“Stand still!”
“Not ears!”
Furry triangles try to escape from soap by wagging, but they join every other inch of Kol in a fast and hard scrubbing. Finely scented elvish fats purify skin so that a shampoo which feels like cotton when lathered up works harder on tangled hair.
“Do you never deal with the knots?”
“Sound like Elf!”
When hair was long, black, and shining, it was best to flow freely. An enameled fish-bone comb safely clears the last clump of strands that were crusted by slug goo. Adris lifts Kol’s longer back hair to catch a whiff of how it smells now, to prove his effort pays off.
“Weird smell!”
(Girls should look and smell pretty.)
“My disciple will be presentable to others.” But his trance is short when he has to grab her arm to yank her back into the waterfall. For the third time, he relies on the biceps-expanding rush of the mountain-top lord’s bracers that he wisely chose to keep on.
“HATE WATER! Uguraack!?” An irate kobold whines even louder, then cringes with her paws covering her ears. After getting manhandled sufficiently, she drowns in the cascading purity from above while gurgling.
“Close your mouth.”
“Funky smell in nose…! NOT STAY, MAKE KOL!” Kol edges away to ready to run!
With hands lifted and fingers repeatedly closing as a warning, a naked boy fearlessly jumps through the waterfall after her.
“You have to get rid of it all!”
“Why!? Kol, likes, how it makes feel!”
Angry claws lift to grab back.
(You’re still too naive.)
“Hhhuuuuuu!?” Kol cries out a lewdly when Adris’ fingernail scratches up her stomach with a bit of aura sharing between them. The sweeping bear hold that almost catches Adris becomes a lover’s embrace when she collapses again.
“Aphrodisiacs make you weak.”
“… Kaaakaaa…!?”
Kol’s anger grows to exactly match the sweet cries she makes with each special touch along a delicious spot Adris has discovered. For this girl to care nothing consciously for foreplay that isn’t a tongue, her submerged affection for when Adris’ lathered fingers stroke over her erogenous ribs screams out another zone to pamper.
“Evil attack!”
“If you could control your own sensations, you wouldn’t succumb. You’d cultivate the pleasure. Master it like I have.”
Under armpits to cleanse them, his own arms lift up on a stinky knight and pull back to earn a yelp before her feet touch back to stone.
“Learn to let it grow, develop, only exploding when you desire the pinnacle.”
“Nngh!? F-Feel strange!”
Kol’s defenses collapse to force her thighs apart. Adris reaches from behind to stroke the high inner softness of skin that rarely is touched by daylight. A thin fat layer marks her yielding femininity that he craves now in contrast to the raw strength.
“Relying on something else to give you pleasure makes you seek the wrong kind.”
“But Kol, never felt better…!?”
“That will be an addiction.” Adris earns a loud gasp when diving his fingers between her pussy lips to stroke within, cleaning even here to ensure no slug slime perverts Kol further.
(To know I’ve never lost my touch is honestly… reassuring.)
“Strangest Boss! Touch Kol, there, really!? Hhhyaah!?” Even a crushing ass is allowed to feel the joy of Adris washing it with the underside of his arm sliding between her thighs. After she hops through the waterfall to escape onto the seat behind it, there’s a glance back with disapproving eyes; but, invitingly curled lips.
“Boss… true slayer, complete ‘depraved’… wants Kol’s…?”
“Don’t fantasize about idiotic things.”
“GAH!? Tingles, those places!?” Kol swats at the spray of the waterfall that deflects to splash at her flushed neck that absorbed the slime caked most thickly around it.
“Let me teach you the drawbacks of erotic medicines.”
She freaks out further, becoming a pouncing cat at how Adris’ cupped hands send the deluge chasing her around the seat she climbs up to escape from him.
“Maybe you should learn to dodge.”
“Maybe Boss, nyaagh!? Should drown!” When the stream splashes down her spine from Kol turning to shield her front, the kobold yelps childishly and whips her tail at him.
(Hardly fitting for my disciple to be afraid of water.)
The fun game ends too soon, though. “No wonder you can’t grasp the flame inside if you’re afraid of the purest waters. So weak…”
“Nah!? Not weak! Plus, water ruins strong smell.” Sage advice is wasted on a wolfy midget that huffs at her own wrist fur after he relents. Drenched and grimacing that the musky “parfum de kobold” all around has vanished. “Everything that smells like Kol is known to be safe!”
“Yes, my clothes are safe. So is my bedroll. And my food you steal. Right before eating it.” Adris sarcastically lilts his voice at the list of his possessions that Kol has rolled on at least once, making certain to vent his frustration by soaking Kol right between the eyes.
(It’s a scent that invigorates, sure, but I’d like some fucking variety.
Why did I try to… force myself onto Still like that…!?)
“Don’t leave any soap behind or it’ll start to reek when you build up a sweat.”
“Evil Boss covered Kol in it! WORSE THAN ELF!”
Once she’s spotless, Adris allows her to escape his cordon. He reaches to the side wall niche where he set his own soap, a milder version of the blisteringly powerful one needed for Kol’s scales and fur.
(There’s a reason Still hates men…)
[Do NOT mis-step with Still’s sexual boundaries.]
In an old nightmare, the only difference between Adris’ “appeal” to Still and what was experienced by her was the position.
That Adris couldn’t peel his sight from Kol’s energetic figure when she shuffled past him, even when he must clean himself swiftly to get to Ave’s needs, is a problem. The fun of tormenting Kol can’t drive away the dreadful meeting to come after Adris has become saner.
(My libido is becoming…?)
“… Lame.” Kol groans this behind Adris, causing him to jerk.
