“… Everything, our whole story, began… with me. Thrill and fear, promise and pain, the first time the Castillo called me to its gates, beyond and waiting for me was desti—”
“Self-involved to a grotesque degree a gecko’s framing of narrative immediately reveals as.”
“SHUT UP, MISS PRISSY! I just got the mood going…”
So deeply into the hesitant story that was building up, Ave’s clear voice goes shrill when interrupted.
Adris himself lapses in silence at who started to answer his craving for the past.
“You hadn’t even assaulted poor Orloss yet! A sleeping wind-up horror has nothing worth adding until then…!”
“… Agree. No yell, Moon. All, Castillo, started, nah?” Ave’s guardian is herself distant until clicking her tongue at how she’s speaking, then Kol shifts away to stop letting people see her face. “Let Elf start, this story, whole group, began with… us.”
“Yes! Agreed, this is our sto—!”
“Leave out ‘flowery’, Elf.”
“Ugh…!”
(Oho?)
Kol is a rare support, leaving the other girls equally shocked but Ave vigorously nodding her head once no one else interrupts. After the shock of Rantil, Adris allows an open grin at who is starting to fill the gap in attention.
“W-Well, the first time… that I went beyond the gates and into the gardens of the Castillo, it was after nobody would go in with me, despite searching through all of Petripolis for a week asking from soldiers who to…?”
(This… might be Ave feeling her time has come?)
“And, and, so, with nobody else to face evil, except for those strange weirdos who kept prowling the streets looking for people to talk at, it was the duty of…!”
A brave elf boldly intruded through golden gates that swung open to invite her with delirious scents reaching out to wrap her up, dragging her into a sleepy wonderland.
Past the main entrance, the trees that did not roam quite so far back then sometimes whispered invitations, too.
“Elf, not strong smell, just new to it. Sleepy, sleepy day, then, Kol liked those old days. Five pretty golds, easy wins.”
Stomping through and looking for fresh ‘crop’, a happy knight had smelled something interesting on the air from behind. The paths didn’t change as easily then, so she doubled back with a big grin, hoping the payout would forgive retreating from deeper dangers.
“The wind through the trees was a warning! It screamed the description of the killer beyond…!
I… still pressed on… that is what a Kin would do.”
“Could hear someone, very loud, other side of hedge walls talking to self. Sounded very weak.”
Through the archway that signaled its flower-filled domain,
A lone invader met the first, worst, and most never-ending terror born from the Castillo…
“I wanted to scream… ‘EVIL KOBOLD, JUSTICE HAS COME TO PUNISH YOU’…!”
“Kobolds aren’t evil, Elf.”
Around the first turn, the very beginning of the trek, clad in crumbling iron a titanic monster had snarled unintelligibly.
Its roars woke the depraved gardens!
“Elf’s scream did that. Kol just said ‘great success, new enemy, kakakaka’! Much less danger, far fewer ‘pawns’, no witnesses, so enjoy challenge and winning.”
Birds scattered behind it, fleeing to leave the woodlands’ champion behind!
In defense, she’d tried to go back, but suddenly the path had grown cunning and fled first!
“I kept trying to denounce it, but all I… could do was… stutter…
‘Kol…!
Kol…!
KOL…!”
“Yes, Kol can hear Elf call for Kol, just like back then. Path went away behind new prey. Very strange, Kol thought? Other things also whispered to Kol, and then sounded like battle starting when Kol hadn’t decided yet?”
The doom-clad beast had lunged forward with an even louder snarl!
Hefting its axe high!
Yowling demands that no kind soul could honor!
“A Kin would not show fear and run, and… y-y-yet violence would taste sour! An elf… should bring no harm without cause, right!?”
“Kol wondered to snake, ‘give up or get smashed, Kol feels nice today, let choose?’ Usually, Kol just go first. But, this pawn started crying as soon as Kol spoke…?”
Barking with fury when a poor elf had been unable to respond, the monster growled too loudly!
BUT, that growl was only because the snake thing kept twisting in place, then hissed uncontrollably…?
YET, it broke the tension with its foul intentions! Its dark heart compelled a kin to slay it…!
SHINING LIGHT FLICKED FORWARD, A WEAPON TO SLAY EVIL DELI—!
“Shiny green and silver cutting through Kol’s helmet, slashing eye. Very much remember!”
“AWAWAAAAA!? It’s just a looooong-concluded misunderstanding, a wonderful mutual memory of ours that entwines our spirits!”
Both the furry villain of the story and the misguided heroine of it look amusing with their hands locked and straining to prevent the other from winning in this pushing contest.
“‘Our story’, yes. So, Kol can demonstrate now just how painful, for Boss, pure memory?”
“Apologies! Then and now! Come now, Friend Kol, don’t forget our oath regarding physical touches!”
