Chương 119: Chapter 115 - Beatrix's Instincts

Chelsea The bed was lonely. Chelsea had thought that being home would help more than it did. Her room was familiar. The sheets smelled right. The shape of the walls, the furniture, and the little things scattered around the space all belonged to a life she still thought of as hers. But the bed felt too large, and the quiet around her didn't feel peaceful. At that moment, Chelsea didn't even want Ivy to touch her. Even if Ivy was there, she wouldn't want to be touched.

She had slept in her full set of equipment minus the helmet. The armor pressed against her everywhere and made it hard to get comfortable, but that was the point. Her shield was tied to her hand so it would not fall away if she moved in her sleep. It should have made her feel safer. She still felt so very, very weak. Her mind kept running through the last few days no matter how hard she tried to not let it. Every time she thought she had found the end of it, another piece returned. The battlefield.

The way she had laughed before she understood what she had done to innocent people. Then the room with Delilah. The hand over her mouth while the servicer crossed the floor in Ivy's robe. She had been brought to this world to save it. Instead, the world had kept taking pieces from her.

"I uh…" Chelsea jumped at the voice breaking the silence of the room.

"Sorry. Sorry." It was Freya. Chelsea's hand tightened around the shield strap before she forced herself to breathe. Freya stood near the side of the room, looking less certain than Chelsea had ever seen her.

"How are you holding up?" Chelsea rolled over to face her friend.

"Not great," she said. Freya's expression tightened, but she didn't come closer without permission.

"Can I do anything for you?"

"Just… don't leave."

"Sure," Freya replied with a smile.

"I can do that." Freya sat nearby, close enough that Chelsea could see her and far enough that she wasn't smothering. The two of them remained in silence for several minutes. Chelsea watched the room without really seeing it, listening to the small sounds of Freya breathing, the faint movement of armor when Chelsea shifted, and the soft creak of the shield strap against her wrist.

"Did you kill her?" Chelsea asked finally. The question had been bothering her since she woke. The last thing she clearly remembered from the night before was digging through her pouch with shaking hands, trying to find enough equipment to make her body feel less exposed.

"No. I didn't," Freya replied quietly.

"OK." The room grew quiet again. Freya broke it next.

"Chels, I'm so sorry." She was crying. Chelsea hadn't noticed at first, but when she looked up, Freya's face already had tears on it.

"I stopped paying attention because I wanted to give you privacy. I am so sorry!"

"No," Chelsea said flatly and plainly.

"That was an event of my own creation."

"Chels!" Freya replied.

"Don't say that. Passion is…"

"Passion was drunk. I bought her a bunch of nice gifts and got her drunk. I wanted to celebrate her achievement. I knew what she was. I shouldn't have been without some sort of equipment." Freya looked as if the words hurt to hear, but she didn't argue immediately. That was probably for the best. Chelsea did not have the strength for an argument. She knew how it sounded. She knew she was taking pieces of blame that didn't belong entirely to her.

But the thoughts were there anyway, settled deep enough that being told they were wrong would not make them leave. She had wanted to make Delilah happy. She had wanted the day to be soft. She had wanted dresses, jewelry, hair, wine, and laughter. She had wanted one day. Just theirs. A day not belonging to the valkyr and training for the next battle. Then she had trusted the wrong moment. Freya was quiet for a long time.

Chelsea could tell she was choosing not to correct her too quickly, and somehow that made her feel less cornered. Freya understood enough about broken things to know that pulling too hard only made them tear.

"I won't make that mistake ever again," Chelsea said.

"You probably think of me as a stupid child. I bet this isn't the first time this has happened with the Valkyr is it?" Freya raised her eyebrows.

"I was just thinking about that. No. No it actually happens about once every ten years or so."

"That long?" Chelsea asked. She felt herself gazing off into space after that. Not speaking.

"Hey Freya, can you umm… can you lay next to me?"

"Sure," she said, standing up to crawl into the bed.

