RD 4 Ch 44

I stepped into the ornate room, Circe’s office.

A desk dominated the room with what seemed to be an endless stack of paperwork trying to creep over everything, including the woman that was just moments from being burried. The other end had a curtain and a fold out bed peeking out from where it hadn’t been fully closed.

Looks like she usually worked until she dropped.

"Bran," Circe said, sounding surprised. She looked up from the mound of paperwork on her desk, blinking at me several times as if expecting me to change. 

"Come on," I gestured. "If you don't, I'm going to come drag you away from that desk. You've already proved to me once that you won't stop working so easily."

Circe looked at the paperwork and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "It's fine. I was starting to not make much progress anyway."

"Sure you weren't," I smiled. "Now come on, unless you'd like me to drag you away.”

“You'd like that, wouldn't you? Are you a brute in bed? Wait, don't answer that. I'm sure Simone will happily answer it for me." Circe’s pink lips stretched into a smile. "I'm afraid I'm not as well-dressed as you are today, a rarity given that sometimes you fight in so little." She wore yet another toga, this one simple with the only splash of color being a few gold bands and a pink pendant on her chest that matched her earrings.

"What can I say? Heavy armor gets in the way. Now up," I shot her a look, not letting her stall any longer. "And besides, you look wonderful in everything."

"Why thank you. Also, I would point out that I get to choose the time of our date and I haven't chosen anything yet." She narrowed her eyes playfully.

"Yep, yep." I was done waiting for her to move, so I went around behind her and gently guided her out of the room. "And if this doesn't want to count as our date, then it doesn't have to. However, I am taking you out of here. I'm going to make sure you take care of yourself and get fresh air."

"Oh, we can go do that," Circe shrugged, stilling.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and more assertively lead her out of the office.

"Stars, Bath, Bed," I commanded. My tone brooked no argument, and Circe dropped her head like a scolded child and more reasonably let me guide her.

"You know, you can't just barge into a lady's room and demand she do things for you." She told me.

"Want to bet?" I grinned at her. "And also, if you were a little less obedient, that might have a little more truth to it."

"I can't help it. Your arms are so big and strong." She batted her lashes at me as I pushed her through her building. Several of her elites stopped and paused as they saw us. There was a look of utter disbelief as they saw me guiding Circe about.

"Don't mind us," I said with a smile. "Sometimes, you need to just make her do what's in her best interest." I thought the balcony that we'd first met on would be the best place to watch the stars and carefully guided her that way.

"Where are you taking me?" She asked, though there was no anger in her tone.

"Do you remember where we first met?" I asked, ushering her up the stairs.

"Ah, right. When I compared you to a fledgling little bird that had gotten lost," she chuckled. "How wrong I was."

"That's okay, I couldn't exactly introduce myself. 'Hi, I'm Bran and I know the future. Pleasure to meet you. Will you let me take over your clan?'" I held out my hand as if I was asking that question here and now.

Circe chuckled, "You're right. That would not have gone over well."

"Exactly, so I didn't bother. Would it work better now?" I teased. Though instead I ended up with the Mul Branova, which if I’m honest have worked out better.

"Given all we've seen, Zeus might do it for a price." She answered.

I groaned. "Why is he so concerned about system gold? Does he want more stats that badly?" In a way I was asking her as well.

"Yes, Bran, we all do. Some of us don't have the freakish ability to reset our stats. It’s hard to keep up.” She muttered the last but I caught it. “By the way, when are you going to do that again?" She asked.

I decided to pretend I didn’t hear her muttering. "Not soon. You're right, it's too good of an opportunity. I have the blood. That's not the problem. However, it's the stats that I'm more concerned with. Think about how much gold I'm saving every level I get before resetting it again," I mused. 

Circe grumbled under her breath, "You cheat."

"I don't cheat, I just have an unfair advantage. It's different. It's not like I'm actively doing something to cause this.”

“While you did send yourself back in time, perhaps we can count that as your instance of cheating," Circe grumbled again.

Opening a door to where I was fairly sure the balcony was, I realized I had made a grave error. The balcony we were heading for was attached to her bedroom.

Suddenly, me holding onto her tightly and dragging her back to the bedroom had a very different connotation than I was prepared for.

Only a large curtain separated her actual bed from the room that I had remembered. It seemed that from the direction she had taken me from the balcony before, I had never noticed that aspect.

I cleared my throat, "I didn't realize this was your bedroom." 