(I KNOW I WAS WITH STILL! SHUT UP!)
There’s no way Kol can read his mind like Adris’ partner does, so he stops in mid-lather to turn. After the kobold stops sniffing at her bright white fur, she growls low, but needily.
“All got out…”
With one hand sharpening claws on the marble wall in anticipation, an irate idiot’s appealing voice grows huskier to match the sleek sensuality drops of water clinging to tan skin give a naked girl.
“… Boss’ fault. Kol had enough, but not now~.”
(H-Huh!?)
A soap bag drops and washes toward the grate that Kol stands beside while bent over. She faces her behind toward Adris, her tail swishing over where she grabs her butt to open one side of it. A just widened, still juicy hole winks at Adris with the same intensity that the kobold’s side-long glance manages once she’s aware he’s staring hard.
“Boss, Kol isn’t full now. Need…”
Adris’ hand is invited closer just as his body follows it, that eager tail a hypnotizing lure to claim a woman that adopts an even more submissive posture with her face planted against the wall.
“… more ‘hot’ inside to keep warm when dark, if no more campfires in elfland~!”
A stupid bit of logic, because nothing in this world is more heated inside than this white fireball. Disregarding the juices still seeping out from her depths, she’ll never need to be quenched by more being put within.
When Adris gasps inadvertently, Kol huffs louder in satisfaction and wiggles her butt.
(This… this cock hungry…!?)
That approaching hand of Adris’ surges with spirit when a needy slut replaces his esteemed disciple!
“You lack decorum!”
“GYAAACK—uuuuuhhhhh~an!?” Kol screams shrilly when Adris slaps the scaly small of her back! Her legs wobble harder as Adris’ fingers dance and her butt follows those movements.
“It’s very disappointing, that you want to dirty what I made clean, Kol.”
“S-St-Stoppp!” Another moan earns a second hand to deny her request, and Kol shrieks anew when both cup her behind with thumbs massaging at the base of her tail.
“I’ve warned you to consider the situation.”
“NYOOO!?” Already bent forward, Kol’s tongue busts out of her mouth to lick the wall with the rush of pleasure Adris can feel at their joint contact of senses.
(Hoh, that was quite the erotic shout?)
“Boss… KOL SAID ALREADY, THAT… toooo MUSH, HYAAH!!!”
The spell breaks when claws try to swipe his eyes out. Only jumping through the waterfall to hide where Kol just did prevents a terrible monster from following.
“Boooooossssssss!”
A burning vision of hate, drool slurping from both sides of her mouth and her cheeks furiously blushing, huffs and puffs. Eventually, the rage subsides so that Kol returns to drying with a dirty look stuck to her face.
“I seemed to have granted quite the gift of pleasure? Why so contemptuous of your master since you begged for it?” Adris adopts a purposefully confused expression when he hops back out to snatch up the soap he dropped and swiftly turn his back on Kol.
The kobold snorts in rage at this, but the phantasmal heat haze that was starting to leak out reduces.
(Interesting, how she enjoys but rejects it?)
“Kol, said before, not like ‘touchy’ that way.”
“Strange, that you reject pleasure?”
“Pleasure, strongest only! No need weakness like Elf wants! Only proper join together… nah? Mighty beasts way, always attack!” Kol swings her claws around and then roars.
A commotion of water splashing in the adjoining alcove tears Kol from her stupid pose, giving Adris a thought on how to respond.
(If I can’t reach Kol myself, then why not have a foil?)
Opening his mouth to deny this, Adris then purposefully appears reserved. Kol’s frown vanishes at his wait. Her tail swishes expectantly.
The anticipation is just right, so Adris whispers his question.
“Mating is an act of affection, though?”
“Boss, same-same!? Elf want Kol, act like PET!” An indignant shout proves that Kol is being honest, and the truth of her rejection is all the more confusing. “Boss, also treat Kol like ‘sparring’ means… ugh, ‘kiss’!? Disciple, master, not ‘kiss’, act weak like pets!”
So confusing is the pain that he can hear from her heart, that Adris stops cleaning his hair to cover his eyes and stifle a laugh that could end his life if heard.
(Aren’t you… already happy to wear a collar with my name on it?)
This conversation can’t happen, because Adris is about to bust his gut at this resolute girl’s joke right before she castrates him.
It’s too confusing, even for him, to deal with currently. Though, he comprehends the divergence of their thoughts now.
Where “mating” and “making love” can become the same idea to a sentient creature only one rung removed from being a wild animal, though…?
(Ave could clarify for Kol, since she has managed to deny her “beastly” side before!)
“Ah…” As Adris pretends to be deep in thought when stopping bathing, he has the effective counter that Rantil proved in their last meeting.
(Kol is guided by “becoming the best”.)
After letting Kol stamp closer with silent interest he feels, Adris clicks his tongue and then lowers his voice so far that he “knows” Kol can’t hear what he mutters.
In the words of a mentor who has seen failure, Adris also shakes his head.
“So, Ave has intuitively comprehended a stronger form of pleasure? A more complete bonding of our wills…?
How disappointing.”
“Guh!?” A deep grunt from behind goes unanswered. Adris has no need to see Kol’s expression to comprehend the impact.
Back into the noisy waterfall Adris thrusts himself, to wash away the failures of his re-entry into the Mansion. Once this smelly, intoxicating goop is gone, the last effects of aphrodisiac will join it. Adris will be free to plot and plan without intrusive thoughts dictating what his dick demands.
(… Neesiette thinks I’m a rake? I… don’t really see it?)
Perhaps the kind of cad that “being a rake” implies is different on Zennia, for Adris has never considered himself a love and leave kind of—?
