Born From A Divine Gamble

Shortly after, while Gytha timidly told them about a fight she had once witnessed herself to follow up his story, the rest of the girls showed up. In the end, it was Juniper that sat beside him, followed by Gervaise.

Heida was the last one to arrive and by then, everyone was starting to get a bit impatient. She defended herself by saying that it was only proper for the most important guest to show up last. No one seemed to truly agree with her statement but they all let it go in order to start tasting the cakes sooner.

Even with all the guests present, the table still seemed large enough to sit twice as many person, and all of it was filled with all kinds of cakes.

"The face the baker made when I asked for all those cakes the other day was so funny." Mable said with a giggle while her two servants started cutting pieces in the cakes.

"Mable, you"re the one who invited us all so you have to open the festivities." Reminded her Aglaya with a kind whisper.

"Oh, that"s right! We are here today to eat some cakes and taste all of them because Emp here never ate any before. As you all know, cake is a serious affair, I couldn"t leave it this way. So let"s all have fun and let"s start with this one! Was it alright?"

"That was great! You"re so cute."

Aglaya grabbed her small friend and locked her in an unbreakable hug. While Mable was uttering hushed complaints, her two servants served the first slices of cake.

For a while after that, the discussion was about nothing but cakes. They would all eat a small piece of the same cake and everyone would give their opinions on it. The arguments between the girls were animated and when the favorite cakes of someone was discussed, it became particularly chaotic.

Emp in particular was made to say if he liked it better or less than the previous ones every time by Mable. He found it was the hardest thing he had to do since he last went to the tailor.

Emp had a very hard time with all of this. He could taste the differences between the cakes but he couldn"t say which ones were better than the others. The girls were pestering him about the texture and the flavors, trying to figure out if he thought it was too sweet or not enough, even asking about their appearances.

He would have liked to have some time to think about this further but not only was he pushed to keep tasting some different ones, he couldn"t help but think about what the others told him about taste. If they were correct, he would just know which one he thought was the best without thinking too much about it. But there were so many.

There was the famous Strawberry cake, a cheesecake, a fruitcake, an applecake, a meringue cake with berries, a simple sponge cake and a good dozen of differently flavored and topped cake made in similar fas.h.i.+ons. Some were srcunchy, others hard like bread and a few so soft it felt like melting, some had honey, some had cream and other thick syrup or jam, all of them were unique. There were even two different kinds of spit cakes. (1)

After many a round, Emp came to the conclusion that he liked those who tasted more like fruits rather than those that were sweet just for the sake of being sweet. Aside from that, he had no idea. He had to ask for Celtine"s opinion a few times because alone, he sometimes couldn"t tell the difference between them. Maybe he had just eaten to many already?

In any case, his action had upset Gervaise.

"Don"t feed the cake to your cursed-blood! That"s crazy! And you"re using the same spoon too, ew."

"This must be a boys thing. My father often gives the leftovers in his plate to the dogs under the table." Added Heida with a frown.

"True." The first agreed.

The fact they compared Celtine to a dog got him a bit upset but this wasn"t unexpected from those two and he didn"t know how to answer to that so he kept his mouth shut and gave her a taste anyway when he felt like it. Celtine seemed to like the cakes, and made a smile as sweet as the deserts themselves when he continued to give her some despite the two complainers. Aglaya seemed to disapprove too but it was more similar to the disapproval the moral teacher would exhibit than the disgust of the other two.

After some rounds of this, the girls started giving up one by one, unable to eat more even if they wanted to. Mable, contrary to them, was one of those who didn"t stop, in fact, it seemed like she could go on forever and eat them all by herself. The only other person who tasted every single cake was Emp because Mable wouldn"t have it any other way.

Once most of the girls had gotten tired of tasting cakes, they focused on their tea instead and the talks drifted to many other subjects. Emp paid attention to what they were saying but didn"t really partic.i.p.ate unless they asked for his opinion because he was too often solicited by Mable, trying to go through the long list of cakes.

"Like I was saying to Emp before the rest of you showed up, I think this is a great time to learn more about each others." Aglaya said while nibbling at some carrot cake.

"Don"t we know each others well yet? We"ve talked for months already." Juniper argued.

"We went through this at the entrance ceremony already." Complained Gervaise.

"What is it with you and wanting to know people anyway?" Asked Heida

"I just don"t like to not know." Aglaya answered

"Not know what? What are you afraid of?"

"You"re thinking too far into this, she just want to do as the teacher asked us yesterday." Nessa soothed the situation.