Circe hummed and batted her lashes, "And here I thought seeing the stars from my balcony was the new Hetflix and Chill. How disappointing." 

I tapped her on the forehead, "Don't be a fake flirt with me. You don't need to do it to get any sort of advantage. All I wanted was to make you take a break from working.” I brought her over to the balcony to look out at the stars. At this point, I couldn’t not do it. Besides, it was relaxing.

"Is there something we're looking for?" she asked. 

"Nothing in particular. I have always found the stars calming," I said glancing up at the tapestry of the night, little glimmering dots like holes in a cloth.

Circe glanced at me out of the corner of her eyes, "You're well aware that I've stared at the stars enough to have them memorized, right?" 

I shrugged, "It doesn't make them any less beautiful or the idea of space any less vast. I've told you there are other worlds, right? People come from them during the Second Demon War." I gestured out at the stars, "Perhaps those people I knew are out there right now." 

Circe looked back up at them, a new expression on her face, "I hadn't thought about that. The question of whether there's life out there has always kind of been a stupid rhetorical one to me. Because whether or not there's more life out there doesn't matter because we'll simply never see them." 

I crossed my arms and leaned against a pillar, turning away from the stars and regarding Circe, "That sounds rather embittered if I do say so myself." 

"It's not embittered," she gestured at the stars, "Something we will never reach. Certainly humans are ingenious and we've reached relatively close planets. And perhaps there's the dream of reaching even further. Bran, you and I both know, logically speaking, that the difference between here and the next star is like the difference between an atom and a planet. Our success so far is a rounding error in the scale of things." 

I shook my head and turned back to the balcony, leaning against it, "You care too much about that logic. Why does it matter? It's not like you're going to die in the next ten years, hundred years, thousand years. Instead we can always progress, march forward." 

Circe's expression grew sharp, “By your own words, my death is already coming. Don't I die in the First Demon War? Or perhaps the other me of your time would already be dead because she wasn’t strong enough.”

Her words brought down the mood. There it was, some of Circe’s more recent hunger had a purpose. Not that she’d die standing next to me, but then again she wasn’t the kind of woman to want to rely on others.

“If you're so concerned about dying, then why not live a little? From where I stand, I admit to only having a partial view. But since traveling with me, you've been smiling more. Even Simone has noticed that you've seemed happier." I tried to cheer her up. 

"Is that so?" Circe smirked, "Perhaps with you, I've seen a few new things. And when I'm around you, I don't feel like all of the burden is on my shoulders. Every now and then, it's nice to be a follower. Thank you." Those final words came out as almost a whisper.

"You can be a follower anytime you want, Circe," I said, stepping up close to her. 

She was forced to tilt her head back due to our size difference. Her eyes reflected some of the stars like little diamonds floating in her vision. "Doesn't quite work that way, Bran," she replied.

I only shrugged. "You can make the decision here and now to just follow me wherever I go. If the decision fatigue has you so bad, then just give it up."

"And what, be like one of your many Mul Branova that go starry-eyed every time you enter a room? Only to do whatever it is you say or want?" she retorted. 

I shrugged again. "You're your own woman, Circe. I wouldn't expect you to act like anyone else. However, even if you want to just take a break from everything to follow me for a time and let me make the decisions, all you have to do is be there to lend your strength. It's not like I'm going to go against your morals or the clan you care so dearly about."

"Just give it all up…" Circe said again, though it wasn't really a question or a statement. It was her repeating the idea to herself. "I don't think I can do that, Bran," she confessed. 

I held my hands up. "I'm not asking you to. I'm simply giving you the option. Should it all become too much, you're welcome to lay your burdens on my shoulder. And I'll carry them until you want them back."

Her eyes searched mine for a long moment in the starlight. She stepped forward and for a brief second, I thought she was about to kiss me. Instead, her forehead softly thudded against my chest. 

"Damn you," she mumbled under her breath. 

"You're welcome," I said, choosing to misunderstand her words.

She looked up through her eyelashes at me with a glare. "Thank you," she said more clearly this time, and went up on her tiptoes to place a peck on my cheek. "Now," she said firmly, settling back on her heels, "I'm going to go rest."

"Perfect," I said quickly. "I'll get someone to stand outside your door and have them directed to me in your office."

She watched me carefully and then shook her head as she walked away. "Tomorrow morning I'm going to remind you that you offered this and did it to yourself."

I smiled. How bad could it actually be?