Adris yanks his head out of the warm waters to search for Kol’s extra towel.
(Mmmm, I was also naked when I got flung down the entire 900 steps leading up to the princess’ palace.)
His lips are drawn tight with a private pain at being accurately called a rake. “Well, Neesiette turns out to not only be erotic, but also…?” It’s for Kol’s benefit that he openly voices this, too. Adris considers that he might have given up too much about his manly betrayals to Neesiette, since she pegged him accurately; but, giving Kol another, more intelligent rival through shared information might be the right way to handle it.
Ave and Neesiette, both as examples.
(I don’t want to become bound to the expected roles for any of these girls.)
“… Mating is just… what strong do…?” Adris blinks and turns to stare at Kol, interested in the way the kobold sounds oddly sad.
Wearing a tunic now, Kol keeps sniffing at her clothes while drying her bushy tail. That her fur is so fluffy in comparison to before rankles Kol even more.
Adris joins her at their clothing, wondering at what lies tainted by truth he can spin to get her even more captivated by his objectives.
(Being predictable is begging them to lose interest in…
Hmm?)
“Do you need something?”
Two bodies close beside the other is a bit heated even though Adris tries to shy away from the suddenly obsessive kobold. All care for herself fades with Kol’s incessant sniffing louder when directed at him.
“Hnnn?” Squinting at what she smells, Kol slides her stance right between Adris’ legs.
(She just instinctively divided my guard!?)
Kol’s eyes go to their widest in an instant, red arteries inflamed as the kobold growls hard.
“How bold you are.” Adris tries not to buckle to the sudden pressure he couldn’t even react to. Or to how Kol clamps onto his sides so hard that he struggles to breathe!
“Dare you to attack your master, now?”
“Not…!” A pink-eyed terror, her sharp teeth open, growls harder!
There’s no infernal heat coming out, but the kobold has never looked so serious as she does right now.
(Oh, I went too far. My fucking broke her mind, so now she breaks m—!?
S-S-SOFT!)
The thunk on the left side of his neck is so firm that he can feel the impact through his pulse!
“… like.” Then the right side also dampens with the moisture left clinging on Kol’s tail.
(Hoooooh, I want to pat her tail! It’s so fluffy after she cleans it…!)
The huge brush attached to Kol’s butt keeps firmly slapping at him before finally pulling away.
“…
… Mmmm…?”
Kol’s tongue slips past her lips to lick the air as she leans in and takes a deep sniff.
A slight smile reveals after.
Kol drops Adris the inch he was held off the ground. She turns to tap her animated pants hanging from the wall. They shimmy down for her to hop into, creating a wonderful barrier between another carnal session starting.
“Boss, enjoyed spar, though? That’s guaranteed, kakaka! Then, score…?” And then she’s off toward the entrance archway, only half dried and annoyed as she tries to tie her hair up into the usual short ponytail. “Lame, too soft now! … Count score later. Come, Perfect Armor!”
The abomination of a wolf laying beside the pool within the baths leaps up onto its blazing paws to join Kol. This presentable-now warrior saunters out the open door without retrieving any of her belongings left behind.
(What was that about?)
Adris rubs his neck where her tail slapped at him.
Experimentally, he sniffs at his palm.
(… Ugh. Familiar.)
A scent becomes a collar of its own, wrapped just as permanently around his neck.
(W-Wait?)
That mental image ticks something in Adris’ brain as he taps his neck.
A thought that will have to wait, despite how he grins slyly, for something slithers through water to come to the alcove’s entrance.
“… That sounded really… difficult.” The understatement sounds cuter for how Ave avoids staring at Adris’ sparkling body. Only her head comes from around the corner.
“Kol is…? I don’t think she really… feels like a ‘girl’ most days?” Her long hair hangs down. As nude as he is, Ave no doubt has the same tension afflicting her.
Adris doesn’t lose momentum, continuing to dry his hair while being viewed and judged by the next girl to chase him with an innocent conversation.
“But, Kol definitely has gotten more flirty…?”
Both intoxicating and, as Adris sighs once, tiring, having to switch between women has its downside.
(I’m going to be dead after I finish coaxing Ave through her, well, “issue”.)
“… You always seem to have to solve hard stuff…” While Adris ponders the extent of the issue, Ave continues to speak at him. An unusually meek tone, even for her, Adris agrees though.
(She’s wonderful, but it can be tiring to have to lead Ave completely? Kol can at least be left to go wild, while Still is so good at pampering me. When you have to give one-hundred percent…?)
“… It was like that outside, too. Adris, you… always have to sacrifice for us…?”
It was such a nice rinse, letting his muscles relax, and now Adris must do as Ave says, sacrificing again for…?
“… Ple-Please…”
The peeking elf blinks once, then slaps her cheeks.
“… Please come here! Ah?” Ave lifts an earthen-ware jar into view briefly, then it’s pulled back when Adris looks at it. Ave’s request is quite energetic, though she vanishes around the corner before Adris can even respond.
“Hmm?”
(Oh, I can see why she wouldn’t want to come to my alcove. I’m sure it smells exactly like Kol…)
Being reminded of a girl that has attacked you is a mental wound that Adris can perfectly sympathize with. He sighs once more when coming to the corner, dreading that the emotional energy around it feels a bit frenzied.
(Don’t have Ave go insane, too! The space is too small, and she could easily crush me to de—)
At the corner is where he’s caught by outstretching hands!
A beautiful face whose cheeks are slightly bloated out rushes into view, dragging him in and devouring his scream!
(Why does this constantly happ—SWEET!?)