"Ah but please umm. I love you but please don't touch me. I'm sor…"

"I understand Chels. No need to be sorry." Freya climbed onto the bed carefully. Chelsea waited until she was settled, then pushed her until Freya rolled onto her side facing away from her. Only then did Chelsea move closer. She draped her armored arm over the goddess, using Freya as something solid without having to be held in return. It helped.

"Any idea what you want to do today? If you just want to stay in bed all day I wouldn't blame you. I OK'd it with your mother."

"Oh." Chelsea looked around the room again, seeing it properly for the first time since waking.

"This actually is my room. I thought it was yours."

"I figured it was best to inform your mother of what was going on."

"That was very thoughtful. Thank you. I don't have anything I want to do today."

"Maybe go say hi to your family?" Chelsea's fingers curled lightly against Freya's side.

"They all know why I'm home don't they?"

"No. Only your mother does. They think you're just home for a visit."

"OK," she whispered. She thought it over. The idea of facing everyone made her nervous, but the idea of staying in bed all day felt stupid. The house was full of people who loved her. People who would smile because she was home, not because they knew she had nearly broken in a room far away from them. Maybe she could just sit near them for a while.

"Maybe I will."

"Littlest niece Chelsea!" Dewey exclaimed, walking quickly to give her a hug. Chelsea saw the movement before she was ready for it. Dewey was smiling, loud and happy in the way Dewey always was, with his arms already opening as if the world hadn't changed at all since the last time he had seen her. A few days ago, Chelsea would have run into that hug. She would have laughed when he picked her up, called him Uncle Dewey, and let him squeeze the breath out of her. Instead, her feet moved backward.

"Whoa whoa whoa. Uncle Dewey. Hold on," Chelsea said, taking a few steps back.

"I uh." Freya stepped between them. There was no threat in it. She simply placed herself there. Chelsea swallowed and forced herself to keep talking.

"I am wearing a full set of historic+3 gear. I don't want to accidentally hurt you."

"Oh! Smart thinking. Did Adriane tell you the good news?" Chelsea tried to pull herself into the conversation. Dewey's face was so open and excited. She wanted to be the girl he expected.

"Good news?" Chelsea asked.

"I would love some good news."

"Fiona and I are getting married!" he exclaimed in his overly loud voice.

"Congratulations," Chelsea said. Even as she said it, she could feel that it didn't come out in her normal Chelsea way. The word was right. The feeling was there somewhere. Dewey didn't seem to notice at first. He was too busy beaming.

"Also we are going to give you a cousin," he said, proud of himself. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Chelsea's eyes lifted from the floor and found his. Her smile was still not quite right, but it was real enough. She remembered seeing Fiona obviously going through the early stages of pregnancy before Chelsea left.

"Oh, Dewey, I am so happy for you two. Freya, is there any sort of blessing or whatever godly things you can do for them?" Dewey's eyes went wide. Only then did the full weight of who stood beside Chelsea seem to hit him. The black-haired goddess with the strange eyes wasn't merely some woman in the room. She was the goddess he worshipped, standing in the manor with his smallest niece casually asking for divine favors.

Dewey sputtered, caught between reverence, panic, and the clear need to stop Chelsea before she offended the being he had prayed to for most of his life. Chelsea glanced between them, not understanding his alarm.

"You know, like bless the baby, bless the marriage. God stuff. I don't know." Freya laughed when Chelsea perked up a little. It wasn't much, but after the morning they had had, even that tiny return of Chelsea's usual boldness felt precious.

"Sure. Have your fiance visit someone with The Eyes. She can accept my blessing for your unborn child." Dewey hadn't moved. He simply stared at Freya in wonder. Chelsea, however, was already thinking through the next part.

"I keep meaning to ask. Can you just bless anyone and everyone?"

"At my current power I can bless twenty-five individuals." Freya looked to Dewey.

"Your stubborn niece keeps refusing my blessing so your baby can have hers." Dewey whipped his head toward Chelsea.

"What!?" Chelsea's face changed for a moment. The old mischief appeared, faint but recognizable.

"Lying is so unbecoming of a young goddess such as yourself," Chelsea teased.

