In between training with Sawyer and study time with the Fairy's father, a new activity was added to the Hero: horseback riding.
You may be wondering what for.
This is just to prepare him for his journey to Vicenti, which will surely be his future destination. After the little information he gathered by having crossed the road of only three of the Nemesis this year, he would have to use the "Memory Carrier" to be able to find the trace of Nemesis Prime, thanks to the link which remains between them, and to avenge once and for all his mother. And maybe he would also understand why strange calls about Zelda appear in his memory.
The reason he found himself riding was also because he was unable to drive a holodrive or motorized vehicle. His driving reflexes were abysmal, and because of this he had found himself in more than a few dangerous situations - even more so than when he faced Albedo Wata or the Three Armies! Asteron tried over and over again to teach him to drive any kind of vehicle, be it a holocycle, a holocar, a motorcycle, a car...
Nothing could be done! He was simply unable to do it.
As a result, he was forced to learn to fly - as he liked to say - an animal in order to take four months to reach his destination.
He was not sent to the military stables but to the royal stables - a pass offered by the queen. Stared at by all, he wondered if it was his humanity that disgusted them or the fact that they recognized in him no grace of nobility or royalty, and therefore illegitimate to be in that place - or did they perceive the power of the Nemesis in him and were repulsed by it, as much as his curse repelled them.
If they were to hate him, so be it, but his purpose was far more important than the love and recognition they could bring him.
Wandering between the stables, he watched for the number he had been told to look for a horse named Dalko. It was the one that Sawyer had lent to the Hero's mother so that she could return to Novillios as soon as possible. If he was lucky, he would find his new master, if not he would have to wait for him.
From what he had been told, she was a princess he had met before, but chances are he would not be able to get along with her. However, it was not his goal to make friends.
Who loves me follows me, in short.
When he arrived at stall "25M5", he found a black horse with a well-groomed and well-brushed mane, his living quarters were quite clean and he seemed to be well-fed. His owner must have loved him very much - it's not surprising for a rider to love his horse, but many don't have the time or inclination to give them adequate love themselves, preferring to delegate this to other people.
The Hero was dressed in rather simple clothes, nothing he would be blamed for soiling, so he sat on the ground and poked a straw from the horse behind him to put in his mouth, patiently waiting for his riding teacher to come.
Almost caught in the world of nightmares and dreams, he was brought back to Reality with a kick in the ribs. Getting up, with rage in his belly, he ran at his assailant to give him back his money. He threw him to the ground and went with him to hit him, but at the last moment he realized who he had in front of him: it was the princess he had met the day he had saved the Fairy for the first time, Princess Diasiree.
- What are you doing here?" asked the Hero.
- I'll ask you again! This is not where a beggar like you should be except for picking up the poop from our precious horses. I hope that's why, right?
What a bad character. No greeting, it already insults the social rank of the person in front... these princesses...
The Hero got up and offered his hand to help her stand, but she rejected it, preferring to do it on her own.
This girl looked even more arrogant than all the people who had crossed the Hero's path: whether it was in her gestures, in her expressions or in her evil look... She didn't look like much, he could break her skull with a single punch, but it was obvious that it wasn't with his strength that he would intimidate her. However, this belligerent behavior towards her seemed to him more than exaggerated.
Pure demented hatred! As if it were personal...
- No, I'm here because a girl named Mana has to teach me how to ride a horse.
- Wait, you're the famous boy that I should take under my wing?
- Right?
Both of them stared at each other for a few seconds before the Hero dodged his hand that tried to grab his collar.
- I totally refuse to help you in any way. I have other things to do than to help you, a human, especially if it is associated with my rival!
- In any case, it concerns her, he specified.
- I don't care!
- Would you disobey an order of the queen, my dear Diasiree?" said a deep voice behind the back of the long-haired princess.
She turned around and faced her champion Al-Ryanis, who greeted the Hero who did not recognize him immediately. The ogre walked towards him to get a closer look, but since the Hero was reluctant to wear his glasses, he could see the face of his interlocutor as best he could.
- Don't you remember me?" said the ogre, "I'm the guy you borrowed the spear from to rescue the nameless princess on the wagon.
- Oh yes," he remembered vaguely, pretending to remember everything, "I remember now. Thanks again for the support.
- I didn't really have a choice.
- That's right," he laughs.
- My small protected makes again some troubles? questioned the champion.
Small... small... She was still taller than the Hero, but after all her champion was even taller than her. Maybe the queen wouldn't be the only height anomaly in this kingdom.
- Oh it's nothing, she just doesn't want to teach me to ride because of my humanity.
The champion put his fists on his hips while looking at Diasirée with an amused look.
