Ch 43. Happy Picnic part 2

Marcella turned back towards us, grinning as she approached with her head held high. I suppose she does have the right to be a little smug after a display like that.

"How did you like that?" She asked to me impishly, before directing her cold eyes at Tammy, who was clearly intimidated by the earlier display. 

"Very impressive! As expected of my wife." I said to her, clapping. My appreciation for her power was genuine. Not showing my irritation at her subtle digs against my newest love. 

"This is the first time I've seen your magic, and I have to say... you were absolutely stunning!"

Leaning in to whisper in her ear. "I'd love to hear about it over lunch." From what I'd learned, appealing to Marcella's ego seemed to be the quickest way to her heart. 

She returned to her gloating demeanor, no longer staring daggers. Poor Tammy was just a farmer's daughter, even without the explosion for intimidation, facing the ire of someone like Marcella had scared her to death. Rubbing her back, while my other hand was around Belle's waist. Who despite her sensitivity to loud sounds, was not scared in the slightest. On the contrary, her reaction was even starting to scare me a little.

She had initially been holding her ears, while they twitched delicately, but now she was more interested in the dead Aurochs, absolutely terrible looking to me, many of the oversized cows torn in half. She looked at the bloody scene with a hungry curiosity. Her eyes those of a predator looking at a meal, not put off in the slightest by the sight or by the smell of blood and fire in the air. 

It was time for me to clean up, storing the bodies. Not to mention cleaning up the surviving aurochs, who the soldiers were circling, ready to put them out of their misery before I waved them off. I had figured out that I needed the killing blow to get credit for it, and helpless enemies like this were the perfect meal for me. 

Marcella watched me impatiently, tapping her foot. Her adventurer's spirit impatient to enter the forest. 

We soon set off, the massive trees beginning to cast shadows over the land. The tall grass receding, increasingly replaced by a shorter more vibrant variety. One that looked extremely healthy despite being the cold season, spongy green moss covering the gaps between stalks. The ground itself becoming softer, our feet sinking in with each step, but leaving few tracks as the plants showed such resilience. Rebounding like coiled springs. 

The soldiers tensed up as we passed this invisible barrier between the two biomes. 

"On guard!" One of the knights shouted, seemingly a commander of some kind judging by the different color of his cloak. "Escort Formation."

The soldiers moving to form a series of diamonds around us. Squads of ten, nine soldiers to a knight, spreading out in a circle around the four of us. 

The atmosphere much more serious than before, but Marcella looking happier than ever. 

We came to a clearing between several massive trees, Marcella deciding unilaterally that this was the right area for a picnic. 

I nodded in agreement, figuring that we'd be hard pressed to find anything better. Beginning to unload my inventory. I had stocked several wooden logs sharpened at one end, along with digging tools. These items being an idea from the knight captain originally. Managing to turn this 'picnic' of ours into something wasn't entirely useless for the troops. Getting them used to incorporating space magic into their strategies, and giving them an idea about what could be done with it. The knights handing out equipment and directing soldiers to begin erecting a perimeter.

With that out of the way, it was finally time for the table and meals, while the girls waited around, more interested in the food than the magic now that the novelty had all but worn off on them. 

It was a slightly rectangular table that could fit six, but I excluded the head of the table on both sides, so we would be sitting in pairs across from each other. 

Given Marcella's earlier attitude, I arranged the seats strategically, sitting her next to Belle, while I sat across from her with Tammy at my side. This seemed to work somewhat, her smile noticeably brighter at having Belle by her side, she really did have an unexpected soft spot for beastkin. 

We began to eat unceremoniously, both Tammy and I eating rather quietly while Marcella was busy treating Belle like a baby, insisting on feeding her fork-fulls of meat rather than allow her to eat on her own. Belle succumbing easily to her spoiling, purring happily at the special treatment, which just drove Marcella even more wild out of the cuteness of it all.

"Belle's such a good girl, Keaton. Just look at her." She said. Petting Belle's silky hair, and fiddling with her ribbon.  

"Mmm." I agreed. 

She was looking at Tammy again now. 

"And haven't I been a good fiancee?" She asked, a bit more pointedly. 

I eyed her suspiciously. To be honest she had been a handful for me, much more demanding of my time than either Belle or Tammy. 

"...Yes, Marcella. You are pretty. You are kind. You have a good family. And you're an excellent adventurer and mage. There isn't anything that I have to complain about."

She looked again at Tammy, which made irritated. Was she really doing this again?

"Then why, Keaton? Didn't you say that you loved me? You said you were going to win my affection... then why do you need her?" Clearly angry. I knew about her ideas of romance, but she was far more serious than I expected. Her emotions seeming to have been simmering since this morning.

This wasn't going out quite as I had expected. Marcella was really starting to be something of a headache for me. Rubbing my brows while I tried to turn the situation around. 

''I do love you, Marcella. I've told you that before. Tammy has nothing to do with that." 

Tammy was shrinking down in her seat, intimidated at the unfolding argument about her. 

"How can you say that she has nothing to do with this, isn't she your woman?" Marcella was making a scene, as the knights and guards listened in, working a bit slower so they could watch. Couldn't she have waited for a bit more privacy?

"Can't I love both of you? Besides it's not like I'm marrying her... and even if I was...," I started off not quite finding the right words.

"My father had eight wives, do you think he didn't love each of them? Your father even has another wife, do you think that means he doesn't love your mother?" Asking her a personal question just seemed to make her angrier. 

"If Father really loved Mother, he wouldn't have taken a second wife!" She snapped angrily. Some of her inner thoughts coming out. I looked briefly at the knights around us, there was no way this wasn't making it back to the ears of the lord. 

Is that why she always seemed so hostile around Cal and his sister? I thought to myself before responding. 

"Do you really expect me to never touch another woman? You wouldn't find a man like that in the entire kingdom, let alone a one of a kind mage like me. Who would actually make such a ridiculous promise." I scoffed at her unreasonableness.

Wives were a status symbol, even among commoners, and especially among nobility. Having multiple women was the absolute norm, and the Stromgardian royal family had taken it to such extremes that the King had hundreds of women in his harem. Providing him hundreds of sons and hundreds of daughters. Marcella seemed to think living like a peasant was a virtue, the incongruity of it all being impossible for me to understand. And yet... something in me did resonate with her ideology.  

When Marcella's anger had faded, she knew she had messed up. Sitting down in her seat shakily.