“A tightness growing here!” One elf touches where her diaphragm would be, sucking in air. “Expectant! Gather, then…! ‘Huff, huff’!” A cute exhalation, then an expectant, confused smile follows.
“Yes, a tightness here…?” The other elf touches just above her crotch where the womb should hang, the tickling of that causing her to shudder. “Very expectant? Then…?” Equally hungry lungs suck in through her mouth opened into an “O” around an imaginary object. “Hufff, huuuffff…?” She breathes out through her nose, cheeks reddened as her tongue orbits the inside of her lips.
“Wrong! Greet with mingling breath, pleasure!”
“… That’s not pleasing to you?”
Two elves, both completely confused with the other, end up turning a question to Adris.
(I’d want the ‘huff, huff’ that Mython wants!)
“The animus of spirit, the wind of the soul, gathers to be shared, carried by…!”
“As always, by the seed of the self? Gathering by the hour, expelled for the pleasure of one and the sharing of truth to the other.” Mython again covets her lower form with both hands, confused no longer as she explains common knowledge. “A greeting gifted to one who arrives, then returned upon the next meet once ruminated upon? Is this not as always ever our way, the way kin share se—?”
“NO!”
An anger that is cold and not innocent flares up as the dagger-staring snake elf swells in height before the suddenly shivering Mython.
Hands approach the other’s face. Because Mython will not flee, she accepts her doom.
“Like this.”
Ave draws in breath, Mython’s tree’s leaves rustling all at once as she does.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh…!”
Then away the branches stir from Ave, to dance as Mython does when the sewing elf’s ear bears the brunt of Ave’s outgoing breath.
A great whisper flows out over the village hidden by haze.
“Hnnnn!?” Mython squeals, her cheeks and long ears beet red as she collapses. “No, no, noooo, Priestess!? No greeting, that…!”
“But that is the greeting! Come back up, you have heard it only with one ear?”
“No! No more… no more of… too much!?” Mython cowers like a child taken out into a city’s market for the first time. “By breath alone, the fullness…!? Only Callers do this!”
“Ridiculous~!” Ave yanks Mython up despite her fear and sloppy, drunken collapse, brushing her off from the moss on her butt. “Any and all kin by contract of spirit, calling the wind into themselves to then…?”
“Only one of a hundred, over a hundred and some seasons born they, shall be destined to speak in Sylvan tongue and ushered to be Callers. The wind, to themselves by rhyme is called by voice instead of coaxed by feeling…”
(Sylvan Callers are the few elves who contract with spirits?)
“… That… no, all kin are wind blessed. This jest is juvenile, even for a young one like you, Mython~!” Ave’s shock fades, a look of mirth replacing.
“Not jest… solely truth, from kin to kin, all I have ever heard or known.” Mython calms herself, rubbing the still jerking ear that heard Ave’s breath. “No greater joy, nor undeserved blessing may have I, than to have heard… your ‘rarest breath’ (CLEAREST ANIMUS).”
Mython again makes the sign of tree hands joined by thumbs. Ave blanks at this, just staring at Mython like the elf is an unknown animal that crossed her path.
“… Such a… one’s ‘fancy’, misunderstood, had I…! The wind, its anger toward it…?” Then the seamstress kneels, her head dipping. “For thy truth, for the sake of all here, Fate sent a sign, and I choose to read it now when others will not…”
(What even is going on?)
Adris tries to move, to speak, but a shaking paralysis that smells of the sweet forest during a brisk shower lingers.
“Conceal one’s… might.” A doll intrudes between the elves, with Ave stuck looking between Mython and Adris, and guides Adris to sit. Her gloved hand presses upon his length to hide it, sending him back to full staff immediately!
“That will not conceal it!”
“Dwell not upon sensation, then!”
(If ANY part of you touches me, I’ll think of nothing but the texture!)
“Tea!”
“… Y-Yes!” At the Lunamaton’s order, Mython leaps from her supplication to happily retrieve tea. Still shivering, the elf remains at firm distance from Adris as he samples the aroma to distract himself.
(Avenalliah can move the wind… but it’s… angry? What is up with this tea!?)
The aroma only seems to reinvigorate. He grows harder just by the increased circulation!
Yet his difficulties demand he focus on averting hostilities.
“A truth of Zennia that I’ve discerned is that… the strongest feelings convey the most. ‘Pleasure’ for a greeting would convey as much with either method. I hold no hatred for earnest customs, no matter how sexual.”
“There is no discordant path…?”
Adris’ disapproving look halts Mython’s question, ending the conversation.
(Get a hint!)
Ave’s sternness fades after some contemplation, then she slithers closer to pat Adris. “Strange is not unlike kin, but we must never not hold sacred the… joining of branches! To try to bend yours with this Prince’s, one’s pure intent might be twisted?”
(Why am I the one twisting HER?)
At this demand, Mython’s brows arch with more incomprehension, yet she stays quiet under Adris’ silent order.
“It must be a regional imbalance outside blocking hearing? For within the world tree, any may meet the wind spirits and chat with them!”
“… By your will, let this be true, Priestess.” Mython nods in agreement to Ave’s solution, but only casts more confusion around.
(The imbalance is inside me!)
Mython’s liquid mouth was lined up.
Any saner man would’ve questioned, turned away, and deflected the situation rather than allow a “greeting”; but, Adris’ sanity died the moment he questioned: how much does she want to swallow my ‘gift’?
(The Castillo’s curse is amazingly powerful here?)
Neesiette performs as a living barrier preventing the rest of the world from witnessing his erect dick sadly declining; yet, she’s also Adris’ next obsession. Hands that cradle a tea cup are unwilling to move, lest he drop the cup, pick up the lady he’s sworn to, and spike her on a dick that longs to re-merge with what almost wrung it to death!
(Rantil isn’t causing this, is she!?)
But that accusation dies the moment a coldness climbs up his spine with a non-corporeal sigh.
The obsession that switched from elf to perfect constructed beauty freezes. It fades from thought, stolen and stealing away the focus of the growing heat that now sputters out with chagrin.