"Did you just call her a liar!?" he whisper yelled at Chelsea in his gross whisper voice.

"Because she's lying. I beg and plead on my knees almost daily. I prostrate in front of her for hours in hopes one day I will receive the almighty blessing of the battle goddess. Still she scorns me. One day. One day I will earn my place in Valhalla and claim my ble… oh wait you said you're just going to give it to his kid? That works I guess." Freya laughed and reached to give Chelsea a hug. The change was immediate. Chelsea's smile disappeared.

Her body flinched before thought could catch up to it, shoulders tightening as she pulled away from Freya's hand.

"Oh umm… I'm sorry. I…"

"No! That's ok. That was on me," Freya replied. Dewey's excitement drained from his face, replaced by a concern so sincere that Chelsea had to look away from it.

"Littlest Niece are you OK?" Dewey asked, genuinely concerned.

"Y-yes. I'm great," she said. She tried to force the smile back into place. Her eyes felt hot, and her face refused to obey her the way it usually did.

"Chelsea," he said calmly.

"Something isn't OK."

"It isn't," she sighed, "but it's not something I want to talk about." Dewey stepped forward, clearly meaning only comfort. Chelsea stepped out of his reach before he could get close enough to touch her. Shame hit her almost harder than fear. She looked down at the floor while tears gathered in her eyes. Dewey hadn't done anything wrong. He was Dewey. He loved her loudly and with his whole being. He didn't deserve to have her retreat from him as if his kindness were poisonous.

Dewey looked to Freya in confusion, searching for some answer that would make sense of the girl in front of him. Freya only shook her head.

"If you need anything, Littlest Niece. I will always be here for you," he said. Chelsea kept her head down and nodded.

"OK. Thanks," she replied in a weak voice.

"Chels!" Bea exclaimed from the doorway. Chelsea turned toward the voice just as Bea ran into the room. Her body moved before she could stop it. She ducked behind Freya, using the goddess as cover. Bea slowed her run at once, her brows drawing together.

"Chels?" Chelsea popped her head out from behind Freya with an attempt at her usual smile.

"Hey Aunt Bea!" Bea's expression hardened into something colder and far more attentive.

"Chels," Bea said coldly.

"Please come here. Not going to touch you." Chelsea obeyed because Bea had given her the part she needed.

"Hey. How have you been?" Chelsea asked. Her voice sounded thin even to her own ears. Her eyes were probably red with unfallen tears, and she could feel the awkward shape of the smile still sitting on her face. Bea looked her over. She leaned forward and sniffed. Then she leaned back.

"Dewey, which one is the sex Valkyr?"

"Bea! Be nicer to her," he said.

"And there isn't a sex Valkyr. Maybe you mean Passion?" Bea didn't take her eyes off Chelsea while he talked. Chelsea gave the slightest flinch at the name. Bea saw it.

"She tried to force you, didn't she?" Bea asked with narrowed eyes. Chelsea's eyes widened, and she looked at Freya, who shook her head in confusion.

"Mom told you!?" Dewey let out a gasp.

"Adriane knows?" Bea asked with her creepy smile.

"Well thats good. She should be dead by now then."

"How…" Chelsea started to ask. She looked from Bea to Dewey. Yet Bea had known where to aim the question.

"You acted this exact same way when Adriane flayed all of your skin off. You don't feel pain so it couldn't be torture. What else is there? You smell slightly like sex. You're wearing your armor, including your shield meaning you are afraid of being overpowered by someone, which means they are strong. Just figured it was the sex bitch." Bea said it with no gentleness at all. Bea didn't soften the words or make a tragic face while reaching for Chelsea with trembling hands.

She watched Chelsea with those crazy eyes and coldness, as if the easiest way to help was to cut directly through the bullshit. Chelsea's mouth opened, but no answer came out. Her hand tightened around the shield strap. The armor suddenly felt too obvious. She had thought it made her safer. Now it felt as though every piece of it had become proof. The rings jammed onto her fingers. The shield tied to her arm. The way she had hidden behind Freya when Bea ran toward her. Bea had seen all of it.

