Hot winds blow through the narrow walls of the city below. They carry the anticipatory cheering of the crowds gathered by social rank below, all facing the gold-clad dancers obscured below the stage. These are ready to pop up the moment sparking fireworks signal the next change in scene.
That flash is forthcoming, Adris merrily assures himself.
He squats at the darkened edge of the observation gondola hanging over the central plaza, his hands already on the invisible zipline that will drop him over their target. Even fitted against the friction of descent by thick gloves, they buzz with anticipation!
(A gaudy statuette sitting on top of a bald bastard’s head: the target. True worth? Why, only an insignificant half-pound Drop of Creation held in the lady’s hands!)
After a month of planning for both city and scoundrel, an unforgettable show is set.
“I amaze myself, Serras. Bet you still can’t guess the finisher.”
“No. But, I don’t need to.”
Behind him, a swordmaiden’s breath tickles his neck with each rhythmic one she takes. She psyches herself up for a battle trance, but Adris hopes it’s also to match his own excitement!
“Because you don’t need to guess with me behind it!?” Laughing at that, Adris eggs her on with his tone mocking. “Because… you’ll feel my brilliant heat, soon, just like you will later~?”
Adris flinches, then moans despite his tension when, in the privacy of this stuck air gondola that was halted for later repairs due to his designs, his beautiful partner abandons their zipline to cradle him to herself.
(She’s really into this scheme!?)
“No, that’s not why. I don’t need to feel anything about you…” Darkly indifferent, Serras begins her answer just as Adris’ mental countdown reaches zero.
(You… don’t feel anything…?)
All around the fat regent’s booth far below, the firepowder cannons that should be rigged to go in sequence for a bursting demonstration high up now launch all at once!
Along with this launch, next should come the powder stores that were planted in the false tiles below…!
“Huh?”
Instead of a huge explosion that forms two walls of fire to obscure their zipline entry from hidden snipers, playful comets of fire shoot up directly at the gondola. Pelting and rocking it around, with some exploding right near it to linger as balls of floating fire, Adris’ plot goes up in those flames!
(Exposed!?)
No Technique radiated to command this assault. Instead, it’s just a total failure of his sabotage of the launchers that causes the huge crowd of gathered nobles in viewing boxes, innumerable Xin’reh and commoner guards below them, and even the fat, porcine regent highest of all to stare straight up at the illuminated Adris.
“… Hahaha…!” The ugly provincial regent points his fat finger, then starts laughing uproariously at Adris.
“For my celebration, the fool has arrived!”
It should be faster-than-sight arrows that pierce him with this insult, but Adris’ heart stops for a different reason when everyone obeys his new station.
“WHAT AN IDIOT!”
“HAHAHAHAHA!”
With his beclowning as a cue, the hundred hidden dancers in their long dresses pop up from below the stage, then shake their legs and wave their fans skyward.
It’s a thundering display of unity that causes Adris’ mouth to drop, finding that they laugh instead of feeling the awe and horror he’d intended.
(They’re… I’m…?)
White, then red-faced, Adris cannot even scream a challenge at the Xin’reh who should now be declaring his doom. They instead cackle from behind their coppery face masks at one unworthy of such merciful respect.
(A… joke…?)
His entire career as a brilliant scammer and thief and inspirational folk hero ends not with him carved up in a pool of blood, but with a wheeze of embarrassment when Serras squeezes her partner and finishes the halted response.
“… Because… you’re boring.” The voice that finishes is wearily masculine, yet childish in its disappointment.
Out of the gondola he falls, frozen like a stone. Pushed out, born naked into the sky by what held him; into their screaming laughs, as the city distorts into twisting sights!
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
…
…
The horror of falling to his death tastes deviously sweet.
“MPHH!?” Adris tries to scream, but what sits on top of him swallows the sound.
Even trying to move is impossible. His muscles are cold, stiff. Body heat seemingly missing, draining out of his tongue that’s stolen with sloppy kisses.
(Who is this!?)
Adjusting to waking, Adris fears the black diamonds dancing under the eyes of the girl that does this evil, seductive thing.
“Patheeeetic.” Licking her lips, a stark-white underling of madness adopts a look of smug derision.
(Rantil!?)
“Trying to steal someone’s light, but you’re too short to do it? Oh, no, no, a runt shouldn’t try that~!”
Adris flinches, pushing his head deeper into the mattress to escape. The allip follows, pinning his hands beside his head.
“Putting eeeeverything into a glorious standoff! ‘This is where I get him! I’ll have him yapping in no time!’, but then one word stops your yapping instead~!”
(One word…!)
It haunts him even now!
Nausea strikes at the thought of it being said again, unable to…!
“… Kukukuku! Correct! As a Crossbearer is now, not even sleep is an escape from it!” After laughing, the allip brings her face closer to his. The madness in her green eyes, the swirling blackness that orbits in them, seems so scornful of him.
Adris circulates his aura to throw her off…!
But, nothing responds.
The allip’s cloak covers him entirely once he realizes his paralysis.
“Time to wake up and face the truth of what you are: a fool.”
His ears burn, his lips curling as his top teeth bite into them!
Without justifying why, the word electrifies his body with painful shocks!
(I…!? I’M NOT!)
Rage moves what willpower won’t.
In an instant of burning his muscles from the inside out, he’s staring down at the constantly duplicitous slut while heating up!
(FUCK YOU, YOU LITTLE…!)
“Not proving any different! Attacking poor Rantil, but running from your ‘enemy’?” All cutesy when he’s ready to share power with her, she resorts to slander that stabs when he seeks even a hint of escape!
“… Shut up!” Over a small, defenseless body he shuffles to sit saddle on her stomach. “What have you been plotting, now!?”
(First my ascension step, now, maybe she’s going after me…!?)
Thinking through the flames in his thoughts, Adris recalls the dream he just escaped.
“You! You’re the one sending me into these dreams, aren’t you!?”
“Che, even now, just running from the topic.” Rantil rolls her eyes.
(I’M NOT RUNNING!)
“Coward~.
Bravely running away, awaaa~y!”