- Is that so?" said Al-Ryanis in amazement. "This is new, your hatred for humans, tell me.
- As if that wasn't common here human discrimination, she spat, he's already doing pretty well compared to many humans who have walked the soil of our holy kingdom.
- Stop using your parents' or grandparents' excuses to justify Princess' hatred...
- And you, cease to use this common name as his first name as if that defined this fairy abomination, she reprimanded him by crossing her arms ferociously.
Faced with her champion's disagreement, the fairy looked away from the two men. Al-Ryanis shook his head in disbelief at his protege's behavior.
- Rather eccentric, the lady, says the Hero, dazed.
- It's his Highness for you ! shouted the fairy.
- I'll try to convince her to help you with your riding lessons.
Al-Ryanis went to defend his rival's cause while the Hero went to observe the horse of his Highness Diasirée. He wondered about the appearance of the horse, in his memories, the Dalko in question was a white horse with a blond mane, his only resemblance to the horse with which his mother had returned to her village was its headdress. He tried to approach his hand to the nag but it was brusque and almost bit his fingers.
- You'd better not approach him without me, Diasiree warned, he doesn't like people he doesn't know.
At this sentence, he had a thought that would allow him to determine if his memories were distorted by time and the memory of other predecessors that filled his own. But for the first time, he was going to delve into the heroic power to obtain the aura of one of the heroes of yesteryear, that of his mother.
He closed his eyes and plunged into his inner self, searching for the energy closest to being his mother, soaking up the presence of his predecessor. His eyelids reopened letting the light of the heroic power circulating in his irises, a white and yellow aura covered his right arm, he approached the muzzle of the animal and this one became docile again to the great surprise of his owner and his protector.
- Horse, do you recognize me?" asked the Hero in a grown-up woman's voice.
The animal whinnied with approval.
Diasiree stammered incomprehensible words in front of this incomprehensible scene, the energy coming from the Hero was absurdly... absurdly powerful, at the same time soft and oppressing, she did not fear this raw power which emanated from him, she was even admiring it. As if she was going to be protected by this manifestation that had nothing to do with the presence of the Hero.
As soon as the Hero stopped borrowing his mother's aura, the hypnosis that the fairy and the ogre were under stopped. After a few seconds of repeated calls from the Hero, they came to their senses.
- But wait, what was that?
- What? The fact that the horse likes me?" he said with a raised eyebrow.
- Yes, already! And the rest?
- It's just my hero powers from the legend, he explained, they are easier to activate since the seal is on me. It seems to work deeper than the curse and disrupt my genetic attribute... But, to keep it simple, I called on one of the predecessors who knew this horse to see if he recognized it. It's rare that I'm able to use my heroic powers without a backlash...
- Is that like possession?" asked Al-Ryanis.
- You could say that. More or less.
The Hero moved away from the horse to meet his two interlocutors.
- Isn't this horse supposed to be white with a black spot on the left eye, Mana?
- Don't call him by his first name!" shouted Al-Ryanis.
- But that's what it says on the sheet.
- But...
Diasirée told him to be quiet with a wave of his hand.
- Well, my lady.
- To answer your question: this horse can be white or black depending on the heart of his rider but I prefer to give him the black color.
- So it must have been this color when my mother returned to Novillios...
- You mean your mother borrowed my steed?
- Apparently, he confirmed, but he disappeared the next day.
- At the same time, horses have always been able to return to their original habitat, even if mine is peculiar... I think we're done with the question and answer session. I'm going to teach you how to ride like the queen requires of me.
- Is it true?
- Yes.
- You won't change your mind?
- No.
- Promise?
- Oh yes! she burst out.
- Ok because she didn't demand it, he revealed laughing, she just asked me to ask you or she would teach me herself.
- Right?
Al-Ryanis chuckled behind her.
- He played you well.
- Yes, that I want and he will pay me, but why do you refuse to let the queen train you? It is a privilege to be with the Herald of the Gods.
- I understand that this must be the case for you, but to tell you the truth, I don't want to take up too much of her time, especially since she has embarked on a project that will take up some of her time.
At least, it will stop her in her quest to know about the legend of the hero and the legend fairy...
A bit repetitive.
You could have thought of something else, five thousand years ago.
[I don't think that was my priority at the time...]
Diasiree shook her head, disgusted by such incoherent words: refusing the tiny honor of spending time with the queen, goddess of lightning, herald of the gods of the upper pantheon... Not even the most uncivilized of the inhabitants of this kingdom would dare refuse. The arrogance of this man disgusted her.
- You are very worthy of your princess... Come with me!
- Thanks for the compliment, I guess, and thanks for helping me!
She gave him a dark look before walking ahead of her.
I hope that it will go well between the two..., wished the ogre.