"I don"t get why we need to know the objectives of the others though." Josseline said.

"Maybe it"s not that useful for you since you are only here to find a husband but I am sure that some of us have things they want to do that are much more complicated than that. Just by knowing what they are all after, you can get a better idea of who could help and who will be in the way. That being said, I don"t care either, I just want the business to expend." Explained Juniper.

"Since we"re talking about this, you"re not planning on expending your business into food and grain are you?" Heida asked Juniper.

"No why?" She had confusion written all over her face.

"It"s because you come from Greenpeaks isn"t it?" Tried to answer Gytha before Heida could.

"Yes, Nicolas was supposed to find something to help while he was here but he hasn"t found anything in five years so they sent me instead to make sure he was taking it seriously."

But wasn"t Nicolas the son of a duke? Who was she then to be sent to supervise him? Emp chose to keep his question for himself. Not only was this unrelated to him but also, he had no way to help them.

"But is the harvest really that bad over there?" Asked Aglaya, concerned.

"It is bad but that isn"t the real problem, if it was just bad, there would be no need to send Nicolas and me so far from home. The true problem is that it keeps getting worse and worse every year. Now it"s so bad that people are leaving their villages and moving to Grandbois."

"I thought people didn"t rely on farming too much anyway, why are they leaving?" Asked Emp.

He was truly curious, after all, from what he had seen and learned until then, it shouldn"t have that much of an effect.

"Greenpeaks isn"t the same as the rest of Steelwood. We have a whole lot of mountains and then, a wide band of fertile land between them and the sea. Or at least, it should be fertile. There aren"t that many trees there and we harvest most of the grain traded in the empire. I"m about sure that they used ours to make those cakes."

"And so, while your people are starving, you"re filling your belly with cake." Criticised Gervaise.

"Don"t you say I"m not trying! It"s because of this stupid Nicolas who won"t do nothing right! Why do you think I"m asking about Juniper?" She yelled before angrily taking a bite of cake with blueberry syrup on top.

"To answer your question properly, I have no interest in the food business, Gla.s.s is more than enough for me. Even if I inherit the whole company, and decide to branch out, it"s going to be into something that doesn"t spoil so quickly, like gemstones maybe. Before you all ask, I"m not a n.o.ble that has a weird secret agenda, I just want the family business to go well. I don"t care about your goals as long as you buy your gla.s.s from me."

That at least had the merit of being clear. Gytha seemed to find that answer depressing even if it had nothing to do with her. But, the girls didn"t notice and jumped on another topic when they got the chance. A subject they were way more curious about.

"Speaking of secret agenda, Emp never told us why he is here." Nessa chimed in, looking at him over her tea cup. Thinking about it, how many had she drank already? She kept refilling it.

"Yes, we don"t even know if you are a n.o.ble or not." Said Aglaya more directly.

The other waited for his answer while Mable had her servant slice her a large piece of the Strawberry cake. He felt that there would probably be nothing remaining of it by the time night fell. He forced himself to ignore the cake and think about what they asked.

Emp didn"t like that kind of question, they were too hard to answer. What did they want to hear him say exactly? They were talking about goals so he should keep to the topic. What would Ms Blackbull tell him to answer? Something as simple as possible.

"Being a n.o.ble or not doesn"t have anything to do with my goal. My aim for now is to become to strongest."

That was entirely true, he was happy of his answer. As he finished saying it, Mable choked on her small bite of cake. Both of her servants panicked and rushed up to her with a pitcher of water and worried words. They were sealed slaves after all, if she died from choking on a bit of cake, they would follow her bellow the roots of the forest.

Aglaya, was just as concerned as them and devoted herself to help her small friend. The panic on her face didn"t stay for long because Mable managed to regain her breath swiftly. She pointed his way with her spoon and yelled at him.

"Don"t say it like that! I almost *cough*, I almost choked on my cake!"

She did choke on the cake, not almost.

"What do I have to do with that?" Asked Emp just as confused as everyone else.

"I told you to become the strongest in the group to get me some cake! Don"t make it a life goal!"

A surprised gasp ran across the room.

"Oh, I see how it is." Aglaya said while throwing a mischievous look towards him.

This had nothing to do with Mable though.

"I had that goal long before you asked me to." He had to clarify. "Also, I meant the strongest of everyone, not just the group."

The girls looked at each others, trying to figure out what was the truth, they didn"t seem to believe him at all. Was it because becoming the strongest out of everyone was such a strange and abstract goal that it didn"t seem possible? He didn"t really mind if they thought he was just doing as Mable asked but at least he had wanted them to know the truth.

