Chapter 11: The Whole Armada Empire is in Flames! {Johan/Abellion's Flashback} (9)
The sunlight that filtered through the cracks in the log cabin walls was harsh and unforgiving. It sliced through the gloom, landing directly on the bed where two days of chaotic, magically induced fever had finally broken.
After a whole two days Olivia woke up with a tired look on her face.
Consciousness didn't return to her all at once; it came in slow, painful waves. Her head felt heavy, as if stuffed with cotton, and her limbs ached with a deep, muscular exhaustion that she had never felt before, not even after days of royal etiquette training or sword practice. She blinked, her green eyes adjusting to the unfamiliar wooden ceiling beams.
She tried to sit up, but a sharp chill ran down her spine, making her shiver violently.
"AUWWWAHH, I'm so damn tired, and why it's so cold?"
Her voice was hoarse, dry as sandpaper. She rubbed her arms, expecting to feel the smooth silk of her nightgown or the rough fabric of her travel clothes. Instead, she felt skin. Bare, cold skin.
Olivia then look on her body, she is naked as in whole naked, from up to down she is fully naked.
The realization hit her like a bucket of ice water. The blanket had slipped down to her waist, revealing everything. Her mind raced, trying to piece together the fragmented memories of the last forty-eight hours. She remembered the poison. She remembered the bear. She remembered the rude human boy carrying her. She remembered drinking the antidote.
And then… a blur. A hot, red, overwhelming blur of desire and instinct.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" Olivia screamed mix with shock and fear.
She scrambled backward, pulling the coarse blanket up to her chin, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
'No way there's no way! Why, why did this happen?!"
She frantically scanned the bed. Then she look under the bedsheet, it's full of cum and sweat and including blood which means she was not a virgin anymore.
The visual evidence was undeniable. The distinct, metallic scent of blood mixed with the musky smell of intimacy filled the small room. For an Elf, and especially a Royal High Elf, chastity was not just a social construct; it was a spiritual state, a source of mana purity. To lose it before marriage, and to a human stranger no less, was a catastrophe of earth-shattering proportions.
"You're damn awake."
The voice was low, flat, and devoid of any emotion.
Olivia then saw Abellion nonchanlanty rest his whole body on the door.
He was standing there, leaning against the wooden frame with his arms crossed. He looked terrible. There were dark circles under his purple eyes, his hair was a mess, and he looked thinner, as if he hadn't eaten or slept in days. But Olivia didn't see his exhaustion; she only saw the perpetrator.
She realize Abellion was the one who did it with her, he's the one who stole her virginity.
The shame transmuted instantly into blinding rage. The haughty pride of the Elven Princess, which had been stripped away by the poison, returned with a vengeance.
And after a whole minute she finally decide to stand up while covering her body with the bed sheet. She marched toward him, her legs shaking but her resolve iron.
-SLAP!
The sound echoed sharply in the small cabin.
"How?! How dare do this to me?! I know, hic hic, i know i should not trust you!"
Tears streamed down her face, hot and angry. Olivia look on Abellion with anger and enrage on what happen between them. She felt violated, used, and utterly ruined. In her mind, he had taken advantage of her weakened state. He had drugged her with that "antidote" and used her.
Abellion didn't answer.
He stood there, taking the slap without flinching. His cheek turned red, but his expression remained impassive. Internally, however, a storm was brewing.
He knew it's partly his fault if he just let her die by the poison or letting the bear eat her this wouldn't happen. He had made the choice to intervene. He had made the choice to give her the Moon-Pale Lily extract, knowing the 1.5% risk existed.
'Way to go me, i know this would happen ofc she could not remember what really happen for the past 2 days.'
He knew she was operating on incomplete data. She remembered the sex, but she didn't remember who started it. She didn't remember the magical compulsion that had turned her into the aggressor. But seeing her crying, wrapped in a sheet, looking so broken... he couldn't bring himself to say, "Actually, you raped me." Not yet.
-SLAP!
She struck him again, harder this time.
Olivia slap her again "I HATE YOU!!!"
The words were venomous. She was trembling with fury, pointing a shaking finger at the open door.
"Get out!!" Olivia order Abellion to get out.
Abellion blinked. The absurdity of the situation almost made him laugh. This was his house. He built it log by log. He hunted the food. He made the bed she had just defiled. And now, she was kicking him out?
He wanted to retort because this is his damn house but he couldn't because he decide to let her cool.
Arguing with a hysterical, traumatized princess who possessed high-level magic was a recipe for getting the cabin blown up. He needed to de-escalate.
'Insane she really want me to get out on my own house?! Haah, let's just do what she wants.'
He sighed, raising his hands in surrender. Without a word, he turned and walked out the door, closing it gently behind him, leaving the princess alone with her misplaced rage.