In two hours of training, the Hero must have fallen thirty-seven times, he suspected Diasirée was the cause of most of his falls, but he was far too tired to have an argument about it. Unfortunately for him, it was just the fact that Dalko was an unruly horse who only listened to his mistress and those he recognized as worthy of being ridden, and the Hero didn't seem to be one of them.
And as the arrogant princess said later, her nag did indeed change color once the Hero was on his back: it first turned white before being dotted with black spots all over, and it kept coming in. Diasiree made no comment on this, continuing to train his young student. They took a break and went to rest against the fence that was near the stalls.
Both of them remained silent not knowing what to say to each other, then she left for the horse pen before coming back with a bottle of water and throwing it on the Hero.
- But are you serious?
- And the thank you?
- Thank you...
- That's good.
She returned to the Hero's side, drinking a gourd filled with a drink that had a certain sweet scent accompanied by the smell of alcohol.
- You really suck at riding..., she said between sips.
- I think that's enough miss, I think I understood that you didn't...
- Shut up. I'm not finished.
- Ok...
- You may not be good at riding, but you have good potential and, according to the Queen's letter, you may be able to ride by the time you leave.
- All right, then. I'll do my best.
After that, it was quiet again. They didn't know each other, they didn't have much to say to each other and she was the Fairy's rival, he didn't really need to make an effort to get to know her to please his protégée. Would she resent him for talking to her enemy?
He scratched his head furiously before refusing this state of affairs, he was not the subordinate of the winged fairy, he had just promised to help her accomplish her dream, nothing more. He had promised to Sélia to make more efforts, then he would make more.
- What kind of guy are you?" suddenly asked the Hero.
- Dude? repeated the fairy rider in full incomprehension, eh? But why would I answer that? she shouted.
- I'm making conversation with you, so I said the first thing that came to mind.
- Because you like me?
- Less than my princess.
- Roh! she grumbled, as if this sow was beautiful...
- You could avoid insulting her in my presence, he ordered her, she remains my friend.
- Are you friends?
- As you are with your champion, unless you are more than that...
- No! No! No!" she repeated, shaking her hands, "we're just friends and he likes someone else.
- So ogres are not your kind of guys...
- You really want me to answer your question, huh?
- If I asked you...
Diasiree thought for a few seconds, holding her face, before answering him:
- The dark-haired, slightly androgynous but muscular, slightly pale-skinned, confident guys, like, I don't know, a vampire.
- So. The. Corpses," he said mockingly.
- It's terrible how much you slander.
- There's nothing, I'm just making fun of it.
- What about you? What kind of girls do you have?
- Nice, sweet, loving, not selfish, doesn't bust my balls, has a shape, taller than me, athletic, smart and has a temper. So not you.
- But fuck you!
The Hero laughed so hard he knew how she would react, but her reaction was so brief that it surprised him.
- There's nothing funny about it... And you're not my taste anyway.
- As if I had tried to be, he said still half hilarious, but the vampire that is with that girl, whose name I forgot there ... Camellia! Wouldn't you like him?
- It is atrociously ugly.
- Oh yeah, that much?
- Yeah. Really Camellia has no taste and is a very easy girl.
- That's not a good thing to say.
- Can you stop defending the widow and the orphan, even though you are the hero of the legend, for two minutes? Besides, it's for another reason that you're doing it than for the airy fairy, you wanted to do her.
- That's no reason to treat people like that.
- Don't worry. As I told you, I think the same of the winged fairy.
- And as I said to you, you should stop, he repeated to him, already, I do not understand you. Neither you, nor her. How can you be friends if you don't like each other?
- I am not his friend.
- You know what I mean.
- And I'm not Camellia's friend, but I see what you're getting at, even so, you'll have to be the one to ask your protégée who is hypocritical with Camellia. That's why I don't like her, that bitch who plays around with every man she meets.
This time, the Hero said nothing. He knew that if he intervened, this conversation would come full circle. He had the choice of wringing her neck or letting her spout her nonsense. Nevertheless, he didn't completely feel like wringing her neck, something prevented him from doing so, it was indeed the reason, but not the one heard by the common man, but the amalgam of prejudices that he had in him, and that turned into a sentence:
"Why would I defend a girl who is not my lover?"
He answered this question, that she was his friend and that he had to defend his friends, as he would do for Zelda, as he would have wanted to do for Thoosa...
"But they, you didn't love them like you love them, Princess. The way she looks at a girl she's been friends with for a long time, what must she think of you?"
Roh, stop! said the Hero, it doesn't work like that! We can't think of relationships as win-win, stop talking to me like Asteroids.
"What do you know about it? You who only had Zelda as your only friend?"
So I shouldn't have saved Berle?