Since they were already talking about him, maybe now was a good time to ask about his other problem too?

"I also need to buy earrings Harriett, my other slave. I wanted to reward her for her good work, I would like to ask for your help on what to get her."

Most seemed stunned by the sudden change of subject but not Juniper.

"Do you want some more marbled gla.s.s for it?"

"Isn"t he already buying a lot of those from you already?" Asked Nessa.

"Yeah but he just said he needs more."

"I feel like it wouldn"t be right to just buy more of the same for her." Josseline was thinking the same as Celtine.

"I agree that it would usually be the case but she"s just his slave, he"s not going to go out of his way to reward her is he?"

"I think he would, we are talking about Emp after all, it would be very much like him." Said Gytha.

"True." Simply approved Aglaya.

The talk quickly became very animated as they tried to figure out what Harriett would like. They didn"t really know her and worse, he couldn"t answer any of their questions about her so the discussion turned very chaotic.

The eight girls couldn"t agree on anything at all. Some said he needed to match it with her eyes, others with her clothes, Gervaise was adamant that it only needed to please him since her and the earring really belonged to him in the end.

They suggested various materials from gold to copper and even seash.e.l.ls. Mable said Big earrings were better while Aglaya said the smaller ones were cuter.

That long talk only ended when the guests started complaining about being tired. After all, they had done exercises all day before stuffing themselves full of cake, it was normal for them to feel sleepy. They gave up on trying to argue what was the best earring for his slave and started thinking about putting an end to this small party.

This whole thing had not been the most helpful to him but at least now he knew that truly, it needed to match with herself because everyone had a different taste. It was more than likely that Harriett would disagree with what the other girls thought. He should have asked how to understand people better instead.

"It"s a shame we didn"t have the time to ask about your own goal Aglaya." Said Heida. "I guess we"ll have to find out next time."

"Yes, there will be many more occasions for that I guess. As long as Nessa is there to take care of the tea I am ready anytime."

"It was you Nessa that made the tea? It was really good, It went well with the cakes, thank you." Praised Josseline.

"I appreciate the compliment, tea is very important for me after all." Nessa answered with a large smile.

As everyone was getting up to leave. Mable jumped on top of her chair and recalled everyone.

"Wait! We still don"t know. Emp, we called you here to taste all those cakes. You still haven"t told us which one you like the best."

"Honestly, I do not care at all which cake he likes best." Said Heida. "Thank you Mable for the invitation, the tea and the cakes but I really must go now, I will see you all tomorrow I guess."

With that, she left with a simple wave of her hand and was swiftly followed by Gervaise who said she had a great time. Even after all that and the time those two gained him, Emp was still undecided about the cakes.

"So which is it?" Mable urged him.

"I am not sure..."

"What do you mean you are not sure?"

"I cannot decide which one I like best. There are too many."

"What!"

"Can you at least tell us if you found any of those cakes good?" Asked Aglaya.

"I like the soft ones that have a more fruity taste. I also liked those with maple syrup."

"How about this one then?" Mable pointed at a cake that was already half eaten.

It was made with two layers of sponge cake with berry and jam in the middle and a maple flavored icing on top. The combination of the two taste was strange as the berries would stand out more at first before leaving their place to the maple.

"I do like that one but I am not sure if it is my favorite or not."

"What is it that makes you hesitate?" Asked Mable.

"I do not know, I am not sure."

Celtine scribbled an apology for him since the group of girls were struggling to understand him.

< i="" apologize="" for="" master"s="" answer.="" master="" has="" been="" struggling="" with="" tastes="" for="" a="" long="" time.="">

"I don"t understand what your slave means." Said Nessa, puzzled.

"I do not know how to explain it." Answered Emp.

< master="" seems="" unable="" to="" understand="" his="" own="" feelings.="" cake="" related="" or="" otherwise.="">

The girls laughed after they read the message.

"Well, he does seem like that." Juniper agreed before drinking the last remaining tea in her cup.

"Fine then, but once you decide which cake you love most, you have to tell me. Then, I will explain to you exactly why you are wrong and strawberry cake is the best." Mable grumbled.

Emp agreed to tell her once he was decided. After that, everyone said their goodbyes and Emp asked if he could keep one of the sponge cakes since he knew Harriett loved them too. Mable agreed and the other guests, thinking it was a great idea also asked to leave with their favorite cake. Mable wasn"t bothered by it at all, she had so many of them after all, she didn"t mind if they left with a bunch of cakes as long as no one took, as one would expect, those with a strawberry flavor.

