The Gamer Chapter 1276 – Gala Date 7 – Sitting with the Songbird (Patreon)

“She likes you,” John commented, when Lydia left him and Nightingale at the table.

“That is assuring,” the harpy said, wiggling around a little bit to move her chair closer to his. She tapped her thigh with the bow of her wing. A court invitation to hold a harpy’s thigh, yet another perk of her being handless. John inched a bit closer from his side and obliged.

They sat with their backs to a wall in the corner of the veranda. Some of the nobles had left now. Nightingale had sung twice so far and many had deemed the second song the peak of the evening. That was one of the factors as to why the crowd was thinning out now. The other was that, decisively, things were moving towards drunkenness.

A false image of noble gatherings was easily created. Measured conversations in candlelight, rounded around carefully decked tables, with wine being carefully paired with cheese and meat that had been proven to go together for generations. While those gatherings did happen and were, probably, even the norm among the older ladies and gentlemen that actually had the power, the fact was that nobles were still only humans. Humans, in turn, were highly advanced monkeys. No matter what clothes they wore or what flowery language they used, the core was the same. A beating heart, an expanding lung, and a liver that could only take so much.

Indeed, it would not have surprised John to learn that alcoholism was more rampant among the nobility than it was for the underclass. People that lived by the skin of their teeth ran out of money at times. The nobility not only had access to vast funds, those funds enabled them to buy alcohol that was the most pristine, smooth, delicious stuff out there and they could drink it like a sixty-year-old factory worker was downing vodka that tasted like glass cleaner.

This entire evening had consisted of free drinks. Champagne and wine were easier to find than orange juice around here. Bertrand, according to his reputation, had been downing at least a glass per half hour. Which, considering these were tall party glasses, wasn’t saying a lot, but it mounted and his consumption only accelerated. Down the line he would either have an epiphany and quit or he would turn thirty and wonder when the last time he hadn’t craved liquor had been.

‘I might add to the epiphany,’ John thought.

“Do you wish to beat him up?” Nightingale asked.

“Are you sure you want an answer to that out loud?” he responded conspiratorially. Over the boisterous laughter of the, primarily, young rest of nobles, their conversation in the corner wouldn’t be caught by anyone but those with superhuman senses. Considering a gathering of German nobility was a gathering of people with Innate Abilities turned half-elemental, superhuman senses were to be expected.

“It is safe, my suitor,” Nightingale assured him. “We have privacy.”

“Oh really?”

Nightingale drew in her breath. Loudly, matching the rhythm of the court musicians perfectly, she sang, “Search atonement deep within. No man ever is short of sin. Slay the devil in your heart, before with all around you, you are forced to part.” No one reacted at all to her fantastic voice.

“Hmm, considering the crowd, you may just have proven wilful ignorance,” John joked.

Nightingale chuckled, raising her wing to cover her amusement. Close as she sat to John, she did not succeed or intent to hide her smile from him. “Different lyrics would have been more effective,” she agreed. “You said Lydia liked me?”

“She sees a kindred spirit in you, is all I will say. She can tell you what she thinks of you herself,” John opened up. “Mind if I ask something potentially difficult?”

“We are past most of the easy questions, so I expect those,” Nightingale responded, “but first do answer mine. What is the state of the scheme?”

“I’m going to slap him silly,” John responded. “Whenever he’s out of earshot, he’s been insulting me or Lydia.”

“Not me?” Nightingale asked.

“You’re a fine and eloquent lady, whose political neutrality is admirable, if naïve,” John reported, mimicking the posh accent of the host. “Also, you have bad taste in men, which is objectively false.”

“He should know better. You two look remarkably alike.”

“Yeah, but your interest in me doesn’t come from my appearance, now does it?”

“Truthfully, your handsomeness does help,” she said. “Plainly good looking as you are. Let’s not dwell. Your question?”

“Actually, a different one came to mind. What did the duke say that annoyed you so much?”

“That which would annoy you too.”

“Ah,” John did not need to hear anything else. What he could not stand above anything else was when someone was badmouthing his haremettes, so the duke must have insulted either him or Lydia or both. Some reformists backed Lydia only because of her proposals. Their stance on her love life was, sometimes, one of begrudging acceptance. In terms of common idioms, they had bigger fish to fry. “The actual question then: how are you dealing with your divinity?”

