Fragrant scents pop into the air when Adris mashes the peeled apples. Their juices are pressed out to be used for the glaze along with honey and spices, added to a bowl. A wonderful work station with premier tools makes each culinary step a breeze.
(She lured me out as easily as kidnapping a toddler off the street in a soupy fog.)
Ave nods with each silent motion Adris makes, readying the heated grill for forthcoming birds. She uses a pen to record the recipe that he’s yet to even speak of. Usually Adris would guard such a secret as his prized glaze, especially the substitute ingredients that took a day to match from the market; but, even the talkative Ave fails to bother him when his expression stays unchangingly distant.
(Ah… all those juvenile insults…?)
The thought of being called “short” again makes Adris lean back and stare upward. He sighs with his full lungs, then returns to his work.
“Umm? Did… something happen?” Ave finally broaches the obvious topic, but Adris stays silent.
(Really? Rubbing up on me? Flaunting her rotten body? Begging to be hurt like it wasn’t intentional? And I bit on that? Really?)
Kol’s submission in the manse and later outside had been a great motivation to put her in her place in Adris’ feverish thoughts.
“All I have to do is ride over her again to break her completely!”
But that “again” morphed into Adris as the beaten horse, and sent his hips into a state of permanently burning and creaking.
(She planned for everything.)
“Boss! Water, powder, hurry and scrub, so Elf not smell~!” The wretched creature that had led him astray, soiled his heart and frayed his soul, stopped in their flight from pursuit only long enough to spread widely and cleanse that fiery crack he’d tried to make his own personal toy.
And worse than failing at that, he’d been expected to clean the stains of what had been forced on him in turn while she laughed…!
(Honesty and not caring what others care for was her normal, but…?)
Offering company for the sake of another, but taking advantage of the Adris who was suddenly alone.
Obeying him explicitly, only to lead him into her preferred erotic scenario with unsubtle provocations.
Now she’s dressed with her usual tunic and the manse’s magical pants to cover up her overly tempting muscular figure. Kol stretches without a care to loosen up after both of her “beatings”.
(… She knew the curse was affecting me. She counted on it…)
“Apples! Kol love apples! So sweet, so yum!” The heat of the flameless grill doesn’t bother the kobold that leans in to sniff the skins that Adris is crisping up with fat and cinnamon. When her hand comes in, Adris’ skewer slaps it away.
“Nah? Why~? Cook enough!”
“… We all eat together.”
“Boss, picky.”
Again, the kobold rises from her squat to round the grill.
And again, Adris shifts his position to work on another piece of food, leaving Kol’s tail curiously flicking at the escape.
(I got fooled by an idiot who sneaked up on me openly. What does that make me?)
Like a rock outside, full of apparent strength and unwilling to yield, it’s the mushy core inside that feels bloated, tense, and bitter.
Adris is unchanged to the world, but his inner one feels upside down. Should he be trapped by Kol again, he might allow himself to fall into the sky to avoid feeling even worse with her next “discussion”.
“Nnnn!?” Kol’s senses rouse, and the brute turns to point claws out into the greenhouse.
(I just… launched at the source of that smell. Without caring about…?
Yeah, I felt her coming.)
Into this quiet respite of food preparation a hurled poleaxe nearly gores Kol. The strange little monster flows into the weapon by hopping into it, falling into an overhead swing that tries to shake off the vines clinging on.
“Kol’s perfect weapon~! KAKAKA!”
After it leaps a figure of pure shadow. The point of jumping being quite far leaves this acrobat almost tumbling with her skidding stop, slapping two plucked pink birds onto the ground so that she can freely sign since her other hand sports a shortsword.
{And nobody is doing anything about those BECAUSE!?}
What Still points at are the many artistic creations gathered around the circumference of their resting spot to silently and motionlessly stare inward, arms reaching toward them.
The legion of fruit-hungry pretenders still await their next meal.
“Still~! Isn’t it weird to see so many Töastavapiluli (GROVE’S THIEVES) in the same place!?” Ave waves cutely before stiffening up. The overly eager girl’s face becomes expressionless like a block when sliding up to take Still’s hand to shake it.
“… Welcome back, everyone is safe here because of the wood spirits…”
{Y-Yeah. Amazing! Good job with the trees… then?}
When nobody is found to be freaking out about the dozens-strong audience for dinner, Still folds up her shortsword to vanish it.
“A predicted success. Ready to cook, so on they go.”
Adris motions for the beheaded pheasant corpses laying on the ground that appear bloodless, too. A conscientious witch leaves Adris not having to drain them.
But Still doesn’t budge, only firming up and having a thin smile painted on her porcelain mask. Her hand lifts to mime a coin that she holds toward him, to throw back at herself.
{What’s owed?}
(… and I couldn’t even bother to consider the stakes, even for a moment. I was so… tied onto her as an obsession…?
Wait, owed?)
Adris breaks from his thought to size Still up, noticing the grime on her dark, yet festive, doublet and paneled skirt. Obviously she had to search hard for both the weapon and the dinner.
“Gratitude, mine especially.” Adris lifts his hand to tap the side of his head in thanks, then briefly bows it.
Still startles inside in a way apparent only to Adris’ fine senses, then leans closer with the birds. Her talkative hand curls with possessive energy.
{To whom, especially?} That smiling mask of hers is a whimsical smirk of sarcasm that demands too much.
(… She knew I… I… couldn’t…? No… wouldn’t… resist…? I…?
To whom? So it’s this pressure? What Still is… I should make clearer these days to avoid repeating errors.)
“To my miracle-working Partner. Without Still, my vessel would hunger for fine food, even as powerful as I am.” Ave looks between the two of them at this with some interest bubbling up, only to have a brute stomp in.