The sideways snake elf refuses him to step further, melting him at the precipice turning the corner with a long tongue thrusting into his mouth. It incompetently merges with his own. A thick, clinging flavor burns up into his brain and declares that he’s consuming a tart jam.
But elves can’t be jam, or they’d be spreadable on toast.
“Mmmgh!? Haah, han…!”
“Drishh…! Ahdrish…” Ave’s moan of his name deforms into a slur because her tongue won’t release his. Not until the very last drop of sweetness that melts onto his is unleashed.
After an eternity of kissing him, Ave uncradles his head to vanish back around the corner.
(… What…?)
Adris hopes for surprises to never cease if they taste as good as this one.
He leans his back against his side of the wall, pushing a finger into his mouth to pull out a glob of dessert.
“Jam?”
“I made it! Is it good!?” His confusion earns a rush of information that breaks like a dam. “It’s what they ferment to make Goldberry? Alcohol is much harder to make, so I made some jam with Mr. Roberto before we left… but, I couldn’t ask if you wanted to try some when we ate…”
Her grin is bashful when she shows her face again. “Sweets make anything better… I always thought that… and, you’ve had a lot of bad… especially…?”
“Especially?” When Ave’s rambling slows down, Adris prompts her with genuine interest.
“… Especially because… the roots they eat can’t make… well, they try to become closer to nature, but the cricus tubers leave a dirty taste in your mouth, so, down… there…?”
Ave looks away with embarrassment, but Adris laughs openly at the reason for all of this.
“Haha! You feel sorry for me, choosing to defeat that goblin woman from the bottom up?”
“… That… maybe… it didn’t seem like you found her… tasty.” Ave’s cheeks flush redder at the attention she’s admitting to having given to his Erotic Assault using his accomplished tongue.
(Oh, you have no idea. That was horrible.)
Rantil deserves to be deep fried for thrusting such a Talent onto Adris. No matter how useful, Zennia is full of woe for making eroticism a weapon that someone might not always enjoy.
“You’re right, I’d much rather…” To the corner Adris’ hand creeps to grab, sending Ave backward with fright. “… drown from my favorite forest nectar.”
“…!? That… would be…!?” As if she doesn’t immediately know, pretending not to be wild for the idea with her gaze shining brightly, Ave retreats back into her alcove.
“It’s true, I should cleanse every part of my body, Ave. Especially…”
“‘Especially’…!?”
(My, my, my, so unpredictable!?)
Always an open tent at night, lamp still lit and begging him to enter, this plucky elf has made the mistake of coming to his to whisper enticements!
She uses both arms to fail to properly hide her tiny breasts, and the cleft where the honey of a human overflows to soak the scales that meet pink skin. Trying to hide the meal after letting someone taste it is an absolute evil.
“I think my tongue needs to be refreshed.”
“P… P-P-P-P…!?”
Ave’s entire tail is wound and criss-crossed into the alcove, flooded over by the waterfall spilling onto it. She keeps hissing the same “p” sounds. Adris feels like doing his own “p” as a “pounce” with something that ends in “s” when Ave’s embarrassment also has the allure of a girl ready to surrender to the assault!
(Kol is just one flavor, after all…!)
“Pl…!? Please…!?”
There’s others, and Adris should never discount variety…!
“Please wait!”
“…
… Wait?”
“Don’t come in! Ave doesn’t want you!”
Adris closes his hungry mouth, then slides back around the corner. Already almost at full mast, he’s careful not to clip himself against the wall.
(… WHY THE FUCK NOT!? HUUUUUH!? Do you idiots think you can just pull this on a guy forever!?)
Adris refrains from screaming this, or crying. Silencing the thousand curses that try to fly out.
“Are you… frightened again?”
“Not at all, nothing bad ever happens with Adris around! Adris is always… very kind. It’s… it’s just…?
Umm… wait, that sounded like the wrong idea got across…? NO, AVE WANTS YOU, JUST…!?”
Because there’s no disgust or lie in the claim, Adris’ death mask relaxes.
So long as he’s wanted by this elf, the world makes sense again.
“I seem to have misheard, then.”
“Ahhhh!? Saying things to people is hard!? Ummm…?” Around the corner, Ave’s teary face creeps back out.
“Ave… wants… to wait. Until we’re there, finally. To… keep my promise.”
(Oh. Oh, oh, ohhhh. I see… hah! Such an unbelievable sex symbol I am, to cause a girl to become so dedicated to satisfying me.)
Ave made a promise to him that he agreed on: to enjoy all their firsts in “paradise”.
“Why a kiss, then?”
“… Maybe… I did want to share the flavor…? It should taste better if a surprise like that…!
I thought, at least.” Like she’s done something naughty, Ave keeps changing tones.
“I’m concerned for your safety with that as the reason.” Because his erection will no longer decline, Adris lets that concern make his tone assertive, yet inviting. “I’d hate… to fail in clearing away any… ‘frustrations’.”
“Eh? How so?”
“Will you not suffer from the aphrodisiac, even after purifying your body?”
“… Isn’t that something you only gave Kol, as a trick?”
Adris blinks at how Ave tilts her head, only wondering at her reaction when he points to his skin.
“It wasn’t something given. We all were exposed. Do you not…?”
“Huh? The… slime was an aphrodisiac!?”
“Did you not notice?”
“Ahhh!? It…? Is that what made Kol go so wild!? Neesiette just said you two were at your limits…”
(Are elves not affected by such things!? Why are they such cheats!?)
“Well, that… it seems it wasn’t something that bothered me? Haha…?” Ave grins idiotically, as if it’s someone else’s problem. “At least not much? It’s… I’m… thinking about quite a lot, but I’m not overwhelmed by anything now.”