Their back-and-forward rocking might prove whose description will finally get yelled out without negation, but Adris feels a change when Ave willingly buckles to let Kol fall on top of the snake elf.
“FRIENDS AGAINST EVIL, DECIDED THAT DAY! NEVER TO TURN HARM ON EACH OTHER!”
“Kah! Just like before, yell ‘friends’ when Kol’s fist raised and angry, to get out of trouble. Cry ‘strongest’, that important then, so Kol stopped squeezing, too. Interesting word, even when Elf’s face turned red and white. Kol… wondered, ‘what is strongest about it?’”
“‘Good meets its own, for friends we can be; the weapon called Evil’s Bane, a doom to Greed shall see’! Ave didn’t lie then, and we’ve proved it so many times~!”
“Stupid Elf took forever to explain that ‘friends’ just meant ‘becoming Kol’s new minion’.”
“HIE!?”
Ave’s arm is ripped up so that Kol can chuckle at the elf’s shriek, then grimace and drop the arm.
“New minion, so weak, cry a lot, whine in face. But…”
For once, Kol ratchets down her pressure. A curious grin makes Ave whimper; but, it’s the hungry sort of one that Kol often gets when the questions are as complex as her answer is uncertain, a telling hesitation that Adris finds is fascinating proof that Kol can grow.
“Since Elf never gave up or admit was a lie, Kol… ‘gambled’. Kol’s other tries to get strong fast didn’t work, and Rooster laughed at each one!”
“… Kol… showed me a place to live that was safe from the Slayers.”
“Listened to ‘babbling’ all after leaving Castillo, because day turned dark just listening inside.”
(But how did the encounter go, really?)
“No misfortune came to you upon your first meeting, Kol?”
“Other than Elf existing? No. Strange thing, though, now that Kol thinks? Elf not only meeting that day.” At Adris’ probing question, the kobold studies Ave with increasing suspicion. “Outside, down cliff at bottom, first time Kol felt special ‘bang’ of Crackbrass’.”
“That… that stone shorty…! I remember his insult!” Ave tears up at the mutual recollection, sniffling at what she blurts out.
“‘Worst day ever, an elf I can’t hate. Ach, just smite me, forefathers.’ What sort of person says that to a lady he just met!? Why do you want to die if Ave isn’t bad!?”
“Crackbrass, introduction? Kol’s armor, just as bad shape as the set Crackbrass ‘testing’ with dwarf cannon. Followed after Kol, trying to rip off armor to…?”
A short meeting earned Kol an armorer with how impressed the dwarf was with the devastation, and then both fled from the madman to false safety.
“Spider Boobs wrapped Kol up again for dragging Elf in…
Twirl, twirl, twirl, Kol hates that.”
“Oh, but Miss Sha was so nice to us when I offered to pay! Mr. Roberto said we matched, that felt amazing~! Sort of…”
“Minion made things easy with trouble, Kol liked that, decided to give next chance. Bought food for Kol in morning, enormous tribute! Why, wonders Kol, tribute less lately, minion?” Kindness dries up with Ave’s hands making a cracking sound! “Miss going to town center, eating at carts. Very delicious mutton! All Kol can eat, why make lamb go away?”
“We shouldn’t eat out so often, Koooool~AAAH!”
“Who, decide that, biggest question? HMMMM!? Nah, but, after meeting was… fun?”
Petripolis’ full reaches were sought, a snake with money and manners letting a kobold into new places where humans went.
No more was Kol run off, given a taste of what Slayers also were barred from.
Iron and meat, perfume and flour, a snake elf showed the way with emotions as fraught as her knowledge of what she intended to share.
The streets of humans weren’t enough, this new territory of a knight demanding a bigger adventure with every passing day!
Despite the screams and whining, they lorded over the dwarves and delvers by ‘inspecting’ their finds!
Brought justice to the Slayers who refused to obey the Dragon by chasing them down the streets to hear their cries!
Sought the shadows that nipped at others and stole freely from pockets, but only ever caught whispers!
After each adventure, they then sought the truth of honey treats from Bumbling Bee and the surly lady that was forced to love Kol because an Elf did!
“Indeed! Hedonistic and unfocused, such ‘grand’ recounting of the time before this Lady’s addition belies how childlike ones’ pursuits amounted to!”
“… Kol, really misses those days…”
“Neither progress nor advancement measured from historical reports occurred during these idle days. Peak efficiency after proper lesson plan implementation, this be superior.”
Neesiette’s remonstration leaves Kol even less energetic, leaning against Ave as the elf pats Kol’s head.
“Kol and I were just fine before you! We…!
Well, we never got far in the Roaming Gardens when invading, but we never stopped trying! And, we began to share hearts and thoughts once Kol figured out how to, and so quickly! After all, it only took me TWO WEEKS to punch past Kol’s awful—!”