“Kol, disagree! Offer, find food! Hunt something better!” Adris again shifts away from the roused kobold when Kol aggressively leans in against Still, her poleaxe scraping when its mechanism shortens it.
As predicted, the hotblooded tunnel dog tries to snatch the birds with a slow lunge, which sends Still vaulting over Kol’s head to land beside Adris.
{Humans don’t eat trash like kobolds do~.} Though seemingly enjoying this insult given, Still’s tense fingers dance on him after.
{Whose spear stabbed you!?} An odd question carries an equally strange sense of rushed alarm. Adris blinks at the sneak’s weird behavior.
(There’s no way I would resist… because… the Mountain King didn’t rise up even for a moment. I had… no strength when I tried to run… because…?
Why is Still so fidgety?)
“… I fell on my own.”
Adris graciously pulls the birds from Still and starts to spike them for cooking, then works on stuffing herbs into the gutted innards spot that the kind Still dressed for him. It’s all second-nature to Adris to prepare fresh game, but rare is the day that it’s made so easy.
{You’d drown yourself to spite your reflection.} When Adris gets involved with his work without any more banter at these gestures she uses while leaning in, Still just kneels beside him and pushes in to take over his work.
{Did it to yourself, can’t complain~. Let me show you the Castillian way.}
“Can… Ave still help?”
{I found some rainbow chestnuts. Want to crack some?}
“Gladly~! Eh, sorry.”
Still almost leaps through Adris when the snake elf corners her to accept them, but then Ave’s self-control ceases her holy assault and they all crowd around the fire. Something like ease settles in.
{Are you… really going to eat that?} Still points at the apple glaze, finished crisps, and pulped meat, leaving Adris blank at the question since more fruits are lying nearby, too.
(I went to too much trouble for it…)
“If you needed to eat, you’d already be drooling.”
“Kol, is drooling? So, Kol will eat a crisp of—NAH!?”
Still’s flame-bladed cutter whips out to nick Kol’s fingers, earning a noisy growl from the kobold when she raises her fists.
“Then… Kol eat shitty Puddle’s meat!”
{Good, eat it.} Still showcases the ordinary-looking plucked birds with a sweeping hand, offering them. Kol leans in to sniff.
“Gah!? Puddle, poison again, like last time!? Maybe…?”
{Smart kids wait for the cure~.} The way Kol rubs her covered stomach when Still points at it proves a recurring method of attack in this blood war between the two.
Kol whimpers a bit and then stomps off with a flick of her tail.
“Kol? Interest, developed? Then, in crafts work at an intermediate level an impromptu lesson may begin.” Kol moves to bother the working Neesiette, leaving Ave sighing with relief.
“In addition, Adris, when one escaped the statuary mimics, about one’s arm a glinting shi—?”
“Plotting can wait until after eating.”
(“We ran like scared children being chased by slavers after dumping fruits on them” isn’t proper, so let me think of a better lie about those things.)
Still waves her hand at the meat. {… I didn’t, by the way. At least not if it also might…?} Then she pats Adris’ shoulder, though he only nods at this as she goes into a lesson.
{Gilded pheasants don’t whole cook well. Too little fat. Maybe you’re used to eating shoe, since you put your foot in your mouth so often~?} A sharp knife in Still’s hand sends the first pheasant into a slicing dance. {Stick the pieces and singe em fast.} Spearing the chunks on cut wooden sticks while explaining the turning times for Ave’s grill, Still is the only one who doesn’t bother Adris.
“Then glaze at the last minute, right…”
Again and again, his stomach turns with the issues at hand repeating through his brain despite paying attention to the witch’s eager show. He can only mechanically devote himself to emulating Still even though cooking is one of the few tasks he properly smiles about doing.
(I thought that “genuine” meant “easy to accept”…? That… it’d be easy to digest, too.)
Somehow, the normally scrumptious meal he has lined up in his mind’s eye lacks in taste.
It’s a flavor that is thick with erotic delusions that he’s never had until Kol’s. No, he corrects himself when staring at the girl and feeling his skin gain more sweat, sampled before, but only had as a complete meal now.
(Genuine… doesn’t always mean beneficial at face, does it… Fehr? I helped you find a brother, but my prospects are… my first taste of Kol acting without inhibitions was so…?
Pure, wonderful, terrible, and nasty…!?)
All five sit in a circle for the feast.
The delicious options are passed around half of it, for Adris stays by Ave, his comfortable and attractive barricade against a mooching type. Ave has shucked her metallic bodysuit to curl into a long figure eight. Munching happily on the various fried plants that her race adores, dipping the pieces into Adris’ extra glaze when not choosing her own fruity paste, she was more than eager to take up his hint of closer company.
“SHO GOOD!? SHOOOO!? NOM!”
Across from Adris sits a kobold. This particular being sheds all civility to nearly bite through her wooden skewer to rip apart the glazed bird spiked on it.
“Behavior, uncouth!” At a safe distance from the nearly feral child, this beast that huddles on her stone and casts dire glances at anyone paying attention to her meal, sits a proper lady that doesn’t stop her tinkering with tiny tools even when being stern. “Etiquette and decorum lapsing to a level far below even a squire’s, a knight must utilize manners superior to the commoners! Recall lessons instructed to one, Kol!”
“Nah!? But…! GOOD! TASTY! No one, cook Castillo meat like this!” Kol grabs her last two skewers to hide behind her, growling lowly at the reproach. “Moon, try, take!?”
“Consuming lifeforms, never once shall this lady. Be reasonable, Kol.”
Still throws another droplet-shaped yellow gem into the center of their repast while shaking her head. The cold, dancing wisp lights illuminating the six of them that were fading vie for airspace with more swirling up to slap at them, as the new gem burns while the previous one dims more transparent.
(You expect reasonable actions from a non-human. I made the same mistake.)
Instead of trying logic, Adris moves to the only convincing that works on smarter beasts.
