Shall We Date? War of Prayers — Liam Let’s Play and Review, part 02

We last left off at…. Liam told Aurora about his secret mission, which is looking for members of the Rebellion, who are dedicated to absolving the prayer maiden of her duties.

Chapter Seven

When Aurora wakes, Liam is asleep. She tiptoes to the kitchen to make a small breakfast for herself and Sora. She finds a note that says “Thank you for the pot-au-feu” from Liam. How sweet!

She decides to make them one of her famous cherry pies and leaves to go shopping. On the way to the store, she sees the man that was throwing a fit yesterday.

Thinking she could make Liam’s life easier by talking to him, she tries to go introduce herself, but he goes down a dark alleyway.

“What could he want in this dark alley?”

“But hey, what if it turns out to be a shortcut to the grocery store? I’ll follow him!”

 

There’s dumb, and then there’s Aurora’s stupid ass. I can’t with her. It’s one thing to create tension, it’s another to go about the most stupid way possible. And let me guess, he’s going to end up being associated with Rebellion and Liam’s going to swoop in and save her dumbass from herself. All they had to do was change the wording a bit. “Hey, that’s the guy from last night. He’s acting shady. I should follow him.” BOOM you still get the desired outcome without making Aurora look like a damn — you know what, even toddlers know about stranger danger — so I don’t know what she is. She’s a whole new class of stupid. COME ON, ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

Minus one heart rating. Highest this can go now is four. I am tired of these too stupid to live protagonists. Ugh, Liam has been so amazing too.

Anyway, she goes down the alley following Mr. Creepy. He goes around the corner and she can make out an argument barely.

Man 1: “…Liam…”

Man 2: “…Hindrance….”

Man 1: “…Destroy the Crystal…”

Then she hears a fight. The voices sound familiar but she can’t remember who they are. She decides to get closer and steps on a twig, cracking it. The first man yells, “Who’s there!?”

Because when you’re in the middle of a heated argument/scuffle, you can hear a twig snap from ways away. There is like, so many ways you could have accomplished this without resorting to the dumbest tropes possible.

Anyway, she runs away and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a shadow in the square. But she feels like the shadows are protecting her from the men and not there to attack her. She starts to run home but Liam and Sora intercept her partway.

 

 

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Okay even Liam is tired of this.

“You’re in for a scolding, young lady. What in the world is going on here?”
And just like that, this becomes an entirely different type of story….

Aurora tells him she’s sorry, but they have to handle the shadows. Liam does the little transform thing and she turns into the magical prayer maiden of punishment.

Aurora starts doing her thing, and she calls to Liam for a good old one-two, but he’s not doing anything. He tells her to look and she stops. The shadows are retreating back into the hollow. That’s a new one. He goes to sew it back up after they’ve retreated, but the hollow disappears on its own.

After it’s over, Liam asks why she left. As she’s going over what happened in her head, she realizes how dumb she was (THANK YOU) and says nothing in reply. He tells her to at least leave a note next time, and she’s lucky Sora was there.

When Liam leaves notes, it makes her feel happy and relieved. She tells him this and promises not to wander off without leaving a note behind, at least.

“…Leaving notes is just a habit of mine.”

When he lived with a relative, he would get so focused on tailoring designs he would ignore the world around him. So when he was in that state of focus, they’d leave him notes to not bother him. Eventually he started the habit of leaving notes all the time too.

But despite all that, he doesn’t remember them ever really talking to each other. Just communicating through those notes.  “For all those notes we shared…. It’s a regret of mine.”

Aurora surmises that Liam’s family is no longer with the world, and that’s why he has a sad smile. She tells him that when he comes home, she’ll tell him ‘Welcome home!’ in actual words, not a note. She reassures him that she’ll talk to him as much as possible in lieu of using notes.

This makes him happy, in his awkward Liam sort of way. He promises to talk more too. On that note, she changes the subject to the Rebellion.