Dewey looked horrified, not at Bea's bluntness exactly, but at how quickly the pieces had fit together for her. His gaze moved to Chelsea and then away again, as if looking too long might make the truth hurt her more. Freya stayed quiet beside Chelsea. Bea's attention upward drifted to the larger woman. She looked at the black-haired woman properly for the first time. Her eyes narrowed, then flicked over Freya's face and her perfect posture.

"Who are you?" Dewey sputtered.

"Ah uh Beatrix, this is the lady of Valhalla, Freya. Freya, this is Chelsea's aunt Beatrix." The words hung in the room. Bea stared. For one long second, even she seemed to lose her place. Then she started laughing. It was loud, ugly, and entirely too much for the room. Dewey flinched. Chelsea didn't know whether she wanted to cry harder or hide her face in Freya's side and never come out. Bea bent slightly with the force of it, one hand braced against her own knee.

When she lifted her head again, her eyes were bright with something that wasn't amusement alone.

"Chelsea, do you intentionally befriend the most powerful beings in the world? Or is it all on accident?" Chelsea wasn't listening. Bea was still laughing, and the sound filled too much of the room. Chelsea knew Bea. She knew the laugh didn't always mean cruelty. Sometimes it meant Bea had found something absurd enough to make the world briefly entertaining. Her thoughts folded in on themselves. Bea was laughing. Everyone knew too much. The armor hadn't hidden anything. She wanted nothing more than to run.

She wanted to go upstairs, lock a door, crawl into a corner, and stop existing. She wanted Bea to stop laughing. Was Bea laughing at her? Was she laughing at Chelsea's stupidity? Was she laughing because Chelsea had somehow done the exact thing Bea would expect from someone idiotic enough to put themselves in that situation? Chelsea's fingers tightened. There were ways out of a room. She could use a spectral scythe. Not to kill. She didn't want to kill them. She didn't want to hurt Dewey or Bea.

But if she incapacitated them for a few seconds, she could get away before anyone tried to stop her. The ability pressed at the front of her mind, ready enough that she felt the shape of it before she meant to. The panic rose harder. Chelsea let Celeste take over because she could not trust herself not to act. The change was small from the outside, but Freya noticed immediately. Chelsea's breathing steadied and her head tilted up. As if she were… a princess.

"Whoa, big emotions coming out of Chelsea," Celeste said.

"Bea, a pleasure. Dewey, congrats on the baby. Maybe tone down the psycho a bit there Bea. Chelsea was hovering on some abilities that wouldn't be a good time." Dewey's face went pale. Bea's grin widened.

"Celeste," Bea said, smiling.

"Surprised you let this happen to her. Don't you have access to those ghost abilities?" Celeste looked at her with Chelsea's bright eyes and a much older kind of irritation.

"Chelsea leveled them up so high that there was a chance it would have killed that bitch," she said with a casual shrug.

"Since she can't seem to hug, I will do it for her. Bea, it's wonderful to see you." She stepped forward and gave Bea a hug. It was careful, more careful than Celeste liked being with all of the armor on. She really could hurt someone by accident.

"Dewey," she said. She didn't hug him. Dewey stood stiff for the first second, startled by the sudden contact and the knowledge that it wasn't Chelsea holding him. Then his arms came around her with the cautious gentleness of a man trying not to break something already cracked. Celeste let him before stepping back. Bea narrowed her eyes.

"Why are you being so nice?"

"Not for your sake. I have to share this body with Chelsea. She's the only one I'm nice to. If I have to pretend I don't want to eat your twisted little black heart, so be it."

"There's the demon I missed," Bea said with a smile. Something in the room settled after that. Not enough to make Chelsea feel safe. Bea and Celeste had always understood each other in a weird way. Before Celeste's father had arrived, they had spent enough time together. During which they became… not friends… but friendly. Celeste looked toward the doorway.

"Well, I'm going to go let Chelsea wallow in regret and self blame. You two have a good morning. Dewey, send Fiona to our room whenever so we can set up that blessing." She turned and left before anyone could answer. Freya followed her into the hall. The manor outside the room was quiet. Chelsea could hear distant movement from the kitchen and the soft creak of old wood beneath their feet, but the hallway itself felt empty.

