Chapter: 662 – For the Sake of It

Tala saw the blue-rimmed eyes of the hue-man grow at Zamanther’s pronouncement of ‘Eskau,’ but they narrowed again as she suggested they take their ‘issues’ outside.

Was he really that unobservant? What sort of idiot is this?

-He thinks Lea is hue-folk. He clearly doesn’t have very well-honed magical senses either.-

Tala grunted, a few options running through her mind. First, she could correct the error, informing the group that Lea was not, in fact, a white hue-folk woman. Doing that would be a little ridiculous, honestly. In all but the best case, it would still most likely start a fight but for a different reason.

-Yeah… ‘start a fight.’- Alat snickered.

Given the blue group was all at the very bottom of Mature, advancement wise, Tala understood Alat’s amusement.

That brought to mind her second option. As Eskau of the House of Blood, she could rightly discipline these boys for their disrespect. Many options were open to her, both legally and socially, but that really wasn’t who she wanted to be. It would be utterly ridiculous to waste time and effort to ‘teach them a lesson.’

On the other extreme, they could simply leave. Even if the blue boys attacked, it would do almost literally nothing, and she doubted they’d be so foolish, especially after Tala’s rank as an Eskau was so obviously pointed out. Not to mention the crests on my tunic… the blind fools.

Tala almost took this route, walking the ‘high road’ and ignoring the idiots.

Only two things held her back. First was the fact that, like it or not, she did have a position to maintain, and utterly ignoring these youths would be seen as weakness in the arcane culture. Second, and more important to her, they’d been rude to Tala’s daughter.

Mindful of Zamanther’s presence—as well as his not-so-veiled threat—she didn’t plan on doing anything inside the store.

She gave a malevolent smile to the boys, responding barely a second after Zamanther had spoken, continuing on the heels of her own suggestion that they go outside. “Of course, good baker. I would never be so crass as to act within your shop.”

With a dual flexing of her will, she tore the boys into her sanctum before dumping them on the street outside, purposely dropping them in a jumbled heap.

At the same time, she moved herself, her husband, and her daughter through a similar blip down and out. In their case, however, she set them down quite gently and stably, standing just as they had been.

Lea let out a marginally irked breath, and Tala held back a smile. By her grasping hands and flexing arms, the girl was clearly irritated because Tala had left the pastries in the sanctum, having removed quite a few of the packages from both Rane’s and Lea’s arms.

Tala squatted down beside the blue pile even as they tried to right themselves. “What you said was quite rude. Please apologize to the young lady.”

She’d laid the previous speaker on the bottom of the pile, orienting him so he was looking out at them.

He grunted, clearly fruitlessly trying to extricate himself. Finally, he glared and said, “I’m sorry… that she was born so ugly.”

Lea rocked back at the words, clearly slightly confused.

Tala growled. The words were ridiculous, obviously the childish attempt of a bully to gain back some control. They were meaningless to Tala, almost making her laugh at the boy’s foolishness, but Lea was still quite young, and they seemed to have actually hurt her feelings.

Tala briefly considered simply stomping on the young man’s head, popping it like a grape. She dismissed the thought before imagining kicking the head free with a simple movement. Calm down, Tala. Be rational.

-Rational? He’s being a jerk to Lea. Stomp his head!-

Tala blinked a few times at her alternate interfaces vehemence before she grimaced. “Little boy? I’m uninterested in you, your family, your friends, or your friends’ families at the moment. You were rude, and I wish you to correct that before we go on our way and never see one another again. Am I understood?”

Some of the boys had gotten themselves free and were backing away, clearly quite horrified by the turn of events. The one on the bottom, though, he simply had no self-preservation instincts… or something. “Yeah, I appreciate the option to never see your ugly faces again, especially the pasty white one. Run along now, before my father finds out about this.”

“And who, by all that shines, is your father?” Her tone was level, but there was quite evidently an edge to it.

A quivering voice came from nearby. “I am, oh Revered Eskau.” A blue man was already kneeling, head pressed to the cobbles on the edge of the little courtyard, Tala having seen him arrive, but not seen it as worthy of notice. “Please forgive my son and his friends whatever offense they have offered you.”

Tala straightened, but before she could respond, the boy shifted his head until he saw the man. “Father! This whitey and her slaves are bothering me.”

The man looked up in horror, eyes so wide that Tala genuinely thought they might pop out of their sockets. “Hush, boy. Are you deaf as well as blind?”

Clear confusion crossed the boy’s face. “What are you talking about? Slap them around, and let’s get out of here. I’ve no stomach for baked goods anymore.”

Tala looked down incredulously at the boy, before looking back to his father with one eyebrow raised.

The man put his head back to the road. “He has a condition, Revered one. He is blind to auras and things of magic. His friends should have known better.”

Many of the boys who were backing away looked chastened, but some seemed just as belligerent as the clear ring-leader.

The father was Honored, likely leading to the group’s confidence, and they seemed to not truly have an understanding of power differentials between advancement tiers in the upper echelon.

Tala shook her head. “How have they been so poorly brought up, Honored? Who failed so massively in their education?”

The man shrank down further. “It was I, Revered one. In my climb, I often fought up advancement tiers, but that was in my youth, before reaching the heights you see now. I would never presume to cross advancements now.”

“Father! Don’t say such things. You could—”

“BE SILENT!” The man bellowed at his son, causing the boy to blanche, seemingly finally being affected by the situation, even as the last of his friends scrambled off of him, allowing him to rise. “You will not speak further, unless I tell you to. Am I understood?”

The clear confusion on his face was almost comical as he simply nodded.

“Good.” The man clearly calmed himself. “What needs to be done for this error to be forgotten, or at the least forgiven?”

Tala rubbed at her temples. “He needs to apologize to the offended party, and then his education needs to be remedied.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The father nodded against the ground once more. “It will be done.”

“But father—”

“SILENCE!” The man jerked up to shout, and afterward, he was visibly trembling. “Apologize for whatever you have done, and keep your thoughts to yourself when in the presence of your betters.”

The boy muttered an ‘I’m sorry’ for ‘being disrespectful.’

Lea glanced toward Tala, clearly uncertain what to do. Tala sighed. “Barely acceptable.” She looked back to the kneeling man. “I cannot fathom how he has survived this long, but I recommend you remedy this quickly.”

“Yes, Eskau. I am in your debt for his life.”

Without waiting for things to become… odder, Tala turned and walked away, Rane and Lea in tow.

Rane had a truly baffled expression on his face, as he seemed to be trying to understand something about the situation, and Lea looked incredibly conflicted.

Tala willfully blocked off the sounds coming from behind them as the father rose and went to his son, clearly irate. “No need to listen to that.”

Rane was shaking his head. “You didn’t mention anything like this. I don’t really think I saw anything like it in your memories… Maybe the edges of it?”

Tala shrugged. “As much as they failed me my first time here, the House of Blood is actually founded on principles of egalitarianism, on viewing us all as equal. ‘Blood flows within everyone’ and all that.”

Rane grunted. “Great ideals that haven’t been fully realized yet.”

“Indeed.”

“Still, that was… comical? Like someone writing a villain just for the sake of it.”