The Conquerors bloodline

Chapter 31: Scars

Sayo hadn't heard much from the others in Night Raid since their arrival at this new base of theirs. She was still just as confined to her room as she's ever been with a single leg to walk on. Sometimes Eris would come by to take her for a walk along with her sister who had been showing a more lively? Expression lately. If small blank smiles could be counted as emotions.

Apart from them, the Night Raiders had been relatively silent. She'd only really ever met the whole group after the incident with that Krave person who nearly killed her, which wouldn't be her first time. A scary revelation she had come to these passing days.

To think that in just a few short months she, Tatsumi and Ieyasu would leave the village, get separated, then get drugged by psychopaths dressing as 'humanitarians,' get her leg amputated, Ieyasu would die, she would end up as an unofficial member of Night Raid that literally couldn't do anything even though her face was plastered around the Capital- oh and not to mention that her last best friend was now a potential target for Night Raid to kill by proxy.

'How's Tatsumi doing?' she thought, he must have lost it seeing a wanted poster for her out there even having a subtitle of 'one-legged' just under her name.

It truly was a horrible situation they had found themselves in. And now with Bulat having passed, which came as the biggest shock since loosing her leg. He was such a kind man, apart from Parc he was the one who came to her and the other girls the most often, often bringing treats for them while wearing a frilly pink apron.

"Sayo!"

Sayo sprung a little in her seat from Eris's loud shout of her name.

"Y-yes?" she muttered in response, looking to Eris who was dressed in a frilly red skirt and long sleeved red shirt nearly the same colour as the marking of her teigu that dyed the entirety of her neck red in an effort to hide the fact it was practically unbuttoned all the way down to the bottom of her breasts.

"You okay? You seemed a little distracted," Eris's voice held a distinct hum to it, every word she spoke filled the air with bell tolls and fairies laughter. An incredibly strange phenomena they learned when her voice finally returned in full.

"I'm I'm good. Just feeling a little helpless after everything that's happened," she forced a smile onto her face.

Eris frowned, "you're far from helpless, you do know that right?" she turned to her sister who was slowly bringing a cup of water to her lips, missing her lower one by just a few millimeters causing more to spill over onto her chest than into her mouth, "oh, Maya! A little higher," Eris pulled out the towel she always kept with her ever since her sister started to feed herself for the most part. It was still a dice roll if she would actually get it into her mouth and not some other part of her body.

Sayo tilted her head, confused at why she would say the cripple wasn't helpless. Because, well, not being able to walk made being helpful difficult. "Don't lie. I can't do anything anymore. I can't cook, I can't do archery anymore. I can't till soil, sow seeds, harvest crops." She sucked in a breath to continue her rant, "I'm surrounded by elite assassins who can do pretty much everything-"

Except Sheele who seemed even worse than Maya at just about everything, which was a miracle considering Maya was still barely able to find her way to the bathroom let alone her mouth.

"-and I can do nothing except read books and look at the same trees every single day." She huffed out the last word. Ruffling her head she let her head fall down hard onto the table with a thud, "ow" she groaned, "I just want to do something that isn't nothing. I want to be productive."

"Then why don't you do that?" Eris said as she wiped down Maya's chin and chest, drying very little of her shirt in the process.

"Huh?"

"Yeah. If missing a leg is so annoying, why don't you just go talk with Najenda and make a deal or something." Eris shrugged, leaning back into her seat, "she'd probably be willing to make a deal for a prosthetic for you if she likes what your offering. Plus, of all of us here she's probably the best with the idea with how your feeling right now what with the whole," she indicated to her right arm, slicing across the shoulder section with her index finger, letting her arm hang limply to mimic Najenda losing her arm.

Sayo blinked rapidly, that made too much sense for her not to have thought about it. Why hadn't she thought about that? Its not like it's the first time she's heard chatter about getting a prosthetic, so why hadn't she ever taken it seriously? It would literally fix her whole issue.

"I-that is I could? Couldn't I?" she stuttered in abrupt realization, her heart beating a little faster, lifting her head from the table excitement growing on her expression. "I need to talk with Najenda!" she slammed her hands down on the table, forcing herself to her foot, stumbling seconds later as her body reacquainted itself with gravity. "Eeep!" she yelped, tilting to the side, hands still on the table to hold her up but finding her tilting body steadied by a hand on her shoulder.

"Careful," Parc said with a chuckle to his voice, "you won't be able to speak with her if you knock yourself out," he shook his head, helping Sayo stand, grabbing her crutch and holding it out to her.

"T-thank you," Sayo blushed, embarrassed that she'd forgotten about the one thing that had stuck with her these last months. Taking the crutch from Parc's using it to hold herself up instead of using Parc.

"No problem," he smirked, "but I'm going to have to pop your bubble there. Najenda just left for the R.A home base."

Hearing that, Sayo deflated and fell back into her seat. "Just my luck" she groaned leaning her head back.

"Eh, don't worry about it. She'll be back in a few weeks anyways." He shrugged, looking to Eris and Maya. Noticing a light flush infusing Eris's cheek something he'd noticed was a trend with her whenever he was around.

