife slept with his friend," the second answers.

"Why did she?" Asks the first and tilts its entire snake like body.

"No love. A shoulder to cry on turned to love," answers the third.

Then the two others kind of nod in acceptance and fly on. Now, I have observed no dishonorable behavior so I am not obligated to scold him. Honestly I don't even want to note his face or his stature at this point.

"This one likes fishing."

They move on with a happy twirl in the air just with that and head onwards. In the end they stop near one standing guard at a door and circle around him like they did with the other guard.

What foolish things is this one thinking of?

"This one forgot to breathe because of you, Priestess."

...why did I even consider it?

The poor lad is staring straight ahead all stiff and tense as I walk nearer.

"This one thinks the priestess is cute. He forgot he isn't breathing."

Should I ignore him? I probably should. Let them have their thoughts in peace and just move on.

"Why doesn't he say it? He's staring at her lips too."

Just...

"Ah, he's starstruck."

"Starstruck," chimes in the second wind god with hints of excitement, followed by them staring at me.

Meanwhile the poor lad has gone pallid. You see, not only has he forgotten to breathe, but because of a little certain group of wind gods I ended up looking at them... and since they are swirling around the guard, I am now staring in his direction. Since there is only a wall behind him you can imagine the shock of being pointed out by a superior you were just thinking 'he is cute' about. Yes, that is right, whatever fears you have of me hearing your thoughts are currently true.

Still... it's better just not to say anything. So we are just going to ignore the lad and walk on.

"...Breathe," I order the guard while trying to look less annoyed than I currently am.

A couple of moments of silence.

Then a small breath.

I walk on.

—-*—-

Much to the amusement of the wind gods this ends up happening more than once.