“Then why were you acting so shy around me?” After the incident and even through Adris’ derangement from it, it’d seemed like Ave had focused on him.
She opens her mouth to speak, then brings her hand up to stroke her shining hair that perfectly obeys physical beauty norms.
“… With straight hair… um, slicked down? It was… really cute that way…”
(Why do you girls hurt me so much and so often?)
Adris hands are frozen by willpower, wanting to tear out his hair that’s already reverting to its straight and spiky nature while drying.
It’s only with enough fixing gel that he can keep it down. A constant reminder of his unknown heritage, that he came from a lineage that doubled up to produce his piercing hair.
When neither speaks after, it’s Ave who nervously breaks first. “… And… seeing you differently…? Having an example in front of you is hard. Well, we have to become better… or rather, I have to become better.”
“What’s truly clouding your heart, Ave?”
Ignoring his own pain allows Adris to alleviate hers, and the boy offers his hand so that she can timidly take it up from around the corner.
“…
… I… I… am fairly sure… after seeing him for the first time, for real, that…”
A difficult issue seeps through their touches to make Adris sightly nervous, too.
As if her whole world might shatter if she completes her thought, the final admission is choked out.
“… I can never be the same kind of hero… that Rouvenor is.
I’m sorry!”
(Was that all? You about had me melting down for no reason!?)
After seducing him with a novel approach, Ave ruins his mood completely with a triviality.
Before yelling out he must remember her difficulties, though.
The mood is too serious because she made it so. A palpable air of loneliness clings to Ave, sending Adris to want to sneeze. Because for this girl such an inane problem is a turning point, he has to pretend to match the same importance to it.
“Ave, no two flowers will ever reward you with the same experience.”
(I wonder how Ave would taste if I spread jam over her and then ate her up~?)
At odds with himself, Adris’ performance of pouring emotion into his acting sends Ave loose with shock. He leans toward her to emulate Kol’s sniffing (with much more care for boundaries), then smiles when he pulls away.
“Your assessment of the problem is perfectly reasoned. It’s just, never try to confuse yourself with him.” Adris smiles, then kisses Ave’s hand before releasing it. “The only hero you can be is a compassionate one.”
“… Compassionate…?”
“Whatever the form your blooming will take, it will be one that heals others. It will be a meaningful change that comes from what you find within.”
“I… see…?” Ave seems to hug herself behind the wall, then sighs.
“You don’t need to be a second ‘sun’. Can you remain kind for me, no matter how strong you become?”
“… Y-Yes! Being kind… is it? No, that does sound right, in a way…”
(Rouvenor is a monster. An absolute beast. A godlike destroyer. By comparison, you will always be better if you just don’t kill me!)
A brilliant request, Adris exudes satisfaction with this verbal escape. Ave smiles at this deflection, still a little troubled but finally breathing easily again.
“T-Then… I wonder?”
“What is it you wonder?”
“… I… I was taught that… elves should never change the world for themselves? Like… an elf should never try to deprive the world of something beautiful for their own benefit? Sort of?”
(“Don’t be selfish, ever”? Is that the idea?)
Unknowable it is, what strange religiosity could propose such a moral guide.
Not even the most bizarre Xin cult would suggest selflessness for the purpose of denying oneself.
([Becoming one with creation] is for the purposes of mastering it, united with creation itself.)
“That sounds impossible to adhere to on Zennia.” So as not to sound indifferent or uncertain, Adris strikes at the obvious difficulty.
“YES!? That, Ave thinks so, too—! No, wait, but I was young back then, so maybe the meaning is different from what I heard? Truthfully, I didn’t understand the idea when it was explained, so…?” Ave is in a rush to clarify, sort of tapping her fingers together while looking around confusedly.
“Um… I’ve… always tried to bless others. The beauty I found was… giving myself to others to help them, because… I would want that sort of help, too. ‘I’ll give everything for their sakes, because that’s what Pellaeon offers for those who are true to the wind (THEMSELVES)’…?
Sort of like that?”
(Is… that a definition of “wind”?)
A strange automatic interpretation arises from Ave’s thoughts. Wiggling about with difficulty at her thoughts, the girl finally just groans and fesses up.
“But… I don’t think I can do this alone, relying only on myself… even though…
I swore never to ever, ever, EVER, rely on…?”
The elf maid stares at the marble floor, biting her lip in frustration.
Whatever she swore feels to Adris as if it might be core to her constant difficulties, because the emotions shared taste ancient in their conflict when Ave yanks on the earth-encrusted bracer at her wrist.
(You are — NOT — backing out now. Let’s subvert the inhibition.)
“[The wind isn’t selfish, or it’s not the wind]? Is that the claim?”
“Yes! I… think.”
“Cease seeing what isn’t a problem as a problem, then!” Adris huffs a sigh, then snaps his finger in front of Ave’s face to jolt her.
His arms sweep wide…!
“All of the world is cradled by the wind! It uplifts every leaf to send it soaring.”
… and then his arms close in, letting Adris appear vulnerable, even needy, to grasp at the invisible air surrounding him.
“But it longs for others, too, this wind. For, without the trees and grasses and flowers and all else, there is nothing for it to share the joy of flight with. There is nobody to soothe with its… its joyful and benefici—”
“Breath! Beneficial breath!” Ave claps energetically, beaming at Adris as he lets go of the moment.
(Good, good, you completed my thought at the end, thus showing its sophistic impact!)
“… It’s… okay for the wind to be selfish if it’s for others’ sakes?”
“Show me what a little selfishness can achieve. We’ll be here to beg and borrow from, for are we not… friends?”