“Kol’s what?”
Kol’s arm wrapped around Ave in sisterhood squeezes so tightly that the elf wheezes. “… Peeeeculiar Castilian accent!” Ave’s grin goes wider while her sweat thickens. “Ave isn’t native to these lands, so it took a lot of exposure to overcome our different tongues, yes…!”
“Hmmm, true, Kol had to learn to ignore most of the constant ‘whistling wind’ from hole in head. Like Moon says, never got far, always run from tiny enemies! Whine every moment, every day at Kol when trying to have fun that shared with Elf!? Kol, sort of wonders, has anything really changed for the better since then…?”
Rushing for her trapeze bag, the drenched elf rips from its darkness a weapon to smite kobolds.
“Have a [Chewy Honey], Kol~!”
“UMU! KOL, WANTED ONE!”
“You deserve it…!”
Gloomy to the point of moroseness, the kobold brightens up the moment she sinks her teeth into the rectangular glazed bar that Ave thrusts into the kobold’s mouth. Kol’s tail whips around when she tears it into quick chunks, her tongue poking out as sweetness makes Kol’s eyes roll about happily.
(It’s a little like having a pet who is also your regent, isn’t it, Ave?)
Adris’ troubled smile is replicated by Ave’s, a moment of camaraderie when she catches him staring unites them in the same orbit around the kobold. For all of Kol’s growing responsibility, there’s a carefree tyranny with how she treats all others that she likes that makes Adris unsure of how to salvage their strained relationship.
Ave’s thoughts aren’t as easily stolen, for the girl blinks in surprise, then fidgets before reaching back into her bag.
“Oh?” Into Adris’ hand a similar bar is tossed, its surface sleek with glazed honey all across it.
“These are my…! They’re… I like them the most!” Ave pulls out another one to join in as Adris lifts to smell this new food he’s not seen before. “It’s an ancient recipe from…!
…
… from an old elf.”
All her excitement grounds out momentarily, then the sagging storyteller nips at her treat.
“Mmmmm! Its so savory after eating a fresh meal! The honey and everything inside, its juicy, melting thickness sticks to your tongue~!”
A strange problem runs through Adris’ thoughts about this “treat” that he breaks in half to reveal the interior of.
(It… smells like honey, fruit… and… also?)
The… “meat” of the bar has a familiar consistency and color.
What Ave calls a treat to savor, Adris would call “the ‘same old, same old’ until the day you die”.
(Maybe… maybe on Zennia, surely it’s not…? Hm?)
To his right, Adris catches two stern gazes.
The steel-blue lady’s face is strict, eyes blazing with an order to “assert the truth”.
Still’s expression is neutral as ever despite how she seems to be nervously cradling herself.
They both look at the “treat” Adris holds up.
(I… it can’t be?)
It’s as familiar as its appearance, the way the gritty material within requires some chewing. Then, the way the saliva that melts through the honey-coated exterior begins to soften the fat and protein.
An easy-going traveler’s ration is in Adris’ hands, perfectly replicated from across Xin despite the use of honey and different ground, dried fruit within.
“Itsho guhd~! Ave’s… filled with energy each bite~!” The elf, from a race of elves, that promises her “Kin” are one with the forest and never indulging in consuming the “blessed souls” of the land gushes about her treat such that Kol starts nodding in agreement while swallowing her piece.
Adris continues to chew, all smiles as his heart wavers.
(It’s pemmican. It’s… meat, my dear, sweet “non-carnivorous” elf.)
An elf that acts like she’ll orgasm with every bite continues to grin in ignorance.
Begging for a positive response from the man she’s beholden to.
“What a wonderful gift of the forest plants and bees.”
“Your spirit also quakes with joy, Adris!?”
This ecstatic, degenerate creature that defies her species’ mandate against savagery, “cannibalism of those sharing the same wind”, acts like she’ll slide from her seat and start twirling on the ground if she has even another taste of the forbidden flesh.
“Of course you’d recognize the uniqueness of this perfect elvish food~!”
“Strangest plant, taste just like what Kol actually likes! Bee Lady, never tell Kol how she makes it for Elf! Give, more.”
“Fine, fine, I know one isn’t enough for you, Kol! Just don’t… go digging for the rest, later, please? ‘When I feel slow, these are my medicine’, Getha said, so I have to keep a lot for me!”
“Lame. SUPER LAME.”
Ave’s girlishness is too precious, for only in this moment of sharing does she look truly content to curl around the placated Kol.
Having something in common is too…!
(Don’t think. Don’t intrude. Don’t break this moment. Adapt.)
It clicks into place, the strange way she gravitated toward the birds that Adris roasted, capturing them in sight with longing before turning away in confusion.
(Oh, even back then…)
In the market on their date, she’d cornered all the small critters with her shifting, predatory energy.