In Eris's mind the moment Parc appeared she remembered that time she'd peeped on him, Sheele and Leone having some intimate, moments soon after Leone kicked his door down. Since then every time he ever got near her or was even in the room, she'd go silent and couldn't even look him in the eyes.

"And I got so exciteeeed," Sayo whimpered, laying herself atop the table under the amused chortles of Parc as he leaned against it with crossed arms.

"How you girls doing? Been a while since I got to have a good chat with you all." He asked looking over the group, noticing the dark splotches on Maya's lightblue cardigan top and the water cup in her hands held on her lap.

"Bored tired of being useless," Parc rose a brow at that but kept listening, "would really love to do something that isn't boredom incarnate."

"Things that dull around here?"

She stared up at him blankly, "I've read every book twice and I can't even go on a walk without someone to pick me up if I fall over. What do you think?"

"Hey," he held his hands up defensively, "I've read the same book like, five times in a row once."

"Really? What was it about then? Let me guess, murder, mayhem, freak abomination-"

"It was porn," he interrupted her, drawing wide eyes from the girls, except Maya who went for a second round of trying to drink without messing on herself, luckily finding her mouth this time but not getting it all inside. "But it had plot," he clicked his tongue and winked at them.

"I" Sayo gaped, "I didn't think you were that type of person." Her image of the heroic Parc seemed to crumble, just a little.

"You do know I'm in a relationship with like, three girls now, right? I didn't get my virility by sitting on my ass all day."

Sayo's reddened cheek twitched, "can you not be so vulgar?" she requested, "was one not enough?"

'You don't know the half of it. And that's not including my new pet,' he thought. "Sayo, vulgarity is just the fun way of being normal. You should try it sometime, really gets the gears churning."

Sayo could only frown at him with squinted eyes and flushed cheeks. "you're teasing me, aren't you?"

"You know it," he winked, annoying Sayo to no ends.

"If I could stand up. I would kick you."

"Careful, I might just enjoy it coming from a girl as beautiful as you."

Now it was Sayo's turn to snort, "I'm not beautiful" she clenched a fistful of fabric where she was missing her right leg, "not anymore at least."

Parc felt a sudden surge of dj vu. Blinking rapidly, he looked down at Sayo. 'I could do that again,' he recalled his first time with Sheele where he worshipped every inch of her, 'she'd probably need a bit more work though.'

Pushing off the table, he quickly squatted down besides, holding his hand out to her, palm up.

Sayo looked down at it quizzically.

"Hand, give, now." He said.

Now she turned her confused eyes to him, holding a bit of suspicion in them.

"Just give it to me."

Still suspicious, she lifted her right hand up and hesitantly placed it in his. His hand gently glamping onto her hand the moment she felt his soft skin.

In seconds, Parc had moved his other hand to the sleeve of Sayo's gown and pushed it up to see the numerous scars lining near every part of it.

Sayo tugged her hand in an attempt to escape, she didn't want him to see them, they were unsightly, hideous marks of her past. But he would only tighten his grip on her, moving her other hand that had come to try and pry him off out of the way.

"Sayo, you're not the first girl I met who didn't like their scars," he said, a warm smile growing on him. "Sheele, she has one right here under her eye," he said indicating to his cheek moving the tip of his finger in a single line across it. "She said something like you just did. She told me that she wasn't a treasure, not anymore, not for a long time," his voice was soft as he trailed his fingers over a few of her scars.

"But Sheele, she isn't only bogged down by a single small scar. She's airheaded and can't do many things-"

"That's a rude thing to say about your girlfriend," Sayo interrupted.

"She won't take offence," he laughed, continuing from where she interrupted him, "but she's also a murderer. She has more blood on her hands than possibly many of the monsters in the capital. Because of that she had lost even the smallest bit of self esteem within her, believing that the only thing she was good for being, was killing." He moved his fingers up her arm, engraving each and every little scar on her arm into his mind.

"Where are you going with this. This is getting creepy," she said.

Parc snorted, "maybe it is," he muttered in a low voice. Lifting his eyes to meet hers, "where I'm going with this Sayo, is that I helped her realize just how much of a treasure she was." He lifted her hand up, curling her fingers down a little, lowering his lips onto the back of them.

"Wha!?" Sayo exclaimed trying to pull her hand back, a blush making itself know on her heating cheeks.

Still, Parc did not release her, slowly moving his lips up from her fingers until he kissed her wrist, moving up her arm, soon finding the first scar that left a single cut running from her wrist to half way up her forearm.

Sayo gulped as she watched him pepper the largest scar on her arm with affectionate kisses, filling the room with soft, 'chu,' noises. She wanted to stop him, not let him see them, not do what he was currently doing, but the sight of him happily tending to them filled her heart with warmth and sent butterflies flittering through her stomach.

Parc stopped just below her elbow, pulling his lips away to flip her arm over and continue his exploration of her scars back down to her hand, logging the ones that intersected and wrapped to the back of her arm. Branding the cuts across her wrists into his head.

Finally he arrived at her palm, Sayo's fingers twitching a little, quickly stilling and pulling away when she felt the skin of his chin.