"I'll leave the point to you since I already know where you want to go with "Berle" but know that not everyone is Berle..."
- Hey, are you listening to me? said the fairy, hitting his knee.
- Ah! Sorry! I was lost in my thoughts...
This voice was not that of the Heroic Will, nor that of the Fate of the heroes of legend. This voice was none other than the voice of reason that accompanied the Hero since he was a child, the one that reasoned with the Hero and prevented him from being a little too "yes-man".
Although she had been there since childhood, it was rare that she would intervene to speak to him. Much rarer than the voices of the heroes or the orders of the original hero who is Will and Fate.
- What did you want to tell me?" asked the Hero.
- Good thing we stopped you, you deserve much better than that.
- Really?
- You may have no beauty because of your non-existent face but at least, inside you are a good person compared to Lucello.
- Who is it?
- The vampire. This guy gives me the shivers every time I meet him, in his look you can't see anything good, it seems he's nothing but villainy... He puts on great airs when his only feat is to overtake kids otherwise he's a big weakling.
- But tell me, are there people who don't hate you because the way you spit on people, I wouldn't be surprised if you had no friends?
- Yes, I do! she vigorously denies it, Marine is one!
- Okay okay, I believe you! No need to get so carried away.
Without warning, the fairy rider took the water bottle from his hands and pushed him forward.
- Come on! The break is over, you have to resume your training if you want to be able to gallop properly out of Kano.
- Hey, I'm taller than you!
- Really? How old are you?
- Sixteen years old.
- The same.
- What? But aren't you the same age as the other fairies?
- You could say that I was born prematurely compared to the litter of other fairy princesses.
- Even I'm sure I was born before you!
- What month then?
- Jusiair.
- Two months before for me.
The Hero let out a loud cry of despair at this revelation.
- Hey hey!
He grumbled in his corner before getting back on his horse and resuming training.
- Before we start again, out of kindness to you, I want to warn you about something.
- Tell me everything.
- The assassins who want to attack your fairy will do it again.
- When?
- No idea.
- How do you know that?
- My parents are part of Sylvania's elite, so they have information that no one else has.
- Are they related to them?
- Even if I knew, I couldn't tell you after what happened in Thoosa.
- No problem, I'll just protect her like I do. But since you seem to know a lot, would you know about the cult that kills people in the Nether?
- As for the assassins, I can't speak more than that, but these two elements are not unrelated.
Connections began to form in the Hero's mind, the result was already beginning to annoy him: if she wasn't the fairy of the legend, she would die instead of the real one, and if she was, it would still be a twist of fate. However, it intrigued her that so many people were so interested in the story of this futile legend. The queen was understandable but the others... Unless...
- Mana?" he said with a trembling voice.
- Yes ?
- Have you ever heard the word "Nemesis" from your parents or from these people?
- I don't think so. I know it's your natural enemy, but nobody said it, they were talking about the Great Felon and saying she was a usurper. Maybe because if she won, she would usurp the throne or whatever.
In a way, it reassured him to know that the Nemesis was not involved in this assassination, to see him interfering in all the stories of Fayiera Terra became a little too disturbing. And for the Witch, he was not surprised that someone would want to attack the Fairy when she was a mech of this woman. Was he amassing a gigantic power from all those lives taken?
- Know one thing, human: I don't care about your protege's life. I don't need to kill her to win against this idiot.
- I guess I have you to thank for that? Knowing that your parents didn't see it that way.
The fairy princess did not answer.
- Tell me why you hate it so much, it can't be just because of the Big Cat.
Diasiree's gaze was so cold that it made the Hero's blood run cold, he never thought that this fairy who had always lived within her safe walls could have such a murderous look. A few seconds later, he became normal again and she pestered him by looking away.
- She dresses like a slut, rubs shoulders with a lot of boys, this teaser, playing the fool...
Seriously? Why did I even ask? Maybe if the girls accepted it, she wouldn't
- ...but it's mostly because of his fucking watchdog...
- Beneltig ?
- What does this ugly guy have to do with this story?
The Hero chuckled, hiding his mouth behind his hand.
- I am talking about Mina, she betrayed my friend, while she knew very well what she was in the background... End of the interrogation, said Mana, stopping the conversation, you have to resume your training.
- Okay.
Her face turned pale as she told this story, the Hero didn't want to continue so as not to offend her, he would just have to ask the Fairy, she is his best friend, she should know. But hating someone because of another person...It was a bit laughable?
But he won't judge her completely without getting to the bottom of this story.
A few days later, during a party where he had been given a day off, the Hero was visited by the princess called Malalalivia Talemilia Grave, but more generally called Malalalivia, who explained a plan to advance their investigation: kidnap Beneltig.