(Hidden away…? Rantil is helping. Haaah… it’s elves again. They have scents like Kol’s.)
Zennian scents are a form of mind control, apparently, comparable to Techniques of Xin. Elvish customs do bear further speculation and investigation, Adris thinks as he recovers enough to plan.
“Mython…”
“Priestess.”
Standoffish now, Ave half-circles Mython with a curious look of dissatisfaction. “If ‘day’ and ‘play’ really are so different here…?” Then, she adjusts her mood and grins. “Then, would you be overjoyed to aid in teaching another elf something?”
“Ask of me!” Mython grins back, her yellow eyes dancing with an enthusiasm once missing.
“Greatest of their joys, what might one share of Môrmasto and Ysanne for those wishing to discover!?”
Mython immediately turns her face away, eyes fixed into the distance to avoid Ave’s probing. The foreigner jolts at this, then continues her constant study of Mython as the silence endures and Mython’s fidgeting hands held together grow more restless.
“… Ah? The waters?” Then the seamstress’ tension releases, a happiness re-affixing. “Priestess, the most favorable play of all would be to swim in the purest of waters found only within a world tree. Lounging at its banks, the colors are united there.”
“Refuse, absolutely, always.”
A clanking catastrophe barrels into the conversation, then leans down to sniff Adris’ still cooling tea.
“Tasty!? Smells very good, has Boss tried yet?”
“Don’t dismiss our plans and then change the topic, disciple!”
Kol scowls at this, her wolf-jaw visor up so that all can see her displeasure.
“‘Swimming’, ‘bathing’, ‘shower’, ‘water play’, all just different words for ‘drown kobold’!”
“Drown…?” Mython’s confusion returns, then the seamstress waves a placating hand at Kol. “Within the clearest, kindest waves that offer up to birth the winds here, none would ever succumb to the malevolence of waters.”
“Kol understood ‘water’.”
Ave leans in to get Kol’s attention, then sighs.
“No lakes of kin, skyborne or otherwise, would allow a single being favored by the sylvan forests to drown!”
“Can’t drown in water here?”
“Just like you can’t not return to the tree, the waters will never fill you except if drunk!”
(That’s… amazing.)
Adris’ mind is clogged by the memory of the Castillo’s tubes that he just knew he’d drown within, his lungs full of water that he could still breathe. Even if Lycia had saved him, being flushed down into darkness and cold with bloated lungs had left a lasting strain on his relationship with swimming.
“Nah, but… swimming is…? No, wait, if ‘swimming’, then doesn’t that mean ‘swimsuit’ (LIGHT, FLEXIBLE COVERING DESIGNED FOR AQUATIC FESTIVITIES)?”
“What is a ‘swimsuit’, Kol?”
(Even the translation doesn’t help me!)
If you think of swimming, then for those cultured of Xin who faced difficulties obtaining and keeping water, swimming is indistinguishable from the luxury of bathing.
Watery festivities are done when naked among men. If among women… then nudity is still preferred for different applications of “festivity”.
(Why would you—?)
“Wearing clothes in water, isn’t that foolish? Haha!”
“Hehe! It is, right!?”
Mython’s laughter comes just before Ave’s, setting Kol to gasping, then fuming as the kobold stomps.
“Idiot elves! Kol, was shown by slayers the ‘strongest’ clothing! When you swim, females destroy males with ‘swimsuit’!”
“Occurring during service within that forsaken group, one’s cultural exposures thereof be of questionable integrity, Kol.”
“Do not begin again with that, Moon!”
(Slayers invented it!? That makes me more than fascinated…!)
“Do you have an image in mind of it?”
“Kol saw one on parchment.”
Adris pulls Rantil’s codex from his hidden spot on himself, furtively drawing Kol in with motions until he can place a furry finger to an opened page.
(Rantil!)
To call out her name in his mind draws inks from Kol’s fingertip.
“Black!?”
The page forms with its normal ominous borders, but then gains red hearts carried by blue waves.
At the center of the page, a nondescript lady of average beauty sports over her naked self the definition of uselessness: a thin, shiny cloth top that covers her breasts and a v-shaped comrade that ties at her waist to cover her crotch.
“Lingerie?”
“Not for mating! For swimming.”
Adris questions what Kol interpreted from the word, but he finds it hard to justify asking for this kind of clothing.
(What’s the point? It doesn’t seem like it would get sticky or wrinkled if it became wet, but why would a man make this for a woman to…?)
With an outbreak of random chattered whispers in Adris’ ear flinching him, Adris blinks in surprise.
Upon refocusing on the page, his mouth opens wide.
White, red, and tan.
Those are the colors that scream out “fuck me”.
“Nah? That’s Kol.”
“… Yes… yes… it is.”
A woman of no consequence is gone, her unenergetic posture shown up by a purebred tomboy whose arms are lifted over her head to lock into a stretch.
Hips swayed, legs off-balanced in their own warm-up movements, Kol’s athletic body reveals tone and fat compared against not only her silvery scales and white fur on her limbs, but also the blood-red swimsuit that rises straight up like an arrow shaft to barely cover her mons, to then arrive over her pert breasts after widening only partially enough to trap the center.
(Bizarre!)
“… Hnn?” Kol’s sniffs get loud again, with the kobold ignoring his tea in one hand to lean in toward his lap.
(Totally indecent!)
With the sides of her modest boobs exposed, this line of cloth ties around the top and bottom of her shoulders so tightly that it just keeps her “safe” from spectators. The very moment that Adris desired to feast on the pink nipples, he could just hook a single finger and…!?
“H-Hoh…?”
“Kol!?”
Adris sighs when the second hand of the morning presses firmly upon something that had just deflated. It’s only after she jerks away not to get it slapped upside the head by Adris’ held codex that Adris realizes he was hard before she touched.
“Hmmmmm!?” Kol’s beautiful features grow ever more wolfish with her cunning toothy smile widening. She has him completely figured out before he slaps Rantil shut.
