Goddess Tricked Me into a Breeding Mission (And I Love It) Chapter 102: The Girl Who Figured Lys Out

Steam rose from bowls of porridge and plates of fresh bread, but no one had touched much of it yet. The kitchen slled of warm oats and woodsmoke, ordinary morning slls that sat oddly against the tension still left over from the night before.

Mitsu sat close to Mira, her hands folded tightly in her lap, her eyes moving around the table without settling on anyone for long. Elara passed around a pitcher of water with the focused quiet of soone who needed sothing to do with her hands. Mira kept glancing at the door, while Sara stood near the entrance with Selene beside her, both still in yesterday’s clothes, both holding their coats over one arm.

Selene had not sat down. She stood slightly apart from Sara, close enough to the door that she could leave quickly if she needed to, her posture straight and her expression composed in the careful way of soone who has decided composure is the safest option in a room full of people she doesn’t know well.

Mitsu had been watching her since she ca downstairs. Not staring, just noticing, the way Mitsu notices things, quietly, from the side of her attention.

After a minute of everyone pretending to be interested in their bowls, Mitsu looked at Lys. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened again, her voice coming out smaller than she intended. "I woke up, and there were voices everywhere, and the house was... I wasn’t sure what was happening." She looked down at her hands. "Mira told so of it, but I didn’t want to ask too many questions before you were awake. Only..." She hesitated again. "Is that really true, that there’s an engagent now? Is that, did sothing go wrong last night, or..."

She trailed off and didn’t finish, which was its own kind of question.

Lys set down his spoon. He glanced once at Selene, then back at Mitsu, and started from the beginning.

He kept it simple. The council eting, the argunt about who would handle the guild’s arrival, and Sara standing her ground. He described how it escalated without naming who was at fault for what. When he got to the crowd outside the house, he said only that things had gotten complicated and that Selene had been there and that the engagent had co out of a conversation that needed to happen. He did not editorialize. He just stated the shape of events and left the details inside their outlines.

Mitsu listened to all of it without interrupting. As he talked, her expression moved through several things, confusion at first, then a kind of careful attention, then sothing closer to disbelief, though she didn’t let it beco dramatic. When he finished, she was quiet for a mont.

"So all the people outside yesterday," she said slowly. "The lanterns. The noise. All of that was because of..." She stopped, looking at her bowl. "I heard it from Mira’s room. But I didn’t know what it was. I thought maybe I’d imagined it or sothing."

"Told you, you didn’t imagine it," Mira said.

Mitsu nodded, still looking at her bowl. Then, in a voice that was barely above a murmur: "Was it because of what happened in the market square? Is that why everything..." She stopped again. "I an. If the bucket hadn’t, if I hadn’t..."

"No, It’s not your fault," Lys said.

She looked up at him.

"Things were already moving before the square," he said. "The council, the guild, all of it. That was already building. What happened yesterday was just..." He searched for the right word. "Moved the tiline a little bit. You can say that was bound to happen. Sothing closer to it, at least."

Elara set down the pitcher and put her hand briefly over Mitsu’s, where it rested on the table. "The square was not your doing, sweetheart. You were just carrying a bucket. That is all you did. Don’t bla yourself over so spilled water."

Mira opened her mouth, clearly ready to say sothing emphatic about whose fault it actually was, and then her eyes moved to Selene, still standing near the door, and she closed it again, picking up her spoon instead.

The table went quiet in a different way than before. Not uncomfortable exactly, just aware of itself. Selene had not moved from her position. Her expression had not changed either. But sothing in the set of her shoulders had shifted when the conversation touched on the square, a slight tension that she didn’t let beco visible in her face.

Sara, who had been watching all of this with the attentiveness of soone taking inventory, looked at Selene. Then she said, mildly: "Selene. Why don’t you sit down and eat sothing? You haven’t had anything since last night."

It was not a question. Selene heard the firmness under it, so she moved to the table without arguing, taking the empty chair beside Sara. Elara set a bowl in front of her without glancing at her, the sa way she’d set bowls in front of everyone else. But still, it made Selene feel bad for so reason.

The al picked up again. Mira started talking about sothing that had nothing to do with any of it, a problem with her loom chanism that she’d been turning over in her head all morning, and the conversation moved with her, loose and easy, the way Mira could always pull a room. Elara sotis asked questions about this or that. Mitsu listened with genuine interest, her posture gradually unknotting.

Only Selene ate in silence. She didn’t contribute much, but she ate, and she didn’t look like soone waiting to leave.

At so point, Mira said sothing that made Mitsu laugh, quick and soft, surprised coming out of her, and Mira grinned at the sound of it like she’d won sothing.

Lys watched this from his side of the table and said nothing, which was the right thing to do, he felt.

-----

It was after the plates were mostly cleared, when the al had wound down to the comfortable nothing of people sitting with warm cups, that Sara looked at Selene again.

"Tell her," Sara said.

Selene glanced at her. "Now?"

"What? Didn’t you say you would if you got the chance?" Sara’s tone was easy, not unkind, pushing Selene to do sothing she wasn’t comfortable with. "She is right here."

Selene set down her cup slowly and looked across the table at Mitsu, who had gone still, her hands wrapped around her own cup, eyes down. Probably realizing what Selene was going to say now.

"Uhh, Mitsu. I owe you an apology," Selene said. Her voice was level. Not warm exactly, but sowhat direct, which took its own kind of effort. "What I did in the square was wrong. The water spilling was an accident. I knew that, but I still responded the way I did." She glanced at everyone present before saying the last thing. "For that, I’m sorry."