After clawing at the bedding, Adris lifts his hands to the pipsqueak’s throat. A link of pleasure sparks when their skin merges together in constricting feeling!
He squeezes down to stop her insults, but they slip out despite tightening, for his throat closes up instead!
“Bo~ooooooooring.”
(UGH!? NO… No, I’m…!?)
He burns up with embarrassment, squeezing harder to choke it off!
Red eyes burn in his sight as his rage peaks!
(DIE!)
A rush of predatory thrill in pressing down with all his weight…
Something unknowable courses through him, screaming to be heard, but instead vanishing!
“… Kyaaaah~! Finally, a manly sort of Crossbearer wakes up instead of the coward?” But the one who won’t shut up smiles brightly at his crushing of her throat with his fingers. The ghostly girl’s voice comes from all around.
Like a pulse of blood, each painful spurt flows away.
“Do it! More! Rantil will take in aaaalllllll the bad things…!”
His overloaded hands cease tightening when his mental training howls a warning of change, for his Inner Expanse has deformed into an unnatural shape.
(WHAT AM I DOING!?)
He rips his hands off and tries to jump off her, but she easily wraps her arms and crushes him to herself. “Stop!” They twist for a moment, with her face into his stomach and his arms yanking on her wimple. “Rantil…”
But she refuses to not be dragged on the bed in his escape attempt. Silently resisting, the pain that brought rage being replaced by isolating coldness.
(I don’t… you didn’t do anything wrong… I did, so…!?)
“… I’m sorry.”
He tries to remember who he is after losing that motivating heat, and especially the stature he has to maintain to keep this ghost in line; but, he can only manage to be perfectly contrite, even diminished by his whimper of an apology.
“Hurting you, even if I can’t do that, I… would never want to do that, or enjoy it…? So… why am I…?”
That ‘stature’ is what set him to doing this, bleeding himself as a conflicting wound.
(Only the worst man would blame a woman for his fai—HAAH!?)
“GEH!?” She sputters into his stomach, making his belly button sticky.
“Hey!? Q-Quit it!”
“Don’t just apologize like a pretty boy would after doing bad things!?”
“Why shouldn’t I? Are you calling me ugly out in the open!?”
“Of course Rantil is, because such a gentle beauty’s unbeating heart isn’t ready for anything other than a bastard’s non-apology.”
“Sure, right, I might start strangling you again, so you’ll get another chance.”
“Kyaaa~! Adris will punish Rantil like a drunk, useless, hideous wretch of an uncle would his niece? Even more when nobody can see you do it…?”
“Stop being creepy!”
But he doesn’t feel like running anymore after she crawls up between his arms like an eel and pops her head up next to his.
(She didn’t give me that dream.)
Like so many times before when using her strange inherent nature as an insane ghost, Rantil sucked away the “dark things and thoughts” that plagued him.
Even the memory of last night, which should be fresh, feels as distant as the pain for Serras’ murder of himself. The coldness is unpleasant, though, as if it’s only gone, not resolved.
(Just like Fehr and Fehl can, Rantil can drain away?)
“Nooope. Just ‘make it unknown to all’ for a time. It’s never truly gone.”
“Right, you already read my mind. Why do you… do these things?”
“Hah? Asking stupid questions deserves stupid responses…?” Rantil blinks about this, then puts a finger to his lips, then to her own, and licks the tip. “It’s because you’re sweet and salty, and Rantil kind of likes that taste now~.”
The other instances come to mind where Rantil had wanted to feast on him.
(We “exchange” each time.)
Depraved things go to Rantil, but what comes to Adris?
“Give Rantil some of the salty if you’re done with the sweet~!” Equalizing between their two different bodies, Rantil’s proximity feels infinitely reassuring when Adris confirms it’s only her around him. It’s quickly turning erotic with her nearly naked femininity goading him, though.
“… Thank you, for helping me… no, for shielding me from the ‘others’ in the manse.”
“Ummm…” Rantil’s grin collapses, the lustful drunkenness becoming a squinting look of uncertainty.
“My resistance… to those ‘things’, after we joined as two in one beings…? That’s always been bolstered by you, hasn’t it? Not just my mental supremacy, but…?”
“… M-Maybe…” She pulls away a bit, her overly white cheeks gaining a rosy tint. The atmosphere of sexual lovers Rantil was trying for dries up with continual thanks, producing a quiet, awkward one where she isn’t boastful.
(She’s always been there for me, giving and taking… in fact, a little too much…!)
“We’ve shared almost everything, haven’t we, Rantil?”
“… Not everything. Rantil can think of m-a-n-y things she wants to try~.”
“Remember, though, we have to be a good example for them.”
“Hah? Good example? For who? Those brats who keep stealing Rantil’s love time…?”
“No, for our kids… Mom.”
Hands thrust against Adris’ chest fight the ones he wraps around to catch with, an allip’s manic attempt to slip away contested by Adris’ good-humored bear hug.
“… Rantil has nooooo ideaaaaaa what a crazy man is talking abouuuuuut…”
“Did an evil woman snatch one of each of our hairs, then make them from clay with a heretical formula?”
“That’s not exactly what happened, Rantil could possibly explain…!”
“How, when, and why?”
After releasing her, the allip lays side by side, but faces away from him. Her index fingers keep tapping against each other.
“No, wait… when would be…?” Adris recalls first the way the allip had hidden herself beneath her cloak at the manse’s roof. “You, even then, you were hiding a baby bump!?”
“… M-Maybe.”
“How fast do pregnancies go on Zennia!?”
“… A lot faster if you start as an imp…”
“How did they…!?”
“When an imp and her daddy love each other very much, from the front hole for the first time instead of the back…” Her whisper sends him screaming.
“That happened INSIDE of me!”
“And you HAPPENED inside of me!
Ahhhh, there’s no need to ‘happen’ a cross upside my head, as Rantil will happily clarify…”
In concentrated effort she does:
From imp progeny, to developing allip, to birthing a book that was two incorporeal animating spirits of dark intents instead, it seems that Zennia favors the idea that “once you have a bun baking, you can add as many flavors to it inside the oven as you want to, but you can’t take it out”.