“Kol wants swimsuit!” The kobold points at Mython, then drags Adris by the seat of his pants as if she’s aiming for his hidden coin purse! “Will actually pay for this! Make, Needle Elf!” Screaming an order at first, Kol’s aggression does a total change in direction when she notices Neesiette’s angry stare.
“Right, Kol, ‘please’ make.”
“Disciples do not make purchases with the master’s funds!”
“All over but others crying when Kol wears it~!”
(Somebody stop this idio—!)
“Buy?” Mython blanks on the word, looking to her empty hands, then making a sweep of them over the arena that is her home.
Totally at a loss, Mython’s questioning look turns to Ave after coming up empty.
“Kol, elves place no value in… well, things.” With complete patience, Ave readies for the next outburst with the face a haggard mother prepares.
“Our Elf has a LOT of things to not value, then!”
“Treasures of kin have value because they can be brought back to them! All that kin shall know of coveting form would be either a passion to make or a passion to use! Not to hoard, but to share, to return ‘value’ to others throug—!”
“Boring, cut to point.”
Kol’s interjection flatlines Ave’s mood once more, but she recovers with a smile anyway.
“Mython! Though it’s very difficult, could our passion become yours as well?”
The seamstress’ servile mood shifts the instant of requesting passion.
Suspicious of Kol, then despondent when staring at Ave. Though chattering about “Fate” only minutes ago, that energy to seize it wavers visibly with her hunching up.
(It matters not to me.)
Logically speaking, the party gains very little from an immediate agreement, for they’ve not even decided when to do this swimming.
There is no expectation he has about it, nor anticipation of what to gain. The Sea of Stars grew boring for Adris the moment he and Serras ran out of aura beasts to hunt at the surface, then became a mortal insult when he couldn’t devise a means to reach the bottom of it where Drops of Creation the size of houses must lie.
But there’s something about the way the others suddenly want to, and also a curiousness about how Neesiette firms up her fine features and says nothing about this plan, that quickly lights his fire.
As if the moment she does speak, Adris will catch onto a hidden facet of her, he feels a tickle in his chest rising at the opportunity to turn the conversation.
“Having no idea of what to do, or where to go, this world tree has been nothing but inhospitable to my joy.” Adris seethes with dislike at this moment, letting Mython jump at the intensity of it as Adris breathes in her energizing tea.
Not just as words said, or a logical position of a guest that feels shunned by the hosts of the tree…
Along with the whispers in his ears that echo his resentment, he lets his heart swell with them.
(Any place that treats me with endless disrespect is one I will hate, then destroy.)
“If this tree offers me nothing of worth for my misspent time, then it can burn with my anger.”
At the point of absolute revulsion at their treatment so far, Adris chooses to elegantly sip from the tea cup.
All the wonders of creation dance on different parts of his tongue.
A party in his mouth causes his sight to defocus into two directions.
(I think I just came!?)
Being seated already is a blessing. So was being born.
Everything the wind touches is blessed, because his tongue tastes sweeter than sugar and zestier than cinnamon!
If he doesn’t pull his consciousness back from his feet and hands where they buzz with happiness, he knows he’ll start drooling.
“Enthusiasm?” Mython coos at him with mirth over the way he keeps noisily sipping the incarnation of deliciousness that gathers from heaven in his cup.
(STOP DRINKING!)
He tears away the rim of the cup, holding it out while trembling.
So many wondrous sensations, all blended together!
(No… MORE!)
A third of the cup’s liquid sends his logic screaming with envy at the pure pleasure he now willingly obeys! Again he lifts it up—!
“Good?”
The furry hand of a misbegotten wretch steals that cup away, slipping it up to her lips from his fingers that suddenly forget how to hold it!
“W-W-Wait…!”
(She’s not ready!)
Adris watches in sheer horror as, if it never is supposed to touch her tongue, she gulps the remainder all at once.
“…
…
… Nnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh?”
Everyone watches with trepidation as Kol starts to smile.
Her tight wolfish eyes relax along with her cheeks, then her head cranes a bit.
Jerks of pleasure accompany her pupils suddenly tightening up with shock, then relaxing again.
“… Gooooooooooooooodddddddd…?” Kol collapses next to Adris with a janky crash. There’s no flushing of drunkness, nor insensation of an anesthetic. Her spasming tail keeps thumping the mossy tree as she sits politely upright, though she heavily leans onto Adris.
(How can something this good exist!?)
Simple flavors that Adris at least recognizes, the result becomes an explosion of mind-altering pleasure that he’s never encountered before!
“From outside, the very forest home I hail from, comes this precious friend that I brought in already grown.” Mython sighs at her story, gently playing with the tea plant with purplish-pink spots that grows thickly upon a soil that smells different from the forest’s. “A rare taste I cannot forget, it reminds…?”
“Why is outside important? Isn’t it a quite common variant of Zylenth? Shouldn’t the world tree have much more that’s rarer?”
(Why is Ave’s tea not so good, then!?)
“…
… Zylenth… is… common!?” Mython’s face of stony mortification instantly releases, then she sighs. “Yes, so common for you, Priestess~! Though it’s of little potent novelty by compare, please have some if you seek pleasures mundane. I’ll… renew my own goals to be worthy of yours.”
“Clothing of foreigners is a specialty you excel in, Mython!”
“… You’re… very keen to notice…”
Four mannequins spring to life with a snap of her fingers, striding up to stand before Mython. They vibrate with internal energy, then the polished wood shrinks into itself or expands outward with cracks.
The heights now appear as if matching Kol, Ave, Neesiette, and Adris.
“But, Mython, shouldn’t Adris also wear one? It’s not fun unless everyone is included!”
“… Certainly… he should wear one, too.”
Anger flashes across Mython’s face, then another mannequin limps forward to join the first four.
(She left out Still, not me, Ave~!)
“For the designs, what speaks from your hearts?” Mython’s question freezes both Adris and Ave, despite Adris experiencing only pleasure.
(How would I know? I don’t make clothing.)
If it’s not for a job, nor for his own prestige, there is no purpose in contemplating it.
For the purpose of women’s looks, shouldn’t Mython ask—?
“Not in the style of kin, how could I even comment?”