How every talk of food becomes some sideways jab at ‘how vile meat is, how it tempts and defiles with every bite’.
A snake elf, this is one variant of many! Therefore, it is the variant that is apart from the whole, lusting for tasty animals…!
(Nope, let’s not dwell.)
Adris only has to ignore the glaring condemnation of Neesiette in order to keep his smile firm, totally defying the Lunamaton’s desire to burst through Ave’s own misunderstanding. To destroy Ave’s belief in purity of the body, that’s this one’s goal. Having caught on so very long ago, it is a subject that Neesiette no doubt remains silent for only because Adris can taste the tension hanging between two sides of the group over this treat, especially when Ave glances at the doll and frowns while chewing.
{Even if…? It’d hurt too much, right?} Still alone breaks the mold by lifting her hand to sign at him, stroking her mask in thanks when Adris nods in agreement.
“Smite the newt, with this lady’s blessing.” Neesiette huffs this before averting her gaze, a wrinkled expression of contempt at the feasting.
(… Moving on.)
“Haaah… maybe… ‘we’ haven’t made our dreams come any closer at all.”
Lovely food isn’t enough to rouse Ave’s spirit though, for the subtle lacking nature of their friendship thus far seems to drag down when Ave sizes Kol up.
“Elf want dreams? Kol want results! Kol’s results, end up like Elf’s dreams, too…”
(Oh, now is the perfect time!)
A story that took too long to share left so much for Adris to work with.
The point of this discussion and his own silence is a part of the performance that others have begun for him.
This first act is called: “the abusive sun and the tragic chew toy”.
(I never expected them to be this well-fitting, yet also so distant. Making them work requires destroying the imbalance of power, and only Ave can accomplish that long term.)
Even their mannerisms within close proximity cry out about the disparity, the poverty of a snake’s long body being cruelly yanked up so that Kol can prop up her feet. Ave’s eyes earn their dead, long stare. She ignores how she’s utilized as she continues to chew.
(But, these two have a real friendship, no matter the severity of the abuse associated.)
Born of shared struggle, they maintain pursuits outside of combat that lean toward Kol’s base wants.
Yet, it’s not as if an overly energetic elf cries too hard about being dragged out, though her fingernails dig into the boards.
(Ave returns with a half-grin even when it’s “training day”.)
Adris could say a thousand things to gain a direction for them that’s useful for his needs, but his tongue is chained by his own past failures.
Nothing overt may be said, lest it be a taint upon their own hearts.
The relationship must twist onto a new path because it’s desired by both.
(Fehr and Fehl… I hate both of you for forcing a truth on me I’d rather ignored.)
“Advancement? Is this something with a well-defined form?” So he ponders out loud his thoughts in an inoffensive, troubled way. “Does progress reveal to us openly?”
“Hmm!?”
Kol perks up at the question, turning her ears toward Adris with fierce interest. As if expecting something important when no-one else does.
“Those peacockatrices… won over the combatants, despite never growing from their efforts.”
Fire and water rage at this memory, Kol’s teeth chomping to match Still’s sudden interest in carving deeper into the circular stone she’s chipping at with a small chisel.
“Zennia corrupts my idea of perfection; yet, I managed to enforce change upon enemies I could not publicly surmount. Doesn’t it seem terribly confusing, then, to have these following doubts from the tale I just heard…?
‘Despite being fearful, has any other brought a true challenge with both weapon and words to confront the one who invited it?’
‘After meeting the sky for the first time, when was the moment it ceased to be terrifying without any remedy apparent to counter what was beneath it’?’
Untangling the rest of the troublesome details might happen, if I…?”
Adris takes another bite of his pemmican bar while chewing on them. Purposefully, he doesn’t name the subjects of the questions.
“If these questions answered themselves, the rest when looked at would demystify what ‘the strongest bond’ is to me.”
He doesn’t need to name who are actively hanging onto his words.
“This bond was what I witnessed within the manse, joining so many powerful people with each other by chains neither rejected. They grew mightier by association than they could’ve been alone. Reaching the desires of those who ignorantly defy my offers, from this bond I might learn that secret method against Zennians to link my…?”
A seemingly meaningless monologue ends then, Adris’ pensive tone turning wistful at the idea of conquering via his unknowable methods without describing the end goal.
“‘Association’!? Important to Boss?” Kol taps on Ave’s scales, tasting the phrase as the elf starts whispering.
“… Maybe… maybe if you knew how much they were listening… when they began to listen? How… maybe you’ve already reached them without you knowing?” Ave hunches forward a bit, glancing between Kol and Adris while munching quietly on her treat.
“Hmmmmmmmm?”
“Kahk!? What… did Ave do now?”
Then Ave jolts when Kol leans over into her space, a brutal fixation sending the Elf into a gulping fit to match Kol’s humming.
