Teresa Williams wasn't exactly a social butterfly.
She was somewhat the opposite.
For first several seconds she didn't speak letting the awkward silence draw longer and longer until Rudra decided he had to be the one to start the conversation.
"I read your letter," He didn't elaborate he had read all of her letters, even the unfinished ones, "You said you wanted someone to show you around the estate."
"Good evening, My Prince," she bowed, finally speaking, "It is a pleasure to finally meet you. If I am to be honest, the request to have someone show me around the estate was an excuse to finally meet you."
And then she resumed staring, dumb-founded. What was Rudra supposed to say to that? Thanks? Congratulations that your wish had been granted?
Rudra realised that this woman must be bad at verbal communication as much as she was bad at writing letters.
"Your name?"
Rudra asked without thinking.
Foolish...
He knew her name, he had read her letters enough time last night that he would probably recall her name even in his dream. But her awkwardness was infectious and it was starting to make Rudra feel awkward as well.
"Teresa Williams," she answered, "I am the Saintess of Benevia. You may call me Tish."
Saintess...
It was fine - Rudra told himself - A Saintess was Fine. It probably meant she was.... religious? A spiritualist? It didn't sound anything remarkable- just some foreign title that had no significant in Partha.
It was not something he exactly found thrilling. So he just internally nodded and moved on.
"A Saintess, you say," Rudra tried his best to sound uninterested, "So what is the saintly thing you do, Tish?" His voice came out sharper than he had intended.
Even her name felt wrong in his tongue-Tish. What kind of name was that?
Teresa Williams - Tish - hesitated for a second before she opened her mouth.
"I...," she stared and then paused, her eyes looked a little glassy, "I help people."
"By healing."
Rudra couldn't answer.
The garden vanished. Teresa Williams vanished. Rudra was back in his office looking at the door, paralysed in his own chair....
Until now he had been doing fine. Even when he had spotted her unusual appearance, her too cold eyes
But it was hard to sound aloof when the woman was literally everything Rudra had been running from since he had been six.
Healing, she had said.
"Healing," echoed Rudra, his composure slipping, "Ofcourse you do." .
He felt his muscles going rigid- like his body was waiting for a blow. His heart beat faster and faster with a feeling he knew was fear for twenty years but had so aggressively refused to call it fear. Because Dragons.... don't get scared...
Dragons can't get scared...
"So you help those wounded and uselesss to get back to right path," the words tumbled out of his mouth before he had even finished thinking. Teresa Williams - Tish - was still standing there. Still holding the small box in her hand, still looking at him with those blue eyes and had no idea- no idea at all - what she had just said. Rudra couldn't look at her anymore. He looked away
"How fortunate. To be so so good," he said dryly.
There was a long silence.
"Prince Rudra?" She sounded confused, "Have I offended you in any way?"
Rudra looked back at Tish. Her face was unguarded and open. Words kept coming out of her mouth as if they were just words, facts about herself. Which was fine. He tried to reason with himself.
Everything was fine.
Offending means you have to do something first, Saintess. But you have done nothing. You can do nothing. Healing, you say?" His looked her up and down,"Dragons can heal themselves. You are useless to me."
Nothing was fine.
Rudra was burning in the fire which Saroth had set inside his soul when he was six and because of that he had managed to make the woman- who had wasted seven papers and unfinished letters to invite him for a walk - look ashamed. Mortified.
And the worst part? - the part which was still rational- could see that she had no clue. That whatever Saroth was, this woman was not him.
He needed to fix it. His eyes land on the box in her hands - a safer option for a conversation.
''In your hand. What is that?" He asked. She looked grateful. "Rice pudding.The maids said I should bring it with me for you."
Rudra stared confused. He didn't like sweet things. But Tish continued talking, "Do you want to give it a try? It's still warm," a pause and then she added as she opened the box, " It smells delicious, doesn't it?"
It didn't.
But he couldn't say it. He was afraid she would burst into tears.
And then she did something she should not have done. There was a spoon attached to one side of the box. She unlatches it, opens the box, "My Prince, please open your mouth?"
Air left Rudra's lungs.
"Open your mouth Rudra," Saroth's voice flashed in his mind, his smiling face as he held a spoon infront of his mouth, "Do you want to stay useless?"
And he lost it.
"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!"
He absolutely lost it.
"If I ever see your face around me!"
He was on her face in a second. The air around him dried out. He knew it. He could feel the moisture leaving it, feel the heat rising off his own skin.
"I. Will. Kill. You!"
He couldn't stop it. Couldn't stop the heat. Couldn't stop the anger or hate. Which made it worse. Which made the heat worse. Which-
"I apologise if I have provoked you," she said, "But I won't apologise for what I am," quieter, "I've come a long way to be here. I'd rather you know all of it now, than be disappointed later."
And then she was gone.
But Rudra couldn't leave. He had stood there for approximately two hours in the dark like a ghost. Then he had started walking. Not towards his quarter but hers.
He wasn't sure what he was going to say, didn't even know if he wanted to apologise. But he just didn't want things to end that way.
The palace at this hour felt different. During the day it breathed- servants, courtiers, low constant noise of a structure housing several hundred people and their various urgencies. At night the palace held its breath- lit by lamps and patrolled by night guards only.
He knew the Eastern wing on third floor where Tish's quarter was supposed to be. He had walked the corridor here hundred times before without giving any thought.
Tonight it felt different.
The first odd thing he noticed was there was no guard by the door leading to room of his supposed fianceé.
The second thing was the smell.
It was the same cloying rotten stench he had breathed in all day yesterday. It was the smell of shapeshifters.
Tish's room was dimly lit. He heard talking shouting from the bed chamber. His feet moved before he could hesitate.
She was on the bed. Face red. Blue eyes glittering like jewels. Crying.
Before her was a woman, her back turned towards Rudra. The stench of rotten meat was coming from her.
"You want to know what I am nice to you?" She was saying something, "Because-"
Rudra didn't wait. Waiting had meant losing two of his hunters yesterday. Waiting meant possibly seeing this paper wasting, letter wasting awkward stranger die.
He pulled out his sword and slayed the shapeshifter in just a second.
Tish stopped crying. She stared at him mouth agape.
Idiot..
"Clean that up, will you, Tish?" He needed to move, to investigate how on earth a shapeshifter managed to sneak in right beside the woman the Prince of Partha was going to marry,"Make yourself useful to me."
He didn't look back. Arrogantly, he thought he had svaed her.
He didn't know that he hadn't saved her, he had broken a piece of her he could never fix.