He left in a good mood, happy that it had been far from being as bad as everyone else told him it would be. He was about to tell so to Celtine when he heard someone behind him.

"Wait, Emp, I have one last question for you."

He turned around to face Aglaya who had a very difficult time trying to keep up with him. He let her take back her breath before he answered politely.

"Sure, I do not mind answering another question. What do you want to know?"

"You dodged the hunting card trick, the goal and the ancestry question. I understand you don"t want people to know your full name but could you at least tell me if your family name is well known in at least one of the five kingdoms? Surely this isn"t too much to ask for is it?"

Emp took his time to think about it. He couldn"t see how this question could be used for anything. Why was it so important for her to know? He didn"t mind answering but he was afraid that madam Blackbull would yell at him again.

While he was racking his brain about it, Aglaya Pierail continuously stared into his eyes. He felt like if she could have extracted the answer out of him through them, she would have done so.

In the end, he chose to be honest. There was no real risk in answering. Having a well known name could mean anything. It could be a successful merchant like Gla.s.sart, a well known knight family, a n.o.ble, a praised hero or even just a death seeker"s name.

"Yes, that name is well known. Why is this important?"

"I really don"t like to not know." She answered simply but seriously. "Good night Emp, your way of changing the subject to dodge our questions was really clever but I won"t forget."

She gave him the face of someone happy to be in on some very interesting secret and left again with her own cake.

"I do not understand what you mean but good night to you as well." He threw at her before she disappeared at the end of the corridor.

Emp stared at the empty corridor for a while, he was rather perplexed by her actions and words.

"I heard her answer but I still don"t understand what she wanted." He said to Celtine.

"I guess this is fine then."

Emp turned around an resumed what he was doing before. He did not know what her intentions were but since Celtine said it was fine, there was no reason to worry. Though even then, her question was much too strange to lead to anything. He couldn"t understand why she was in such a hurry to have it answered. She must have had some sort of reason, what did she hope to get from it?

He thought about it on the whole way to his room but still couldn"t find an answer. The question flew out of his mind the moment he opened the door and saw the anguis.h.i.+ng Harriett waiting for their return.

He was so used to hear her welcome them back that even if she tried to hide her emotions, he could tell the difference. She was on edge, she was afraid of what might have happened there.

"Welcome back Master, Welcome Back Celtine. How did it go?"

He answered her worries as clearly as possible.

"It went well, you were all scared over nothing. Here, I brought back some cake, could you put it down on the table?"

"Yes of course master." She said with relief.

"I still have to go join the others now so I will not stay."

"Yes of course." Emp would not force Celtine to come if she was tired. He didn"t think he would be in need of her anyway so he didn"t mind leaving her home.

He put her back down on the ground and waved them both goodbye once again.

"I do not know when I will be back home, you do not have to wait for me to go to bed if you are tired. Wait for me before you eat the cake though, I would like to eat it together."

"Yes of course master, I would never dare touch master"s cake on my own. May master have a good evening." Answered Harriett in her typical way.

On this, Emp left the room again for the entrance hall. The moment he closed the door, he heard Harriett ask about more details from Celtine. She knew there had been no major catastrophe but she was still curious of what had transpired in Mabel"s room. The thought of Harriett worrying for him made him smile as he started walking.

***

Just after master Emp shut the door, Harriett turned towards Celtine and asked for a detailed recap of the evening up until now.

Celtine went through this kind of thing often. Since Harriett wasn"t often there with them and Emp was so untalkative, it was up to Celtine to keep Harriett in the know. She didn"t mind the task, she enjoyed talking about Emp with the other slave.

Harriett went into the other room and came back with a stack of papers for her friend to use. Celtine did her best to fill in her accomplice on everything in details, painting sheets upon sheets in black. While she was doing it, Harriett read it all as it was put down and asked questions upon questions. It took her a long time to write everything down and like usual, when they were done, most of the papers they used ended up in the fireplace.

She went through the whole day in order, not forgetting anything related to their master. It was only when Harriett knew everything that the real discussion started.

"Master simply said it went well but a lot happened! We have to watch out for Aglaya."

Celtine understood what she meant, Aglaya clearly knew something they didn"t.

"She knows that there is something going on with master. I don"t think she will figure it out with just that but her question was very clever. With how adamant master is on keeping his name a secret, there is no way he would be only an ordinary n.o.ble. There can only be two reasons to hide your name. Either It is very well known and you don"t want to be disturbed or it has no value and you don"t want the scorn of the others. Even if it is well known, most would have everyone know who they are, like that girl Juniper. Just by asking if his family name was known, she was able to cross out so many possibilities on who master could be. That"s scary."

