My Servant System

Nirinia PoV

As soon as we returned to the Palace, we all filtered out of the carriage and went our separate ways, each of us knowing that we had something to do and something that would occupy us until we were called upon again.

For me, I wanted to go and train, to be alone and not have to worry about the golden eyes of a Lioness watching me wherever I was, though if that training ended up being with someone else, and located not in a ring but in a bed instead, I certainly wasn't going to complain...

Maybe Princi was still available somewhere, or perhaps one of the many maids inside the Palace would capture my interest and succumb to my charms... though that was unlikely thanks to their dedication to their jobs.

It wasn't that I was particularly lustful right now, but instead that I wanted something to take my mind off of everything that had been plaguing me during this trip, and getting my muscles burning was going to be the key to doing just that... even if I got them burning in completely different ways.

So I grabbed my gear and nodded towards the four younger women who had been occupying a large portion of my time in recent months, each one having grown on me in one way or another.

Jahi was the daughter of my mentor and something like a cousin to me at this point, someone I had seen go from small, swaddled babe to a ravishing, strong young woman, maturing immensely in such a short amount of time.

And around her were women of equal beauty and talent, each one fully capable of having been the heads of their own families or powerful figures on their own right.

Anput's talent as a warrior and a smith were incredible for her age, and the Jackalkin had an easygoing personality that hid a rather sharp mind, making her a slick verbal opponent sometimes since her confidence and assuredness oozed into everything she did.

Leone was easily on the path to become one of the generational brilliant minds that change the world, her understanding of magic always being pushed to its limits and allowing her to do things that few people ever considered, like trying to embed Ritual Circles inside one another or creating her own branch of magic, like the Ash Magic that she still wanted to understand.

Finally, there was Katherine, the troubling, gorgeous Dogkin that wouldn't have had any problems lifting her Mother and herself out of poverty and back into relevancy thanks to her wits and determination.

I respected each of them immensely, and over these months I had grown to know them even more, to the point that I viewed them all as family, which was why I found their 'meddling' to be a tad irritating sometimes...

My social acumen might be a far cry from my martial prowess, but I knew that Katherine had spoken to her about us, and that Katherine had given her some advice on what to do or say to try and rekindle things between us... maybe.

I can't be sure what the Dogkin had said, but I knew that ever since they battled together in Arbo City, she had been rather obvious with her gaze for the rest of her trip, always looking my way and staring at me whenever she thought I wouldn't notice.

That was the main reason I wanted to be alone; I wanted to determine what I should do going forwards, and how I should act.

Did I want to rekindle things, or..?

If I did, do I think that it would be worth rekindling?

We were happy for a time, before that turned into a terrible time spent arguing and hurting...

So I wanted to think things over, and the greatest place for me to think would be when I was training... or after I relieved myself, either or.

Going to the training grounds, I was relieved to see that it was relatively empty, and without much hesitation I dropped my gear and approached one of the many benches off to the side, the various weights stacked neatly against the wall becoming my goal as I retrieved the ones that I wanted.

Laying on a bench, I began to press the heavy bar laden with weights up into the air, focusing on the familiar burn as I started with one of the lighter loads I was able to do, going for reps instead to help keep my mind distracted.

There were a few things that I knew I felt with the Lioness, and each one made me feel differently...

The hardest one to swallow was that... I still felt affections for the gold eyed Commander, even after all that has happened.

She had been the fixation of my childish self, and that had persisted even as I matured, the woman ticking off all the right boxes for physical and mental attractiveness, some of which I didn't even know I had.

Smart, strong, muscular, charming, beautiful, witty, pleasant...

Being around her was enjoyable in those initial months, and roaming the city and talking was something that I had come to crave again, being able to speak my mind to someone who understood what I was going through and understood where to find solutions was invaluable and soothing.

Whenever we joked together and teased each other my heart always warmed up immensely, while the quiet walks hand in hand through the city at night was so...

Then there was the physical side, what I found so appealing about her - and something that surprised me.

When I had first seen her nude, I was surprised to find that seeing her abs, her toned arms and legs, supple skin and petite breasts... it was the sexiest thing I had ever seen, and I wanted to see it every day.

Even though I had believed myself to always love curves the most, her slim figure and toned muscles seemed far and above the many women that I had been with...

I wanted her so badly that I didn't think I could hold back, and yet when she became so embarrassed at rushed to hide herself from me, I couldn't help but feel ashamed that I had seen her, like it was wrong of me.

She confused me so much; I wanted to have her beneath me, to make love to her passionately for hours on end, maybe even days, and yet her reaction poured a bucket of cold water over my head, washing that away and instead making me worried that I had messed up somehow.

I wanted her to be comfortable and want to be with me, and seeing her running away from me made me feel awful...

And yet, after that, she began to change somewhat.

She seemed angry that I had seen her naked, argued with me over the littlest things, belittled some of the things that I had done for her...

At first I tried to do what I could to appease her, hoping that a show of apologizing would help bring us back to the status quo that we had established for months, and yet the woman remained adamant that things needed to change, that we had to do things differently.

We weren't dating or in a relationship; I was just meant to court her, to try and earn that privilege from her so that we could eventually marry.

I had thought that I had been 'courting' her all this time, that our walks and dinners and talks had all been leading towards a relationship between us, and yet she denied that, denied that we had done anything and that I needed to go through the proper steps of courting a lady, which just confused me even more.

Why?

We were both warriors first, Nobles second - hell, I wasn't even an actual Noble!

So why would I begin to recite her poetry and invite her to dances when I wasn't that type of person?

I was straightforward and clear with what I wanted; honest to a fault and sometimes rather crude, but that's an Orc - or Half-Orc - for you.

What the hell did she expect from me, and why did she expect that from me?

It made no sense, and eventually the arguments began...

That changed everything, and it made me come to the realization that it might not work out... even though I wanted it to.

Deep inside I wanted this to work out, and that was what made me hate this even more.

I knew what I wanted, and yet I couldn't have it, and that hurt.

It hurt so much, and it hurt even more when I realized I was unlikely to have what I wanted thanks to my inability to do what she wanted; I wasn't changing myself so drastically for her, because then I wouldn't be who I was.

I would lose what made me... me.

That made the pain worse, but like many things in life, I learned to cope with the pain and found my outlets.

Work, liquor and sex were wonderful distractions, and when my work consumed most of my life, it was easy to forget everything.

After all, I had no need for feelings when I was in the midst of battling the worst enemies our Empire has, nor did I have a need for a true partner when a few coins and a couple of jokes got the job done just as well...

But was that what I wanted to do for the future as well..?