Ave’s response rouses a feeling of dread and fear within Adris for a brief moment.
An acidic tumult that passes fast, but harshes his relaxation enough to shock him out of it.
(It wouldn’t do to look bad.)
Adris goes to motion for another to speak, but she already pipes in before he can…
“According to empirical observations, improvisation be essential, and being not the essence of… ‘kin’, such improvisation stands as. In accordance with ‘kin’, possible by embracing ‘the wind’s moods’, then?”
“Hmm, seek you do to add more that you can destroy, calamity from the sky?” Mython’s servility evaporates. A cunning glow comes to her smiling cheeks.
“Incorrect. An observation offered, one that be taken either with the intent intended, or succumbing to the pettiness that wells up within a simple half-fey-descent subcreature subject to…?”
“Oooookay, Neesiette, let’s just leave Mython to the work!”
“As if baggage, lift not up this lady!”
“My pride in kin is never enough, Mython, but I hope that maybe this can inspire you, since you seem to be out of the proper materials for your own pursuits?” After setting Neesiette back down, Ave opens up her bag of infinite space within to pull out four lengthy bolts of rolled cloth.
Shimmering, shining, scandalous, and sophisticated!
Each one is priceless feet of cloth of a type that can only be the same as or an equal match to the material that Ave’s sashes are made of. One immediately wants to float up free of the bolt of its own volition despite there being not gust.
Mython’s eyes grow wider when inspecting each bolt until Adris thinks they’ll pop out, then the elf nearly swoons again after accepting the fourth.
“…
…
… one’s…
… gifts…
… without equal, the spirit of encouragement…!”
Mython’s rapid breathing accepts a final, choked end to escape.
“… accepted!” Moving like a beetle that’s rolled up the largest dung ball ever formed, Mython hustles to shove the bolts into her cabinet under other bits and pieces.
(She just gave away a fortune, didn’t she~?)
It’s very much like Adris’ elf, so Adris clings on to the good mood of the tea and smothers the part of his mind screaming “PROFIT!”.
Mython grows quite serious after this offering, staring at the mannequins intently. Without so much as taking measurements of the girls, she begins to pull sharpened wooden pins from a woven sash beneath her tunic and affixes them to certain points on the mannequins.
A vision is taking shape, and Adris blinks when a heartbeat causes him to hallucinate colors upon the blank mannequins that aren’t truly there after.
(Was that… what Mython was thinking or…?)
No black lines offer clues, nor words writing out to aid.
It’s simply feelings that strike him that each different color expressed strongly something contrary to the others, refusing to mix, leaving each mannequin… perfect.
Those colors were pleasurable, though!
Pleasure is what’s sought by them, as Adris ordered…
“Mython, who else may be worthy of entertaining us today?” Adris’ question has its own extra motivations, but he keeps it simple to guise them.
“… An interesting question!” Mython grins wickedly at that, then swallows her smile to return to stoic.
Sheepishly, she returns to Ave’s side to whisper them.
“I believe that these may be… ‘fresh’…?”
With multiple death warrants signed according to Adris’ growing perception of elvish tells, Mython gives them plenty of play places before the day is through.
As well as opportunities for Adris.
(No, not opportunities!)
Proof that someone is plainly wrong.
Every stop is more of that, because Mython’s mood is diametrically opposite of the beginning of their stay when departing. So much so that a gift for him becomes possible.
“I’ve not much else that could possibly enrich your life, yet this is so meager…?”
“No, the intent to offer to me is more important than the offering, for now.”
Adris’ concentration is at his fullest not to betray how he feels while accepting a fiber bag of dried tea leaves.
(LUCKY!!!!!!!!!)
He cannot let anyone know how he truly feels, because a white-furred killer lies in wait some distance away stalking him. That beast drools, making ominous… purring sounds from behind her now-closed visor while staring at the bag.
(If anyone realizes how good this is, then I’ll…!?)
“Too meager, my elation at our meeting?”
Mython’s mood then plummets with Adris’ tight concentration betraying nothing of his true feelings. Sulking before him, Mython lets the bag drop from her hand to only be held by the black ties.
(NOTHING IS MEAGER ABOUT IT!)
“Fine, then, elf.”
Unwilling to let it be withdrawn, Adris rips it from her hand, and then corners her against her own cabinet and heated plate!
Everything that he feels seems to escape all at once with his fear of not having more. They feel the dry heat as Mython’s mouth cracks open, words readying…!
But she clams up when he leans in and lightly kisses her cheek, then draws back arrogantly.
“Never think me uncaring of passion, even if owed to me.”
(That should cover both the impression I need to send and the payment for—Eh?)
Adris’ spine tingles again, just like has been happening so often lately.
He looks back to Mython’s face to find the strangely erotic girl staring so hard that it’s almost as if she’s not looking at another person who she should be mindful of not seeming weird to.
Wrong signals can be sent with a smoldering stare and a smile that has dimples.
“… needs gloves… palms worth devouring, the fingertips shy, but the palms… exhibitionist…”
Aside from the mixed signals,
(… Run…?)
Adris’ danger senses flare up so hotly after feeling the breath that spoke those words, that he—?
“Can you explain your musing?”
As if mishearing, Adris offers a questioning response; yet, the elf maid darts out of his grasp without an ounce of hurry to ignore him. A single footfall later and she’s back to her mannequins, licking her lips once. Simply staring at the empty space worn by the dummies after, then placing a pin, her eyes darting around with curiosity to place another, then another.
No cloth is affixed, but Adris sees the silhouette of an invisible shape forming.
“Adris, more fun awaits!” Ave takes him by the arm.
“Boss~? Very ‘stiff’ again.” Kol ambles up beside him, leaning in toward the bag of tea while identifying why Adris can’t walk straight at the elf’s side.
(Elves… are very…!?)
Passionate, but not in the way that others are.
“Berries that taste like bread!?”
“BREADBERRY!”
Both children rip into the bluish-tinted loaves at the same time. They smack their lips to wet them again after the dry, sweet loaves don’t burst into their mouths like fruits would. They’re instead mildly chewy, getting mushy when their tongues play at the fibrous texture!