Thus, the end result took advantage of circumstances to become what was “born between two dark beings”.
“Cute kids. They must take after their mooooooother.”
“SHUT UP, ‘PAPA’!” It’s Rantil that cringes now instead, trying to slam the back of her head into his chin.
“Like mother like daughter, so lewd that she now has to aim for me?”
“Blaming me!? You’re the one that’s gonna go bald if your little baby boy becomes a better schemer than you!”
“Am I gonna be fixing nightmares they unleash!? Dealing with… m-mommy’s ‘friends’ is already hard enough!”
“With a deadbeat like you, it’s gonna be up to me to take care of my kids!”
“NOW they’re your kids, since you can defend them against me!?”
“… They… sort of are… and aren’t, but… uuuuh…” Rantil kicks her feet, then curls up like a baby.
(So embarrassed… you are…!
So… so… embarrassed…)
Adris shuts up when he realizes that even his own voice was quaking with shame.
They both roll away to show their backs to the other, then lay there for an unknown number of minutes denying the truth that they’re parents.
(I… was never supposed to have kids.)
An orphan doesn’t have a family,
a soldier and scammer cannot care for one,
so, logically, Adris should never have gained one.
(A family of those girls and Lycia was enough.)
“… You don’t… hate them, do you…?”
“Do you really think I’d say ‘you bought bad eggs, get a refund from the merchant’?”
“… Get a hint…!”
“They’re… they… deserve their lives.” At this, Adris brings his hand up to her shoulder. After hesitating, he rubs the cold skin. Rantil jumps at the touch, then relaxes.
“I don’t dislike them… so far. You did… you did what women are supposed to do.”
“Rantil is very popular with the Crossbearer’s ‘seed’, that’s for sure!” She gets more flirtatious instead of offended at being called “good for breeding”, forcing him to pull his crotch back from her humping butt.
“Ah, but a teensy bit seriously… the Crossbearer should be MOST wary of any strange buildings that open their doors for him to enter.”
“Will you throw me to my doom if one does, or warn me!?”
“Rantil will decide later~.”
After calming down finally, Adris takes his time gathering up his resolve.
(It made no sense to ‘attack’ last night.)
“Finally got some real healthy sleep, for the first time since Petripolis.” Thus it can only be blamed on how tired he realizes he was, and still is, mentally. “I… didn’t enjoy being made a fool of by our…? It adds up, the cuts into you, right, Rantil? You know me well, to reach me how I’d reach myself.”
(There’s no better way to force reality than to cook in hatred of it.)
“Wooooah, Rantil is getting so much appreciation! That’s very strange, very scary, Rantil sometimes would rather have the mean Adris…”
“I’m a bit insulted by the decor, though.”
The room at the top of the turret remains a curious spot to room. Stepped blocks up to the turret’s edges don’t have ladders or smaller steps for climbing. The windows that form a dome over the top are shut, allowing little light in but still somehow letting Adris see the world tree’s overgrown inner canopy beyond the constant haze of the village.
It comes to Adris that he isn’t overwhelmed by any buzzing thoughts here. The sharpness and vividness of the ‘morning’ are lessened. But not without his thoughts straying to rubbing Rantil’s naked thigh and enjoying the lingerie she wears, thus proving that the Castillo’s curse is strong.
(No, let’s get moving.)
“They came up to sleep on their own.”
“Only the mutt. Rantil watched the witch doing her best impression of a stray cat protecting her alley~.”
“Still must’ve thought I was trying suicide.”
One other mat is unrolled, and Adris is thankful for how Kol’s gear is strewn about both it and the rest of the turret roof.
“Kol would never maintain her gear if this place wasn’t safe, so that’s relaxing.”
“Be wary of ‘safe’ in this dark forest, Crossbearer.” The more aristocratic Rantil persona loudly starts addressing him, grabbing his hand to squeeze. “Nothing is sacred to elves but what is rarest felt. Guard one’s thoughts, keep them sure, and know that nothing may stay hidden. Stay well clear of the fey.”
“Hidden things that want to be known, huh? Fey sort of seem like… Rantil.” He says her name, then thinks of the codex form she normally takes. After it’s in his thoughts, he notices it sitting right next to him in a pile of his belongings.
He opens it and traces the page with his finger, writing out a question. “That tickles~!” The ghostly slut moans and presses her butt against him again, but then answers. “Nothing enters, nothing leaves, so long as the windows are closed.
… Kukuku, a perfectly isolated space, made by rejection.”
“Still did a good job with it.” For the witch to grant them a place they can talk without interference allows Adris to conspire against…?
(No, there’s no way it would stop him from hearing us if he wants to. He’s far too powerful.)
Such thoughts aren’t important, because nothing grants an advantage over that elder, nor does Adris have disadvantage in any way against him if Adris’ thoughts leak.
He cannot even approach to challenge, much less be considered worth destroying.
“I couldn’t read… him at all, Rantil.”
The allip doesn’t react, except to massage his knuckles.
“Even having no planning beforehand, knowing nothing about his particulars, I still… should’ve gotten some rise.” Adris’ exasperation is dry, almost choking at how far he fell. “He cares about Ave, otherwise he wouldn’t talk to her. What motivates him?”
(That rule of his… “he only cares about what interests him” is like a toddler’s mood.)
“I failed.”
“Then don’t next time~.” Carefree, but also a bit annoyed, Rantil turns around to face him. “Rather than not reaching him, maybe you aren’t reaching yourself.”
“How… what?”
“Think for a second and then say that’s wrong.”
Adris is thrown out of control again when the insipid allip suggests something that sounds ridiculous, but soon has his mind racing about it.
(I rejected the insult… by running from it.)
To run from something implies to fear that it is…
“Am… I… boring?”
It should be ridiculous, but the moment he asks the question, he feels extreme discomfort at doubting that it isn’t false.
(Maybe not all the time… but…?)
The allip’s sputtering laugh sends him shaking with anger again, then she shies away from the raised black cross.
