Chapter 88 - Love And War

"You seem to be in a bad mood again today, Min Libitino."

Vladstin opened one of his closed eyes to peer at Sangfroid who had come to his side.

"Don't talk to me..... Wait." Sangfroid then noticed what he was doing. "Why are you riding your wolf with your eyes closed?"

"To test if I'm lucky enough to get myself impaled on a tree!" He answered like he was just telling Sangfroid about the good weather.

The former Chief Hunstman frowned. "But by doing so, you're also endangering your wolf."

"My wolf is already dead, Min Libitino. And so are yours." The vampire chuckled. "Can't you see?"

Vladstin was correct again, as always, and this made Sangfroid a bit annoyed. He dodged the lighthearted jab and let out a gruff sound. "We already had a deal that you wouldn't call me Min Libitino anymore. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, you're right! Apologies, my dear Sangfroid." Vladstin covered his mouth like a kid being reprimanded for saying a bad word, yet is planning to say it beyond the adult's back anyway.

"No 'my dears' either. Just Sangfroid." The stone-faced man continued to scold him.

"Yes, yes. Whatever you say, Sangfroid." Vladstin nodded happily, giggling.

Sangfroid frowned. "What are you acting so happy for?"

The vampire showed his sharp fangs when he smiled with full teeth. "I am just so thrilled to have you speak with me. Directly too. Did you get into a fight with Leron?"

Sangfroid was caught off-guard by how observant he was, but then again, he is a mythical creature after all. Much more powerful than him.

"No." Sangfroid said succinctly.

"I thought so. You'll never speak up to him, it's just your nature." Vladstin rubbed his chin. "Then something he said must have upset you, isn't it?"

Sangfroid didn't answer, and just ushered his wolf to walk faster. Sangfron was now the leader of their large pack, trotting vigilantly for any dangers in sight.

But Vladstin just grinned and kept up with them. "Hey, tell me what made you so upset! This is a once-in-a-lifetime miracle, after all. You, Leron's most obedient servant becoming upset with your master? Tell me all about it!"

"No." Sangfroid said again.

"You sure like saying that word to me. No." Vladstin picked a stray leaf from a low-hanging tree. "And I suppose your favorite word to say to Leron is 'yes'."

"Mind your own business." Sangfroid went further ahead, one eye on the road and determined to ignore this pesky vampire.

"I know why you're so loyal to him by the way. I understand it." Vladstin folded the leaf and tried to turn it into an instrument, blowing on it. "I have tasted a bit of your blood, so I have an empathic link to you. As well as Leron, I could tell you everything that's on his mind."

"Don't need it."

"You don't want to know where you stand with him?" Vladstin tilted his head to the side. "I could tell you."

"I already know."

"What is it, then?" The all-knowing and undying vampire grinned. He was like a god playing with mortals, having hold of their life using their blood. "What does Leron think of you."

Sangfroid and his wolf halted, just so he could give Vladstin one menacing look. He said with much bitterness:

"A friend. And that is enough for me."

The vampire chuckled heartily. "I don't believe you!"

"It's true. I'm not expecting him to return my feelings." Sangfroid looked down on the ground. "Just him knowing is enough."

"Ahhh, then you don't really love him."

Sangfroid got a small flash of the dream Mandrien showed him. He used the appearance of Leron to tell him many things that messed with his mind.

".....You do not love me the way you think you do. You simply adore me and worship an idealized version of me, perhaps one that you have created since our childhood."

Those words hit Sangfroid straight in the chest, making him suffocate. He denied it so many times in his head, enraged that someone would dare to say that. It repeated again and again in his head.

"You do not love me."

"You don't really love Leron."

"It's all worship."

"Childhood friends...."

"ENOUGH!"

Birds were scared off their nests, panicking and rushing to the sky as thunder boomed on the tree where Vladstin took his harmonica leaf.

Sangfroid huffed, catching his breath. The skies cleared again, bright and sunny as before. He rubbed his forehead and toughed the pain out, sitting up straight on his wolf.

He turned to Vladstin.