“Nothing. A lot, too… Kol thinks. As Boss agree, very strange: life, power, people, how all work together.” Kol pats Ave’s tail, then grits her teeth, relaxing after thinking to politely ask for something.
“Elf… mind, Kol prop up higher?
… Because… feet hurt.”
“……… Huh???” Ave’s coils lift to arch Kol’s legs up, letting the kobold use Ave’s side to lean back against while also shifting to lounge on her emerald body like a couch.
“S-S-Sure?”
“Kol… thanks. Elf, very good… friend.”
“… Guh…!?”
(Kol hooked on the bait perfectly.)
Ave tilts her head in shock, then looks around for help to find that no one bothers to acknowledge anything as strange. When left alone with her confusion, Ave just… folds her hands up and remains silently calm.
(You SHOULD expect reciprocation of kindness, Ave. Kol is already re-examining who is her closest ally, after all. She discovered who will truly have her back in a confrontation of any kind. She wants to establish control, so who else would she count on?)
For the reason Neesiette and Still do not betray any thought is because Kol eyes them with contempt.
While they sit apart from each other, Kol is the only one who has pleasant company who is now smiling with actual happiness at the proximity.
The only two that grant any real skinship are Ave and Kol. And the same could be said of involvement despite the imbalance of power; for, while Kol is a bully, Ave is the first soul she rushes to aid in battle when she can.
(The easiest two to start mending their relationship, yet the hardest to fix for good: Ave and Kol are already genuine friends. Disregarding the annoyances, they are my example.)
A minor victory sends Adris into a giddy fit, carefully minding his manners as Neesiette slides the two completed sections of her new tool beside each other to then motionlessly chafe at the quiet campfire scene.
Her thoughts aren’t easily read, but something about Kol’s attitude brings a deep frown that won’t diminish.
(You’ll charge back.)
“First meetings be the topic? Dispensing with history with alacrity, then.”
Neesiette’s preparations halt so that the doll can bolt up onto her feet and march up to Still.
“Recounting meeting, one’s first hostile acts of war, claim interest in explaining now?”
The sneak’s own work falters so that she can flash the half-finished stone token she’s been carving at Neesiette. A little living archive fluffs up more, all her fine clothing more fitting for a hen when its purpose apparently escapes the doll and she seethes.
Still flashes some signs and then returns to chiseling. {This should be fun! I’ll just fact check~.}
Left to her own storytelling devices, Neesiette proves as dispassionate as ever by turning to face three others with her centerline directed toward an invisible center-point between them, a phantom audience that denies the real one a personal connection.
“First encounter: Castillo interiors, 1st floor, near extrication point.
Guidance and protection by Falke Kestner’s golem, brought from upper tier to lowest, inanimate and ported with the falsification as being an object of research.
Report of efficacy: near total success, zero interventions, only 3 inspections.”
Her pleasant voice earns that grating quality when so detached from this important story. Though Ave shined with the attention to flourishing nice details and Kol brought gravity back to them, when alone and unmotivated, Neesiette fails to recapture the energy that serenaded Adris with banal love stories.
(You must’ve really pissed her off?)
“Unrecognized interference, ‘witchcraft’, from shadow rose a threat which upon core of golem spread corruptive paralysis!”
{The peeping tom stopped moving forever~.}
Still’s hands flick before returning, interrupting not a bit Neesiette’s growing screed.
“Assassin, blue and purple, nullification of just personal defense escalated to violent directed strikes!”
{Trying to blast your rescuer is very rude~.}
A vibrating beam of turquoise met an opened crystal case, and then singing dirks juggled a rod one after another to flip a long way to the open hand of a witch.
When a silver rod lifted to redistribute magic back to its owner, none was forthcoming.
Only headpats and hugs.
“Gross molestation!”
{Checking if someone has any more weapons is normal. A single flip upside down isn’t…?}
“Stared, one did! Gawked! LEERED!”
{… It was a little shocking~!}
(I get that! I really do! They’re so puffy and lacy! But, also having a tight little slit so white and nestled amongst the fluff is… a little racy!? That makes you feel like a bad person for looking!)
“Effective communication: absent! Mute, uninterested in response or reaction, this fiend continued without proper decorum! Carried for many Shorts as if baggage, into further danger this lady plunged until vocalized intervention attempts bore fruit during crossing another ‘shifting’ intersection!”
{I noticed after she did, yes. That mansion’s creepy fascination is always a giveaway that you’re about to have ‘fun’, but I couldn’t figure out the way it might come. That this little one could read the innate clues made me… interested.}
“… Recounting now, first agreement. Nature of spacial stitching, recognition of modus and rationale, only when…”
Neesiette’s incensed oration turns duller when Still tosses her completed token to the Lunamaton, letting the consummate researcher try to capture its secrets at her leisure.
