Chương 90: Schadenfreude

Elaria watched as Pathfinder Sylven turned to Mournvale.

"WHAT—" She stopped, her gaze dropping momentarily to Serel beside Mournvale. Her voice came out quieter, but considerably more accusing as she looked back at Mournvale.

"You planned this."

"Whaaat? No—" Mournvale also stopped mid-sentence, but it was clearly because she couldn't quite hold back the laugh that slipped out. Pathfinder Sylven's expression only darkened. Serel looked between them in confusion. Elaria, for her part, found herself sharing some of Pathfinder Sylven's annoyed sentiment as it registered that Mournvale had apparently summoned her here as part of some joke at her friend's expense.

"Mournvale," she said.

"I had several matters still to attend to. Did you call me here purely for your own entertainment?" The woman paused, head turning to her.

"Wait, shit, did you? I—" For some reason, her eyes went wide, and she covered her mouth with both hands as she looked down at the girl next to her.

"Serel, you didn't hear that, alright?" Serel blinked up at her.

"What, Mommy?" Mournvale smiled faintly and patted the girl's head.

"That's my g—""'Shit?'" Her hand froze. Elaria frowned.

"No, that's…" Mournvale's eyes moved uneasily between Serel and Elaria.

"Serel, kiddo, let's not use that word, okay?"

"Why not?"

"Because it's a… bad word."

"But why?"

"Because I say so." Serel's brow scrunched together in thought, and she looked back at Elaria as if searching for confirmation.

"It is hardly a strong expletive, Mournvale," Elaria said. Few words were as common on the fronts. She was used to hearing it dozens of times daily. She did not think it rose to the level where you needed to catch yourself in front of a child. Ye her response earned her a surprised look from Mournvale. Elaria held the woman's gaze for a moment, then sighed and shifted her attention to Serel.

"If your mother thinks you should not use that word, then it is best that you don't." Serel glanced briefly at Mournvale, then gave a firm nod.

"Mmm, okay. I won't!"

"Good." Elaria turned back to Mournvale.

"Satisfied?" The woman's lips parted slowly.

"I mean, it doesn't matter that much to me. I just thought you'd… well, my mom was pretty strict with these things…" Her mother? Mournvale trailed off and shook her head.

"Never mind. Sure. This is good." She patted Serel's head.

"I'm trusting you to keep your word there, missy."

"I never break a promise, Mommy!"

"Debatable, but sure."

"Mournvale." Elaria waited until the woman's attention came back to her.

"You were saying earlier?" Mournvale blinked, then seemed to remember herself.

"Oh, right. Before—sorry, I didn't realize you'd still be in the middle of things this late. I figured that since you agreed to bring Serel, you were more or less free. But I wasn't trying to pull you away from your work, and I wasn't calling you here just to play some joke on Syl, either. I genuinely wanted you here for the introduction.

I just maybe got a little carried away with the rest of it, and—" Elaria's brows climbed steadily as she listened to the woman trying to explain her actions, and Mournvale only appeared to grow more aware of herself the longer Elaria's silence held. All traces of her earlier amusement were entirely missing from her features. Elaria was fairly certain Mournvale was misinterpreting how mad she actually was—but she found herself in no particular hurry to correct that impression.

Mournvale had a habit of being rather insufferable when she was the one enjoying herself at someone else's expense. Elaria was increasingly discovering that she had a quiet appreciation for the inverse, when Mournvale was the one who was nervous. It was a surprisingly novel experience that Elaria hadn't known until recently, even in over a decade of acquaintance with the woman.

She recognized that it was perhaps not so different from the satisfaction Mournvale herself took in unsettling others, which did give her some pause. But she felt that this was significantly more justified. Mournvale eventually ran out of words and went still, the look on her face not too dissimilar to a junior officer who had allowed his whole company to come back reeking of ale. She was clearly waiting for Elaria's next words, but the one who spoke instead was Serel.

"Mommy, you shouldn't make Mama mad." The corner of Mournvale's mouth moved.

"Serel, how about we—""You said this morning that you weren't fighting. But now you're being bad." That caught Elaria's attention. Had the girl been under the impression that they were fighting this morning? She turned that over and couldn't land on anything that should have given Serel that idea. A short silence settled over the room. Then a pointed cough came from just beside Elaria. Falko held the expression of a man who had realized several seconds too late that he was standing somewhere he shouldn't be.

"Mistress Sylven, I think I'll take my leave…" He didn't wait for acknowledgment before retreating out the door. Elaria's gaze followed him, lingering on the exit. She recognized that this was not the most dignified scene she had ever been party to. But she had never truly expected dignity from sharing custody of a child with Mournvale. The day she had accepted Serel as her daughter, she had already prepared herself for considerably worse. A sharp laugh broke through the room.

Elaria glanced over to find Pathfinder Sylven nearly doubled over, arms wrapped around her stomach.

"…Oi," Mournvale said.