“Friends!? Right.”
So as not to ruin the moment, or to allow for his meaningless argument to be picked apart by even the slightest shred of introspection, Adris continues dressing.
“You know what to do now?”
“… Yes. Everything has to change.”
Adris pauses at that, for it sounds a bit forlorn for how bubbly she was. But, there’s no change in her expression. “I do need help preparing. What’s to come… will be very different from Ave’s ‘normal’.”
Once he has his jerkin on and his kit readied, only then does Adris offer.
“What may your Emperor resolve?”
“… Um… no… I’d… rather not ask…?
A guy…?”
Again, Adris feels a slight stab.
“Can you… wait for me up in the shrine, instead?”
Offering anything before now to this naive snake has resulted in her lapping up his attention. Instead, he’s being cast out.
“It’s, then… can you ask her to come in, instead?”
With Adris’ mood in whiplash, he has to tap his ear to make sure he hears the name that finally comes out repeated correctly.
“Sounds impossible? Maybe normally, but, please tell her that…!”
A shrine is what it’s called, this holy place for elves that’s nestled within the heart of evil.
But within it, there is a war, a hidden one, still being fought.
{Whatever you fuck up otherwise, do not touch it.}
“Do you think I’m Kol?”
The sneak that Adris was hoping to not meet, but also to explain everything to, chooses to stay amazingly close to him while they shelter within the shadow of a column that holds up the conical open roof.
A wide clearing within the heart of the world tree’s purported entrance sends a small grove of living trees aiming skyward for the kiss of sunlight that dark clouds above tease. Sparse grass, wilting and yielding to bare earth, reveals the lack of life that’s been given here despite the sickly bright radiance that otherwise fills the area.
(Why are those fiends from the heavens here?)
With the grove opposite to the stairway entrance entering into the shrine, between them both lies the… altar, if it is one, that Ave must have been speaking of during their campsite rest. Two trees, both appearing petrified by the passing of time, wind upward in a helix comprised of one seeking to ensnare the other.
The species is completely unknown to Adris, since he’s never seen bark that appears soft as skin, yet rigid like fish fins caught in mid sweep. Between the bark is where glinting of light seems to shine from. These frozen specimens await to pulse forth deeply imprisoned emotions that Adris’ spine feels the wind should carry to caress it with.
But they will not live, so long as IT connects two longing plants that cannot meet.
“Nnnn, that… Kol shouldn’t use, feels like.” Kol alone is willing to approach within twenty feet of the spiral spear that appears carved from an ivory tusk of immense length. If even intended to be wielded by humans, Adris calculates by the length that the wielder would be twelve to thirteen feet tall in order to balance it. “Makes fur stand up! Who makes this? Dwarf? Humans from east, like Big Bird?”
Adris can answer her question, but chooses not to in case this abomination is both jailer and observer.
Something about the spear’s tip, how it becomes so milky white that it ceases to appear physically real, makes Adris worry that he’ll be sucked into it if he names its origin.
{We need to leave.}
“So you’ve noticed?”
{Getting smart with me ain’t easy when you’re always acting so dumb.}
Still’s clean now, her full fencing kit mended and spotless. With her hand extended to almost flick the insult at Adris’ chin with disgust, he’s unsure whether it’s safe to consider it as just an insult or as a declaration of war.
His hesitation, the way he stays stiff, makes Still stop inspecting the lineup of wonderful tricks she kneels beside. Side-by-side: smoke bombs, flash bombs, caustic scent mixtures, and an assortment of other distractions are Adris’ offering from Lycia. These mundane devices stand in contrast to the magical talismans of Roberto’s god, the creepy fetishes that the spider witch Meltish fashioned for dubious purposes, and the standard slayer items from the general sundries shop at the Slayer’s Call such as what’s left of the alchemical regenerator stones.
What unites them all?
(None of them require any special training for me to use them!)
The slayer gear especially fits their definition of “without adhering to a particular method of hunting.”
“Someday you’re going to say something that actually wounds me, Still.”
They’re both unnerved to the point of hiding in shadows, but jokes are a universal balm to that. Just like beneath the dying tree of Falke’s or atop the highest height in Petripolis, that they can trade these sleights and smile after is…?
{Why use words?} Still picks up a ball with a striker. Before Adris can respond, she clacks the striker to prime it into sparking.
(What…? Get rid of it!?)
Adris shields his eyes to save them from potential permanent blindness!
“Hoh?” Kol’s ears twitch when it lights, then the armored terror twirls in place to face Still’s rising stance. Both, perfectly aware of each other when the sparking ball becomes a bullet shot at the knight’s wolfhead helmet.
Toward this threat, Kol only stares when it explodes inches from her eyes.
A cracking report thunders through the oppressive silence of the shining spiral spear’s prison. Adris’ stomach turns over when the radiance and discord of his new friend the Lycian flash bomb barely bothers him when it erupts. Its yellowish-orange fireball is more like a child’s firepowder toy that Kol appears, unmoved, out of the thin smoke left behind.
“… Confused. Kol, very confused?” The knight that took the brunt of the flash doesn’t even need to blink afterwards. She just starts marching toward Still with her poleaxe hefted up. “Kol, thought Puddle would betray Kol with something that actually might affect Kol.”
“Damn, a defect?”
“Boss, Kol feels that the insults are increasing. Who, defect?”
Kol’s menace is for another Adris to deal with, because he’s too busy checking each flash bomb against its siblings.
(I was an absolute IDIOT to trust Lycia to not screw me with the average quality!)
In comparison to the one he’d used against the goblins, one might as well compare a torch to the morning sun. That one had surprised Kol herself when it blinded half the army and deafened the rest temporarily to their leader’s screams for aid.