Mitsu didn’t say anything imdiately. The silence between them stretched one second, then two.

Then, slowly, she lifted her head. Her cheeks were flushed, and she wasn’t quite eting Selene’s eyes, but she was looking in the direction of them, which for Mitsu was close enough to direct.

She thought for a mont. Then she put her cup down and reached across the table, not quite far enough; she stretched a little and stopped halfway, her hand open, an offering more than a demand.

Selene looked at it. Then she leaned forward and shook it.

Mitsu withdrew her hand, folded it back in her lap, and went quiet again in the way she went quiet when she was working sothing out in her mind. The table waited for her to say sothing, but she was taking her sweet ti to do it, without quite aning to.

"You know," Mitsu started, then stopped.

Mira looked at her with a curious look. "What?"

Mitsu shook her head a little. "Uh, no, forget it. I was just thinking. It is probably nothing."

"Say it," Mira said.

Mitsu looked at her lap. Her voice ca out carefully, like she was placing each word down before stepping on it. "I just thought it was interesting. What Lys did for . And then..." She glanced toward Selene, then away again. "I’m sorry. I don’t an to say anything strange."

"You’re not saying anything strange, just spill it, before I get real angry now," Sara said with a frustrated expression. Clearly frustrated by her way of making everyone curious about her inner thoughts, then not letting them know.

Mitsu took a breath.

She looked at her cup first, then at the table, like she was checking whether the thought was worth saying out loud. Then she began, quietly: "You know, I keep thinking about sothing. Since this morning."

Everyone’s focus was on her now. The table just waited like what cos out now might be very important. As if knowing what goes on in Mitsu’s mind was worth gold to them.

"When Lys stepped in at the square," she said, "I hadn’t asked him to. We were neighbors for a little while, only when he was recovering, but that was all. He barely knew . There was no reason for him to get involved in sothing that had nothing to do with him." She paused for a while. "And then, when I was worried about losing my job at the inn, he offered a place here. Just like that. Without asking for that either."

She turned her cup slowly with both hands. "I kept trying to figure out what he got from any of it, but I just couldn’t find anything. There was nothing in it for him either ti."

Lys was looking at his cup. He had the expression of soone who had not yet understood that he was the subject of the conversation.

"And then I heard about last night from Mira," Mitsu continued, her voice dropping slightly, "and I was listening to everything Lys just told us, and I..." She stopped. Pressed her lips together. Started again more carefully. "I’m probably reading it wrong. I do that sotis. But it started to feel like the sa thing to . The sa reason."

Mira leaned forward a little without aning to.

Mitsu kept her eyes on the table. "He saw what happened in the square, and he saw where it was going to leave , so he stepped in. And then last night too, he saw what his actions might do to Selene’s situation, her reputation, her standing, all of it, so he might have..." She hesitated, choosing the words slowly. "He might have stepped in the sa way. Because I think that is just what he does. It feels to that when he sees trouble coming for soone, he puts himself in front of it. Not because they asked. Not because there’s anything in it for him." She took a short pause, then said the last part slowly. "I think that’s just what he is."

The room was very still, hearing her words. Considering it in their minds. Replaying the events until now, as she was speaking.

She finally glanced up, not at Lys, but in the general direction of the table’s center. "So in that way, maybe Selene and I are not so different from him." Her voice was barely above a murmur. She still continued, "He helped us both. Just in different ways, for the sa reason."

No one spoke, feeling everything she said might have been true all along. It’s just they didn’t realise it till she pointed it out.

Mira was staring at her brother with an expression that had moved past surprise into sothing quieter, the look of soone who had just heard sothing that confird that they had always been half-known about Lys.

Elara’s hand was flat on the table, perfectly still, her eyes soft and fixed on Lys in the way mothers look at their children when they’re proud and worried at the sa ti. Sara had her head tilted slightly, studying him with an attention that was different from her usual assessnt, less strategic, more personal.

Selene had not moved. Her eyes were on the table in front of her. Whatever was working through her face, she was keeping it below the surface, but the effort of it was faintly visible in the stillness of her expression. She was reevaluating Lys in her mind now.

Lys had gone very quiet in the way a person goes quiet when sothing has landed, and they don’t have an imdiate way out of it. The heat of embarrassnt had reached his face before he could stop it. He looked at his cup for one second. Then two. And as soon as he felt soone was gonna comnt about what Mitsu said just now, he pushed his chair back and stood up.

"Uhh, I still feel a little tired, maybe I need so sleep," he said, and his voice ca out almost like he was trying to flee from here. "I’ll be in my room sleeping."

He didn’t look at anyone on his way to his room. The bedroom door closed behind him, not with a slam, not with a bang. Just a little louder than usual.

The kitchen stayed where it was as he left.

Mira was still looking at the empty chair. Mitsu had gone red to her ears and was staring hard at the table with the focused attention of soone trying to disappear without moving. Elara quietly picked up a bowl and stacked it on top of another one. The soft knock of ceramic was the only sound in the room.

Sara and Selene had not yet moved toward the door.

A few seconds passed. Then Selene turned her head and looked at the staircase. Just once. Not long. Her expression gave nothing away, but she looked up, so that was itself sothing.

Then she lifted her coat from the back of her chair, put it over her arm, and walked to the door.

Sara followed her out before saying sothing to Mira.