He whips up his own skewer to catch Kol’s eyes. Bringing meat from it to his lips…
“‘A meal devoured in a moment, no matter how tasty, is only enjoyed in that moment.’” With this bit of wisdom from Xin spoken by some long-dead monk gifted, Adris bites onto a single chunk and pulls it off the end of the skewer.
The savory, sweet, and utterly mouth-watering result of Still and Adris’ hard work is something he purposefully chews on with great exterior satisfaction in how he lets his eyes wander.
“Nnn…?” Kol looks between his skewer and her own when lifting it, narrowing her eyes at how much remnant meat she gnawed at remains on the wood. With another look at Adris’ posture, how relaxed and laid back he is in enjoyment of trying next Ave’s fried leafy greens wrapped around pulped apple filling, Kol shifts to match him.
The skewer she was ready to chew through is pulled up…
“Mmm~!” A single thigh cube comes off of the end for Kol to chew on.
With only a minor demonstration, the wild child fits in again. Kol sways with her chewing, moving to drown her thirst with a drinking skin that contains a measured amount of beer.
“Kakaka! Understand, Kol’s Boss! Nobody would steal from Kol’s Boss’ [champion], so enjoy, enjoy~!”
“… Indeed? Then, remember prior manners instructed.” Neesiette’s sight shifts from the misfit to the boy that earned the change.
If this was the only time Adris gathered the attention of all present during this lunchtime break, it’d be fine. But it’s only one moment in a long series of them that has set Adris’ mind burning with considering the facts and ongoing changing dynamic of their relationship.
(Yes, she’s obeying me, but have you wondered why…?)
Why is absolutely awful.
And only one other present in the know, currently lazing upon the grass with tubes, mortar and pestle, and numerous powders creating only the Ascended-know-what with evil witch secrets, is growing more icy with each growing comprehension of Kol’s real attitude.
“Best food, made by Boss! Kol, wants to eat like this all the time!”
“Times like this will be rare in the face of the enemy.” Adris chews into his meat again after dismissing any enthusiasm, but Kol stomps her foot and cheers.
“Why~!? Boss, best at plunder, Kol, best at fighting, so together, we can take a lot, enjoy it all!”
(“Us”… is the point.)
Neesiette’s lifted brow indicates the brainy one is already following the trail, but Ave shyly smiles at Adris’ interest. “It… was really fun cooking together, all three of us, so maybe we can…?”
“Elf, get it! Food, make more friends!”
“More friends? T-That’s true~!”
“Fight, talk, think, grow… Kol, learned from Boss about making friends, too, Elf!”
“REALLY!? Adris, you’re teaching that!?” Ave reaches over to offer Adris some cracked nuts, each piece of nutmeat a different color of the sky after it rains.
(Pay attention, Ave, you’re too kind, please notice bad tricks being pulled on you.)
Adris accepts a handful only for Kol to keep chatting. “Kol, have lots more to learn from Boss, as Boss’ disciple! But, also…? Umu, speaking of Boss’… ‘friends’,” Kol finally snaps through one of her skewers when forgetting her manners once more, rips the meat off of it and then throws the twig behind her.
“Mmm… what happened to ‘Blacky’?” It’s not a pleasant question no matter how Kol tries to smile and fails.
(Serras… you really wanted to fight her.)
Adris motions for the skin of beer, earning a toss by Kol. He flushes down the rest of his bite, letting the moment build as all four of them seem to be suddenly interested.
His thoughts aren’t complete, yet. The changes Adris have wrought are terrifying, and require much more consideration.
But, as usual, he dances on the edge of the blade of loaded questions.
“That was a conjured illusion. The image of an ascended being that fought beside me for mutual goals.”
“Like Boss? Kol, understands.” This brings many nods from the girl as she continues chewing up skewers. “Definitely, felt… Boss-like.”
(Define “Boss-like”…?)
“That other ascended will never come here. She… Serras, her name in vessel form, fears me too much to intrude.” Not only won’t she, but Adris couldn’t define how she could. Nothing is known of even how he arrived, for neither the Alchemaster’s lieutenants nor Cethran mentioned the mechanism.
“Refine oneself, suffering no consternation from one’s illicit past, this lady’s Emperor. Linger not in recriminations.” Neesiette’s soft eyes strike Adris as far too kind, with even the rest staring at the Lunamaton with shock. “About some prior extravagances and misdeeds, this lady be informed, therefore bother no—”
“Our discussion isn’t a secret, Neesiette.” Adris simply continues his meal, though Neesiette finally halts her work for once.
“Indeed? Then… truly, no harm?”
“That one will never be a threat.”
(I’m not afraid of her anymore, either.)
It was only a ghost chasing him, he feels as he relaxes.
What remained of his own doubts were cleared up when discovering all of Serras’ motivations, born over time and festering due to his selfish choices.
“Kol! Absolutely defeat if came!” The kobold allows for no interpretation of idle threat, for she grasps the new collar at her neck and stands up to hunch forward with a predatory intent. “Boss’ disciple, not allow, anything chase him.” Staring at Adris only, he feels his back tickle with the intensity of it. Sweat on his brow has no place during the cool day inside the temperature regulated greenhouse.
(… She always seems like Kol is chasing me, not Serras…!)
Adris almost feels like grinning at that, before the queasy feeling in his stomach at this attention turns his face to pick up another morsel to chew on.
There’s a haziness creeping in, but Adris dismisses it as the beer he chugs next.
“Everything Boss need… Boss’ champion handle~.” Kol has a wolfish grin when watching Adris eat more of the fruits they stole, poking her claws into her own pieces of them to chow down.
(That’s the claim you should ALL be worried about. I made… a mistake, underestimating Kol!)
“But… you two were so close?” Ave intrudes on the conversation, staring at Adris with a bit of shyness. “Not even talking… you two beat upon Orloss so bad that…?”