It was indeed scary, the human tribes were savage. Even then though, for Celtine, Brenia was way more scary because of how similar her att.i.tude was to the huntresses that caught her in the first place. Every time she saw her she was reminded of how she lost her wings.

At least, she wasn"t scared of everyone anymore. She was grateful that her savior brought her along to his lessons with the old woman. She learned a lot about the behavior of the humans already. They acted like each of them were their own tribe and there wasn"t enough resources for them all. They were always on the lookout for who might be a threat.

At least that, she could understand, if something were to happen to Emp, Celtine would lose everything. She would keep an eye out for what Aglaya knew exactly but she wasn"t that dangerous for now.

"What is she poking around for then?"

"So you think this is about the other girl."

From what Celtine had observed up until now, the girl Mable didn"t seem fit to live with the man-tribes. She was too open and carefree to see its evil like Celtine who had lived them or the old woman who knew all of its ins and outs.

She thought it was likely that Aglaya did her best to keep her small friend safe. A man with such an abnormal power for his size must be a stressful unknown to have around.

The old lady was right, knowing the goal of the others was important. As long as they didn"t know for sure what she was after, they wouldn"t be able to stop worrying about it. Likewise, as long as the girl didn"t know what their master was really after she would keep digging for an answer.

On that topic, what Emp had answered them didn"t help at all! Now they all thought that he liked the small Mable! Celtine had tried to deny it by telling them how he didn"t have any strong desires but she doubted it worked as well as she hoped.

This was the most frustrating thing about her master. How could he not have any desires?

That was it! He had no desires!

It had taken her a long time to find the words for it but now that it flashed in her head, she understood what was wrong with him much better. This was why talks about likes, dislikes and emotions were so hard to get across to him.

Her master had no desire of his own. He had been given a task and did whatever he had to do to get it done. This was why he just went along with what others told him to do, he wasn"t driven by anything so he had no reason to go against anyone"s wish. Nothing he did was ever for himself.

When asked for something, he would ask himself if this went against his task and if not, he just did it without consideration for his own happiness. When something good happened or he ate something he liked, he did feel something about it but not the desire to have it happen again.

When asked about the cakes for example, he did remember liking this or that about them but did not feel like eating more of any of them hence, he wasn"t able to tell which one he liked better. If he continued on like that, he would never truly be happy. This was a saddening perspective.

She truly wished to help him, but how? This wasn"t just something that could be explained to him. Even if it could be done, her and Harriett were both entirely driven by their own desires, they were the exact opposite of him. Both of them would do anything to have their wishes granted while he would just sit and watch life fly by him.

She had grown very attached to her kind master over the short time she had spent with him and really wanted to make him happy. After all, he had promised to grant her wish, the least she could do was to help the best human she knew. No, it was wrong to say it like that. At first yes, this was her only intention, to repay his kindness but now, she felt something more. She liked what he was, the kind and caring master, now that she knew him, she didn"t want to lose him.

Celtine knew how it felt to lose something you dearly loved. She had experienced it firsthand, twice. When something you loved wasn"t there, you would normally have the desire for it to come back, her master didn"t seem to have this sort of desire either. If he was to lose something, he would probably be a bit upset, ask the book for a solution and if he could do something about it, plan to eventually do it. If not, he would stop being bothered about it altogether. She believed that if she was to disappear, her dear master would not be saddened for long.

The proof of this lied in the rings he gave them. She had noticed that whenever Harriett or her weren"t with him, the rings would become slightly more dull over time. When they were there, the rings would be embellished, he loved for them to be there, but when they weren"t he did not have the desire for them to be there again and so the ring faded.

He had no longing for the past and couldn"t picture himself in the future either, for him there was only the present, devoid of desires.

She had to find a way to bring him happiness. She was starting to think that the plan Harriett and her hatched about the earrings wouldn"t be enough to help him figure things out. They would need to think of something else.

At the very least, while he was like that, there was no risk that anyone would steal him from them, their feelings would just fly through him without touching him, just like a leaf through the wind.

She discussed this and other Emp-related things with Harriett for the whole time their master was away.

In particular, Harriett almost fainted when she told her about the spoon sharing. She herself still couldn"t believe he had done so. Just thinking about it still made her smile.

***

(1) In case you don"t know, spit cakes aren"t made out of spit. It"s a cake made like a spit roast. We are talking about a spit to cook things over a fire here.