The Goth Villianess

A Late Night Adventure

It was nearing midnight and I was on top of the academy, I was on the roof and was far from my room where I should have been. I wasn't dressed for the weather in any way. I was wearing my lightweight and sheer grey nightgown but I had my long black satin robe over the top of it. Even in this life I couldn't escape every bad habit I had in my old life, one of those I couldn't fully escape from was smoking. Not anything drug related just tobacco. In this world they had cigars and small thin cigarettes like they did in the eighteen hundreds in my original world. I pressed the light cigarette to my lips and filled my lungs with the dark smoke. At least in this world smoking didn't have negative side effects like they did in the other world. You couldn't get terribly sick from them but if you smoked them too much you could suffer from seeing things that aren't actually there. I heard footsteps coming from behind me and I turned around to see who it was. It was Lord Harvey. "Fancy seeing you here Lady Raven!" Lord Harvey quipped as he sat down beside me on the roof. "I could say the same to you" I replied while taking a drag from the cigarette in-between my fingers. Lord Harvey leaned back and looked at me and the cigarette I had placed against my lips. "I didn't realise you smoked as well!" He commented while putting his hands behind his head so he could look up at the stars comfortably. "Would you like one Lord Harvey?" I asked him while tugging the tin case I kept my cigarettes in out of the pocket on my robe. "I would!" He said as he took one of them from the tin "and please call me Harvey we've known each other long enough!". I chuckled "then you'll have to call me Raven then". "That I would Raven" He said as he lit the cigarette and drew in a lung full of smoke.

We sat up on that roof smoking for a few minutes before we got bored of looking at the landscape. "What to go explore the woods?" Harvey inquired as he put out his cigarette on the roof tile beside him. I laughed "The woods?" I thought he lacked sense in that moment "Neither of us is dressed for such an adventure!" I stated while gesturing to our clothes. I was in a sheet nightgown and robe with flat leather shoes and Harvey had long silk bed trousers and leather boots and a light grey cotton t-shirt on. Harvey flashed me a smile, "Oh come Raven live a little" He teased "We're only going to be in this school for only a few months more so why not explore what we can while we still have time!". I sighed "Fine but we're not going very far in!".

We climbed down from the roof and started heading towards the woods. The moon's light provided us a little light to find our way through the darkness that surrounded us. Harvey led me through the forest as he wanted to show me something. It was cleared he had been to the part of the forest he wanted to explore before. I should have felt uneasy about this but for some unexplainable reason I trusted him and we with him happily. We emerged from the trees into a small open space with a large rock in the middle of it. Around the rock were candles that were already lit. I thought this was strange and was worried for a moment that Harvey was going to sacrifice me in some sort of ritual when he pulled me into the bushes and told me to stay quiet. Confused but wanting to see what was going to happen I stayed quiet and waited. I heard rustling coming from infront of us and Sir Darren appeared, he wasn't in his suit of armour and Prince Edward was no where to be seen. He was alone for the moment. Harvey look at me and gave me this mischievous look. "Sorry about this!" He whispered menacingly before pushing me out of the bush. I was fully prepared to start cursing at him when Sir Darren rushed over to me. "Are you alright Lady Raven?" He asked me in a concerned tone while offering me his hand to help me off the ground. "I am no need to worry!" I said flustered, being pushed out of the bush had undid the ribbon around my robe and now some of the nightgown was on show and Sir Darren clearly saw more than he wanted too as he look away, also flustered. For the record the gown was only sheer at the side of my thighs and a little bit over my shoulders but of course to knights and noble men even showing a bit of ankle was seen as immodest so me with most of my legs on show was more than what Sir Darren had ever seen before.
"If you don't mind my asking M'lady but why by the divine are you out in the last month of autumn in the middle of the night in very little clothing?" He asked as he looked away as I quickly retied the ribbon on my robe, never in my life had I been so embarrassed than I was then. "I was walking around the place as you do" I lied quickly hoping he would buy it and not as me anymore questions. "Yes but why wear such indecent clothing when the weather is getting colder?" He questioned me as he presumed I was alone and he probably thought at this point I was crazy or stupid, probably a bit of both at that point.

"Oh I was meeting someone!" I lied nonchalantly hoping he would lose interest in questioning me. "With who I see no one but us around?" He interagated me. "I've already met up with them!" I explained quickly hoping Harvey had enough sense to get away from here before Sir Darren could assume it was him I've been "meeting". Sir Darren looked at me with a skeptical look. "Are you not already promised to Lord Timothy Bainne?". "I am!" I answered carefully, I could see where this was going and was silently cursing myself for not thinking of another lie that wouldn't get me in trouble with Timothy if Sir Darren told him about this. "Then tell me why you are meeting someone dress like that when you are supposed to be marrying another!" He growled at me. I took a step back, Sir Darren was known in the novel to be hot headed and harsh and not someone you wanted to anger, he also notably despised adulterers as the first woman he courted cheated on him with one of his squad mates. "Before you jump to conclusions I wasn't meeting them for anything scandalis" I explained quickly as I tried to fix my mistakes "It was an emergency and I was already in my nightwear so I ran out of my room to meet her since it was so urgent!". I added in the little bit of information that I was meeting a girl since I remembered one other aspect of Sor Darren's character, he didn't know that people could love someone of the same gender as them, he didn't know people who liked the same gender existed because no one had ever told him and he had never encountered people who were homosexual so it would make the most sense that he wouldn't expect anything indecent happening when I told him I was meeting with a girl. I couldn't understand how he made it this far in life without knowing that some people were homosexual, the temple of Grá had a few same sex couples worshiping in the temple every week and I knew that Sir Darren attended the temple beside it due to him worshiping the god of loyalty and leadership so I couldn't understand how he never realised it was a thing. Either way I was thankful his ignorance towards the subject of love would allow me to get out of this tricky situation. After a bit more back and forth Sir Darren finally didn't expect me to be cheating on my fiancé, I needed to tell Sophia when I see her in the morning that if Sir Darren asks I was with her because she had an emergency and needed my help for something. I do hope she wouldn't be annoyed with me. Sir Darren insisted on walking me back and out of the corner of my eye I saw Harvey laughing quietly at me, I scrunched my nose at him but quickly went back to looking straight ahead. The last thing I needed was for Sir Darren to see Harvey who was also wearing something that would be considered inappropriate for the woods and then accusing us of cheating on our betrothed with each other. If Sor Darren ever told Timothy he met me tonight I was never going to hear the end of it from Timothy.