“Rantil didn’t say it was permanent!? Instead of that elder dweeb’s thoughts, what does ‘Adris’ think about the past himself that might be a bit boring?”
A trail through his mind is run on foot, pondering deeply in the embrace that he crushes his allip with.
Every time he’s acted, it’s been for profit.
Profit is king. That’s his law.
(No… that’s Fatso’s.)
Adris is now a [false god], whose purpose is to benefit others’ desires over profit.
By aiding theirs, he fulfills his own.
(Could… it be… I’m failing somehow, still?)
Touching Fehr’s soul flayed his own over the need to curb his own selfishness; but, an evil gremlin is still taunting him, stabbing and laughing at his intellect that says that he’s changed sufficiently enough from days before.
(What would make someone as obviously outstanding as me boring to this elder?)
“I’ve… been trying very hard to be their champion, not my own.”
“The Crossbearer is definitely a tryhard.”
“Usually I’m more flexible than last night, but…?”
“Rantil requests proof~!
… HYAHAHAHA!?”
To shut up one annoyance, Adris uses a torment that has never been used before now!
“STOP TICKLING!?”
“How’s this for proof?” He bends like a reed of grass to follow her with his dancing fingers under her armpits. She wiggles, but he does too. “Pretty flexible, right!?”
“YOU’RE GONNA GET CURSED!”
“I can’t answer my question, so I’ll let others do it for me. You’re useful for that, so show me what the girls think. What I didn’t see from their reactions…” He pulls the book form of Rantil from nearby to read it with her.
The first image is of a once-cocky witch now kneeling, working on some witchcraft as she seems to be peering everywhere at once to see if she’s been found out.
[“Cyrene Stillwater”
Respect: 💖 💖 💖 🤍 🤍
Obsession: 💛 💛 💕 💕 💖
Understanding: 💛 💛 💛 💖 🤍
The girl known as Cyrene has dedicated her entire existence to opposing the forests that desire her destruction. As close to the living light as a mosquito, she will accept no outcome except escape. The Crossbearer is her weapon against all others, and she is his… for now.]
(When did she gain so much understanding of me!?)
The obsession she holds is nearly beyond the ability of Rantil to scale, too.
Adris kicks up to sit above Rantil, staring at the book and then looking at his allip.
“What in the name of the Ascended cursed me with this?”
“One night under the red moon, in a garden where water and cross danced a different sort of dance… maybe~?” Rantil whistles at the end, refusing to share something important that fuels her mirth.
(What the fuck happened that night where I blacked out!?)
But he has no time to ponder that since her aims are his own. He will support her plot to his utmost.
(What about…?)
[Neesiette vera Luna
Respect: 💛 💛 💖 🤍 🤍
Obsession: 💛 💖 🤍 🤍 🤍
Understanding: 💛 💖 🤍 🤍 🤍
The girl known as Neesiette walks the narrow path between failure on both sides. Unlike before where she sought to isolate herself from the rest in order to achieve progress absent aid, she now thrusts herself into a role that she’s never taken before. Entrusting the Crossbearer with the solution, she works with earnest belief that he shall prevail.
(That moon god’s favorite tinker toy actually respects me now?)
It must be a given, since she “honored” him with the supreme gift of imprisoning him in a dimension of mental suffering, then raping him with the passion of a sexual fiend that wanted to drain him dry.
Not only respect, but the other two categories are firmly raised, since [golden hearts] shall not change.
Of the next…
[Kol fehl Dain
Respect: 💛 💛 💛 💖 🤍
Obsession: 💛 💛 💖 💖 🤍
Understanding: 💛 💖 💖 🤍 🤍
The girl known as Kol has witnessed all she knows change in the span of a very few days, and adjusts to capitalize. “An elf that has become strong” is a motivation for her to become stronger, and she is waiting to see who forces the “issue” first: “the elf or the Boss”. But intellect gives way to desire, and hers is focused on becoming “firstmost” by any means.]
(I… won’t say no. Go for it, Kol.)
Adris nods approvingly, despite Rantil glaring at him like he’s a week-dead fish. That the codex doesn’t define what Kol seeks to be first at is a concern for Adris of the future.
(Kol will always be my ally for change so long as it benefits her.)
Precisely because the last girl in question is related to Kol by passion, Kol will be key, and this other girl’s passion is…
[Avenalliah Aurmaris
Respect: 💛 💛 💖 💖 💖
Obsession: 💛 💛 💖 🤍 🤍
Understanding: 💛 💖 🤍 🤍 🤍
The girl known as Avenalliah has met herself and her heritage…
AND SHE BLINKED.]
(Blinked? That’s… all?)
“Tell me, Rantil, what does this mean?”
“… That which isn’t known, or shouldn’t be known, must arrive later after understanding… hyAAHAAHAHHA!
STOP TICKLING ME!”
Leaping onto her, he finds something more powerful than flames to coax the truth with.
Though he has to angle his knee to block the kicks at his groin, Adris’ smile is immensely large by the time she’s ready to cry, but can’t because she’s a ghost.
“PLEAAAAASE STOP!? RANTIL CAN’T GIVE AWAY THE STORY! IT’S NOT RANTIL’S FAULT!?”
“This is… something important?”
(Are Rantil’s teases like the black lines, words, and visions that [Authentic Fiction] granted?)
“IT’S ALL IMPORTANT! READ BETWEEN THE LINES!”
“I see, it’s so simple to get an answer once you read my heart’s worries and I bully you for it.”
His praying mantis strikes ends, sparing one last swipe at her tits to flick the nipples.
“ADRIS!? … Don’t do things that might send messages…”
(Messages to who? I’m not planning to fuck you right now, not with you maybe birthing “stories” every time I cum inside you!)
“Ummm, that was once only, because Fehr and Fehl were added on.” Rantil’s smile is sinister when directed elsewhere with this heart reading, then she reaches out to cup Adris’ crotch and grinds her palm such that he must jerk more upright at the sensation.
“When you unleash your full, manly self inside me next time, you gamble for something new~!”
Adris’ senses refocus at the quip, locking onto a rising heat to his right.