Despite reality existing, Adris tries not to cry after finding bushes that grow many varieties of fruity meats that look like risen loaves.
(But it’s not overly sweet! And it genuinely tastes like bread…!?)
The only detriment is that it has a core within the puffy loaf of berry, but he defeats it by chewing around like it’s a cob of desert maize. Kol doesn’t even bother caring about the thicker core, chomping on it until her once-foot-long loaf is a memory now digesting wholly within.
“You shouldn’t eat so much, disciple! Mmmm… you only like meat.”
“SHUT UP, BOSS!” The thief rips off another hunk of berrybread, tearing through it like a slobbering hyena devouring a baby. “Khol likshe all schweetsh!”
“Loves more than Adris” is actually adequate to explain how over the next Short they strip a garden of its fruits.
“My, my, please, take your time~! There’s many flavorful children left to be noticed.” An overly mature-sounding elf defies her girlish appearance under the scarf that ties up her long flaxen hair. Eager to keep stuffing Adris and his pet dog, the elf walks among the many bushes that grow up and down her tree to pick out more, sometimes growing as vertically as she sticks upright upon the limbs too. The many bells she wears on lengths of cord clink merrily with her progress up and down the tree.
“Humans would be happier with berrybread all around, everywhere, and one day, perhaps it shall be~?”
Adris halts his chewing, another strange shiver urging him to hear everything with clarity.
“From many kinds of flavors, I’ll blend them to one big ‘perfect’, and then all happiness shall be only berrybread… for all. Huhuhu…!” The once stoic elf matron giggles to herself in a dissociative way that makes Adris’ lips pull into a frown.
Every elf before has had these strange behaviors that don’t fit with any normal human ones that Adris has studied; but, so long as insanity is avoided, strange elves are free to feed him.
(No matter how good these treats are for us poor, pathetic humans and kobolds, though…?)
“…”
A sour face pierces the shine, bringing a gloom that shatters the effortless smile of this matronly elf breadgrower. This one elf in a billion curls up on her long tail while glaring at the many different types of berrybreads that pile up on Adris and Kol’s table, then looking to the many bushes around yet untapped.
“Which of a hundred flavors have you yet to try oh… Priestess? What joy seek you: sweet, sour, or spicy?”
“…”
Refusing to be roused from her superiority, Ave just glances at the still unnamed and mostly ungreeted elf, the fifth one today after Mython.
Their stand off lasts only a few moments before the matron breaks eye contact to stare at her own tree’s trunk. No longer even speaking, the matron slinks around to fetch more for the dining party instead.
(She can’t possibly offer a new flavor, but she just keeps giving me more that are even better than the last ones…!?)
Adris finally tears at the newest bread’s core just as hard as Kol does, finding that the tougher core is a new kind of experience once he lets his saliva soften it enough to bite off! Almost like hard tack, it melts with a different texture when including it with the softer fruit flesh too!? Hard and soft, it’s also sweeter!
(Furniture-wrangler, moonlight weaving sculptor, some sort of wheeled vehicle assembler…?
Oh, right, the bowyer. I think she might have had a heart attack when Ave gave her that horned bow.)
The victims are all bound by two things: being elves, and capitulating entirely.
Adris and Kol both perk up when a familiar unclasping sound reverberates through the village.
“Starting, Boss.”
“Yes.”
From deep within the bag of astoundingly horrifying artifacts, the lethargic Avenalliah Aurmaris, Elfslayer, withdraws what looks like a half-eaten, dessicated loaf of berry bread.
“Cry? Scream? Or run away, this time?”
Kol hopes to bet on their next fun-time sideshow, but Adris finds it enjoyable just to observe why they lose.
(One by one, the flies willingly line up to be swatted.)
“…”
“…”
Both elves face off when Avenalliah approaches menacingly by just slithering an inch at a time without any hostility.
The matron’s bell-covered body jingles, but to her credit she doesn’t flee.
Adris knows she’s witnessed the previous struggles. Each contestant has been braced for it after Mython.
“If, only if, it would bring great joy… may I offer a gift of my own home?”
“…”
The matron’s hands whip out like lightning to pilfer the loaf. When she checks its weight by lifting it, Adris cannot stop his morbid fascination with how she methodically tests its texture by rubbing the outside, then the inside where the hard exterior was chewed away. The method turns to a chaotic discombobulation when the professional amateur gathers tears at the corners of her eyes.
When she finally smells it…
“UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhh, hyaaaaah!?” She plummets to her knees with a scream, huffing at it with the expression of a madwoman.
Unable to resist the poison, she shoves the desiccated bread into her mouth, rips a huge chunk out, and then…!
(I know nothing that I’ve had will ever compare, but? I wonder, how good can it REALLY be?)
“Boss, Kol has been thinking. Humans talk about ‘heaven’, that it’s ‘up there with stars’, but, Kol thinks that ‘heaven’ is really closer than most think.” Taking another bite of berrybread, Kol wags her tail left, left, then right, right.
“That is an enlightened position, disciple, but keep in mind that pleasure is temporary. Aura is eternal.”
After having partaken of the heaven that is the free, endless bounty of bread, a cruel dream of an orphan’s youth, Adris steels himself for the next leg of their discovery.
“Let’s go, Kol.”
“Right! Kol, also is not ready, but let’s face it!”
Under Ave’s emotionless gaze, Adris and Kol get up from their chairs made of looped, frozen living vines, leave the table filled with delectable berrybreads, and go to the edge of the tree’s limbs to sit beside the buzzard-like elf that perches at its side.
The matron’s face is without life, a drained contemplation of the endless rainbow haze that they look out upon. In her hand, the only evidence that she has partaken of the forbidden fruit is that one of the teeth marks where it’s been torn is freshly wet.
“My condolences.” Adris takes the bread out of the non-resisting elf’s hand, then steels his soul.
He takes a tentative whiff.
(OH ASCENDED, I CAN TASTE IT WITH MY NOSE!?)
Words fail him suddenly, the sensational overload making his mouth flood!