“That is a difficult question, why do you ask?”

“You are the first goddess I met that keeps asking other gods about how they think of themselves,” he told her, sipping on the glass of orange juice he had manifested from his inventory. “Nathalia just is who she is without apology. Eliana… she’s complicated, but when Thana was only Thana she was clear in her purpose. Wendy is a crazy sassy woman, but she knew what she was about, too. The Horned Rat, Luna, Sol, Krieg, every god I came across had clarity in their mission. None of them stopped to ask another god about their thoughts. You do. I was wondering if that meant you struggled with something.”

“You could put it like that.” Nightingale looked at her wings. The feathers fluffed up and settled, vanished into a pitch-black mass and resumed their individual existence, shifting between raven and deep purple in colour. Like her hair, the latter only became visible to the naked eye on the closest inspection. “Perhaps it is who they were before,” she thought out loud. “Be it that they were nothing or someone of import even before they ascended. I had deemed that the greatest power I would ever wield was to marry into a noble house. Offers were on the table and I was approaching the years where I would have to make such a decision or live only for my craft. I enjoy a songstress – a songbird’s…” she flashed him a quick smile, “…life, but I did not fancy dying with only it. Then, I had power. Eternal life. Renown. Intercontinental recognition. Everything upended in a moment of true purpose. I embody an aspect of reality. That certainty fuels me. Yet, that greater certainty wiped away all plans laid before. One night, and I went from being at the whims of nobles to being able to demand the world call me by my chosen name.”

“I can see how that is difficult,” John assured her.

“Your own situation is quite similar, is it not?”

He shook his head. “My rise is meteoric, but it is still a rise. It can’t be compared to being moved from the valley to the summit.”

“I am seeing relations where there are none,” Nightingale whispered and gazed off into the distant night. “Truthfully, going mad with my power was tempting. There was many an unwanted advance I wanted punished; many exploitations of my youthful naivety I wanted repaid. I had to find my own solution, and my reasons to forgive. I looked to the law and other divines for stability.”

“Is that why you were in Scandinavia?”

“The Norse pantheon is the oldest surviving family of gods and half-gods in Europe. I hoped they would be able to provide answers. Aside from their vile treachery,” she hissed, “I grew disappointed, for they did not. Theirs was a policy of a clan. A noble house, on a higher hill. I came to the conclusion, recently, that my study of justice is where I had to look. Not law or divinity are to guide me. I was neither powerful enough to impose myself nor divine when I was…” she glanced around.

“You don’t have to say it,” John assured her.

The world was swallowed by complete darkness. It crept in from the edge of his field of view and pulled in closer, until there was only them, their chairs, and the table. “When I was… Yolande.”

“Yolande,” John spoke the name carefully. He weighed carefully how to respond to that. Without a response given, Nightingale already let out a relieved sigh.

“You truly did not comb my past.”

“I’m a man of my word.”

“You are my dear John.”

The way she said that, it was difficult to ascertain whether a comma belonged in there. Was she just saying he was being honest or was she saying that being honest was so intrinsic to his character that stating who he was served as a confirmation of his own sentence? Tone was difficult, even between two people in isolation.

“Yolande was neither law nor divine, she has only been herself,” Nightingale continued on. “I gaze within and without, I look at others to see myself. The problem with my divinity is that I fear my power erodes my free will. You and I, we could destroy this entire estate in ten minutes. No law could hold me accountable, for I am the night. I am above the laws of nations.”

“But it wouldn’t be just,” John finished her thought.

“But it would not be just,” Nightingale affirmed.

The darkness around them slowly crept back. “Wait,” John told her. “What do you want me to call you?”

“…Call me as you desire.”

“My Nightingale,” John said without hesitation, holding her thigh as romantically as one could. Now, his human sensibilities wished he had a hand to hold. “For what it is worth, to me, you have only been yourself. The lady of the night, my songbird, a friend willing to fight the tyrant of another world for who you cared for, and many other things I have yet to learn. Forgive me if that is too little.”

