Meeting Sylvia Again (1)
Drums sounded from beyond the window.
Vivian's eyes fluttered open. A riotous clamor was rising from the street outside, as if some procession were marching past, and the first thing she saw upon waking was the ceiling. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked around.
An empty private study. She was alone in the quiet room.
"When did I fall asleep...?"
Something sticky coated the inside of her mouth. Absently, she smacked her lips and let the flavor linger on her tongue — a strange, unfamiliar taste, unlike anything she had ever known. She gathered a bit of it and rubbed it between her fingers: a milky-white liquid, thick and clingy, of no identifiable origin.
"What on earth could it be...? Did my saliva congeal in my sleep?"
Then it occurred to her that her chest was burning hot. When she pressed a hand to it, her breasts felt somehow fuller than usual. Her nipples, moreover, had swollen taut and grown so sensitive that every sway of her chest set them stinging where they brushed against her clothing.
Unease crept over her, and she unbuttoned her clerical robe and slipped a hand beneath it to touch a nipple directly.
"Hyaah!"
A crackling jolt shot through her, and a moan tore out of her before she could stop it. Had she not been seated, her legs would have given out beneath her — the sensation was that fierce.
"What... what is this...?"
Her heart beat faster and faster, hammering against her ribs. Some strange afterglow she couldn't name had settled into her body without her knowing. And even as fear gripped her, an impulse rose in her to feel it once more.
Her hand slipped back inside the robe and drifted slowly toward her nipple. The instant her fingertip brushed it, a molten, tingling warmth spread out from her breast and coursed through her whole body.
"Ahh... what is this feeling...? Could this be what Cloud was talking about — that 'masturbation' thing...?"
Cloud had gone nowhere near the sheep; instead, he had made his way out to the great road behind the temple. It was packed solid with citizens, and far down the street a carriage lavishly decked in flowers was rolling along in a slow procession, escorted by ranks upon ranks of soldiers.
Those riding in the flower carriage waved out through the open windows to the citizens' fervent cheers.
Buried in the jostling crowd, Cloud waited for the carriage to pass in front of him. He remembered the soldier's bellowed announcement that morning, and he meant to confirm with his own two eyes whether the lord's daughter — who might, just possibly, be Sylvia — truly was.
Please let it not be her. Please let my guess be wrong...!
At the very head of the procession, soldiers bearing the crest of House Valois marched beneath their banner, led gallantly by a general with a yellow mustache astride a black horse.
Behind them came soldiers beating drums and blaring trumpets, and behind them, boys and girls carrying flower baskets heaped with colored paper, flinging handfuls of it into the air as they went.
Next rolled the flower carriage bearing the lord and his daughter, and behind that, young men and women in tailcoats and gowns paired off two by two, dancing as they formed up the line of the procession.
At last the flower carriage was passing directly in front of Cloud. Determined not to miss his chance, he stretched his eyes wide and poured every nerve into looking.
Every color in the world but the carriage drained away to gray, the surrounding din fell silent, and the carriage seemed to glide in slow motion.
Cloud, of course, had cast no spell — that was simply how the moment felt to him.
Through the carriage's open window, he studied its occupants intently.
A bearded old man who could only be the lord, and beside him... Sylvia, radiant in a beautiful dress, her hair swept up and adorned with jewels, seated at his side.
"Goddammit...!"
The curse left his mouth before he could stop it. In the same instant, the gray world regained its color, the crowd's cheers came roaring back, and the carriage picked up speed once more.
The lord's daughter was Sylvia, after all. Her long golden hair had been braided and coiled up behind her head, and in elbow-length white gloves she was smiling and waving to the people. Compared to the composed, commanding figure she had cut in her knight's armor, she looked strikingly, disarmingly feminine.
"So there's really no staying in this city, huh."
He clicked his tongue and was turning to go, both hands jammed in his trouser pockets, when—
"Hey there, brother! Over here! Cloud! Oi, Cloud!"
Thor's booming voice rang out from somewhere utterly unexpected.
Cloud turned toward the sound and found Thor marching among the procession trailing the flower carriage. Dressed in a tailcoat and holding hands with some young lady whose name he didn't know, Thor was waving cheerfully in his direction.
"Come on and walk with us! The ladies here are the finest in the land! Wahahaha!"
He kept bellowing without a shred of tact.
"I've been telling them all about you, by the way!"
"Sir Cloud! Come walk with us!"
Two women in dresses waved at Cloud. Women Thor had evidently charmed into the parade.
"Why the hell is Thor in the procession?"
But that wasn't the problem.
"Oh, crap—!"
Cloud's panicked gaze snapped, pure reflex, toward the flower carriage.
Oh no. Oh, hell...!
Sylvia, inside the carriage, had heard Thor roaring from behind.
She poked her head out of the carriage and looked toward Thor, who was shouting in Cloud's direction. Then, following his line of sight, she finally picked Cloud out from among the crowd.
"CLOUD!"
Sylvia clenched her teeth, eyes blazing, then opened the door of the slow-rolling carriage and leapt down without a moment's hesitation. In the next breath she had drawn the sword from the hip of one of the soldiers escorting the carriage and, blade in hand, begun sprinting straight at Cloud.
"F-fuck! Thor, you son of a bitch!"
Startled half out of his wits, Cloud stumbled backward, then shouldered his way through the crowd and bolted into an alley.
As he fled, Sylvia seized the hem of her cumbersome long dress and slashed it away with the sword in her hand.
With a short skirt, running was vastly easier.
She kicked off her high-heeled shoes as well and tore down the street at full sprint on stockinged feet.
"This time, you shall NOT escape me!"
The citizens watching the spectacle, the officials taking part in the ceremony, the retainers of House Valois — every last one of them gaped at her behavior, and the street that had rung with cheers dissolved into pandemonium in the space of a heartbeat.
The captain of the soldiers shouted in urgent alarm.
"What are you idiots standing there for?! After Lady Sylvia, this instant!"
At his command, his lieutenants each rushed to give chase with their men — but the throng of onlookers crowding to peer down the alley where Sylvia had vanished made forcing a way through anything but easy.
"Move! Out of the way, I said!"
The soldiers shoved and shouldered through the citizens, straining to carve out a path by force.