Cannon Fodder To Villainess

🏮 75. Nova's Birthday

One sided love was a bitter pill to swallow. It was better for her to try to forget about her love for Fortis anyway. After all, it wasn't exactly illegal for women to love other women, but it was definitely frowned upon. It was, however, illegal for a woman to live without a registered adult male guardian in this empire; be it her father, her brother, or her husband. So if you were kicked out of your family and you weren't married or sold, you were put up for auction. Although auctioning people publicly was illegal, rich nobles doing it in private was considered perfectly acceptable.

Arranged marriages for women were also common in Verglas. After all, women were generally treated like property here. It was how their fathers had trained their sons and daughters to behave, and their father's before them. It was accepted and expected. It was the 'proper' way to do things.

Nova watched Fortis sitting across from the man, drinking something from a blue magic glass that kept your drink perfectly cold. Nova saw Fortis slide her hand across the table top and the man reach over, taking her hand in his. Nova looked away from the sight, thinking that she had been foolish for even liking anyone. Who was she to like someone? What did she even have to offer that anyone would want?

When she looked back, she saw Fortis trying to shake off the mans hand, but he was holding tightly to her. She stood up, trying to get away from the man, but he yanked on her hand, pulling her back down.

Nova stood up from her seat and walked over to the table where Fortis and the man were sitting. She hadn't consciously been planning to do it, but found herself standing right in front of Fortis regardless. She glanced at the man, who frowned, and then handed her his empty cup. She looked at the cup in her hand with confusion. When she looked back at the man, he had disregarded her again, and went back to talking to Fortis.

"Even if you want to reject me, it only makes me want you more. You should know what kind of man I am by now. You'll only excite me more and make it harder on yourself later. You were mine from the moment that I first saw you and you can only be mine," he said while squeezing Fortis's wrist tightly.

Nova heard the bones in Fortis's wrist snap. Then she let out a pained whimper and gasped for breath.

"Please, just let me do my job. Please leave me alone," Fortis said while desperately trying to pry his hand off of her broken wrist with her other hand.

Nova's eyes widened at the scene. Before throwing the magic glass at the man's face as hard as she could. The glass broke, leaving a long shard jammed into his left eye. He instantly let go of Fortis while screaming like a mad man. Then he fell backwards out of his chair and onto the floor. The glass shards frosted once their magic was released, freezing the shard into his eye.

Nova grabbed Fortis's good wrist and pulled her to her feet, taking her out of there. She wasn't sure what had come over her as she pulled Fortis away, but she couldn't stop herself. All the while she felt foolish. Fortis blinked her eyes in surprise from being rescued, but she followed behind Nova anyway.

After they had walked to the other side of the block, where Nova knew there were magical buggies to rent, so leaned down, and placed a copper coin into the side of the round pod. The pod was a perfect sphere that worked through wind magic. They rested on these saucer platforms and went to another resting saucer platform in the area where you specified. They would only travel to other saucers, but they were at the end of almost every street. There were two person seaters and six person seaters, three of each kind.

Nova climbed into a two person seater transport pod and held out her hand towards Fortis. Fortis stood still, standing on the sidewalk, while looking down at Nova.

"Come with me, won't you? I promise that I don't mean you any harm. I just want to get you out of here and somewhere safe; where I can heal your wrist. It looks painful and you look scared," Nova said.

Fortis blinked her eyes. "I look...scared?"

"I don't mean anything rude by it, but you have been shaking for a while now. Let's get out of here, alright?"

"You want to...help me? Why?" Said Fortis.

"Do I need a reason?" Said Nova.

"...There's always a reason."

"Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. I guess you can just figure that out for yourself. Either way, I have no plans of harming you. What could it hurt? These pods are only going to go to other saucers in public locations anyway," Nova said and then shrugged her shoulders.

Fortis looked at Nova while frowning for a moment longer, and then reached out her hand to take Nova's. Nova steadied her into her seat. As soon as Fortis was seated beside her, Nova pushed the button in the center of the dashboard.

"Where is your destination?" said a programmed woman's voice.

"Starlight Veranda," said Nova.