“… together, simple hand signs indicating cruder, foreign thought processes and concepts, an equally crude theorem arose regarding conquering the [wandering path dilemma]. Falsification attempts commenced immediately.”
{I didn’t know how the do—Neeiette was doing it, but it didn’t matter.}
Still coyly pulls up her legs, flashing a few signs to add to Neesiette’s own memories when the story continues.
Through a path retraced by intuition and recollection, in defiance of the heart which failed to notice the achievement entirely, two who had just met, souls that had nothing whatsoever in common with ‘witchcraft being inherently antithetical to Art’…
The challenges reduced to zero once they joined forces in earnest.
A peerless scout and a true seer, these were the two that could thrive, or rather exist in unliving happiness, in the face of Greed’s whimsy.
Together, before any slayer or False God, they had…
(Nothing alike, except in one way.)
… done the impossible and annulled the Castillo’s most basic rule: that they be impotent playthings.
“Exterior reached, to front gates, swiftly this lady found herself… absconded to.”
{If you really wanted to leave via the river instead, you already had all your possessions back by that point. Weren’t we best buds already~?}
“… Companionship… unnecessary! Yet, in need of correction one’s manners, or lack thereof, ranked as!
Requiring both elucidation and refinement, established as one’s magic!
… Commonality of understanding: environment, recent history, and behavioral norms…
These… lacked this lady did in fullest comprehension without… further input.”
{She felt lonely, Adris.}
“That be…! Cease picking at this lady’s components! RETURN, PROMPTLY!” Neesiette’s crown is what Still lifts off to try to place over her hat, slipping over the steeple point and modeling it.
“Inadequate, one’s explanation! Contemptible, one’s clownish actions! Functioning best when aiding, for aiding be this lady’s purpose, only when…!”
{So melodramatic.} The crown plops back onto Neesiette’s head, then Still “fixes” the back ribbons that ruffled when the Lunamaton started hopping to retrieve it. {I could tell already that she’d be quite the helpful little bookworm~.}
This drives the Lunamaton to turn and face up at the sneak, grimace versus cheerful painted smile.
(“Helpful” is the word you choose. That’s… not enough, Still.)
Though her physical movements betray a loving fascination with Neesiette, and the doll slaps back at any closing touches as if she’s a feral cat being chased by a lonely human mother, there’s something far too lacking in this relationship that is counter to Ave’s and Kol’s abusive one.
“Indeed!? Description, well chosen. Then, boasting of results this lady may! Primary contributions toward success, arising primarily from this lady and…?”
{Ahaha, yes, I don’t mind showing a little humility. We got to the foyer because ‘two heads are better than just mine’~.}
Maturity in bragging lets Still gaze at Adris with a burning ferocity that matches Neesiette’s sidelong smirk toward Ave.
“W-What!? Kol and I got pretty far before your never-ending nagging, you…!
You…!? NAGSIETTE!”
“AGREE! Not need, Puddle’s evil thoughts to win!”
(“We’re convenient together”.)
If Neesiette were to sit in Still’s lap, the only genuine emotions directed at the other would be bedeviled consternation on the part of the smaller one and bemused objectification on behalf of the larger.
They mesh only when the “results” let them achieve their own goals.
When they [win], they’re [friends].
(They’re too much like… we…?)
Neither shares “warmth”, for both are repressing it within or truly absent of its memory.
They’re a similar dynamic that eschews even the pretense of “love”.
“Hah! Neesiette, you’re so important, right!? But, the only things you contribute are bouncing beams and catastrophe!”
“Name, single instance judged as sufficient, contribution without adjacent ‘catastrophe’ originating from a gecko.”
“THAT ISN’T…!? Not fair! You! You… don’t even have your little wand anymore!? It got broken in the manse!”
Neesiette scowls at this cowardly maneuver, turning to look down at the two pieces cobbled together from the remnants of her original Rod of Force and an interesting additional orb that Adris has been trying to comprehend its importance in the new design.
(What are you planning to do with Falke’s gift to you?)
“…
… Broke? Moon’s rod? Bouncy green?”
Kol’s growling tone doesn’t match the huge toothy grin that takes her over.
Neesiete’s eyes squint, then the Lunamaton steps backward.
A terrifying eeriness settles over the gathering.
Dry and gulping, Adris’ tight throat goes with his suddenly antsy legs. He wants to jump away, to flee the circle of trees at the change in mood and the dryness of heat dragging down on him.
“Yeah! This stupid doll broke the only thing she’s ever added to our fights!” Without reading the mood, Ave puts her hands to her hips and twists with a laugh.
“Kol… didn’t know~.”
The kobold’s dank breath fills the air, then her tail snaps when Kol’s stance lowers!
“At least I don’t go around breaking my own poss—!”