“I have nothing to forgive,” she promised him.

The darkness unravelled rapidly. Around them, a number of curious nobles stood, many of them in the middle of a conversation pertaining whether or not they were supposed to enter the darkness. All of that was cut short when John and Nightingale were revealed. “We just wanted a very private chat,” John told everyone. “May I ask that this continues?”

“Sure, sure, let’s give the President his term,” Betrand told everyone, a slight slur in his mocking tone.

‘So that begins,’ John thought and narrowed his eyes, waiting for everyone else to step away to turn back to Nightingale. He banished the host from his thoughts for the moment. “I don’t actually quite get why you wanted that privacy.” John gestured towards the remainder of the gala. “All of them knew your old name.”

“I wanted nothing to look at but you,” Nightingale explained.

John hummed, his hand trailing up her sides in a caring, sexual fashion. Only brushing over the rise of her breasts, he soon arrived by her chin and grabbed it demandingly. The harpy blushed slightly. She may not have been a prominent submissive in his harem, but she had some inclination towards that kink. Of course, that was elevated considerably by John’s ‘training’ of her. A training that, so far, had just been him behaving as his usual assertive self. That had its set of effects on its own, especially on a woman who he introduced into the pleasures of sex and one that was attracted to him. His reputation in these matters was quite clear.

The harpy’s black lips trembled. On the closest of inspections, there was a purple tint to them, although it was even fainter than her hair. Parted slightly, they formed her every breath into something audible, more than a breath, less than a pant and almost a sigh.

Kissing her right now would have been beyond easy. This was, however, not the time nor space for it. He was tipsy, she was vulnerable, they were surrounded by fools, and Suel was staring at them from a nearby part of the porch. John wanted privacy and a more romantic setting.

He let go and Nightingale let out a disappointed breath. Before he could reverse his decision, she brought a wing between her reddish face and his gaze. After a few seconds of total concealment, she lowered it just enough so her lavender eyes were visible. “You are skilled at weakening a lady’s resolve, my suitor.”

“Tomorrow, you will be my Nightingale,” he told her flat-out. “Sleep one last time in your private quarters tonight. After that, you’re staying in my roost – as you like to call it.”

Nightingale’s eyes went a little wide, before narrowing down to a sultry stare. “Is that a promise?” she asked.

“It’s an oath,” he said and pushed her wing aside with a slow but firm gesture. He revealed the giant smile on her lips, and took her face in both of his hands. “I can only stand one more night without knowing that you are mine forever, my songbird. You certainly have proven that you are more than a lady of the night. You should be a philosopher queen.” He smiled softly. “I can’t quite offer you that title, but you’ll be the closest one could be in Fusion.”

“I do not dese-“

“Yes, you do,” John interrupted her.

They forgot to argue, over gazing in one another’s eyes. There was more there to be lost in than the constellations of the night sky. He leaned in further and further, but their lips never met, only their foreheads. The quiet continued between them, sacred silence of intimacy, even in this place filled with the bragging of youthful nobles.

Nightingale gulped intensely.

John knew that sound and he started giggling. “Why are you…?” Nightingale started to speak and stopped when she realized how phlegmy her voice sounded – due to the usual reasons. She turned redder than ever. Not because she was greatly enjoying a particular flirt this time, but because she was genuinely embarrassed. Extremely embarrassed.

Unable to bite back his tongue, John remarked, “Really, that’s your reaction to that?”

Nightingale opened her mouth to respond, gooey strands drawing between her lips. Turning almost purple, she swiftly hid her mouth behind her wing again. John had drawn back his hands to keep himself from laughing out loud. Her talons were gripping onto his leg. “It’s involuntary!” she responded strongly, needing to gulp after every three words. “It is not… my fault… that I have… rather intense interest in… you!”

“I suppose I am flattered,” John said. The urge to tease her over her getting so incredibly horny over staring at her was immense, but he also wanted to go back to a romantic tone. “Later,” he told her, quietly. “For now, let’s just talk… I’ll give you a moment to calm down.”

“Wine… no, water,” Nightingale requested, while he stood up.

“As my songbird desires,” John said, after bowing his head.