Chapter 35
Angeline issues a menacing frown towards her former companion, then turns to look at the four other women that were his potential Bonding mates. Teresa and Kellie Lundagren, seventeen year-old twins hailing from the south-eastern part of the country. Both of the girls looked the exact same, at five-foot-eight, deeply sunken sparkling-green eyes under shoulder-length straight brown hair, and slim bodies hidden beneath their plain-grey robes. It was nearly impossible to tell the two apart… until they spoke. Teresa actually had a hint of a lisp, where her sister didn’t. That wasn’t the only difference between the two, though. Kellie was well versed in wards and alteration spells where her sibling was better at elemental magicks. They were both first-class brats, however, and expected everyone to treat them like princesses…
Another one of the women was actually a returnee to the Blue Fortress, Josephine Carriere. She’d lost her previous bond in a rather tragic accident, when a newly-installed steamer-train had jumped the rails, and her Knight had sacrificed himself to shelter a pair of young children from the carnage. She was rather tall at six-foot-one, and as thin as a scare-crow stuck out in a field. She wasn’t… extremely beautiful, but she had her charms. As long as you enjoyed weak chins and a large overbite. Regardless of her looks, however, the twenty-five year-old was a Second-Class mage proficient in binding and alteration magicks…
The last of the other women was actually more of a girl. Something of a prodigy, the fifteen year-old Vera Wolverton was short, pudgy, and chronically quiet. But she had already developed a useful and unique set of alteration magicks that had the ability to be used in accordance with pre-written wards. Basically, she could paint one of her designs onto a weapon or armour, and at any time, activate the ability-enhancing powers during a battle, though with much less of a drain on her Powers than normal. She was also a rather decent fire-based mage, and it was rumoured that she could super-heat rock to craft magma…
The golden-haired caster trades stares with each of the other potentials, then turns her gaze back to her former aide. “You’re seriously not going to Bond with Vera if she wins, right? ‘Cause if you do that before she turns eighteen, I swear to each of the Trinity, Samuel… I’ll develop a brand new spell that will castrate you in the most agonizing way you could ever dream of.”
Finn flashes a wide smile as he waives away the comment. “No, no. I’ve told my lovely friend Miss Wolverton that, despite her insistence on the matter, we would wait until she reached the appropriate age. That would also allow her the opportunities to further advance her already-impressive skill-set.” He turns his smile on the stubby fifteen year-old with the light-brown ponytail as her cheeks glow red from the praise. “At any rate, these displays of your powers are merely for my own edification, and though they might influence my final decisions, I’ll be combining the results with the other portions of the process as well.”
The over-bitten scarecrow raises a hand as a question comes to her mind. “What are the other parts? You’re not… going to demand that we have sex with you… right?” A tiny smile graces her lips as she plays her eyes over the black leather armours and multitude of blades arranged on the handsome young man. “Because… I wouldn’t really mind…”
“Uh…” blinking in surprise of the question and subsequent comment, the black-follicled swordsman slowly begins to shake his head, and is forced to do a double-take towards the whispering twins at his right, who were staring intently at the waist-region of his lower leathers. “No. Absolutely not. I’m not about to take advantage of any of you like that.” Hearing a chorus of soft sighs, even one from his former Master, he lets out a huff of annoyance in response, and pulls a small black ribbon from his pocket before reaching up to gather his locks behind his head. In the three months that he’d spent up on that bloody mountain, his hair had only grown longer, and was now able to reach his mid-shoulder-blades. And since it had only been four days since his dinner with the two High Magus’, he’d been far too busy running about gathering intelligence to find a barber. “I’ll state now that I’ve selected the five of you to go first. I’ve still another ten women’s abilities to view today. After this display, I’ll give each of you a questionnaire to fill out and return me, then I’ll have an interview with each of you.”
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Aegis and Order: First Light
Fantasy"It’s shoulders were wide and powerful. At four metres in height, it was almost as large across as it was tall. The arms of the hulking beast hung nearly all the way to the ground, and were thick with rope-like muscles that bulged with even the sl...