A poleaxe hefts in an instant, with a white-burning brick hurtling across the gap of the campfire!
“VICTORY NOW,
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!”
Truly deranged into complete battle hunger, no sisterhood could ever settle into a knight’s claptrap brain when readied to bisect a “beloved” mentor with her downward swing!
That mentor calmly raise an orb with slits opened along its circumference to meet it.
Roaring green radiance elevates steel-blue dress and violet sight into a new, dreadful presentation of danger when the earth itself adds its own incomprehensible voice!
(DON’T USE LUNASPEECH!)
Neesiette’s commands Adris hears, but they are so incomprehensibly vast with so few sounds that he shuts them all out!
“NAH!?”
The grassy turf bursts forth to catch the axe-blade, the stone beneath growing dozens of fractures.
Instinct compels Kol to abandon the haft of the weapon. She’s far too late to jump from the encroaching firmament of Zennia that consumes her.
Shaped in the perfect contour to surround on lifting, this monument to entrapping Kol flips forward.
“Kol, mista—”
Kol’s sad instant apology is devoured, too. A solid hunk of rock falls upon the kobold, then both sink into the ground until the grass starts to recover the scar of battle.
“… Hold.”
Neesiette’s calm expression drops into incredulity when the command is ignored, for Kol’s outstretched tail continues to descend.
“Desist, spirits!”
(Oy… OY!)
“Cease, earthen manifestation! RUDENESS!?”
Adris jumps up at the same time that Kol’s fists punch through the thin sheet of rock and start pawing like a baby at the ever-more-distant sky.
“Kol…
very sorry…
‘Please’, not eat Kol…”
“Abates, moment of threat! Entomb further, NOT! Student of this lady to be forgiven, ‘kobold target’ be!
… Clarify, multitude of loathsome denouncements of this lady!?”
Neesiette twists with the orb in her hands, treating it as if a new alignment might increase the chance of being understood.
(If you called to them, then sto—!?)
“… Earth spirits only know ‘black or white’, you stupid doll, of course they’d call you a liar if you label Kol as ‘my enemy’ and then change your mind…”
With something approaching existential reluctance, an elf slithers up to the white furry hands that continue to grope from a sinking prison of earth.
“Help… Kol, not enemy, very much fri—”
Kol’s voice shuts off when the holes she bashed into the rock close over with dirt, then her hands go stiff.
“Elucidate! Clarify, newt!”
Ave heaves a heavy sigh at the screaming Neesiette, then reaches down to grab onto Kol.
“… What’s to ‘clarify’? ‘Stone and geode’, to us they’ve been below for eternity. But, to them it’s their only viewpoint, a very young one at topside, too…”
(Ave?)
“… To those humorless ‘eternals’, only what lasts for ten-hundred years is recognizable as a ‘moment’, and they never ‘forgive’ an enemy…
Haaah, why now…!? [Kol is my first and best friend!]”
Ave’s squeaky pronouncement carries a hint of something bizarre, an authority that Adris has never heard.
A million also-squeaking tones madly cheer in recognition of it!
The sinking stone explodes outward in two cleaved chunks, freeing the mummy within to rocket toward the glass roof of the greenhouse!
“FRIEND ELF!”
“… Aaaah, this sucks…”
Kol lands on her feet when Ave arches backwards to pull her to the earth instead of crashing above like the split earthen chunks.
“Elf, Moon, tried to eat Kol. Kol, hates today a lot.”
“… The doll is bad at talking to children, that’s why they ate you up so quickly. Just to spite her…”
Ave slithers back to her rock, coiling around it and fetching her tea set as pieces plop down around them, always avoiding hitting within a circle around her or anything that belongs to her.
“… I’m not incognito. Ugh, they won’t shut up now, Ave really hates standing out…”
(Ascended above… the earth couldn’t love this idiot any harder without begging to marry her!)
Not just her, but apparently also himself, for the hazardous rain avoids a similar circumference that encompasses him!
Still, too, enjoys this protection that a Lunamaton leaps to cling to safety within.
“Ow? OW!? Kol, rocks eat then hit…”
Kol hobbles over to rip her poleaxe from the unpleasant earth, then returns to her seat beside Ave with a deep sigh.
“Kol, lost again. Moon, Kol will ‘revere’, obey lessons from.”
“Let… let that register as an essential reteaching.”
Neesiette stares at the glowing orb in her hands, blank-faced and with all the wind torn from her. With a squeeze, she shuts the slits.
Those barely heard voices that sound cross cease to fill Adris’ ears.
“…
… Query: why?”
“Because you murder them one second, then demand weird things the next! The only reason they listened in the first place is because they felt ‘fire’ from Kol and thought you were in danger from it, and the earth never abandons itself…
Hmmph, why is Ave helping Little Miss Perfect!?”