Parc ended his show, tilting his head up to her, his eyes shining a warm light as they looked into hers. Her cheeks bright red in embarrassment.

"What I just did to you, I did to Sheele's entire body all because of a small scar and low self-esteem. I wonder what I would do to you with everything you've got?"

Sayo's heart beat out of her chest, jaw trembling just at the thought of that. How would it feel to have every part of her body caressed and kissed like that? Just the idea was giving her a warm feeling in her stomach.

"I-I-that-I," she stuttered unable to properly formulate a sentence in front him now.

Chuckling Parc squeezed her hand, "don't be ashamed of your scars Sayo. Show them with pride, hold your chest up and gloat that you survived, and you would not let it keep you down and that will make you the most beautiful person in the entire room. Many can gloat about their perfect skin, their luscious lips, hair that flows like silk. But few can wear the wounds of their past on their sleeves with confidence enough that they outshine the sun."

Pushing himself to his feet he gave her a few final words, "the moment you come to terms with them and accept them for what they are and were, the happier you will be." His words struck a chord with her, when was the last time she was genuinely happy?

It felt so long ago now. But then why did the first thought that came to her mind be when she learnt of the murder of the family that did this to her? But that didn't make her actually, happy. It was more a sick pleasure to know that those demons had been put down. Not the genuine happiness she had experienced before.

Just as Sayo lifted her head to say something, someone else spoke up, "why?" it was a soft voice, so soft he barely heard it.

His gaze rose to Eris but found her silent staring agape at her sister who was staring right at Parc with hazy chocolate eyes and a frown.

"M-Maya?" Eris exclaimed at her sister first words in months.

"Why what? Why shouldn't you be ashamed? Why did I do what I did? Why should you come to term with what happened to you?" he asked, crossing his arms, looking her deep into her eyes, shifting his full attention to the girl.

"Why help her?"

"Why not?" he answered in a second, never shifting his gaze away from her, "do I need a reason to help someone?"

Maya nodded before saying, "you just want to use her body for your pleasure."

Snorting a response, he said, "yes, while I most certainly would love to go for a late-night adventure with Sayo," said girl bursting into steam, her head hung down with red becoming the predominant colour of her face, "I'm not going to force myself on her. If she wants to do it, then she need only ask. If she doesn't, well then, tough luck for me."

"Also," he added, "I'm far from a self-pleasuring type of person. I'd much rather edge a girl along bringing her to the best orgasm of her life than to get my rocks off and leave her hanging."

By now, Sayo's image of Parc had being crushed to pebbles and ground to dust. Slowly being built anew from clay made from that dust in the form of Parc, just more lascivious in nature. Which strangely she wasn't completely against, 'since when did I enjoy this crap!?' she screamed internally.

Eris hearing her sister and Parc's conversation had also grown a shade darker.

Maya continued frowning as she stared at him. Lips sealed tight, "I don't believe you." She turned away from him, lifting her half filled water glass, lifting it to her lips with much more conscious actions. A swift change compared to her previous attitude, Parc's words to Sayo having roused her from her catatonia.

"Tell you what." Parc huffed, "give me a date and a time. And I'll be more than happy to prove myself to you as long as you want." He crossed his arms waiting for a response from Maya.

"WAIT! No you won't!" Eris slapped her hands down on the table standing sending her chair backwards, scraping against the floor. "She's my sister! I'm not letting you play with her b-"

"Fine."

"-ody!... Eh?" Eris mechanically turned to her sister as she slurped on her water.

"Good," he nodded uncrossing his legs, "ladies, it's been a pleasure, but I've got some danger beasts to brainwash. I'll be in the forest till night fall most likely. So, you can tell me when you want me to prove myself then," he backed away from the girls, growing wary of Eris's cold eyes.

"Oh no you don't!" Eris's harmonic voice grew raspy like nails scraping against a chalk board. Meaning for Parc, it was time to go.

"Sayo, I'll see you later," he winked to Sayo who couldn't look at him straightly. "Maya, I'll be waiting for the date with bated breaths."

"Never," Eris hissed, grabbing a butter knife from the table, stomping towards him, "I'll never let you corrupt my little sister."

"Right," Parc sweat dropped as the butterknife glinted an ominous light as if suddenly its blunt tip seemed exceedingly sharp in Eris's hands, "I'll, uh, I'll be going now." And like that, Parc burst into a flurry of dark grey feathers, the back draft dragging them towards the door way.

"GET BACK HERE YOU DEMON!" Eris charged after him, her throat bulging sending out a screech that caused the very stone walls of the entire compound the vibrate.

"Only half!"

Sayo heard Parc retort in the distance. Lifting her head to Maya who continued to drink from her cup. "You're not actually going to do it, are you?" she asked, but got no response from the girl. "Aaaand she's back to not responding. Great." Sayo buried her face into her hands, letting out a groan, that quickly silenced when she felt something wet on her cheek.

Pulling her hands away, she looked down at them, noticing that on one were small glistening trails of spit from Parc's kisses. Her stomach flittered with butterflies. The thought of asking Parc to continue where he stopped appearing in her head, "no, stop, bad Sayo. He's a player. Don't fall for a player."