(We did what?)
“None of us move like that… and you both had such strong powers!” Adris’ hands freeze when Ave continues, for he’s totally blank on the events being recounted.
“How you… ‘danced’ together makes me feel really… kind of like I want that…” Ave frowns, pulling inward and poking at her own food.
“Do not envy that one or what you saw in the least!”
They all stare at Adris when he yells, then the boy finishes huffing and sits back down to grab up his dropped skewer.
“… All of you girls are whole beings. Mortals who have full lives… much to work out within them and between each other. I and… Serras were… no, are in truth, beings forged around only singular truths, we could only be torn apart the instant our objectives changed.”
(Don’t envy a wasted relationship, one both parties destroyed bit by bit.)
“I punish evil, but she chose only carnage… two hands that thought they thirsted for the same principles turned on each other. Half we were, making a whole, but I am far better when divorced of that wild cruelty and with you four, hah.” And so Adris ends with a laugh, returning to the last of his meat.
“… Halves of a whole… better when divided…!? But… you two were so close!?” Ave’s jaw is dropped, her eyes wet with tears. “How… how does it end so quickly, feeling that soul-bound?”
“It ends because grand, unforgivable mistakes are made.” Adris’ cavalier response silences the elf; yet, he doesn’t feel it’s overly concerning to make her feel uncertain about this.
(Better that you grasp how easily it is to ruin a relationship… like I might be on the path of…?)
Kol only nods, some understanding that she doesn’t share prompting the kobold to finish her own meal fast. She stares in the general direction of the great Gran Castillo.
“Grotesque and unfeeling… one’s… candor be…?” A tinkerer stares at Adris with wide eyes, taking in his full presence in a rare capture of it. He usually jolts at this, but is too busy to indulge her. “Within the manse this seemed ever enduring, the breadth of one’s deep emotional turmoil, especially one’s grief?”
“I’m never so easily comprehended, my lady.” It’s not grief that Adris worries about when looking over her, only a sense of wanting to be who she tinkers on instead of her orb. “But…” For her benefit, despite all of this seeming distant from Adris’ heart, he smiles and thinks back upon the situation as it unfolded.
Of his meeting with Serras, and especially his time spent, the only flashes of any strong emotions that come up relate to a particular man’s bird-like nose and abhorrent family lineage.
That one causes Adris to squeeze his hand on the cross’ spoke, a failure to punish Falke the only sore spot. “I can’t say I would waste time on it with so much to look forward to.”
(Well… it… all happened. But we got out, I gained a bit myself. Everyone was safe, so I can’t see a point in dwelling on it, especially…?)
{You got betrayed, and you ain’t possibly forgiving that… right?} Still’s intrusion is a bit strange to Adris, but the sneak does bring up a point that makes him stop moving. The blue-clad witch is sharp with the gesture for “betray”.
(She… Serras did betray me.)
The times were more than one.
To soldiers, to an enemy regent, and finally with a spear to his gut.
(… Uh… yeah, I certainly hate that fact. We could never, ever work past that.)
But, acknowledging that brings up the curiousness that every moment of recalling Serras before now has been a mix of pleasure and pain. The most important pain has been his guts squirming at how they were removed by his death.
Adris pats his stomach, feeling only the tenseness of his issue with Kol, a full belly, and a bit of heat below it that is slowly growing.
(Why… do I no longer feel any pain?)
Adris plants his legs and leans forward, thinking in isolation.
Summoning all of the memories he can about Serras and especially their life together.
From beginning to end, they filter through to be experienced as he continues to sweat harder.
Loss, humor, terror, deprivation, humiliation, victory, endless hopes for a better next day, and rare private revelations of purpose. That sums up his life.
There’s Serras, too: for her, the feelings are tired, but firm, and have the scent of bittersweet closeness, the understanding of what they truly had in retrospect, and…?
(I feel like those times really mattered, but I can’t go back. Is this… just “nostalgia”?)
The memories are untouched. If anything, they are clearer, just more distant feeling.
Summoning up the image of a long-haired black beauty, even if she’s drenched in blood as he changes to a new memory, provokes only a single consideration.
(“I miss her, but she’s never coming back, so I owe it to her to not forget.”)
“Adris?” Ave leans in when he is quiet for too long, waving at him.
“A-ADRIS!?” And as a test, he lunges out to grab her hand.
Noting every tiny speck of introspection or enjoyment or dread that it provokes as she shivers and stutters, Adris finds that a cowardly snake who can’t compel herself to tear away produces sharp emotions where memories fail to.
(Those… those… bastard children…)
Suddenly what Fehr demanded from him has names.
Fehr stripped away these things in order to create “Fehl” from nothing but a lie that the boy existed, stealing from Adris his
—ANGER—
AND
—PAIN—
He can’t fool his guts into shrinking at the scene of his death in the tomb replayed over and over, nor earn any acid in his throat at Serras’ plan to capture him. Cannot even recreate how deeply those things harmed him, only lament that he recalls being harmed.
(They stole my own “darkness”, a part of my life, to remake them as “us”. That’s why they were real at the end…!)
And other things were torn free.
Adris had within him Techniques. Walking with them for most of his life, he can remember their names and when he used them, but…?
(I can’t remember a single crystallized, absolute truth!?)
In utter futility, Adris gives up and slumps onto his seat.
“Adris, occurred, some harm?”
“Boss?”
Neesiette and Kol both perk up in alarm once Ave silently slithers closer to pat Adris’ shoulder. Only one being present remains completely aloof.
(Oh, you knew what they did…?)
Still stares at him with a sad smile painted on her mask. It’s her redly beating synchronization with him that blunts some of the swirling resentment Adris feels.
