Hug Me and You'll Die

17: I promise I'll stay with you forever, so please don't be sad anymore.

Desmia nearly choked on her own saliva. "What?! Those rooms are right across the hall from my room!"

"Now, now, you have to be reasonable about this, Marysol. Those two rooms have been touched the least since we started to sell off our things; accordingly, it'd take the least amount of effort to fill them back up."

Following their master's lead, the four servants swiftly chimed in with, "That's right, young mistress."

"It's true."

"We have no other choice."

"You understand don't you?"

Pangs of bitterness stabbed at Desmia as their successive little comments flowed through her ears. These goddamned traitors!

She knew that she had to appeal in another way if she wanted to retain the sanctity of the area surrounding her bedroom.

Adopting a frail look she grabbed at the earl's hand. "How could you put two boys whose characters we don't know all that well that close to my bedroom, father? What if something were to happen? What if they do something unseemly to me?"

Desmia forced her eyes to gloss over as she weakly asked, "Aren't you worried about me at all?"

There was a short stretch of silence that passed before the earl admitted, "If anything, I'm more worried that you'll do something unseemly to them."

Kale flattened his lips into a straight line. "That's actually so possible with the young mistress' tendencies, she's likely to slip the two lords something as they're dead asleep..."

"...Just to see what would happen..." continued Saffron drolly.

"...And record about it in her evil little notebook..." added Brie as she shivered.

"....And she'd repeat the entire process again the following night if the two lords didn't already expire the previous night," finished Tarragon.

".....You guys," started Desmia with much effort. "........you guys are really too much."

Seeing her adorably grumpy expression, the others chuckled amongst themselves. After which, the earl placed a hand on top of Desmia's head. "In all seriousness though, Lord Feidhelm and Lord Ferris are only here because of you, child. Thus, it makes perfect sense for them to stay close to you so that you can take care of them properly."

Desmia could almost see the words "your fiancé, your problem" stamped boldly on everyone's cheeks as they nodded in concurrence.

Eventually, she resigned herself to her fate and nodded to show that she would go along with their arrangements.

When their impromptu meeting ended and everyone shuffled towards the table, Desmia cursed her powerlessness in her heart.

Despite being made to wait for much longer than a brief moment, Feidhelm and Ferris repeatedly assured the earl that they hadn't mind waiting in the least. Being considerate, they then kindly offered to step outside the room should their hosts needed more time to chat privately.

After saying that there was no need for this, the earl changed the subject to issue of feeding their guests. He intended to distract their guests with a meal in order to buy time for Tarragon, Kale and Brie to go prepare the rooms.

"Actually, we packed our own meals for this trip so I can't say that I'm famished," replied Feidhelm honestly.

With their mother's extremely meticulous preparations, in the morning their five person party had been sent off with: a total of twenty-five magical lunch boxes, capable of both retaining heat and locking in freshness; a mountain of snacks, both healthy and non-healthy; and ten magical space saving trunks filled with a variety of bottled drinks.