“That’s much more interesting than what you can bake inside, right, little doggy?”
Just peering over the lip of the hole in the turret floor is a fiery girl’s peeping face, locked onto the smirking Rantil.
“Boss… abandon Kol to boring elf…
… left, went off to have fun with Puddle…
… sleeped by Puddle, not letting Kol sleep by…
… then, mating with someone other than Kol before even eating?”
(Still slept beside me!?)
Elation at the idea must transmit like another message, because Kol growls louder.
“This, very ‘concerning’ for Kol.”
“I’m not in the mood to mate. Gather up Neesiette and Still.”
“Ho?” Kol’s ugly expression becomes surprise, then a good mood at his swiftness of action.
Dressing quickly, Adris’ emptiness inside longs for a meal and to play his grandiose persona before others.
It’s fortunate that the village is a place to obtain both, for it has been anything but boring so far. Then, he freezes with a question.
“Wait, how did you get up here, Kol?”
(Does the wind that brought me last night obey…?)
Kol’s ears perk up, then she lifts a hand up. Sharp claws extend to shine in the light from the windows.
Adris pulls out a stake from his climbing gear and then holds it upright at a good site.
“Show me your strength.”
“Sure~.” With one lazy hammering fist after jumping up, Kol buries the stake halfway into the solid stone. Adris secures one of the mundane rope lengths around it and then drops the line into the darkness below. “Now, we’re getting ‘revenge’?”
“No. I agree with the elder’s words, Kol.”
“NAH!? Boss… boring, Moon said, Danger Elf called!?”
Despite a brief shiver of despair up his spine, Adris maintains his immaculate guise of authority and “tuts” at her.
“It was a mistranslation on her part. No one can comprehend languages better than your master.”
“Umu, true? Then, what said?”
“Understanding my mood, he called me ‘bored’.”
“That was it?” Kol sighs, all her earlier tension departing. “Not insult? Is Boss bored? Kol has been having fun, though.”
“With my many responsibilities, I hadn’t noticed my own dissatisfaction.” Because she’s acting friendly, Adris rubs one of her ears. “As master and disciple, let’s use this time to bond.”
“Ho!? Then, what will we do to get fun!?” Kol grasps his line of thought, her tail wagging in her usual eccentric style.
“Find, make, or seize it.”
“GREAT IDEAS! Armor down there, jumping in!” Kol nods exuberantly, grabs her polearm, then hurls herself down the tower center without using the rope. Scratches on the wall are heard before a thump.
(Indestructible…)
“Lies, half-truths, and total manure~.” Rantil hovers behind him, her wimple still up from hiding her face from Kol. “You’re going to be Mr. ‘Fun’ God, now?”
“Only the best kind of deity.” Adris grabs her book, the chaotic shadows of the allip trailing to it.
“Gonna prove you’re not the loser Rantil has seen a dozen times already~?”
Adris uses Ave’s hand mirror to adjust his ensemble, happy that Still’s nervous time didn’t stop her from fixing a tear he gained in his jacket.
(Rantil’s way of motivating me is the best one, in the end.)
And he has a way to thank her for it.
“A dozen and one times a loser, but ten-thousand thousand times a winner. It’s all about balance!” Adris invites her with his hand curling. “But I can’t do it alone anymore.”
Rantil spooks at that assertion, circling him as she squints with disbelief.
“It so happens that you’re a lot of things, but ‘boring’ has never crossed my mind. Use your passion.”
If left unchecked in his urge to plot and seek destructive revenge over petty things, Adris can never change from the path that ended his life temporarily in the manse.
“Be a nasty voice in my ear.”
“… Kukukuku! What is this benevolence, seeking aid with one’s own intentions!?” The specter wraps him up from behind with a swoop, throwing him off balance and chattering into his ear after. “Listening to RANTIL for ideas? Oh no, he broke, went crazy, got too horny!?”
She slides a hand down his chest, aiming for a bulge that perked up when her tiny breasts thrust into his back.
“Rantil’s time to shine is now! So, you know…” Seductively she encroaches with her petite body clinging. “Helping words are nice, but how about a helping hand-y…?”
“L-Later!”
If the day passes without success, Adris will be proved wrong.
(The best revenge is a dish of that bastard’s insult fed back to him, with a side of duck sauce!)
…
…
“Such interest!? I’d be happy to show you everything, anything, all the things about the forest!” Avenalliah exclaims this, then stares up to the turret that Adris left. She has some sadness in her voice after. “But… we’re not all together.”
“To each their own. Our own is with you.” Adris takes her hand, leading her out of the elder’s ominous domicile. When the gate swings shut, Ave appears to gravitate back, then pulls with Kol’s rambunctious urgings.
“Elf! We’re wanting to go places!”
“‘Restless’, Kol, being less direct may one, allowing Avenalliah to take up reins instead. Adapt conversational tone, embrace mystifying intent.”
“Kol knows the ‘flow’ that’s wanted, though? Mystifying? That’s all around as haze! Going somewhere is important!”
With her full armor worn once more, Kol is a glaring black-and-red sight against the rainbow obscuration surrounding them. Refusing to not wear it after the trip to fairyland, Adris and Neesiette relented when she promised to shuck the steel cage if necessary.
For the small lady of the moon’s part, she doesn’t carry her tome with her after the private conversation that the four of them had without Ave present. Instead, it’s entrusted with a witch in a fortress tower.
“But, Still…”
“Still cannot freely leave to walk under the sunlight… or, treelights, until you’ve allowed the other kin to make peace with her.”
“That’s… probably true…” Ave whispers this, then gives up.
(Still is staying behind to work her witchcraft as sleuthing. Everyone has the same goals, without any delusions.)
These elves are crazy, and something bizarre must be going on with them and this village.
This was the first group consensus reached after everyone agreed that the owl aping out was normal elvish behavior, for Neesiette admitted under duress…
“Erratic and crazed, lacking any reasonableness or self-preservation or decorum, all… specimens of elves recorded as devolving into such behaviors when conducting inquiry into their natures via forcible extraction from habitat.”
