She huffs—exasperation and reluctant acceptance warring in the sound.
Her attention shifts to the food before her—perfectly prepared, arranged by magic that serves her needs without requiring direction, more appetizing than anything the Academy's normal provisions could provide.
Her stomach growls.
The sound reminds us both why she came to this library in the first place, following aromas that promised satisfaction her depleted body desperately required.
"I still hate you."
The declaration emerges as grumble, defeat saturating words that attempt defiance but land somewhere closer to resignation.
She picks up her fork.
Her knife.
And begins to eat.
Watching her becomes a new fond enjoyment—seeing the way her eyes close briefly at the first bite, the way tension releases from her shoulders as nutrition finally reaches a system too long deprived, the way her posture shifts from defensive to simply tired as the food begins its work of restoration.
Beautiful even while eating.
Perhaps especially while eating.
Alive in ways that don't fully manifest until basic needs are being met.
I feel something dangerously close to relief as I watch her consume what my magic has provided.
She looked so sickly in that pod—pale and fragile and diminished in ways that made my chest tight with worry I didn't want to acknowledge. The days she spent unconscious, surrounded by magical monitoring equipment and the anxious attention of bond mates who didn't understand what was happening to her... those were difficult to witness even from the distance I maintained.
My Queen.
Finally here.
Finally eating.
Finally beginning the journey toward becoming what she's meant to be.
I wonder if I can truly be of service to her as I hoped.
The question carries weight that centuries of preparation can't fully address. I've planned, trained, accumulated knowledge and power specifically for this purpose—but plans survive contact with reality in unpredictable ways. She might reject my guidance. Her other bond mates might view my presence as threat rather than asset. The trials ahead might prove impossible despite everything I've prepared.
And she thinks of me as a villain.
The thought makes my smirk return.
In the stories she's been told, in the romance novels that apparently shape modern understanding of bonded relationships, villains are obstacles to be overcome. They're opposition to be defeated, threats to be neutralized, darkness to be conquered by heroes who earn their victories through moral superiority and righteous determination.
But villains understand truths that heroes often miss.
They know that the world doesn't organize itself into convenient categories of good and evil. They recognize that power requires sacrifice, that victory demands actions heroes find distasteful, that survival sometimes means doing things that nobody wants to acknowledge afterward.
And villains get to have fun that heroes deny themselves.
The manipulation. The scheming. The particular pleasure of watching plans unfold exactly as designed, pieces falling into place with satisfying precision, outcomes arriving that others never saw coming.
I've spent centuries as the villain of my own story—the mysterious figure lurking in academy shadows, the unknown presence that students whisper about without ever truly seeing, the power that maintains systems nobody questions because questioning would reveal truths they're not prepared to handle.
And now my Queen is here.
