Chapter 254 Alliance
The Fjord’s weather was very strange, yesterday had been a sunny, cloudless day, with an endlessly blue sky. But the sky was gloomy today, the wind was blowing and the thunder rolling, looking like a massive rainstorm was imminent.
Ashes held down her hair to prevent it from fluttering about wildly in the wind then stepped into Tilly’s home only to discover that there was a fat pigeon sitting on Tilly’s shoulder.
“Maggie?”
“Goo!” The pigeon raised its head, its eyes turned bright, it opened its wings and immediately threw itself at the doorway, only to gently be blocked by Ashes hand, “Turn into your human form so that we can talk.”
“Woo… Goo,” With fluttering wings, Maggie landed on the floor, shedding her feathers to reveal her original appearance. She opened her mouth and unhappily asked, “Do you have a hatred for pigeons?
“I’ve always felt that a bird that can speak is way too strange,” Ashes said laughingly and pulled up the girl that was sitting up from the ground, “At what time have you come back?”
“Just a moment ago, I was afraid that I would get caught up by the storm, my wing almost ended up broken,” she patted her chest. “Fortunately, I was able to reach Sleeping Island before the rain began falling.”
“Did you fly back… like this?” Ashes tapped her on the forehead, “Why didn’t you just turn into a swallow wouldn’t that have been much faster?”
“Oh…” Maggie’s eyes became wide, as if she had suddenly only just realized something, “I forgot, goo.”
Tilly couldn’t help but laugh, she then put down the letter in her hand and said, “I’m putting you through a lot of trouble. I already know about the news from that area, so for now, you can should go and look for Lotus or Molly and play with them, I will think about a good reply and notify you later.”
“Good, goo!” Maggie saluted and then hopped as she left the room.
“What did Roland Wimbledon have to say?” Waiting until the both of them were the only one left in the room, Ashes went over to Tilly and sat beside her on the woven mat. There, on the ground in front of them a map was spread out. Looking closely, she discovered that it depicted the terrain surrounding Border Town.
“This is his letter,” Tilly handed her a piece of paper, “I have to say, the witches he picked are indeed… quite special…”
Ashes quickly finished reading the letter given to her, unable to keep the frown on her forehead she asked “He actually chose Sylvie? Does he simply do not care about exposing his identity?”
“I don’t know,” Tilly said, not expressing her opinion, “Perhaps my summary about their abilities was too vague, so he was unable to do an in-depth investigation? Or it could be that he simply does not care if his identity is exposed to us, and might be trying to show his sincerity in cooperating? Of course, there is still another possibility…”
“He really could be your older brother,” Ashes finished her sentence, “And because of this he doesn’t care at all about Sylvie’s ability.”
“But this possibility is next to nothing,” she laughed at herself, “Who would know better than I the kind of person my older brother is? If he was indeed Roland Wimbledon, he would never chose to go against the Church in order to protect the witches. From young to old, the thing he has always been best at was with escaping. No matter what challenges or difficulties he was facing … Even when the king sent him to Border Town, he never went over to meet with “father” or tried raising any form of protest, even if it would only be a symbolic one.”
Ashes raised one eyebrow, “In short, him taking the initiative to pick Sylvie is a good thing for us. In that way we don’t need to think of an excuse to send him an additional witch, but those other witches… don’t tell me that you really want to agree to send them to him?”
“Why not?”
“Lotus is one of Sleeping Island’s most talented witches. If she is gone, who will build new mud houses or restore our old ones? If you want to create something, or transformation the island’s terrain, not having her ability to remodel the terrain would prove extremely inconvenient. After all, we are currently using less than 30% of Sleeping Islands terrain, there are still many places which can be transformed,” as she said this she raised one finger.
“There is also Honey, she can order the osprey to catch fish for everyone, the reason we can enjoy a variety of delicious fish soups every day is to her credit. As for Candle and Evelyn, sending them away, wouldn’t be such a big problem… In case you cannot refuse his request, can’t we just exchange those two witches for others who aren’t as useful?”