The morning air outside was crisp and clean, a stark contrast to the heavy atmosphere inside the cabin. Abellion walked to the center of his clearing, taking a deep breath.
He felt drained. Literally. The Necro-Blight antidote's side effect didn't just cause arousal; it turned the user into a mana vampire. For two days, Olivia had instinctively drained his life force to fuel her recovery and her lust, only keeping him alive by casting unconscious regeneration spells on him so she could continue. It was a hellish loop of exhaustion and forced recovery.
Abellion then spent his morning to do his exercising routine.
It was sluggish at first. His limbs felt like lead. But he pushed through. Push-ups. Sit-ups. Spear drills. He needed to reclaim ownership of his body. He needed to sweat out the lingering feeling of helplessness.
After that Abellion took a break.
He sat on the chopping block, wiping sweat from his forehead. The sun was high now; it was well past noon. His stomach gave a painful lurch.
"What should i eat this lunch? I can't even go inside because of that damn elf."
He looked wistfully at the cabin door. His dried meat, his fresh water, his cooking pot—everything was inside with the angry princess.
"Sigh i was the one who got rape and now i'm the who suffers like it's not my damn fault i mean partly yeah but not fully."
He kicked at the dirt. Abellion was right it's not his fault that she was unlucky to get the in-heat effect and even she's the one who rape and dried Abellion up.
He had been the victim of a magical accident, yet he was out here starving while the aggressor was barricaded in his bedroom. The injustice of it stung, but the lingering guilt of the survivor—and the man who administered the potion—kept him rooted to the spot.
-CLICK!
The sound of the latch lifting drew his attention instantly. The door open and Abellion look back.
Standing in the doorway was Olivia. She had found her tattered travel clothes and put them back on. She had clearly tried to clean herself up using the basin of water he kept near the hearth. Her pink hair was combed back with her fingers, and her posture was rigid.
It was Olivia with her whole suit, it seems she's finally come to her senses.
She didn't look angry anymore. She looked… hollow. Confused. The gaps in her memory were clearly starting to terrify her more than the events she could recall.
Olivia look Abellion, after a gruesome 5 minutes she first speak.
The silence stretched until it was painful. She gripped the doorframe, her knuckles white.
"Could you tell me what really happened?"
Her voice was small, trembling. It wasn't an accusation; it was a plea for truth.
Abellion sighed "This will be long but if you really want to know then i'll let you know everything what really happened for the past 2 days."
He stood up and walked closer, stopping a respectful distance away. He kept his voice clinical, factual. He didn't want to shame her, but he needed to clear his name.
Abellion then told her everything what happened.
He explained the Moon-Pale Lily. He explained the 1.5% chance of 'Mana Overload Arousal.' He described how she woke up not with a clear mind, but with eyes glowing with magical compulsion.
Including her raping him, drying his entire stamina and using her regeneration spell to regen his stamina and continue drying him up for a whole 2 days.
He detailed how he tried to stop her, how she overpowered him with Elven strength boosted by the antidote, and how she trapped him in a cycle of intimacy that he couldn't escape.
Olivia listened, her face draining of color until she was as pale as the moon. The memories, triggered by his words, came flooding back. Not the distorted version where she was a victim, but the true version. The flashes of her pinning him down. Her demanding touch. Her magical coercion.
"So that's what really happened, i admit it was partly my fault but it's fully the antidote's fault." Abellion finished, trying to offer her a lifeline, a way to blame the magic rather than herself.
"I see."
Olivia just said two words because she knew how absurd what she heard but she knew he is telling the truth, and she have a fragment of memories on what happen.
The horror on her face was profound. She wasn't just a woman who had lost her virtue; she was a princess who had assaulted her savior. The code of chivalry, the honor of the High Elves—she had shattered it all.
"I'-i'm sorry, if i just stop you from doing it this would not happened, but you are stronger than me and truly i'm so sorry Olivia."
Abellion drop his head in shame. Even knowing the truth, he felt the weight of it. He knew what he had done, elves chastity are the most valuable thing for them than the whole world and he stole her chastity which was the most valuable thing and worse they are both strangers. He felt like he had failed to protect her from herself.
After awhile Olivia spoke "I'm sorry on what i have done, and..."
She stepped off the porch, walking toward him. Her green eyes were swimming with unshed tears.
Olivia look on Abellion not with the emotions of fear, disgust, and anger but sorrow and regret.
She saw the bruises on his neck—marks she had left. She saw the exhaustion in his posture—exhaustion she had caused.
"It's fully my fault."
"No,no,no! It is my fault princess i-i" Before Abellion could continue to reply.
Olivia gesture her hand as a sign to stop on whatever the reasons because she doesn't want to hear anything. She shook her head firmly. She was done with excuses. She was a royal, and royals took responsibility.