Luna could not decide what to make of elves, and thus little was recorded of their natures except essential biology and that they’re without common sense at all times.
When Still had, without any artistic flair, suggested that they abandon Ave and make for the Castillo if that’s true, it took longer to reach the second consensus.
Everyone here will begin their own investigations apart from Ave into what is going on, by their own means, then bring the information back for review.
(That is what we’ll be doing from now on. Kol would only agree to travel together if she could choose what she wanted to do…)
“TIME FOR NO WORK!”
“Kol, where are you even going? The spirit shows Mython’s tree as being this way!”
Ave follows after the kobold that runs out into the haze. That loud child then circles back to the way Ave points while chanting “Eat, sleep, fun, and mate!”
(This is festival week.)
Neesiette pulls on Adris’ arm, offering herself up for him to hoist her into his arms in her normal princess carry.
“One’s… abandonment of circumstances…?”
“We’re not abandoning anything or anyone, Neesiette, merely refocusing this trip.”
She is still reticent, but Adris made his case so well that she was outvoted by two “yes” votes and one abstain.
“Ave seeks self-discovery. Why shouldn’t we as well?”
“‘Loafing off’ be the apparent nature of one’s refocusing of our delve.”
“Even you need rest, Neesiette. Learning, too, should be fun for Ave and Kol, not… boring.”
Candid only about simple things when outside for there must be many watchers, Adris chastises his mistress with a serious grimace of pain at her disagreement with fraternizing strongly with the elves instead of allowing Ave to do so gradually.
“Would you deny your enslaved supplicant the fruits of pleasure that he’s pined for? Desired to share with…?”
She refuses to look up at his face after that self-naming, then avoiding naming her as the target of his amorous look. “One’s… predictable indulgences be the more dangerous concern of this lady’s.”
“Then you’ll have to trust that our design is foremost in my thoughts. Or hope so, anyway.”
After just the right endearing tone and a rakish contempt, the way he hugs her to himself for reassurance despite mixing the signals, Neesiette predictably caves with a sigh of exasperation. “Public openness, societal perception, and this lady’s decorum demanding, cling not so openly to a woman’s figure when it be endangered by leering!”
(“I can only think of the first friend we made, Ave.” That was the proper answer when a dozen different ideas were offered all at once, and Ave couldn’t seem to settle on one.)
Instead of having Ave choose, they go to the source of accurate information about everything relevant under the shaded boughs of elves.
“How… completely unexpected, so totally outside my place in the wind’s usual flow, that you’d choose… me, oh Priestess, to share my…?” Pale-faced and looking askance, their guide for the second day appears anything but pleased to have them finish the climb up the wobbly stairway to her tree house.
The forest hunter’s gear that left Mython anonymous has been shed. In its place, she sweeps aside low-hanging green bangs that come just above her eyes, a mousy effect to her presentation that matches the functional and unassuming tunic of woven leaves that she wears. Full leg and arm hose of red, blue, white, and yellow take up one arm for each, and suffice for the shoes she chooses not to wear over the tree’s plush carpeting made of moss.
(She’s much less aggressive like this. But, elves are all flat.)
“Hmmm!?” Rather than responding, Ave takes on a serious expression and slithers into the heart of Mython’s personal “arena” without even waiting to be greeted. It’s made of raised and lowered rings that cross over each other. While other elvish homes devoted themselves to unmoving arts that loved standing displays, Ave bridges the distances between the circles’ disparate elevations to take in the circles.
Each work invites a passing stop as the party silently watches. The sharpest eyes Ave has used ever before now catch every clothing set worn by the mannequins just as Neesiette’s would. Purposeful hands feel along the fabric lengths, tug at the invisible seams of pieces that almost present as one vibrant, continuous joining of textures and colors without hems.
The entirety of Mython’s space devotes to the pursuit of passionate clothing that appear separated into unknown categories that defy the uniqueness of each piece.
(Such… completeness.)
Adris has never cared for the clothes of others, only his own. Knowing what others wear and the value of it, or the significance, is sufficient enough for his work. He’s never felt any emotions save for a need to overcome the opposition’s superior effort, or a satisfying smugness of looking better in his own garb than others’.
Even when it’s a woman wearing a form-fitting outfit with plenty of skin tactfully revealed, he’s rarely been taken in by erotic embellishments until coming to Zennia; but these clothes, which are so varying in their styles and purposes, defy their endless variety to be linked by a single thread called “singularity”.
Instead of a lifeless mannequin wearing the outfits, every outfit made exclusively for a woman seems to carry some deep impression of what the proposed wearer should look like, that the clothing seeks not to define them, but to approach symbiosis.
“Only one woman could ever wear any one of these outfits”, Adris has no clue where that intuition arises from, but the moment he touches the sleeve of a ball-room dress beside him that seems like a gaudy creation of roses at first, but would flutter if worn in motion…
(Nnn!?)
A spark of sensation passes between fabric and skin.
As if a shock of static, he cannot explain the familiar sensation.
“Such… clothing, made with the talents of the singing needle…?” After making a circuit of Mython’s dual home and showroom, Avenalliah returns to her benefactor with an expression of difficulty. “… which is whistled into action, and merges fair cloth with wind made solid…? Yet, I don’t see much use of the standard wind-woven materials?”
Just as if she’d bit into a particularly hot pepper, that the usually overly candid elf maid tries to avoid commenting further leaves Mython craning with anticipation. “… they… everything… it’s all… very…” Her hands lifted up to catch her thought, Ave’s elating gestures stiffly collapse.
“… it’s… all an attempt, for sure!”
Nodding at her conclusion, Ave turns around and starts to expound upon the worst insult she’s ever uttered.
“Unlike the seamstresses of the Second Age who played with the vast possibilities of the natural world, using their designs as envelopments of the artificial of the outside by the justness and playful beauty of eternal greenery, these pieces were made to… succumb to the excesses of those who are not kin, denying the playfulness possible to arrive at… very foreign results which would be more popular with the less enlightened peoples of Zennia! They would never, ever belong with the world’s flow, only stand apart.”
(When did Neesiette possess Ave?)