While Kol watches him with very rare concern, he nibbles at the bread…!
Ten minutes later, Adris’ mouth is still watering so hard that he might die from dehydration. There’s no bread left, since the very last dried chunk vanished into Kol’s gullet to stop her from violently attacking him.
“NOTGH DHA SCHAME!” That brutal kobold even now is hunting berrybreads, tearing more from the bushes to devour them while squatting. “MOAAAAAAAAAAAAR!”
“I don’t have any more, Kol! Shaaaa!” Ave screams assertively, then hisses a warning when Kol comes back for another assault of the snake elf, struggling for the infinite holding bag and getting faceplanted yet again with Ave lodging the kobold’s armored arm behind her back.
“That was the last I ever grew from home…!?”
“ELF… LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIES!” The berserking kobold then starts wailing again after yelling, because Ave cannot be thrown off. “Bread! TASTES LIKE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAT!?
Kol… wants ‘heaven’ back… Gaah!? Ugahhh!?” This time the brash squire just stays despondent instead of raging. “Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!”
Neesiette takes all this in with a blank face, nothing registering as understanding of why her Emperor sits with his back to this scene. She stands guard beside him, her hand to his forehead to read his humors as he stares at nothing.
(Yes, the flavor was “heaven”.)
No other description will ever suffice to explain a bread that tastes like every kind of animal he’s ever eaten, barbecued and blended together in perfect harmony.
It was as if Adris was consuming an Ascendant’s very body, partaking of salvation of his mortality through cannibalizing.
The elf beside him is catatonic from being utterly deprived of all pride by Ave’s words, behaviors, and then finally her dreaded…
(“Gifts” are more lethal than blades for elves. You know, though, riding on that strange, one-wheeled animated mini-chariot Ave pulled out was fun! Kol really liked it, too… before she flew off the tree at an arrow’s speed, at least.)
“…” Ave keeps her vigil of silence, slithering around the berrybread bushes. Pulling off a loaf, nibbling at it, making a face of disgust, then depositing it on the table for Adris and Kol to finish.
(My precious princess, she who no experience offered could possibly exceed the one she mauls you with.)
Adris isn’t quite sure what he’s feeling now about everything, but he feels satisfied that he has his proof of an exciting day.
He’s met the enemy, and she’s emerald green. No matter how many spirits she breaks, she ignites a fervor that cannot be sated right after.
(None of us are boring now to these elves.)
“… Would you like to try growi—?”
“I am the gale that is torn apart, then drawn into your own almighty storm, Oh Priestess!” The berrybread matron grovels before Ave so swiftly that Adris falls from losing who he was leaning against.
Accepting a cutely fashioned bag that has comical people sewn on the outside, the matron’s tears renew. Because the figures appear to be sowing the ground with seeds, Adris intuits that another impossibly amazing artifact has been given out of Ave’s stash.
It’s not left as a question when Adris physically tears the bag away, taking one seed out as the breadberry matron’ tears turned agonized, then another, then ultimately three total. He palms them to a secret location within his outfit before wrenching the blackened armor up from the ground where it still lays crying.
“Disciple, there will be more ‘heaven’ one day.”
“BOOOOSSSSS!” Kol grovels now, too, yanking at his pants so hard that they burst open. He grabs her by the collar and calms her, then pulls them back up.
(She’s had too much fun!)
“Ave, we should make for the elder’s home. There’s much to share with him today.”
“…” Avenalliah scans the sky once more, the rainbow haze no barrier to her. Hardened against the many emotions that used to showcase, the peerless noble claps her hands and sighs.
“These are perfectly normal things I’m giving out to have fun with!”
(PERISH, ARISTOCRAT!)
Only Neesiette stands as witness when Ave’s sigh turns to a frown that isn’t so sure, though Ave quickly smiles and reaches out to her…
With all the victims Ave racked up, it’s no wonder that the village seems even quieter.
Neesiette and Ave stay ahead of Kol and Adris, not talking, but in an unusual way the Lunamaton holds her hand. Asked for solely to keep Ave at arm’s length, the demonstration of their new bond proves to Adris once and for all that Ave must’ve offered much to ask for Neesiette’s aid.
“Kol cannot forget.”
“Hold off until later. I’ll share some… ‘not plants’ from our larder.”
(A vegetarian elf brings a fruit to a sacred forest that tastes exactly like meat?)
Incredible, insane wonders never cease.
“Paradise?” Adris asks with a whisper.
“Paradise!” Kol yells her agreement!
Mutually agreeing again for the twelfth time, master and disciple have had the loudest laughs and the best conversations with the elves before their executions. With a host of interesting gifts given to them, including the coiled length of shapechanging vines Adris carries wrapped around him, Ave might stir up the trouble…?
(But we reap the benefits!)
The knocks of the invisible guiding spirit upon its wooden percussion abruptly come from the right side, causing Ave to twist toward that direction and peer ahead. Through the haze something amazing awaits, because she has a concerned expression when approaching it.
(A grove?)
Darkness lingers at its edges, this grove within a grove bordered by gloom and differentiated of its architecture by the sole radiance shining from on high upon twisting thorns.
A smoothed marble path covered by iridescent wildflowers leads toward the center of the clustered tangle. Adris reaches out with his aura senses to feel the anticipation of gathered pseudo-aura nakedly clinging to the area.
“Formation: benign.” Saying nothing else, Neesiette’s violet-shining gaze diminishes. The doll looks up toward Avenalliah, matching her steps with Ave’s own short slides down the marble path.
(Was this always here? It’s so old.)
It has gathered creepers, thorns, and the forest upon what used to be some monument. At its center and stuck into a pedestal, a curved blade that resembles a bird’s outstretched wing rests.
“Kol has seen filth.”
“Be quiet.”
The kobold gags at the weapon being a sword; but, Adris’ fixation upon it as he approaches isn’t caring of the ambiance or company. With eyes that see far more than the surface, he peers beneath the silvery metal and the gilded hilt with scaled handle.