"What's so funny suddenly?" Sylven lifted her head, the corner of one eye wet as she looked at her.

"I think this is the first time I've ever seen you face actual consequences for being an ass. And since when do you fold like that in front of someone? I think that alone might have made my entire year." Mournvale's expression fell. Pathfinder Sylven wiped her eye—and then, every trace of laughter was gone. The same intensity that had been there when Elaria entered the room settled back over her features as her gaze fixed on Mournvale with quiet accusation. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road.

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"Serel," she suddenly said, her voice considerably gentler than her face suggested it should be. She turned to the girl.

"That's your name, isn't it?" Serel gave a slow nod.

"Mmm." The woman smiled, and something in her whole bearing shifted with it, a faint trace of Resonance and color flickering through her eyes as the freckles across her face seemed to catch the light.

"It's a beautiful name." Serel was quiet at first, then smiled back.

"Thank you!" She studied her for a few seconds.

"Miss, you're my Mommy's friend, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"You're beautiful!" The Pathfinder's smile mellowed.

"Thank you, Serel." She leaned forward slightly.

"Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"I don't."

"Do you love your mom?"

"Yes! So much!"

"That's great." The smile warmed further, only for an edge to creep back into it.

"But you told her earlier that she shouldn't be bad. That's right—she shouldn't be bad. So you wouldn't mind if I punished her just a little for being mean to her friend, would you?" Across the table, Mournvale stirred.

"Hey, hold on—" Pathfinder Sylven sent her a look that stopped that cleanly. Serel glanced between them, brow scrunching together in deep consideration.

"Will you hurt Mommy?" The woman turned back to her.

"No, of course not. There's no one who could."

"…Then you can punish her just a little." Mournvale looked at Serel with open betrayal. Pathfinder Sylven leaned back in her seat, smile still sitting comfortably on her face as she watched Mournvale absorb this. Elaria observed their exchange with mild interest. She was not particularly familiar with the nature of their friendship, but this was the first time she had seen Pathfinder Sylven move through such a range of expressions. Her reading of the woman's character had apparently been incomplete.

"Did you have fun surprising me, Vera?" Pathfinder Sylven asked. Mournvale was quiet for a while, eyeing Serel with something fond in her expression before finally breathing out slowly through her nose.

"I did for a minute there, yeah."

"Screw you."

"Hey, my kid's in the room."

"Serel, do you mind if I tell your mom to go screw herself?" Serel looked confused.

"What does that mean?" Pathfinder Sylven's smile turned a fraction more sincere.

"That she's been bad."

"…Then it's okay." Mournvale looked as if she wanted to argue, but instead she just sank into her seat, waving a hand in loose surrender.

"Alright, alright, I get it. I'm a monster. I'm sure I'll have to suffer for a while. That's what you get for flying too close to the sun and all that, I suppose."

"You could have just told me beforehand, like any reasonable person," Pathfinder Sylven said.

"Eh. I don't know."

"I swear." The woman pressed three fingers to her temple, rubbing the skin around one of her horn stubs.

"It's like you and Mira were made to trouble everyone around you. Don't you agree, Flamebearer?" She turned to Elaria. Elaria had her arms crossed in front of her.

"Yes."

"Then with that settled, and hopefully without me having to raise my voice again—" Pathfinder Sylven sent another glare at Mournvale, "—I'll set aside the very obvious questions for now. But I want you to explain things, because I am currently very confused."

Based on Pathfinder Sylven's initial reaction, Elaria had thought it reckless of Mournvale to introduce Serel like this with the girl present, but it seemed the woman had trusted that her friend would read the situation and not question Serel's age or bloodline outright.

"It's kind of complicated, I'm not going to lie," Mournvale said, rubbing the back of her neck before placing a hand on Serel's shoulder.

"But the plain and simple is that this is Serel. She's the real, flesh-and-blood daughter of me and Elaria over there, and she's six years old."

"I could tell," Pathfinder Sylven replied.

"Even setting aside appearance, I examined her Resonance earlier, and it was practically screaming that she belongs to both of you." There was a thread of disbelief running through her voice that she hadn't quite managed to bury.

"I'm assuming there's a reason we haven't met her before?" she asked.

"Mm. Serel hasn't really left Sablewatch Hollow much before," Mournvale explained.

"Once again, it's kind of complicated. It's also related to why I need to find Mira." Pathfinder Sylven's brow drew together, as if turning something over in her thoughts. Whether she'd drawn a line between Halstrad's connection to the Graven Daughter and Serel, Elaria couldn't tell.

"Anyway, beyond finding Mira, we didn't want to separate Serel from Elaria when she needed to head back here to Caer Virell," Mournvale continued.

"That's why we're currently staying over at her place in the Ashfast." Something sharpened in Pathfinder Sylven's expression. She looked between them.

"I see. Then you two are…?" Mournvale went still for just a moment too long.