Ave’s annoyance continues, a frustrated squinting of her angular features leaving her petulant in a way she never is.
In rebuttal?
A perfect little moon fairy returns to her seat, mechanically planting upon it.
She ponders the orb in her hands.
A tight mouth, yet fiercely open eyes, demonstrate a master of magic’s rare despair.
(Neesiette humbled herself. I love her efficiency! Two down, one to go.)
Freed of having to lead to this goal, Adris sighs and relaxes all tension.
The play that others have led this far is one that’s only been favorable to Adris. The leading lady has been a naive and innocent expert in achieving the groundwork for “team unity”.
(Now, let’s see if Ave can grasp this final leading lady’s real problem?)
“Neesiette, I, too, did not fully comprehend the authority I unleashed when altered to fit Zennia. Not without time.”
The despair doesn’t lessen, but Neesiette does nod at this.
(Very well, let’s smash the “Blue Sisters’” rotten bond completely!)
“But, authority isn’t all we must comprehend. The important part is the motivation behind it.”
“… Indeed?”
Neesiette glances up to catch Adris’ attention, turning her expression neutral when he stares hard at her.
“What was essential for Falke’s advancement is key to ours.”
“Comprehending motivation, impetus for pursuit of Art and excellence. Equally lacking, finds one?”
Canny in all senses, Neesiette parses Adris’ true intent from the few words he uses and also from where he turns his gaze to.
Laughing to herself quietly, a witch had made no motion to aid a kobold that nearly began a journey to the underworld.
“When we first made contract within the mansion…”
Still’s senses jolt, her reverie breaking despite no movement otherwise.
“… perhaps you should share the understanding only you, Neesiette, have of the lesson of your loss against me. When you learned the merest truth about my power when applied?”
Still’s cheerfully smiling mask tilts and turns, blatantly fixed toward Adris.
Her hands raise, then freeze in mid-sign when Ave and Kol turn to wonder at how she’s jumped onto her tiptoes.
Adris’ heart flutters like a hummingbird, a tidal wave of apprehension crashing through his arteries.
ANGER
FEAR
DISBELIEF
AND…
Emotions that the undead blunt never seem to be any less severe for Adris’ Partner than his own are when felt alone.
“Defeat of this party by entity [False God, Adris], be of pertinence this historical record?”
“Why not share your impartial review of it?”
“… Indeed? If… pertinent, then, with great forestalled satisfaction commences this lady.”
If she could cut him into tiny little pieces without others leaping to stop her, Still’s blades would already be in her hands instead of them lifting impotently to wave at him once.
{THEEVERFUCKIN’WHATAREYAHDOIN’YAHMISERABLELITTLEBACKSTABBIN’CUNTOFABASTA—!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?}
An old contract and oath prevents Adris from directly starting this discussion, but it applies not a bit to the Lunamaton that lifts her chin and spits out a “recollection” at Adris’ angel.
“Disarmament of one’s own teammate, betrayal by [Still = Witch], succinctly identified be the principle motivator of loss. Defeat of enemy absent interference, present cooperation: guaranteed.”
“… Say… WHAT?”
Kol’s face contorts much the same as her small body, a rictus grin being the same as a bestial snarl for the kobold. She doesn’t even reach for her poleaxe, just extending sharp claws as she violently shakes and snorts!
“Therefore conspiracy, intentional sabotage planned within said conspiracy, crime of loss laid squarely upon Still.”
“Ahahahaha! What a stupid joke! Stupid doll! That’s a dumb joke. You’re so dumb! DUMB, DUMB DOLL!”
Ave slithers past the hulking Kol so quickly that Adris can’t track her, waving her dainty hand at Still from feet away and not pulling back when the sneak cringes.
“What happened after Ave passed out, you fought valiantly against Adris! Ave knows you did! You’re always the best, and you never give up! And… and… you never, ever do anything against us that’s bad!” Aside from Ave’s usual grace, there’s a fierceness to her flowing body that seems terribly sad with each forceful movement to punctuate her refusals. “Right!?”
(That’s an enterprising start.)
While Adris relaxes and drinks from his water skin, the teammate so aloof from this “important meeting” and acting too good for it twitches her hands as if she’s “stuttering”.
Every word she starts signing ends in another crossed finger.
“Ave knows, so tell us how it really went! Still is a hero! Still is…!?”
Always so chatty…
So bitchy with subtle jabs…
Just for now, Cyrene Stillwater really is just a Zennian clown when painted with festive purple and blue, stuck comically hopping in place trying to spin up some lie within MELTING distance of a holy snake.
But, Still only manages to look absolutely lost for words, just as the plan requires.
Because, a liar’s words can’t save her.
Only true belief can.
(Mmmmm…! I’ve… always wanted to see you dance like this, Partner.)