“Nothing about Serras or the past matters for my future designs.” Still isn’t needed as a crutch for long, though, for Adris pats Ave’s hand and shoos her back to where she was laying. “Neeseitte… remember, we already resolved this.”
“Impossible to forget, anything spoken, Adris.”
“If my past exploits are so compelling, then I’ll consider sharing more later.” With a nod the doll drops the matter.
Adris leans back to relax and goes about the task of gulping down all the beer they brought. Kept stabilized by Meltisha’s witchery, it had only a day or two more before going stale or rancid anyway.
(I don’t care about what I can’t have back. No, I will punish Fehr for this! But, I have more importa—)
“Huh? Kol, agree!” The one who made this conversation so difficult cheers and throws Adris one of her own apples. “Boss, ignore Blacky! Not good, bad for Boss! Seem like back-stabbing Puddle wannabe!”
{How about I demonstrate how easily you can get stabbed from the front, too?}
That Kol disparages Serras should earn at least a verbal slapping, but Adris finds it hard to challenge the truth.
(Serras and I both went for each other’s backs, in the end.)
“Besides!” As Adris, in his increasing haze, takes a bite out of his apple to chew on something other than the past, Kol’s tail lazily slaps against the ground and the kobold growls with a strange intensity.
“Boss… not need, other female like Blacky, Kol handle Boss’… ‘needs’.”
Adris sniffs the air, realizing that he smells something over the fresh spurt of fruit scent. Almost dank, but affectionate and comforting. It makes Adris choke on his apple, sends him almost into flight!
For Ave, it causes an intense shivering and wide-eyed terror.
(No… no, wait…!)
Kol’s cheeks are burning red while gazing his way. She scratches on the stone to test her claws, then lets her legs pull wider so that Adris gets a full view of her invitation.
“Kakakaka! Boss, have need…?” Those pink eyes of hers are full of… the anticipation of “another victory” forthcoming.
And it’s to pound her into the ground with anything but his fists that Adris suddenly feels compelled to actually do. Her tail almost a lure as it drags on the ground, he wants to pounce and rip on it, force her onto her knees and…!
(Shit!? I’m getting… hazy again…!? It’s… FUCK, I FORGOT!)
The half-chewed apple hits the ground after Adris “simply gives up on finishing it”.
With absolute attention to self-control, the boy begins the process of checking his gear instead of conversing.
He retreats into “duty”.
(Food in the Castillo is always cursed! That’s why Ave and Still were asking… and I was too busy begging for more sex!
How… the fuck did Kol come up with a plan like this!? No, she’s always been…!?)
Echo and Stalker had briefly shared this tidbit about Kol during one of his visits, the only condemnation either had been willing to voice to an “outsider” and also Kol’s “boss”.
“Before… getting dumb Scurry did, Echo watched every trap Scurry placed and heard every ‘trap’ Scurry spoke. They were… all the most scary, and Echo learned how to dodge them to… not get hurt more with the rest! Not because they were smartest, even if Scurry was smart back then, but because…?”
What the unusually meek Echo had started, the manwhore Stalker had moaned about before finishing with tears in his eyes.
“Right, when Scurry wanted something, every path got cut off except to what Scurry wanted? ‘Pretty, Awful Scurry, everyone dies in her maze’. Dig, sneaky, through every wall… Scurry, very ‘complete’ in plan to reach good stuff. Stalker, really misses that Scurry, only ‘complete bully’ now!”
(Even if she’s trying to be a knight, she’s still a damn overgrown scaled rat!)
Adris’ mistake, which is also everyone else’s, is fundamentally misunderstanding Kol’s true mentality. The bestial curiousness, creativity, and cunning that she operates by with almost no complexity to it.
Adris presumed that his position was secure, since Kol has accepted almost complete subordination. And it’s his mistake in the heat of sexual frustration and envy that gave Kol the authority she’s always longed for over all but the Ave who already obeys her.
“Boss, want…?” From the heap of plundered fruits, Kol pulls another apple to hold up cutely to her face.
“… more ‘tribute’ from disciple~?”
(You girls are going to be left behind…!
Kol has learned how to game me before any of you did!)
Women all have conniving plans, this Adris knows.
Zennia itself rewards such approaches as this, a honey trap being the single-most effective attack within the Castillo where no man can survive without a female’s touch except to go insane.
For Adris, it means “to die” thanks to his curse.
(She’s chewed up the [my woman] claim, digested it by eagerly taking that fucking collar to prove it true, and shat out the idea that [she’s my number one]!)
It never occurred to him, but if Kol accepts Adris as “an alpha”, and kobolds operate even remotely like the wolves they claim not to be…?
(THEN THAT MAKES HER THE ALPHA FEMALE OF THE PACK, SINCE I CLAIMED HER!
Oh, I’m retarded, Lycia. I’d thought of Kol as a “childlike and honest, if savage, little brat”, but she is a monster who grows stronger under that black moon! She… proved what she’ll do if she gets another itch…!)
Adris wants to scream and beg for intercession, but nothing he can say will avert what’s coming. He can only hold his head, avoiding thinking about quenching the heat growing between his legs.
“Kol, thinks it’s boring to just sit around. Why not, find bath with Kol, clean up, let Kol wash Boss~?” Again Still stays calm, but the mixture her knife sweeps through seems oddly imbalanced with one of the cuts being a rough diagonal. Her secret sight is locked on Adris, judging his response.
“Highly irregular, Kol requesting bathing? Improper it also be to bathe so readily within unknown territory. Acquiring information of surrounding areas be paramount.”
“Hmmmm, Kol and Boss did good before! Kol, trust Boss decision, so Moon also should~?” Neesiette grows taciturn when denied, staring between Kol and Adris while the kobold only grins.
“Disobedient to proper instruction one grows?”
“Kol learned a lot, changed some! More like Kol likes, ask Boss if also thinks better to change more! Let’s do that.”
