Chapter 58: No! Belated retribution!
No need to guess—it was Aphrosia, Mistfeather, and Blazewing!
Blazewing: Why’s Mistfeather named first?! I’m the older sister!
The girl serving as their pillow sported a face that would make any artist weep. Her once-moonlit visage was now a chaotic canvas, ravaged by a rainbow beast.
“Mm…” Aphrosia’s lashes fluttered as she woke, instantly sensing something off on her face. Blinking in confusion, she noticed suspicious fluorescent powder drifting in her peripheral vision.
Something was wrong.
Gently pushing aside the two sleeping lolis, she sat at the vanity. The mirror revealed her hilariously decorated face, a vein pulsing at her temple.
No need to guess the culprit…
With a stern expression, she marched to the bed, yanking up the blissfully sleeping Blazewing, who was smacking her lips.
“Chicken leg… hehe… corn…” Wait, can a grain bird eat chicken? Isn’t that cannibalism?!
Blazewing was dreaming of feasting atop a golden corn mountain when the world spun. She groggily opened her eyes, meeting Aphrosia’s blazing blue gaze, the turtle on her forehead strutting proudly.
“M-Morning…” Blazewing’s red wings puffed into dandelions, her legs kicking futilely. “Today’s Aphrosia looks… extra pretty!”
She reached out with paint-stained paws to touch Aphrosia’s face. “This new makeup suits you!”
Aphrosia’s lips twitched. Shaking Blazewing by the collar, seven or eight paintbrushes clattered from her skirt—worst of all, a feather pen dusted with gold, clearly plucked from Mistfeather!
“Explain.” Aphrosia’s voice was colder than arctic ice.
“It was Mistfeather!” Blazewing instantly threw her sister under the bus, pointing at the “sleeping” loli. “She sleep-painted! I tried to stop her!”
Mistfeather let out an exaggerated snore, rolling to bury her face in the pillow, shoulders suspiciously shaking. Her blue wingtips twirled gleefully—the sisters’ wings were always more honest than their mouths.
Aphrosia suddenly smiled.
That smile made Blazewing’s feathers stand on end. The last time she saw it, Aphrosia nearly played her to death.
“Since you love painting…” Aphrosia’s smile grew radiant, a ball of icy blue magic forming at her fingertip.
Her mothers left plenty of magical tools, rarely used until now.
“I’ll find you the perfect place to create.”
Blazewing’s face paled, her wings puffing into fluffballs. “Wait, wait! I’m sorry—waaah!”
Before she finished, she was tossed into an ice-crystal cage, oozing multicolored magical paint that slithered like a living thing, dyeing her rainbow. Her golden anklets turned neon green.
“Since you love art…” Aphrosia snapped her fingers elegantly, “paint a thousand self-portraits to get out.”
“That’s unfair!” Blazewing wailed, clutching the bars, leaving colorful handprints. “Mistfeather was—”
“Sis,” Mistfeather sat primly outside, hands on cheeks, feigning innocence. “Need me to count for you?”
She conjured a stack of parchment, the top sheet showing a wobbly Q-version Blazewing labeled: Portrait 1 (Idiot Edition).
Blazewing’s feathers bristled, ready to protest, but the paint moved on its own, slapping a turtle on her left cheek and a pig nose on her right—a walking graffiti board.
“Pfft…” Mistfeather’s blue wings quivered with laughter. “Sis is so pitiful~”
“Aphrosia!” Blazewing clung to the bars, teary-eyed. “I’ll tell you a secret! Mistfeather snuck—”
Whoosh! Mistfeather zipped over, clamping her sister’s mouth, only for both to tumble into the paint pool, emerging as rainbow-drenched chickens.
Aphrosia sipped her tea, spotting a tiny turtle at the cup’s bottom. A vein throbbed on her forehead, and the cage gained three more layers.
“Now it’s fifteen hundred portraits.”
“Nooo—!!” Blazewing’s scream scattered a flock of doves outside. One peeked in, spotting Mistfeather slyly painting Blazewing’s tail, while the floating parchment showed portrait 38: Blazewing with a mushroom cloud, raging.
After the chaos, Aphrosia smiled, satisfied. Her mothers’ punishment tools were finally put to use…
Elegantly crossing her legs, she tapped the cage’s icy wall, admiring the two “artworks” inside. Blazewing had given up, slumped like a soggy chick, wings drooping. Mistfeather gleefully counted: “Portrait 87—Sis’s paint-smeared face, a masterpiece~”
“Aphrosia…” Blazewing lifted her drenched face, trying a pitiful look. “I’m miserable… can you…”
“Hm?” Aphrosia raised a brow, conjuring an ice crystal. “Want out early?”
“No!” Blazewing shook her head, holding up a new portrait. “I’m at 88! Can you… reduce the sentence?”
The portrait showed a teary Blazewing, labeled World’s Most Pitiful Bird in wobbly script.
Aphrosia stared for two seconds, then snapped her fingers.
Crack—
The cage split open slightly.
Blazewing’s eyes lit up, wings flaring. “You do care—”
“Dream on.” Aphrosia smiled. “Your art’s too ugly. Redo it.”
Bang!
The cage sealed, thicker than before.
Blazewing: “…”
Mistfeather laughed until her wings shook, but Aphrosia’s gaze drifted to her.
“Mistfeather.”
“Here!” The blue bird straightened, playing innocent.
“What did you do to my hair last night?”
Mistfeather’s smile froze.
Blazewing seized the moment, yelling, “She braided it into pigtails! Added a bow! Said you looked like a fairy-tale—”
“Blazewing!” Mistfeather lunged to silence her, but they splashed back into the paint, splattering Aphrosia’s face.
The room fell silent.
Aphrosia wiped the paint off, revealing a “kind” smile.
“Looks like your sentences… just doubled.”
“Nooo—!!!”