Its pseudo-aura is asleep, but it twitches once Adris’ senses touch upon its own. The vines that wrap around it have left it tarnished; but, that cannot last once it’s free, for in its core, instead of a softer metal, contains a gale trapped inside. Like Kol’s weapon once it was enchanted, a blade of wind will roar when this is wielded!
“A living weapon, abandoned to this spot?”
“Indeed?” Neesiette nods with respect that Adris can determine this by sight and feel alone, for Kol mumbles non-intelligibly at the fact that surprises Kol. “Perceptive to the proper expectations of this lady, one’s assessment be correct. Artificial sentience, manifesting as coordinated, nestled ‘magical’ dynamic configurations bound to physical anchor.”
(Like a living doll that uses Techniques is the pinnacle of tool makers, the weapon that symbiotically bonds with a warrior is the pinnacle of aura warlords!)
A latent hunger meets his own!
Two souls brush up, though his must be far mightier. Artificial as it is, it is also nascent.
Until it’s held, it will never be more…!
Ave approaches it without fear, not bothering to comment as the cone of light which blankets from overhead widens.
The sleeping forest insects stir. They chirp as she looms over the blade which would be an excellent length and balance for the snake elf. Gems of precious and semi-precious constellations set into it promise power. They pull the breeze by sympathy alone of her presence.
(… Whips are fine, but swords are quite something more…!)
Serras had always been stunning wielding hers.
With his anticipation almost as high as after he fooled the fake Alchemaster, Adris awaits the awakening glow of the blade to see who will take it up!
Hums of an unseen choir are hopeful when her hand nears its hilt.
“…”
The noble elf glares at it, then tilts her head.
With no rush to claim it, she just rubs her eyes instead of pulling out from the pedestal.
“But… it’s the most common kind of wind-wrought blade? Barely worth the notice of a house guard.”
Ave twists to face them. Her expression of disappointment is brightly visible before the cone of light from above flickers.
“A true windblade should need no encasement.”
The choir’s hum dies off.
“Even then, a windblade is second to the mainstay of the defenders of the ancient homes: the sunblade, which calls light to join with gale!”
A blade that was sleeping awakens with an unheard scream, its sense of purpose shattered.
No matter how impressive to Adris, anything that comes into the sight of this elvish overlord can only be graded as “basically incompetent”.
(I understand why you’re doing it, but…!?)
From the tip of her tail, which has a cute silver cone stuck on it, to the cloak of leaves that come from a tree so fine and magical that it shimmers left-and-right in Adris’ vision despite looking straight at her, she ranks all by her own immense standards.
The whip she coils around her waist is also a priceless treasure by the glances the elves give to it.
“If you want a wind-spirit-driven blade to reach the next grade of wildness, you’d need to do something like…?”
From that devilish bag that holds the history of kin-dom, she drags out a small dagger only a foot long.
Or rather, the grip and quillon have actual length. The blade that whispers to life as a yellow, razor-sharp manifestation is made solely of solidified, whistling winds. Its hauntingly sharp presence renders the prophesied sword in the stone dull by comparison.
Darkness falls over the sacred site.
“Besides, I’m not sure why it’s set up here like this? All of this was just added to the village? The design of the pedestal and dais are Third Age, and recent to the new style of the elvish home of Staravel from less than a hundred seasons ago?” Ave then calls the entire presentation a lie, bringing Adris to shudder at the immense harm someone has suffered.
(I pity you, elf who went so far beyond the call of duty to present this.)
Why it was set up, Adris cannot say, but there was no lack of attention given. Neesiette betrays a look of doubt, then appears to study the sight with her assessing eyes further.
“True, that be. By recent pseudo-Art reshaped into this, though… most delicately.”
Even Adris was completely fooled. It has no difference in signs of age than the Emperor’s own tomb did by the accretion of layers of detritus and plant growth.
“Stupid and pointless.” Kol kicks loose leaves at the sword, then wanders off the dais. Ave turns to follow, then looks back with confusion at the now silent blade, before leaving again.
“Accurate, all spoken.”
Neesiette speaks umprompted, approaching the sword of her own volition.
“Design, abominably…” Almost using another word at the end, Neesiette stops.
Unwilling to touch the hilt, she instead runs her hand over the jewels set into it that seem to intend the wind within to obey.
“Yet? Peak of craft, no matter how ‘amateur’ in tier of talent, it be.”
“How is that!? Aren’t you making a huge mistake!?”
Ave twists to face Neesiette, the two both getting flustered with the other when Ave screams a challenge.
“… Mistake? Indeed, a mistake there be, but in communication rather than assessment.” Neesiette’s grimace then fades away upon Adris’ own rising tension being noticed. Comporting herself, Neesiette pulls out her spell-rewriting rod to tap it upon the blade.
The gems she strikes flare up in the sequence she chooses. The living weapon is forced to swirl the air around its metal blade, despite being heartbroken to Adris’ senses.
“Pinnacle of efficiency and stability, reaches this its creator has. Degraded though the ‘magical arts’ utilized be, primitive compared to ‘past common’, still worth praise this lady commends such results as.”
“… Hmmm?”
“Setting sight not upon the top of the mountain, but upon the base that is wide and firm of foundation, render judgment solely after this inspection.”
Ave joins her once more, wrinkling her nose at the blade but still giving it an earnest twice-over. Adris holds his tongue, though he has much to complain about.
(It’s a living weapon! It doesn’t matter if it’s the finest auraic alloy or an obsidian edge, respect the effort!)
“It… wait? Neesiette, these layers of enchantments…?”
“Indeed, one’s eyes be cleared now by rubbing them.”
“Why did the creator spend nearly a hundred years refining one blade with such common techniques!?”
(A hundred years!?)
Elves are long-lived, but working upon a single weapon so long is crazy.
To leave it out in the open to be taken up by the first outsiders who happen upon the village is even more insane.
Setting this scene up, portraying the blade as it has been with the fanfare of lights and sounds, Adris has a sinking feeling suddenly.
“Creator, their intent unknowable, the result be however obvious: by perfecting one weapon, the ‘maker’ see—”
Neesiette’s explanation dies in the roar of wind that crashes through the sacred (basic) sword’s grave!