Already, two girls out of three are getting wiser to the implications, with even Ave starting to fret at the tones around her.
(Kol will destroy any trust or goodwill between them at this rate! She’s… just far too dick hungry and greedy for status!)
He wants to forgive her since he can guess the reason. Kol is never taken seriously by most of them. Adris promised her opportunities. Immense power!
But Adris’ body is heating up, longing for that bath. Kol twitches the same as he does when the wind blowing through caresses them.
An absolute idiot genius stepped in her own trap to join Adris’ misery.
(They stole my anger against Serras! Why did that lead to this!?)
Still had obviously stumbled on this exchange they made with him with Still’s, in hindsight, pointed questions and demands. She’d been over the roof when called “his partner” by how she avoided responding to it with sarcasm, but also totally shocked and inquiring constantly if he’s well.
(I have no real… inhibitions left other than my rationality, and the Castillo will obliterate that for me!)
He’d been promised protection from that, though, as he jolts at that memory.
A girl who he’s relied on, even if he probably shouldn’t.
“Boss, Kol, very much enjoyed dinner.” Up from her stone Kol jumps, the thick scent of neediness that she exudes growing as the kobold approaches the dancing lights that illuminate this darker area under the trees. “Sit… next to Kol?”
Adris will rip off her clothing and mount her in front of them all if Kol lingers within reach.
If he doesn’t, she’ll demand it with her butt to his side or just claim him in broad daylight.
(Darkness…! I had an ally!)
Adris’ hands fly over his chest and legs, searching for that girl. Into his pack and armor he ducks, searching hidden pockets that contain only useful tricks but not relief.
(Where is Rantil? And the fucking book the twins gave me!?)
He’d never checked for them, too oppressed by mania for intimacy and sex to make sure he came back from the Maidwright’s capture with everything.
No codex named Rantilius is present.
(GIVE ME AN ANSWER!)
Adris closes his eyes to look inward. If not as a book or active spirit, then only inside could she hide.
But there’s no presence within aside from Still’s own passive touch.
(Have I forgotten you, too?)
“Hmm? Adris… one’s aura…?” Neesiette’s quiet question is ignored along with the growing breeze, for Adris desperately recalls Rantil just as he did with Serras.
Impertinent. Feral.
Smug and sarcastic and just a little bit pretty.
Utterly depraved to the point of making Adris blush.
And absolutely loyal to him, for all the wrong reasons.
Rantil’s form as she spins in her cloak, from the black diamonds on white skin beneath her eyes to the very tips of her high-heeled leather boots, the perfect picture of the allip that haunts Adris is as unchanging and crisp as any of Adris’ Techniques.
(You’re here…!)
Adris’ skin tingles when thinking of how she moves and acts, a rising sensation of heaviness pressing down that collects at his left arm.
He gasps, recalling when this pressure last matched his image of Rantil.
That twirling girl with her tongue sticking out blotches her white skin with blackness until she vanishes from human form.
All that remains is a dark vibrating absence concealed within a torn cloak and wimple.
(… Rantil isn’t just a brat…!)
“Something is out there!?” Ave’s scream draws notice to the shadows of the trees that dance around in the huge gale that blows.
They all gather to Adris’s rock, his breath going out as his ears ring!
(She also can tell… a truth nobody should know…!)
Adris’ tries to run, only to languish with the rustling, screeching voices filling his mind.
A sticky, clinging, rising chorus of silent screams of a chant!
The long repressed fear revives.
Darklight flares from Adris, and suddenly a phantom hovers before him with only the dimness of tree shade protecting it.
(Rantil!?)
The girls all startle at the floating intruder that seemed to leap from Adris’ chest. It stares at the ground from beneath its wimple, a low, devilish chattering growing from within.
“[mInD sHaLl RaCk AnD rAvE…!]”
This incantation begins, and then the flurry of alarm that rushes through the girls ceases.
Their eyes all twitch with pain, even Neesiette’s.
An enormous weight from above, joined by all manner of screaming monsters scratching at Adris’ soul, sends every listener into a painful trance that vibrates their whole selves!
(I… DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANOTHER…!)
Being told he will never be loved almost killed him dead.
Only the hope that he was altering that fate gave him the bravery to revive!
But the phantom without mercy can only continue to deliver what it was called to recite!
“[… bUrDnEd By AnSwErS wHoSe QuEsTiOnS dErAnGe…!]”
Without any humor save for the chaotic laughter, it drones on with anticipation of pain!
(Why… Rantil!?)
He wants to cry at his miserable fate, betrayed by a devil shaped like a girl who had sworn to him that…!?
“[wOrDs Of Pa—!]”
“RANTIIIIIIIIIIL…!”
A second flash fills their eyes with visions of beyond the natural world, and another spinning form leaps from Adris!
This nearly nude little girl in a raggedy cloak flips overhead with her boot held high!
“… PUUUUUUUUNCH!”
Through the black, distorted phantom’s head a foot plunges!
The droning creature splits in two. Both halves twist up in the air, shaking and screaming! Into crumbling chunks they tear that dissolve into nothingness!
The weightless white ghost floats to touch down, then abruptly twists around to stare at Adris.
Freed from the crackling pain frying his nerves, Adris has no chance to escape when this newcomer stomps up to him, tears at his ear with a pinch, and screams right into it!
“HOW DARE YOU TRY TO CHEAT ON SUCH A CUTE LITTLE RANTIL WITH… ANOTHER RANTIL———!!!!”
“Rantil!?”
The very nightmare sworn to him has evil eyes flashing, but her cheeks puffed up with anger and her lips quivering.
“Nobody can be Rantil but Rantil, mean, ugly chump!” A brat insults him with crying eyes, then her tone changes to become acidic, yet cultured by greater age.