Celeste walked with more control than Chelsea had managed all morning, head up and confident. Freya walked beside her without trying to lead. After a few moments, Freya spoke.

"You know, Bea had a point. Why didn't you stop it with a spectral javelin?" Celeste sighed.

"Yeah this is my fuck up too. I really really messed up. Chelsea and I share a body but not a mind. I knew she didn't want to do anything with the servicer. When she switched to me, I originally thought she was doing it to let me enjoy it. I've made it known to her that I'd love to use it. I honestly thought it was her being Chelsea and giving this to me. Then I realized the panicked struggling she had been attempting before switching to me. That's when I knocked it over. I should have used some ability."

Celeste's voice lost some of its bite.

"Yeah I really fucked up. Sorry Chels." The silence that followed belonged more to Chelsea than Celeste.

"I don't blame you," Chelsea said.

"Both you and Passion thought it was what I wanted." Celeste stopped walking. Freya stopped beside her. The shift back and forth between them had become familiar to Freya, but even she watched carefully now. Chelsea's voice had come out quieter, with none of Celeste's rough amusement in it.

"There's the self blame I was talking about. You're a victim Chelsea. A victim of your own making? Sure. But a victim. You're allowed to feel violated." Chelsea stared down the hall. The word victim sat poorly in her mind. It didn't contain all the choices that had led there, the wine, the gifts, the flirting she hadn't fully understood until it was too late, the confession, the touch she had liked until she didn't, and the moment when no one could hear her. But violated felt true. That was harder to argue with.

"Is this how you felt when me and Ivy…" She trailed off. Celeste answered without hesitation.

"No. I give you shit for that but if there's one thing I can say about that, you were gentle and cute. It wasn't entirely bad." Chelsea didn't know what to do with that answer. Freya walked along with the girl who seemed to be talking to herself. Chelsea and Celeste wore the same face, the same trembling body, but they carried it differently. Their voices didn't change in pitch, not really, but the words came out differently.

Chelsea in this moment was small while Celeste spoke like a high noble who wasn't bothered by anything. This was a child and the ghost of a demon sharing the same wounded body, and both of them were trying to keep it together. Celeste slowed near the turn in the hallway.

"Let me try something," Celeste finally said.

"The whole shared body thing is unique enough to experiment." Freya watched her, wary but willing. Celeste reached out, grabbed Freya's large left hand, and placed it carefully against the back of Chelsea's neck and the base of her head. Freya went very still. Celeste didn't. She gave control back to Chelsea. For a few seconds, nothing moved. Chelsea stood in the hallway with Freya's large hand resting against her neck. The contact was warm and solid.

She could feel the calluses in Freya's palm brush against the skin beneath her hair. Freya wasn't using any pressure. Her hand was only there because Celeste had placed it there and Chelsea hadn't yet decided what to do.

"Now what?" Chelsea asked.

"She's touching you, Chels. Do you want to pull away?" Chelsea stood completely still, thinking. The impulse rushed up fast, but not as strong as before. Freya's hand was behind her head, and that should have been too much. Instead, she felt Freya waiting. Chelsea slowly lifted her right hand and touched the back of Freya's hand. Chelsea was wearing gauntlets, so there was no chance she could feel much through them, but she touched it all the same. The pressure stayed gentle. Freya did not move.

Freya wouldn't decide anything for her. Chelsea remembered all of those days spent with Freya under the shade of Bradford's tree. She remembered lying against her stomach and talking about nothing. She remembered Freya pretending not to care about things while obviously caring about them. The fear loosened all at once. Chelsea collapsed into Freya. The god caught her carefully, arms hovering until Chelsea grabbed them herself and pulled them around her. Then Freya held on. Chelsea cried again.

She was tired of crying and apologizing. The words came out messy against Freya's chest. She grabbed Freya's arms and draped them across herself more firmly.

"You can touch me. I might flinch but you can touch me. It's OK."