"You're all wrong. I love Leron with all my heart. I do love him as a friend, as ruler, as the prince of my kingdom...."

Sangfroid lowered his voice, not because he was unsure, but he knew it was best for Leron not to hear him. "But I also love him more than that. I love him as someone who I want to spend my life with. I love him as someone who I want to hold when I wake up in the morning and when I go to bed at night."

"I love him just as much as he loves you. Do not insult my love."

At this, Vladstin went quiet, expression no longer playful.

He let Sangfroid go further and further away.

He was right. After all, it was wrong to look down on Sangfroid's feelings just because he dislikes them. Just because you dislike someone you love loving someone else, doesn't mean that you wouldn't consider the two of you as equals when it comes to unrequited yearning.

All is fair in love and war. Your fellow lover is your equal, your fellow opponent is your equal.

And the winner holds no liability for the loser. Whoever dies or ends up alone, it is not for him to be guilty about.

"I just wonder who the winner would be." Vladstin muttered to himself. "Which pair will be happy in the end?"

----------------------

Once they set up the tent again, Vladstin went out to find another inspiration for his poems. Leron was very worried because the last time he did so brought the unexpected encounter with another inhuman creature, so Sangfroid ordered him to stay within 100 meters.

Vladstin obliged and so he roamed about within line of sight, jogging like a stray dog amused with the smallest things he finds in the woods.

Of course, it was awkward back in the tents again.

"Sangfroid." Leron tried to break the silence. "What kind of food do you like?"

The Huntsman was busy passing the time by sharpening his weapon and making more by himself, and also to serve as a distraction from the heartache. He had made his own blacksmithing area by placing a cobblestone and creating the hammer and the anvil by himself using raw materials.

He stopped straightening the new arrowhead, hammer still on hand when Leron asked him.

"Um.... Why do you ask, Your Hig—Leron?"

"I'm planning to create lunch and dinner from now on, since you're busy with creating arrows." Leron said. "And I also feel obliged as your friend to know the things you like. I don't know why I didn't even bother to ask when we were children."

To be fair, Little Sangfroid always lets Big Brother Leron do the talking and just ask some questions here and there.

"I.... I suppose I'm fine with anything." Sangfroid said.

"You don't have any preference?" Leron asked. "Everyone has one. Come on, don't be afraid to tell me. I also want to get to know you more."

Sangfroid was in a tight spot. On one hand, he was touched that Prince Leron is trying to reopen their friendship and get to know each other better. But on the other....

He really does not have a favorite food.

He grew up eating what was handed to him, even if it was stale bread or salty dried fish.

Yet the look and Leron's deep blue eyes were so sincere, that he couldn't possibly disappoint him.

Sangfroid then racked his brain, sweat now pouring not because of the heat or the heavy labor, but of nervousness. But it was luckily not evident on his face.

"I suppose.... I like..... Fish?" He said.

"Alright." Leron nodded. "What kind of fish? What dish?"

"Um.... The fish soup you made the other day." Sangfroid said.

Leron frowned. "But I already made that. Anything else?"

Sangfroid wanted so badly to answer, 'I'll eat anything you want to feed me, Your Highness, even a bowl of dirt and mud.'

But he digressed and simply said. "Just that. It's my favorite so I can eat it again and again."

Leron tried to gauge the truthfulness of his words. Sangfroid does seem to be telling the truth he like his fish soup.

Not knowing that it was because he likes everything he cooks.

"Fish soup it is then." Leron smiled at him. "It'll be ready once you're done."

"Mn." Sangfroid's ears reddened from that smile, and he went back to hitting the metal arrowhead.

Leron went out to cook, and Sangfroid touched his own chest. It was warm.

A hundred meters away from them, sitting on a rock and writing on a sheepskin diary that used to hold a blue amulet, Vladstin felt this warmth too because of the blood he consumed.

He set down his makeshift pen and sighed, somehow from the mix of both satisfaction and melancholy.

He crumbled the leaf he had into pieces, and blew them into the air, a sad smile. "We were wrong, Mandrien.. He does love his prince very much."