“… A Crossbearer stands as not NEARLY handsome enough to claim a harem of Rantils! Should you TRULY wish to obliterate your myth, merely request that this Rantil provide ALL the questions a Crossbearer might seek in one sitting!”
(It’s… absolutely GYAAAH!? HERRRR!?)
The next personal affront is a deep kiss by the demon with green eyes, a taste of unknowable sweet and sour being her preferred torment.
“G-Ghost of the Shaded Shadow place!?” Ave’s cry rouses the rest from the same lethargy Adris feels, and it’s Kol that hefts up her axe and reaches down to yank up the elf.
“Entity designation: allip, being of madness of the Second Age, principle creation achieved by the shattering of a living being’s psyche to infuse the liberated remnants with alchemical energies and unknown animus.” Before rushing to hide behind Still, Neesiette thoroughly describes Rantil. Only Still doesn’t bother to attack, simply watching after adjusting her mask with a neutral smile painted on it.
“Oh, woweeee, so specific!” The brat that’s named flicks one of her purple twintails, shying away from any spots of radiance that flit through with the trees still blowing. “Except not! Rantil is Rantil, a codex that’s wayyyyyy more useful than any lazy bitches who are just soooooo scared of some teensy dirty desires they stuff deep down~!”
Rantil smirks when she turns from Adris, half full of glee and half extreme frustration given how her left eye twitches.
(Rantil is safe… THIS IS HORRIBLE!?)
It was a burning fuse with a bomb attached to it named “Kol” that Adris thought would destroy him, but instead something more frustrating just popped out to vex him.
And possibly save him, since the all-black duplicate of Rantil that sought to use painful words was destroyed.
“KOL! NOT LAZY! MOST USEFUL!” A bestial fury overtakes Kol as the kobold tramps up to Rantil. But, her raised hand stops just before clamping onto Rantil’s face.
“Heheheeee, so funny, that smelly dogs think they’re people~!” Rantil shifts her hips and holds her nose, sticking her tongue out like something smells. “Life at the top of the tower gives important girls the inside scoop on the peasants playing outside the moat!”
“NAH!? Mean, what!?”
“Meaningggg, it’s easy to guess your next ugly steps!” Rantil stoops down and then leans in evilly, her tone changing from playful to chilling as she tries to brush against Kol’s hand.
“Need the question for the answer you already know, mutt-mutt that chews on others’ fears and enjoys it too much?”
“Hnnn?”
For being incapable of feeling it, Kol backs away for the first time in recent memory with an expression that suggests she’s remembered just a hint what “terror” feels like.
But just for a moment, before noticing how Rantil slides herself between Kol and Adris.
“Kol… not care. Boss, gonna need Kol, so get lost.” Adris can smell the arousal that’s fueling Kol’s aggression. Who Adris gravitates towards, drinking in her debauched presence, is the living shadow that seems weak in light.
It’s not that he wants to be attracted to Rantil. If anyone asked, he’d immediately laugh and refuse any interest.
Possibly even stab the questioner into an eternal sleep for suggesting that he wants to lick her slender, nubile arms and work up to her neck before…!
(I’m completely gone from this meal! But… but…!)
Seeing these two problems side-by-side, the “kobold that wants to rule the world by bouncing on his cock” and the “evil creature of darkness that just jumped unannounced from Adris’ shadow without any acceptable explanation”, Adris nearly chokes with laughter how they basically cancel out.
(Why not!? She’s already here!)
Rantil flinches when Adris grins at her, even though the allip can’t see him. Their long and storied (in comparison to everyone else present) relationship still has plenty of unknowns, but what Rantil hungers for and how she begs without pride when presented a pleasurable meal was a sight deeply ingrained in Adris’ mind.
If he’s to lose himself to lust, which is the ultimate rule of Zennia, then —HOW— will become the stick that Adris beats Kol with.
(Right! And all I have to sacrifice is part of my personal image, but I gain so much!)
So he leans back with disdain, making sure that his body language stays suitably imperious. Then, he muddies it with a splash of callous sexuality, letting his tunic hang loose and ride up from his pants.
Dinner is dropped to his side, a fierce, but indifferent, focus with how he smirks and stares straight at Rantil’s lingerie-clad backside which flutters into view with the wind.
(I’ve absolutely lucked out.)
Adris brushes back his hair, then licks his lips. Rantil and Kol both react to this growing desire that Adris toys with in his heart, amping his hot blood to pulsating and hardening an important weapon with the delusions filling his mind.
“Boss! This, rag fake, smell like fever! Come from, belong to Boss!?”
“Kukukuku! Even if you can’t fear after you eat it all from around you, an idiot can still tell when the beloved mistress shows up to defend her man!” Also beyond her station, a loose-lipped codex that wants to be seen as sexy reveals her thigh-boot-clad leg to let Adris drink at the lingerie running up to her delicious little slit.
“LIE! BOSS, WILL CALL THAT LIE, RIGHT!?” Kol makes a demand for information she really has no reason to deserve, but Adris loves the question. “Kol… break liars.”
(I am that sort of man to keep a secret lover. Especially by now!)
Others would run, but Adris loves this opportunity that Rantil is antagonizing as a distraction in pursuit of her escape. He can feel how the allip tries to slip away into some shadow since Adris’ is too weak, but fails because none are thick enough for her.
The light traps her, but she can’t help but make things worse with hints of what’s true.
(Why hint at it, Rantil? Less pretending, more like just giving it all away!)
Before an audience of three romantic conquests who have yet to gather their thoughts, Adris prepares for war with the one that’s declared an assault on him.
His secret strategy is to rely on a mind that is clear of all inhibitions and doubts, achieving what he used to rely on during the moment of tripping his traps in social plots.
([Clear Mind], I’m there. The way through this has lined up by sheer chance so long as I care nothing of the loss.)