“What is useful, what is useless? By sending them to Border Town, I hope to obtain a new ally, rather than abandon our sisters,” Tilly’s expression turned grave, “No matter what kind of ability they have, by choosing to come to Sleeping Island, all of the witches have become our sisters. If we want to turn Sleeping Island into the home for witches, how could we afford to filter the already small number of witches according to whether their abilities are useful or not?”
Ashes had already seen her exposing this kind of expression during their time in the palace – it was the expression the 5th Princess would show whenever she was outraged, seeing this, Ashes couldn’t help but change her manner of address, “I’m sorry… Your Majesty, I just –“
Tilly sighed and then started unhurriedly, “Moreover, it’s hard to measure the ability of everyone according to some kind of standard. From among the more than one hundred witches, Roland has selected those five witches. Even including Candle and Evelyn, two that you have regarded as useless.
“Can you be really be certain that they are useless? Perhaps through this exchange, we will be able to figure out whether he choose the two by accident, or if he had seen something within them that we were just unable to recognize.” She paused, “No matter what, we are already such a small number of witches, every witch deserves to be fought for. They aren’t tools to we use to build a new home. Instead, we are all comrades holding the same goal in our sights, so you must never speak such words.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Ashes responded in a meek voice.
At this moment, lightning broke through the clouds, straight over the sea. As if it were a decree given by the Gods, it was immediately followed with an ear-splitting rolling of thunder. And together with the echo of the explosions, the rain also began to fall over Sleeping Island. At first, it fell sparse, but it then quickly turned into a hubbub. And the dense rain soon covered the outside scenery with a layer of fog and rain, even sometimes overshadowing the conversation between the two.
Ashes got up and closed the window, in order to keep the rain from drifting into the room. When she turned turning around, she saw Tilly sway twice, showing a somewhat wan and sallow expression on her face.
“Were you staying up all night?”
“Well,” Tilly called yawn. “All the books we brought back from the ruins were written in the same language. Moreover, I already found some common points, as long as I have enough time, I am sure that I can translate all of them.”
“Yeah, with enough time… now after getting rid of the nagging Church, there will certainly be sufficient time for you, you don’t need to study it all through the night.” Ashes knit her brow, “It could have a tremendous impact on your body.”
“Rest assured, I am a witch, my body won’t collapse so quickly.” The 5th Princess took a deep breath, “Moreover, I have a vague premonition – seeing the scene within the ruins gave me an uneasy feeling, so we have to decipher the content of these books as soon as possible… Oh, by the way, this time when the witches leave for Border Town, they will also bring one of the books along with them.”
“If even you cannot read it, the possibility that the witches from the Witch Cooperation Association will know it is even worse.”
“Well we will just have to take a chance,” Tilly said, “I heard that there have been ancient ruins found in the eastern forest. Furthermore, the origin of the Witch Cooperation Association is located in the Sea Wind Region, which is almost right next to the forest, we can’t say for sure whether some of them haven’t already seen this language. And if we can prove that they used the same language, it should mean that all those remains are from the same group of people.”
“Yes, I got it,” Ashes agreed.
“Also, it’s not the case that I blame you for your previous words, some of the words you said are reasonable – but that isn’t related to the part about the significance of their abilities.” Tilly reached out with her hand to stop Ashes from speaking, “I have reached an agreement with the chamber of commerce of the Crescent Moon Bay Caravan. They will start to migrate some ordinary people over to Sleeping Island by next spring. So if Lotus leaves for too long, it would affect the follow-up construction of the island, so before the winter comes I will have them all return to the Fjord.”
Hearing Tilly’s words Ashes said in relief, “Then everything should be fine.”
“But in order to avoid any kind of misunderstanding, I will lead several combat witches over to Border Town and help them to resist the attacks of the demonic beasts during the Months of Demons.” Tilly exposed a sly smile, “When that time comes, are you willing to go together with me?”
Ashes froze for a moment, but in the end had no other option than helplessly replied, “Of course, Your Majesty.”