Every word that Ave utters wilts another present. Mython’s hands that were lifted each time to interrupt with a point keep falling lower, giving up when Ave is like a predator using the clothes to escape being followed.
“But, by utilizing only a few of the multitudes of techniques of our kin which were passed down with the breadth of wisdom and capability that would make any foreign seamstress shed tears, at least not… wasting those more energetic techniques on such pieces is a testament to the restraint of the maker in keeping others from ruining their potential application,
furthermore …!”
Mython’s spine curves with her soul growing ever heavier.
The elf who doesn’t belong in this tree goes on and on at length with a fervor that makes even Adris sick. Ave cuts down the craftsmanship of the outfits to the point that any craftsman would already be threatening murder; yet, he still is ready to ignore the effect so long as Ave is content.
(It’s not as if I’d be the one wearing the—Ohh?)
A chattering of voices draws Adris back to the rose dress he’d touched.
Its mannequin is now naked, the exposed anatomical body having fidelity to female perfection.
Dark vapors gather at its hand that is now lifted to show off a device attached to its wrist. Made of tubes and laminated wood, spun crystal thread clings to its skin.
In the moment of Ave’s diatribe against Mython’s work, Adris’ own appears from nowhere to his shock. He stares at it, then hears one laughing voice. More come, directed at the mannequin which showcases his craftsmanship.
(… Don’t… undersell my efforts…!)
After a flash of anger, the delusion of the lost device, gifted to Neesiette, vanishes from sight with but a blink. The mannequin actually wears a dress made of endless rose petals, made to bust up a figure that is overtly slender.
A single, obliterating vapor of darkness wafts from it. Adris’ mouth opens, then closes, a complaint swallowed.
(It’s not the same.)
Bile bubbles up in his gut when swallowing that complaint.
The laughter returns, haunting him as he recalls the complaints: the lack of expertise in how it converts aura, the amateur craftsmanship, the limited utility of its fog against other simpler Techniques…!
“No, you are wrong, Ave.”
Adris thrusts himself between maker and critic.
“All of these pieces are absolutely beautiful!”
Resolutely, he intentionally declares this loudly enough for the entire village to hear it.
“—though the elvish clothes that Fimbo brought back were also really lacking in…?
Eh? W-W-Wrong…?”
Everyone who was watching Mython melt under the criticism abruptly turns when the elf shakes up and down at the compliment.
They watch Adris return to take up the hands of the mannequin that wears this flowery dress that caught his eye. Reserved for a young woman taller than him, something about its inherent love of the wearer’s proposed agility fascinates him.
(I’d like to demonstrate how beautiful it’d be in motiooooon!?)
It springs to life in their mutual dance, drawing him to swirl with it before they lunge outward to a halt. Left in this position with their backs arched skyward, Adris can only laugh at the motions he is put through.
(These mannequins are alive!?)
The impression wasn’t predictable, but certainly leaves his audience awed when it ceases to move and Adris stands back up.
As expected, the dress’ different skirts gave it the look of a flower dancing in the breeze. It earns a clapping of his hands as praise, then he approaches Mython and smiles.
“This was made for someone special, which is why it would only look stunningly well-made on the woman it was made for?”
Mython’s eyes go wide, but she doesn’t speak after recovering her dignity. Instead, she just nods rapidly, then smiles a bit like spring revealing. Slight dimples on angular cheeks are a rare treat.
(She’s a cheating existence, too…)
For the first time, Adris feels like he’s met an elf other than Avenalliah.
“Avenalliah, every outfit here. Doesn’t it feel like a great deal of effort was put into matching dress and sash, heel and cap?”
“That’s true.” Ave gives them all a second glance, then frets some more. “But, they weren’t made to be enjoyed for what they are? They’d have to be together, with that person, not playfully shining on their own?”
(What does that even mean?)
“They’re… too ‘heavy’ to be worn by anyone else trying to just have fun?”
Mython’s skin goes even paler, her eyes shaking with frustration. Adris feels an errant gust whip through, lifting the many different fabrics up briefly.
“Shouldn’t clothes be created for others to enjoy them rather than just one person, like when you wear them for someone to notice your…?”
“Kol likes this one, though, Elf.”
A second dissenter ignores Ave and pulls a mannequin down. Her claws yank on its set of revealing strapped armor pieces. Very similar to Castile’s barbaric protection, the aura of indomitability clinging to the set denies the fact that it appears to be only ceremonial. Made of the finest banded wood, and the cleanest and shiniest steel set over it, the whole of it is trimmed in silver with velveteen ruffles coming out from under what pads beneath.
(Not what a true warrior would wear, but instead something made to present that effect for a wealthy lady?)
It’s shocking to Adris that he can almost pick out the guiding principles of each set of clothes now. That they front an unusual presentation while accentuating with the normal expectation of the expected dress’ purpose.
The usual overpowered by the unusual, then brought back to normal somehow.
Mython’s hand shakes when extended toward what Kol wants, a mood of fearfulness that Adris notes.
“Kol, you want to wear non-armor…?”
“Nah!? This, isn’t armor?”
The kobold knocks on the leg plate of the piece, putting a small dent into the mannequin that roughly steps back as if wounded.
“Destroy not love’s form!” Mython rushes in, drawing the mannequin back up with an exasperated rush of breathing. Kol steps away with a grimace of annoyance, then clicks her tongue when Mython pulls the metal piece off and chants a short aria.
With the power of only her thumb, Mython corrects the dent from the backside to perfect roundness.
“Why would anyone wear ‘foofy’ clothing that doesn’t protect?”
“Kol, it was made to protect! Even if ‘heavy’, beautiful clothes protect just by being pretty!”
Ave slithers closer to check on Mython, who nods submissively once her anger passes and she returns to being emotionless.
“Like you were saying about Adris’ lessons in the manse,” Ave gestures to her own clothing for Kol to listen further. “For that gray goo girl, to be strongly attractive like she was doesn’t need armor! A dress can do that even better!”
“That is dumb, just like usual Elf-ness.” Kol curtly dismisses Ave, who stays smiling but shuts up. “Can Kol try this on just to see if Kol’s Talent works?”