It just won’t do to have something with only a fifth of the bang when Adris’ dick is in danger of some random goblin deciding to ride him into the ground.
“She played me… again.” Adris keeps his smile up for Kol’s sake, then readies to clarify what the defect is.
At least until Still motions to slap him upside the head, forcing him to dodge it.
{Sometimes you’re as dense as you pretend to be.}
(Are we back to “first blood” already?)
It’s a bit disheartening to think the verbal duels will start back up.
Sure, he clambered all over her, thinking it was a mutual attraction.
Might’ve reached for her mask to tear it off…?
“I’m just sad that the flash powder stuffed inside these isn’t as dense as I paid for, beloved Partner.”
{No, you’re just not as bright as the result of using one, irreplaceable Partner~!}
(This is swiftly coming to the part where I scream “Quick, Kol, help me beat the undeath out of Still!”, isn’t it?)
Adris’ grinding teeth will eventually crack if the kneeling sneak keeps teasing these insulting signs, so he leans in to bother her even more and offers his final peace attempt.
“I don’t know what I don’t know. I do know that I didn’t intend to come at you.”
She might launch into immediate accusations, yet Kol is nearby and staring at both of them with enough rage to tilt the balance if Adris offers to—!
{Why lie so poorly~?} Still pats him on the shoulder, making certain that she spreads her legs just wide enough to produce a slight gap in her paneled skirt.
{Did you ever actually feel that “no” was mentioned anywhere?}
“Nah!?”
The cruelest invitation in front of Kol, Adris finally loses his cool with the purity of Still’s overtly sexual offer of her hand lifted, forefinger and thumb linked together in a circle, slowly bobbing in front of her grinning mask.
(Hello, my name is Adris. Who are you?)
Adris’ mask doesn’t save his expression from dropping, which sends Kol growling harder. The collection of useful trinkets Still leaves behind are deposited carefully back into their original areas of Adris’ pouch, then Still begins to stuff the rest into her own hidden places on her body right in front of Adris.
{Dear Adris, please start thinking like you belong here. It’s becoming troublesome how little you remember of my warnings.}
“Oh, very well, mighty sage: enlighten me.”
Two last flash bombs are left behind, so that one is tossed to Adris while Still holds the other.
{Intend to use it.}
Adris wonders if she’s joking, but there’s no smile left on her mask when she pulls her own smoke bomb past it.
Only a sneer of superiority.
(She knows something!)
The irritation she was heaping rolls off Adris’ back.
He holds up the flash bomb to match hers, then makes a decision.
“Again!?” With Kol filling his focus, his attention sends the kobold sliding her back leg to firm up her stance. The mere act of deciding that Kol should be the target of the trinket also to a lesser degree unnerves the witch.
{Good intentions~. Now: weigh the danger of these two.} When they’re both in view, Adris recoils at feeling vastly more potential danger radiating from his hand.
(Son of a bitch!? How can they be different? The weights felt the same!?)
“How am I amplifying it?”
{A temple reading of your Talents and karma would’ve explained, but I told Neesiette not to risk it.}
“No, no, wait…? I remember from…?” It strikes him then, that there was something listed about him within Rantil’s codex pages that related to “tools”.
[Tool Savant]
It’d sounded like another explanation for Adris’ versatility. Rather than providing usefulness, it was an excuse of a Talent gifted by Zennia.
“Kol, slayers told me that their understanding of what they use is partially innate. Do you know if anything they own becomes more powerful simply because it’s them using it?”
The kobold chuckles, then slaps her armor. “Boss, so easy~! Kol makes anything worn stronger just because the strongest kobold ever wears it. If Boss improves sneaky tricks by holding them, that wouldn’t be hard to believe.”
(I never seem to internalize that my “logic” doesn’t belong here!?)
Adris wants to bury his head into the holy grounds, but it’s just another in a long series of arrogant mistakes of comprehension.
The slayers had explained their grace-or-fell-given Talents as extensions of their own efforts. Everything Kol and the rest did before his eyes were manifestations of their basic natures.
The important part was that they were fantastical, not completely mundane.
To make a tool more effective just because Adris is its wielder is so…?
“How banal.”
{Only if it’s limited.}
Adris’ regrets are waved off by Still, who collects his flash bomb to shake it at him.
{If you can use any tool that isn’t completely specialized, then it also explains why your magical equipment becomes so…?}
“Attached to me?”
{That’s one interpretation. I’d phrase it as… “evolutionary”.}
(That does sound quite impressive, and also unnerving. What happened in Falke’s garden!?)
Still’s sight is plainly upon Adris’ rabbit boots, which have become like a second skin after waking up from the battle he slept through.
It’s all too concerning.
{I think it’s quite useful. There’s no need to fret about missing it, Adris.} Still slides closer to console him. Lengthy gestures are sweetly playful when offered.
{We’re here for each other. You helped me with the shears, remember~?}
“So, you repay debts?”
{What debt? Partners don’t owe debts~!}
A black mark upon Adris’ comprehension and majesty is forgiven by Still.
And a HUGE distraction almost works!
“Funny, that we become so attached to possessions, isn’t it, Still?”
{Humorous in retrospect, perhaps? But the past is the past! We’ve got so much going on now? Adris, I know it’s worrisome, and I get that it’s quite difficult to acc—?}
“Accept that we almost got everyone butchered because you both started a fight out of pure greed~?”
Still hops on her knees to get out of Adris’ extending arms the moment he cuts into her attempt to escape from the past.
