The mory started playing.
From the looks of it, it was a simple one. Princess Orchid walking in a garden, a tall man by her side. The garden was similar to the one in the palace, one that Anna knew by heart due to how many tis she’d had tea with the queen in them.
"You should take a break from work, my chaos. We could visit the South. Deryn has uncovered a new research about the Old World. We can attend his lecture." The man said in a familiar voice.
Drax.
He looked softer around the edges of his face, although his dual colored eyes still held the seductive charm Anna recognized from the previous mories, he looked happy. Content. His long hair was tied into a ssy braid, and his clothes were simple— a blue silk shirt and dark pants and boots. He looked elegant and very handso.
Together, the pair was a striking one. Princess Orchid in her regal clothes and silver hair and jewels, and Drax in a simple but tasteful outfit.
They walked side by side, their shoulders lightly brushing.
It was the one ti Anna saw Princess Orchid relaxed in her mories so far.
"The South? I don’t like visiting often. Their worship is dreadfully boring."
Drax laughed. A llow, silky sound. "You’re the first person I’ve t who hates being worshipped. Why is that?"
"No particular reason. And Deryn is such a bore. He prefers to talk and talk about books but he’s never step foot in a lab. He’d never understand anything."
A light drizzle started. Princess Orchid glared at the sky with eyes so icy the rain would have frozen into pellets of ice.
"Easy now," Drax purred, lacing his fingers with hers. She looked away from the clouds and t his eyes. "We’ll go to the South. In three days, deal?"
"What exactly do you want to do in the south?"
"Spend ti with my lovely wife? Is that too little to ask?" He brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her knuckles. One after the other. Each kiss lasting a little longer than the previous one. His eyes never strayed from hers. "What do you say to that, my chaos?" He murmured, his eyes shining with an ulterior motive.
"I suppose I’d need Deryn’s new research. It could be the final piece of the puzzle for my project."
"The Assistant project ?"
Princess Orchid smiled. A real smile. "You rembered."
Drax straightened, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand delicately, like he was stroking the petals of a flower and was too scared to bruise it.
"I rember everything you tell , my chaos. Have you given it a na yet?" He pulled her flush against him, gazing down at her with a soft expression.
"You pick one. I’m not the best at naming things."
"Leila."
She laughed. "You didn’t even pause to think...Leila? You don’t an..."
Drax’s eyes softened even more. His hand on the small of her back ca to rest on her stomach. "Yes. It’s poetic, don’t you think? Naming your little assistant after our daughter?"
The mory ended.
AI Orchid’s angry sigh brought Anna back to the present. "No. No. Fucking no! Where is that stupid—"
Before Anna could speak, another mory began playing.
And another.
And another.
And another.
Anna didn’t know where she began and where the real Orchid began.
As the mories played, sothing inside her began to blur. Sothing deeply fundantal to her sanity, sothing she had held onto every single day since she ca into this cursed world.
She lost count of the mories.
Deep down, she knew that the System or AI Orchid, one of them, was punishing her. There was no alternative explanation for forcing so many heartless and downright cruel mories on her at once.
By the ti the mory containing fixing the detectors ca along, Anna felt like her consciousness had been put in a blender and reduced to brain goop.
She had no idea how much ti passed.
At one point, didn’t even know where she was.
She stopped fighting. The mory went on for what felt like an eternity.
I’m going to die. Anna’s thoughts echoed the sa sentence.
I’m.
Going.
To.
Die.
****
The next ti she opened her eyes, silence was the first thing she registered.
Then a warm hand stroking through her hair.
Then sothing hard and warm...but also soft under her head.
The thing moved, and a voice ca from above her. "Your highness? Are you awake?"
For three seconds, she was completely out of it. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked above her. A handso face ca into view, soft features frad with dazzling golden hair.
Golden hair. Green eyes. A perpetually glib smile.
Anna gasped and shot upright.
A wave of dizziness knocked into her, causing her to groan and grab a hold of her head. "Fuck..."
"Have so water, your highness."
Anna’s head turned around slowly, like a malfunctioning robot, till she glanced at him.
It took one second for everything to fall into place.
"Was I laying on your lap?" She asked, her voice cold and rciless.
"Yes." He replied, either oblivious to her anger or deciding not to care about it.
Anna sighed. "Look, Tristan, what on Gods beautiful earth made you think it was okay to do that?! What the fuck is your problem?! I’m married, okay? Married!"
Tristan blinked, confusion on his face.
Anna found it weird. Like soone had taken one look at a picture labeled "confusion" and perfectly replicated the look but without the emotion.
"I didn’t an anything by it, your highness. The General tasked with looking after you until you awoke. Matter of fact, no one else agreed to do so. They were all terrified you’d wake up and take their heads and...I understand why."
Hot white sha rushed through Anna’s body. The heat crept up her chest and settled in her forehead. The pain throbbed through her skull before radiating down her entire body.
He was just following orders...I’m the one that thought sothing else.
"Fuck." She hissed. "Still, it’s weird as fuck. I don’t like that."
"My apologies. The bench was hard and I thought you’d appreciate a softer surface. I wish I had a pillow, that would have been more comfortable."
Anna grabbed the detector and reached for the toolbox. He quickly pulled it closer and held it out for her. He looked excited, like a puppy playing fetch with its favorite owner.
"You don’t have to do that." Anna said as she took the toolbox from him. "I’m awake now. You can go join the others."
"I can’t do that."
Anna opened the box and took out a screwdriver-looking tool that had a magnet at its tip. The information from the mory flowed into her mind, almost like magic. Like she’d downloaded it as a .ppt and was watching it play out in full ti. Her hands moved automatically as she began dismantling the detector.
"I don’t need a bodyguard." She scoffed. He held out the water bottle over her shoulder. Anna contemplated for two seconds, wondering if it was poisoned. She decided that he won’t be so stupid to attempt that, not with Leon and a bunch of soldiers re feet away. So she took the water and drank it.
"I’m not a bodyguard. My orders were to watch over you, destroy any threats, and escort you to the settlent once the detector was fixed."
Anna humd absent-mindedly. "Do you always talk this way?"
"What way, your highness?"
Anna turned to him. "Like you swallowed a dictionary."
Tristan laughed.
Anna blinked, surprised at the sound.
"My apologies," he said with a smile.
Anna shook her head and went back to her task.
In five minutes, the detector was back online.
It was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. There was no circuit board inside, just a mass of glass tube wires and tiny glowing stones. The outside was plastic, but it didn’t feel like plastic Anna was used to. Anna was curious about the tech and how Princess Orchid engineered it.
Then all the mories rushed to her mind and her stomach twisted in on itself.
She swallowed bile, reminding herself of her current task. Help the settlent. Then figure out a way to avoid the System’s task, or work around it sohow.
"All done." She announced, rising to her feet.
Tristan moved wordlessly, packing away her tools and cleaning the space up in less than thirty seconds. Anna swallowed her comnts.
He’s just doing his job. Nothing to see here. Absolutely nothing weird.
They walked out of the car. A few feet away, the detector began to beep.
Urgent quick beeps going off one after the other. She glanced at the screen, a frown etched on her brow. Patterns displayed on the screen, all manner of lines and curves and dots.
Anna didn’t have enough information or original mories to know how to read it, but she knew that sothing was wrong.
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