With that question, Mython averts her gaze deferentially, but has a low, disapproving diversion of an answer. “Not made for you, nor destined for you, a… waste of your precious time to try such a mismatched-for piece.”
(No, this is a useful chance, even if you don’t have her wear that one.)
Adris uses hand signals to transmit that opportunity, prompting another voice to add in.
“Weapon and defense against the world, clothing such as this intended to invoke emotional ‘damages’, this lady posits that as a comparison for protecting others a squire should recall a lesson about the worn dignity and emblem of a knight contributing highly toward this goal.”
“How does a thin piece of clothing do that!?” Kol turns from Neesiette to Ave when the elf comes up to Adris with a twinkle in her eye.
“… Adris, what do you think of what I wear?” Ave takes his hands and brings them to the sashes which loop over her breasts. When he’s forced to take them in hand, the somewhat transparent silky green sashes stretch when lifted off of her.
Were it not for the protective bodysuit she wears, he’d get a firsthand inspection of two small fruits for him to bite into. A shocking enticement from Ave, but welcome.
(But you don’t really need an answer, since you know my tastes after burning up in them!)
Yet he gives one, willingly, by curling a smile at the question that isn’t specific. “I think if you were less defensively dressed beneath, then you might’ve defeated me just now.”
“NAH!?”
It’s somewhat of a game being played on the only girl who doesn’t understand feminine allure, but a fun one. Especially since he earns a blush from Ave that is ever rarer to see after entering the tree.
Kol looks from this playful encounter to the variety of outfits surrounding her, then to her own armor which completely encases anything enticing.
Stamping her feet, Kol then starts yelling. “DRESS ELF! Kol, wants to try this on!”
“Away the wind blows, never returning to honor this demand!” Mython’s scream back is unnerving for the moment that she stares down Kol. Unyielding, even when upon first meeting Kol she’d been terrified of the kobold’s violent temper. Both have the slit eyes of forest creatures; but, Kol strangely enough blinks first.
“Why? Hating kobolds?”
“Never would petty hate be offered as a justification…” Mython sounds pouting when rejecting that, then starts sweating when Ave’s wide-eyed stare sets Mython to shaking.
“No, the answer for anything and everything I’ve made is no…!
Only destined for the one that should wear them: ardor, the pain that won’t fade demands it!” She clenches her fist and raises it…!
“But, you’ve gathered so many without having given them to that person…?” Ave’s questioning lead in sends Mython swaying like she’ll pass out. Stiff cheeks sag, her eyes filling with tears, even the color of her hair seemingly bleaching out.
The mood that hangs around the spacious tree stand grows heavier, a gloominess diminishing the vibrant colors of Mython’s artistry.
(This is… a coming ‘crack up’ like Kainan’s!)
But Adris has no fear of this elf, for she’s ever been reasonable!
“Mython, could you make me some tea?”
“… Y-Yes… I… please, partake.”
Into his arms he takes the frail girl about his height, putting her under arm and walking toward an open cabinet which holds the only curiosities that aren’t related to displaying clothing.
When Mython waves her hand, the tree branches come to life. A sprig of fresh tea leaf is plucked from the very plant that grows on the bark-soil, then it’s dried at an impossible rate by heat rising from the mixing of heated stones on a hot plate left on the floor.
(I want this hot plate! Imagine the quantities of jerky I could make, Serras…!)
“My courtesy fails, for I still haven’t offered a greeting.”
A kettle lifts by branch to set beside it, and the clearest water flows from a crack in the flesh of it to gather inside.
“Greetings from an elf? Hoh, how exciting.” Ever ready to prove a point, Adris’ practiced swoop of his opened hand ready to grasp ahold and pull in riles up Mython more!
“This will be my first one after Ave’s, since you offered greetings to her and not I.”
(So impressionable, elves are.)
“Before me is the first ‘like a human’ I’ve met that is ever-kind, even finding our simplest customs endearing! My greeting could never match the Priestess’ which you are blessed to have received, nor could it be offered to her.” Mython brushes back her bangs again, a smile shining through her heartache.
“I hope to share greetings with the same uncommon anticipation.”
As the water starts to heat, Adris cannot understand when the cute elf playfully drops to her knees, spreading them out in a v-shape while sitting on them.
“‘Tasting’ the flavor of your joyful essence traveled far, allow me please~.”
Just like recently, a strange shock flows through Adris.
(Essence?)
Mython’s very tone, a lilting feminine one, lodges in his throat when breathing in. His balls jump, something stiffening with the scent of drying tea leaves mixing with the odor of her hair. Or maybe it’s not her hair, but something much more private.
Everything is wrong with how she leans her head forward, all the tension leaving her. An expectant rosiness on her cheeks to prove that anticipation that sends her heart beating fast despite a business-like expression.
Her face nears him at the very moment that his animated pants stolen from Falke explode from the front.
“… Oh. What a difficult meeting!” Mython sings praise of the rapidly engorging snake that jumps out to bite her.
(W-What.)
The intricacies of interpersonal relationships flash through Adris’ mind, but his gaze won’t leave the seductive seamstress who tilts her head to stare at his majesty from a side angle.
“Unique to me, in all ways you are a ray of warmth in winter; and just as rare, the size of that ray~!”
With but a moment until her dripping tongue touches the tip of his furious crown, the boy’s eyes are ready to roll back into his head when that pleasure ignites him.
His hand clamps on her head, desperate to move in one direction or the other. Instead of jumping, Mython’s curling smile widens, and her extended tongue flicks at him.
Part exhilarated, part screaming in panic, Adris’ thoughts are melting down from the wave of passionate vibes radiating from Mython that seem to vibrate the air as much as him!
(This is going… very… DIFFERENTLY THAN…!?)
“Why does the ‘greeting of our breaths’ involve my prince’s… ‘princeling’ going into your mouth, Mython?”
Without a shred of malice, only the sort of astonishment that results in devout men tumbling to apostasy, Avenalliah Aurmaris has her index finger to her lips and questions the most enticing elvish custom Adris has yet to enjoy.