She fully blame herself because it was her entire fault and she really regret on what she had done to him and including the slap. She had struck the man who saved her life and then endured her madness.
"Stop, i don't want to hear your reasons, and also sorry for slapping you."
She wiped her eyes, steeling herself. The air between them was thick with awkwardness and shared trauma. They couldn't stay here. The cabin, once a sanctuary, was now a tomb of their shared mistake.
Olivia continue "After this, i decide to leave in evening."
"I see."
Abellion could not reply more than two words because of the situation and this might be better to leaver him and this area. If she stayed, the guilt would eat them both alive. If she left, maybe they could pretend this fever dream never happened.
"I will escort to a nearby town."
He couldn't let her walk alone. Not after everything.
"Thanks Abel."
Olivia thank for his offer and even after what happened he stills want to help her which put Olivia to feel more guilt and regret on what happened. She looked at him, really looked at him, and saw not a villain, but a tragedy she had helped write.
---
The trek to the town of Theo was silent. They walked side by side through the darkening forest, the tension palpable. Abellion kept his spear ready, scanning for monsters, protective to the very end. Olivia walked with her head down, her mind a whirlwind of conflicting emotions.
The town of Theo was a small border settlement, bustling with merchants and farmers. As the lights of the town came into view, the reality of their separation set in. This was the end of their strange, violent, intimate entanglement.
After that, it was already evening and both Abellion and Olivia finally arrived on the town of Theo.
They stopped near the caravan station where carriages for the capital were being loaded. The noise of the town provided a buffer, allowing them to speak without the suffocating silence of the forest.
"Well this is far i can only go princess." Abellion stopped in the shadows, not wanting to be seen by too many people.
Olivia turned to him. She looked different now—less like a haughty princess, more like a young woman who had seen too much of the world too quickly.
"Thank you, thank you truly Abel and..."
She hesitated, then reached out.
Olivia hold Abellion's hand and look him eye in eye. Her skin was warm against his. The last time they touched, it was frantic and clouded by magic. Now, it was gentle.
"It's not your fault alright, i already forgive you."
She needed him to hear that. She needed him to know that she didn't view him as a monster or a defiler.
Abellion look at her and then smiled, a genuine smiled with relief.
The knot of guilt in his chest, the one that had been tightening since he mixed the antidote, finally loosened.
"Thank you, forgiving me and sorry."
Abellion start crying. He didn't mean to. The tears just leaked out, a physical release of the stress, the fear, and the bizarre trauma of the last two days. He knew what he had done and he still regret it.
"Hic, hic i-i truly thank you for forgiveness princess."
Olivia pat his shoulder, a clumsy but kind gesture of comfort. She watched him for a moment, memorizing his face—the golden hair, the purple eyes, the tears.
And continue to climb on the carriage. She paid the driver with a ring pulled from her finger, securing a private berth. She paused at the door, looking back one last time.
"See you later, Abel." Olivia wave before she could get inside.
It was a promise, or perhaps a threat, neither of them knew which.
Abel waved back "See you again, princess and goodbye."
Slowly the carriage disappear on Abellion's sight. The wheels clattered over the cobblestones, carrying away the Elven Princess and the chaos she brought.
Abellion stood there long after the carriage had vanished into the night. The town of Theo bustled around him, but he felt utterly alone.
'I just hope you will forget everything and me, princess.'
He knew the plot of the novel. He knew that Olivia was destined to become the 'Avenger of the Elves,' a villainess who would drown the Empire in blood to pay for the sins against her people. In the original story, her heart was hardened by cruelty and isolation.
But here? Here, she had been saved. She had experienced kindness, however messy and complicated it was. She had learned forgiveness.
Abellion look on the moon and said "I just hope this time she will choose a path not of revenge but peace and forgiveness."
The moon hung heavy and full in the sky, indifferent to the plights of mortals. Abellion projected his hopes onto it.
Abellion wished to Olivia to not chose the path of villainess and will not avenge her race and rather choose peace and forgiveness.
If she could forgive him—the man who took her most precious possession—maybe she could forgive the world. Maybe he hadn't ruined the plot; maybe he had saved it.
'I'm really glad.'
A sense of melancholy settled over him. He turned away from the town, facing the dark tree line of the forest. His home awaited. It would be empty now, quiet.
'She is kind to forgive me' Abellion sighed and walk away to the town and go back to the forest and his home.
His boots crunched on the gravel path. He was returning to his solitude, to his training, to his preparation for a future he was desperately trying to avoid.
He cast one last look over his shoulder, toward the road the carriage had taken.
'I hope we will not cross our paths again.'
It was a futile hope, and deep down, the former mafia boss knew it. Fate had a way of dragging people back together, especially those bound by secrets of blood and moonlight. But for tonight, he could pretend it was over.