“Isn’t this overly dramatic? But rude, too, Kol.”
Mildly bothered on the outside, rock solid yet floating on the Sea of Stars within, Adris shakes his head at Kol and uses his most shit-eating tone, one clipped from a pretty rich boy he had the pleasure of meeting outside the house of pleasure on Xin that rejected Adris’ entry.
From him, Adris learned exactly now to offend without being offensive. The whole world is wrong, not Adris!
“How could you call my oldest, fondest…?”
“‘FONDEST’!?”
Kol howls an interruption, but Adris just continues with his hand extended toward Rantil.
“… most trusted extension of my grandiose existence a liar?”
“… Huh?” With wide eyes and a squeaky grunt, Rantil shows her back to Kol and tilts her head at Adris.
“Rantil is, without doubt permitted, my beloved other who fulfills all the decadent, unspeakable needs that a male vessel overflows with that I couldn’t function as me if being weighed down by them.”
(In essence, I just announced “she’s my cock puppet”, but because girls are girls, it varies by personal interpretation!)
Just as Adris predicted, everyone’s reaction tracks with his needs.
“KOL! DISAGREE!” Kol bullies past Rantil to stare with extreme anger, yet doesn’t charge. Her hand pulls on her collar. “Kol, that!”
(Please, you really can’t do it… I’ll die and they’ll kill you, you wannabe boss.)
“[Relief outlet], of madness making it!? Be this not mad, and… contrary also to an Emperor’s benevolence!?” Neesiette’s offended, lively expression matches with her belief that Adris would not betray her idea of his elegance. She peeks from around Still’s butt with truly human rejection growing that seems aimed directly at Rantil.
(I will lose affection from you, but…?)
Still acts as only a spectator, not even responding with body language as she watches. It’s Ave that slithers closer instead. Her horrified response softens, even becoming interest as she looks over Rantil.
“You’re…? Perhaps, you’re a member of Adris’ [shadow court]?”
“OH, MY, GAWD! Why can’t delusional idiots get that they’re missing even the
MOST
BASIC
IDEA
of what they’re blathering about!?” Rantil whines this at Ave, causing the snake elf to frown and tear up with fright.
(I like that idea much better. Thank you, Ave!)
“Beloved little Rantil, let’s be forthright. Why dismiss the bond they’ve noticed, of being within my dark rule?”
“Rantil thinks that this sounds a little smelly, so what bond are we talking about~?”
Moody and prickly, Rantil is also easy to comprehend because she’s already succumbed. She folds her arms up and pouts at him, eyes still full of annoyance at being forced to appear, but Rantil’s heart is as open as a book as the codex in his hands.
“Ahhh, Rantil, they think you’re my slave, yet I’ve always thought of you as my equal ever since we merged purposes to allow two worlds to comprehend one another.”
(First rule for women: lay it on thickly, but make it about them.)
“… Oh… Oh… Oh…!?” Rantil can’t really blush as a ghost well, but she squeals with cautious, but eager, interest. That’s because the other girls all react with total shock, even Still’s stare growing hotter.
On display before them all, Adris watches a girl smaller than him puff up with the nobility of a peasant woman who was just elevated to empress.
It’s a show of her hand rubbing her cheek, letting others capture her beauty as she struts toward him.
“KUKUKUKU! Crossbearer, finally comprehending the unique worth of our fates and this codex’ burden, this Rantil’s bearer shall make known her accomplishments for worthy reward?
… You’re gonna let them recognize just how badass Rantil is and how inferior they are, right~!?” Just as predictably, the ever-“loyal” and recognition-hungry tramp gloats when given the leading role.
(Oh yes, you’re going to show them just how useful you are to me, why I prize you.)
And by doing so, he’ll forever counter their ability to use femininity to control.
Adris has an idea that even Ave could bend him to her will if he lost himself in her too often, for the Castillo’ curse now must be called “absolute”.
(I… want them. That greed… that obsession… As it got stronger outside… inside, the increased base value is what magnifies.)
If he’s horny without an apparent solution, he will lose.
But if he presents a solution even once, he can prevail through total lies in the future.
“Rantil, we have to show them that you’re not my slave.” To do that, Adris reaches down to his straining crotch with Rantil’s cute green eyes eagerly following.
“Right! Never your slave, just like you said, alway… al-always…?” She gulps when he taps on his bulge.
A throbbing, angry red staff, driven insane by the poisoned fruit of an evil mansion, bursts out to menace the allip even from afar.
It screams “I HUNGER” with an aura only the degenerate allip and Kol can inherently taste, for Kol’s body rocks forward with anticipatory interest just the same as Rantil’s knees knock together when she slumps.
(There’s no escape. The moment I act like a total bastard, your womb starts aching.)
And so, he introduces the “cure” by planting his legs apart and inviting that pill with curling fingers.
“I could never intrude between you and your true master, Rantil.”
“… T-T-Truuuuuue…?”
They’re glass plates now that reflect only one object, Rantil’s peepers. Suitably slutty and depraved to the core, Rantil’s fascination wars against the angry cheeks that are slowly turning redder for lust. Because her lips allow a bit of drool from the side, it’s easy for even Kol to guess what happens next.
“You’ve worked hard, Rantil: as your reward I’ll let you submit to your true master, the one you willingly enslaved yourself to.”
Only an absolute bastard would utter this, and Adris finds that he does fit the profile. An attractive voice fits with a “less than perfect” face demanding sexual favors from a beautiful girl.
When Rantil’s knees hit the grass, it’s Adris turn to gloat at how the entire scene seems to be spinning for everyone but him. The incredulity, feigned revulsion, and hidden fascination that they must feel as unleashed lust builds into a public show is already more fun than even his tryst with Lycia at the Skyless Amphitheater.
“Show everyone how eager you are to obey ‘your god’s’ needs.”