“Umu… thought that might come up.” Kol doesn’t bother fleeing, because she’s just annoyed enough to growl at Still getting near her. “Puddle jumped first, Kol will remind Boss.”
{Things happened then. We’re past it now.} Still’s sole gestures, two, then three, say everything about her mental state. This prickly witch bitch, a curious smirk on her mask, even now tries to be flirty when offering Adris back his pouch with flicks of it.
(“Forgive me without forgiving me, or I’ll throw a fit”? Why?)
He grabs onto her hand instead of it, holding firmly but without malice.
Both are silent when staring at the other.
It’s the perfect setting to finally win a staring contest, because Still detests being closer to the spiral spear’s light enough to shift back onto Adris’ shadow.
{… This evil place…} Catty fingers grow tired. {… no one is immune to it.} Without saying who proved it, Still satisfies Adris by the implication.
(I would never be petty about you succumbing! Anyone would who isn’t me!)
“You were right. It’s hard not to want you.”
Still flinches at this open announcement that sends Kol slouching. “Boss… taste, WORST TASTE.” To his side Kol flops herself in full armor, almost hissing like a cat.
(“Peace”?)
While Adris gets dragged into a heavy and painful embrace against naked steel that hates all life, Still deigns to respond to his hidden gesture.
{Don’t fret like a snotty child, afraid that “mommy doesn’t love you” every time you get treated a little unkindly!?} A particular mood comes over the witch when she hides half her mask with a hand, leaning onto her raised knee.
But it answers his question.
(I’m not into that. But, I am into a little respect. Nice to finally find it dependable.)
And so they wait after that. For the advent of what was promised by Ave to Adris.
After a few minutes of whining from a kobold…
{Adris, when are those two finally going to get he—EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!?!?!?!?}
Adris watches that drawn out gesture go skyward along with the witch that was just then at his side.
Straight up the foundation wall Still scurries like a spider fleeing an inferno!
(MY FUCKING SKULL!?)
Adris’ sinuses crack along with the plates of his head.
A pulse of the earth at a magnitude Adris has never experienced yells out adulation that’s deafening!
The entire grounds of the shrine crack all over. Every insignificant mineral within the organic soil is a separate shout.
… their dreadful little respite abruptly shifts into a gentle nightmare.
The shining spear flickers when the pulse strikes it, its omnipresent white gloom resisting the rush.
“Oh!? OOOOOH!? Kol, remembers this!” A kobold joins the screaming earth, her armor also groaning in dismay at the energies it bathes in. “Felt many times, much smaller! This is ELF FULL POWER!”
(I’m shaking!?)
It’s like the shivers after a bender with too much honey wine, or the withdrawal symptoms of trying not to have those nights, except both all at once.
Adris half wants to try and join Still at the very top of the open shrine. She won’t even peek over the side now since the source of the pulse appears to be climbing the stairway to join them.
“Elf! Elf! EEEELF!” Kol hops while cheering, a slave to the impression of a strong ally appearing.
But Adris just waits with a blank expression.
For this to be the change Ave was talking about, this flood of authority that she had access to all the time, he half wants to rage at their misfortune and half apologize for ever suggesting she accept it.
Most of all, he finds that he’s staring at something beautiful for the first time when it appears. His eyes aren’t clouded after being forced open.
It’s as though the wind itself has taken form, as soft as a cloud and gentle as a mother’s hug. It has to be, for he felt such a hug from an old woman who chose to briefly adopt him.
The comparison is even more firm when an unchanging lady of the moon enters beside her, striding forward with mechanical precision where her opposite glides without a commitment to maintaining momentum.
Being compared by Adris’ gaze sends the moon fairy’s passive, dead gaze ahead into a grimace of annoyance.
But it’s hard to restrain what Adris shows.
Because it feels like he’s in a dream, with how she’s carried over the precipice rather than slithering up.
Everything is the same about her.
But everything is also different.
Her features so familiar, yet as if seen from a completely different angle. These angular, kind impressions of an elf with stoic, but playful, energy contrasts with the omnipresent concern of a girl that was historically scared of the very world.
“… Beloved Returned One.” When her eyes catch him and she smiles without a shred of contempt, Adris forgets how she used to look entirely. The words should be meaningless, even comical, when directed at Adris; but, they feel like they connect him to her without needing to explain why.
To this once naive girl that bumbled into walls, the idea of “returning” explains the garb of a divinely serving maiden.
Clad in her dancing clothes with sashes and also the silverish-blue scaled protection of what dwarves call “mithril”, it’s the pageantry of the additional details she’s chosen now to wear that completes the idea of being a “creature of the forest”.
“Let’s enjoy a fun time, okay~?”
A coat of sewn leaves rustles when she extends her hand to Adris, all bright green like her scales. Each leaf is unfaded, everliving even when worn. A hood fits over her head with the back open to allow her ponytail through, and she seems to be both present and not depending on how Adris roams his eyes to take in her details.
Priceless jewels that shine like a rainbow when taken together are living light that rejects the spear’s. They adorn her all over, yet she looks not a bit heavier.
And her emerald tail joins the procession that an elf’s human form makes like an empress’ visit. A winding, fanciful ruffled covering of pale green cloth rides along the top. When her tail moves, it faithfully obeys without falling off.
For Adris, the clothing would make the person.
His heart burns for two reasons when this beloved child defines her ensemble instead of the other way around.
(That’s not… fair.)
Adris wants to scream this, because this shouldn’t be possible.
There’s loss, regret, and some delusionary feeling of longing all at once.
Then the moment ends, for the gentle forest child catches sight of two helix trees.
“… How…?”
And the spiral spear that twists and binds them.
“… dare they halt the wind?”