A sweet scent tickles Adris nose when he defends his eyes against debris.
Roses?
Orange petals?
Some stranger flower than either has Adris darting his eyes when the wind dies off to see where it came from.
(That, too, is delicious?)
Whatever it is, it seems…?
The branches shake,
The tall grasses whip,
And the fruits of the elvish grove spread their ripened scents far.
“… seek me out, Child of Prophesy…
… why wouldn’t you~?”
“Hmmmmm!?”
A voice darkly woodsy, but also fruit-fermented liquory-sweetness added, flushes out from the shaking forest all around them. It journeys to the center where the terrified living sword goes silent once caressed.
Its odor overwhelms out any other conceivable concept or idea, blanking Adris’ aura senses entirely!
(I’m blinded!?)
The scent sweetens considerably with that!
“ENEMY!” Kol hurls herself up the dais, throwing Adris behind her! The poleaxe she keeps shortened clicks, then clanks and bursts into its full length!
Wind winds up its blade as she points at it at the shaking trees above them that seem to loom ever closer…
The whipping enchantment goes deathly still.
“NAH!? Wind gone!?”
Only the shaking distorted edge of Kol’s weapon-sharpening Talent remains.
(The wind is leaving toward…!)
Not only the wind, but also the obscuring haze.
Where it has always reigned ever ahead of Adris’ gaze, it surrenders to the terrifying sensations that reach out from above! Rainbow flees!
“Even though twice, twice offered,”
The coldness of night and shadow hurries across the revealed sky of the world tree! Amorphous and ghastly, the oncoming wave seen through the canopy crashes down upon it!
Iridescent green smoke falls through the boughs instead of rising. A great shadow of a beastly face presses out against the darkened greenery at first; then, it edges past as a phantasm so large that its mouth if opened could devour everyone.
“With everyone else you play, but ignore me?” But it temptingly stays just beyond proper recognition…
Ave’s mouth falls open, unwilling to look away when Neesiette stands before her as protection with her scepter of earth glowing.
“Oh, so teasing you are!” Its toothy smile for an instant grows jagged, its malevolent whine of sticky honey-liquor full of indignation! Dangerous green that arrived leaks also from the sides of its mouth as concentrated saliva.
Then the wind shakes the face back to congenial.
Angular, absolutely predatory amber eyes open that are the same coldness as the distant stars glimpsed between the curling limbs of cluttered Ysanne, the world tree. Starbursts of mesmerizing radiance draw Adris’ gaze in…!
“I… didn’t know who you were when you called.”
Those nightmarish orbs opened wide with ire slowly narrow when Ave finally speaks.
This must be the third time Ave has heard this creature’s voice, because Adris recalls her asking “who?” at least twice.
(How has this… woman completely escaped my notice?)
But he dares not speak his question, because even now he cannot sense what’s before him.
Like Meltisha, and Sapphira, and the Maidwright who escaped all investigation, there is…
“Names come with greetings, oh child of the third tree! Because there is an order to them, you must seek me out!” A beast without a presence is a mighty threat to seek.
“… You should come greet first, though, since this forest was your home before mine, and I am your guest in it.”
“Ahahaha…! Haha!”
Petulant no more, the grand shadow of danger above dances as its shaking laughter cascades down into innumerable tones at Avenalliah’s challenge. The green smoke which snakes about at the edge of darkness firms into bushy stalks of wheat poking through thick foliage to wag around slowly. Each glitters like diamonds.
(Wheat… or…?)
“Yes! YES! Very good, you know how to have fun when they don’t, sharpening airy toothpicks fit solely to clean my teeth with as they do.” The many manifested tails of the beast wag faster with this happy thought.
“We… came here for something other than to harm you.” So sure of voice, but raked by total confusion, Avenalliah keeps speaking challenges.
“A lie that is! But, a sylph, was the boast? If you’ve need of one, then it shall come. By my oath — none shall leave without a wind at YOUR back.”
Adris’ cross jumps from Cethran’s sash, a mind-breaking ring crashing through the forest and shattering the silence.
Because the darkness is all around, none spills out from it. The dozens of green tails that encircle them extend further toward the party as if coveting the hanging cross.
“Glorious, that is! As clear as night, but as truthful as the starlords’ lies?” The beast purrs from deep in its throat. “Foul or fair, how would that treat taste to be gnawed upon?”
Within the mesmerizing gaze of the creature, Adris feels that everything he feels lessens.
Becomes only a terror of it!
(Still…! STILL!)
He can only scream in his mind that it’s not only a beast towering over them.
Chattering voices scratch at his ears in its presence.
Where the great beast weighs down upon the canopy, flashes of black movement are lit by darklight.
(The Veil is thin in its presence!)
But Ave’s voice is heard instead of his own!
“You…! Your name you owe! You still haven’t told me!?”
“Oh, deceitful child, mine was already gifted to you LONG ago in your dreams of this day:”
A singsong starts, usually a comic thing.
“Not a name, but a scent!
One of endless kinds lent.”
The beast’s face blinks, then its pointed ears pull back.
“Know my purpose: lament!
For, never shall kin repent~…”
Adris whips his head to his right, for an opened, sightless eye closes before he can peer into it!
“Without care for consent,
[enjoy the game’s advent]!”
Innumerable, rainbow-green eyes open behind the beasts shadow face, all equally blind when the shrill cry of the sky monster grows even shriller!
They are a cancerous sphere that it is the center of, but not the only source of them.
Each wagging green bushy stalk of their encirclement also illuminates with a blinded eye at its thick tip. Their light is a whistling shrillness driving out thoughts!
(Everything… is shaking…!)
And he can smell sweetness overwhelming!
“Oooooh, but I’ll forgive being forgotten on your first day. After an eternity, the next is the same.”
Then the eyes close.
The gigantic face pulls away with a laugh.
“Jokes and japes, for you these jesters shall dance. Be fanciful and ever play…!”
A black cross still hovers before Adris, refusing to drop so long as its whimsical growling continues.
“For, once both we are full, destiny awaits, oh Rouvenor’s heir sent to slay~.”