"Not exactly." Elaria didn't comment. Given Serel, the assumption was a natural one, and she had no strong feeling about being on the receiving end of it—she had long since stopped keeping track of what people thought of her. What she'd noticed was that it was always Mournvale who moved to correct it, however. Always rather quickly. Pathfinder Sylven looked at Mournvale with naked skepticism.

"You introduced her as your better half." Elaria's thoughts pulled to a brief halt. Her gaze went to Vera. The woman produced an awkward smile.

"Well, that's because she's probably, arguably, the better half of us two."

"Is that so," Pathfinder Sylven replied flatly. Elaria's expression settled slightly as she realized Vera had likely only said it to better fool her friend.

"Mommy, even if you're bad today, you're still the best," Serel said.

"You and Mama can both be best!"

"Aaaaw." Mournvale's face completely melted as she pulled the girl into her embrace. Serel let out a squeak as she stumbled into her.

"Look at you already learning how to butter up both sides. I swear, I don't know where she gets all this blasted cuteness from."

"Mooommy!" Elaria caught the expression that bordered between disbelief and mild revulsion on Pathfinder Sylven's face as she watched them.

"Are you really the Vera I knew?" Mournvale glanced up at her, still holding Serel.

"What, I'm not allowed to dote on my daughter?"

"I thought your standards for cute were either skull-shaped or building-sized with fangs as big as you."

"I've got varied tastes."

"I've been to your home. I don't think you do."

"She has a collection of dolls in her room," Elaria said. Both women went quiet. Their heads turned. Elaria frowned slightly under their combined gaze, not entirely sure what had moved her to interrupt. Despite that, she continued.

"I would simply note that they could reasonably be considered 'cute,' yet they do not necessarily align with Mournvale's other… aesthetic preferences." Pathfinder Sylven studied her with an expression that had shifted into something more searching.

"In her room, you say?" Mournvale, for her part, looked like she would have preferred this not come up.

"Those darn plushies again," Elaria heard her mutter. Mournvale cleared her throat.

"Anyway. I'll fill you in on the details later, Syl. I just wanted Elaria to be here for, you know, this…" She looked across at Elaria, appearing genuinely apologetic.

"Sorry for pulling you away from your work. It won't happen again." Elaria regarded her for a moment.

"…If I am unable to come in the future, I will simply inform you as such. You are still allowed to inquire with me." Mournvale blinked.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Huh. Alright. Neat." She turned back to Serel, who had finally wrestled herself free of her grip, and ruffled a hand through her hair.

"Now then, how's your day been, little lady? Have fun hanging out with the big M at the office?" Elaria suppressed the urge to frown again at the strange, compressed piece of language used by Mournvale. At this point, she had begun to suspect the woman coined them deliberately as some form of low-effort obfuscation. Was it perhaps to draw attention away from when she was feeling uncomfortable? Serel glared up at Mournvale and straightened her hair, but her expression quickly brightened after that.

"Mmm, it was fun. Mama was busy, but I really liked being with her. Next time, can we go together?" Mournvale smiled warmly.

"Well, as long as they don't kick me out, sure. Whatever you say." Elaria stared at Serel. The girl… had enjoyed it? Elaria had assumed that Serel had simply endured the hours at Flamehold Virell and been waiting to be back with Mournvale. She thought back to the afternoon, trying to locate what, specifically, could have made it worthwhile for a six-year-old. Her attention shifted as Mournvale rose from her seat and positioned Serel in front of her.

"Are we leaving?" Elaria asked.

"Hmm? Sort of, yeah," the woman answered.

"I promised Serel I'd show her around the city, after all. There's also this other girl I said I'd meet, but I think I'll push that to tomorrow." She looked at Pathfinder Sylven.

"By the way, want to come with?"

"On your city tour?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe another time. Don't think I'm letting you off that easily, though. We're talking again. Tomorrow."

"Sure thing." Mournvale steered toward Elaria, shuffling Serel along with her hands on the girl's shoulders in an odd waddling procession that had Serel giggling. They stopped when they reached Elaria. Mournvale eyed her.

"Do you have time to join us, or do you need to get back to work?" Elaria hesitated, but eventually shook her head.

"I think it's best if I return to the Flamehold. There are still a few things I need to finalize."

"Want a lift there?"

"That would be appreciated."

"Alrighty then." The woman set off again, their daughter still shuffling along ahead of her. Elaria watched them, and a thought threaded through her mind.

"…Do you have plans for tomorrow morning?" Mournvale stopped and looked back.

"Nope. At least I don't think so. Why?"

"I will be presenting a report to the Cinder Council and Ember Conclave regarding the events at Marrowfen. I had intended to attend alone, but given your involvement, your presence would not be out of place." Something uncertain moved across the woman's face.

"I'm not really the best with that sort of thing."

"I am aware."

"Rain check?" Elaria paused.

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, maybe next time."

"… I see. Very well." Mournvale turned and started off again. Elaria watched them go, but after a moment, her lips parted once more.

"I also intended to announce Serel as my daughter."