They go eat breakfast at a cafe to talk about it. Aurora is trying to write up a report to Troy, but she’s Aurora and she keeps messing up. Liam takes the pen and starts finishing it up.

Just commenting to say I really love this expression of his.

Aurora watches him write and notices his handwriting is a little loopy. She asks him if something good happened. He’s surprised and replies that something did. She tells him it’s a secret when he asks how she knew, much to his chagrin.

In any case, by mentioning Liam, he is a target of the Rebellion as much as she is. She wants to go straight to Troy, but he stops her. He wants to follow the trail and see how high he can go. The heads of the organization can cut off the lower rungs easily, so they need to go higher and get some concrete evidence. He worries that those people may include knights or higher-ups in the temple.

He tells her note to leave his side. She needs to be able to transform at a moment’s notice.

Aurora: “Will you be okay, Liam?”
Liam: “I’ll be fine, and so will you. Trust me.”
Aurora: “I will.”
I give another nod, and Liam looks at me, bewildered. Then he gives one of those unbalanced smiles.
Liam: “Thanks.”

There’s a knock on the door. Liam tells them to stand back as he answers it. He starts arguing with the visitor. They go to sneak a peek and the mystery visitor is…

Christopher!

Christopher is worries about the way the shadows are acting and he wants to talk to Liam about it. But Liam is having absolutely none of it. Not even when Aurora steps in and asks him to listen does he care. After another moment of failed negotiating, Liam slams the door in Christopher’s face. Daaaammmnnnnnn that’s some bad blood!

Aurora’s trying to reason with him, and Liam’s insistent on not trusting Christopher, even going as far as to say he could be a member of the Rebellion.

Aurora doesn’t get that impression of him at all, but it’s impossible to tell Liam that…

end of chapter seven

Aurora tries to reason with Liam some more, but he gets pissy and goes to his workroom.

She decides to follow Christopher and speak to him herself. Sora tries to block her, but lbr, he’s a chihuahua.

Aurora: “Christopher!”
I run up. Christopher looks at me in surprise.
Christopher: “Did Liam let you go?”
Aurora: “No, but you said you wanted to talk about the shadows. I figured a prayer maiden should hear this out.”
Christopher lets out a huff. “I bet you run Liam ragged.”

Hell, she runs me, the reader, ragged.

He tells her to consider him more before doing foolish things and takes her to the woods near Liam’s house to talk.

He tells her that the kingdom he was a knight for no longer exists. He travels the world and kills shadows. He’s been watchin the ones that show up around her and noticed they have a regularity to them. He believes they’re after her.

To drive his point home, a hollow appears. But without Liam she can’t transform. Christopher tells her stand back. He begins killing the shadows. Even though he slices through them all easily, there’s so many he’s becoming fatigued. Aurora tries to run away to get Liam, but that makes all the shadows rush at her. Christopher rushes to her and tells her not to leave his side.

“Aurora!? Where are you?!”

Hearing Liam’s voice, Aurora starts running to it, which makes her a sitting duck for those shadows. Christopher screams, “I TOLD you not to leave my side!”

He jumps between her and the shadows. They gang up on him and beat him down. The crystal gives over a dark light, driving back the shadows and protecting Christopher.

He touches her crystal, noting that he believes the shadows are after it.

The wand is drawn out.

Wait, what?!?!?!?!

Aurora and Liam are in shock. Christopher says, “Now you can back me up.” and returns to fighting. Aurora is still flustered, but manages a spell, allowing Christopher to close the shadow. Once it’s closed, she rushes to Liam.

His tone sounded oddly pained, and his wry smile seems more sad than amused.
Aurora: “Liam, what do you mean?”
I can feel my chest tighten when he looks away from me.
Liam: “Let’s discuss this with Troy. Save it for then.”
He turns away from me and walks off.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Ironically, Christopher is the one who answers my question.

THIS IS TOO MUCH FOR MY MORTAL HEART

idk i need like, a cup of chamomile tea and some time to process this

see you in part three!

please don’t hate me