For all the undeserved effort in preparing for a forthcoming life lesson, the wafting heat of this particular pupil is a stink cloud already filling the cold tower chamber. The empty space remade inhospitable after cleaning up failed rituals should be the perfect place to spin some mind-bending sophistries. Instead, it reeks of an arrogance this monster’s child has never had before when she runs her hand over the opaque glass to feel its alienation from the world outside; then, she brings those same fingers to her neck to rub over the bites of a particularly loathsome insect.
Oh, such a worthy gesture of contempt when it’s the side of her neck shown to Still.
(A Xin transplant, that sucking vermin.)
The smoothness of her milky skin and those stinging bruises opens her mouth and sends a shiver through her. Ave’s hidden, visible heat flares up, then smolders again. Unkempt hair dances as a loose ponytail that was used like reigns to yank her.
Absent of self-awareness, or faking it for the perfect show as she must be, Ave showcases the bruises all over herself.
The way her skin gleams in the near-dark is her message of contempt. This succumbing stare she directs outward while holding a teacup at her lips, never managing to drink from it, dreams of achievements she can never deserve, despite being near-naked and glistening even after cleaning herself before arriving.
(“He did this to me.” That’s what you’re telling me, you child that’s looking to grow up?)
A dry, cold shudder at that thought crosses Still’s legs at the silly idea.
Ave, seducing someone?
Her? This guileless, almost-idiotic bumbler that would’ve ended up as some imp gaggle’s dick warmer and baby-maker if a kinder soul hadn’t taken up her rope and led her?
THIS is the nouveau thief that is trying to steal a spot that’s too good for her?
The story isn’t shared yet, but the audacity when Ave licks her lips again and lets her blank eyes stare at nothing but her own inner triumph replaying is impossible to refute.
(I admit you’ve grown bold to flaunt at me.)
Adapt, overcome, destroy with precision. It’s what boldness deserves in turn.
But…
(Say something, or I can’t lay it back on your thin cheek.)
Ave blinks, recalls her journey, and continues her circular crawl around the prison-like tower chamber along its top step. Like she’s searching for something.
A strained string stays pulled without snapping.
“…”
Even one word would be enough. Just to sever this grave silence an “elf” of calamity cultivates would start the war.
So new silence is as Ave’s weapon, when edgewise she’s never allowed another’s voice if there’s a single Castillian word left she can recall to shout. The thumping joy Still experiences at the prospect of annihilating Ave with painful self-realizations, half truths turned into keen insults, and so many more beautiful plays of wit is a strange euphoria that strikes before even realizing what weapons Still might summon…
(I’ve so many to use, how can I choose?)
If only she’d speak, and lose from the start.
Odd she feels to be leaning forward suddenly with the anticipation of challenging this child-that-would-be-an-adult. An easy victim, even if flaunting. Ave’s necessity to be innocuously shattered, then rebuilt by her superior on the hierarchy of worth, has never been greater than now, though.
That brings Still’s fingers to gleefully tap against their opposite hand with the mystery of her opponent’s impending death spiral!
(When mother first fled while crying, I was an ‘innocent’ of only eight-years-old who didn’t even have to touch her.)
There is no chance for Ave. The potential satisfaction seems… exaggerated; but, it’s misleading because this victim won’t be quickly dispatched by Still’s potent aids, for the “tea” she finally gulps from like she’s dying of thirst is always lacking.
“… Mmmah…” She loudly praises the “special” treat that only Still can make, and introduced to her the first time Still needed to “teach” something in the past.
A deviant’s drug of choice in the hands of a master poisoner is immune to the obvious thrill of battle betraying its use, just so long as it’s not noticed when filling Ave’s crystal-cut teacup.
Old men who prey upon innocent virgins would bow before Still to kiss her feet at the chance to obtain it… if a blade thrust between their eyes wouldn’t shine more prettily red than if it were gold gleaming in her palm.
“…”
Infuriatingly quiet, Avenalliah sighs away tension; for her, the poison merely “relaxes a racing mind”.
(I could buy a freehold in a large town for the quantity of [Parthenocide] that you’ve wasted from past to now.)
A thumping anticipation fires again!
It’s not enough, this waiting is painful!
Winning will be easy anyway, so why not just cut through Ave’s heart with the first jab with the fingers that lazily raise up!?
{Needed two times? Sad that a “sure thing” can’t do what a few good words could~!}
The first barb hooks into Ave’s tender skin when the snake’s stupid eyes go wide.
She wakes up, dull mouth opening with fake incomprehension at the meaning!
“Two…? Sure… to do what?” She mutters that, then sips from her “relaxation tea” again.
(Pretending I’m too dumb to notice you presenting bites you also returned?)
Such an obvious deflection can be pierced by subtle…
Anger, outrage, a need not explained rising from this trickery!?
Cold, not hot, and driving as Still almost leaps up from the sudden emotional charge!
(… No, let’s not get excited.)
The rush to strike is pushed back down where it leaped from.
A chamber warped by this bitch’s needy heat WAS her first words of challenge. Since she went first, it falls upon the better woman to let that heat turn into a slow broil.
{Did you awake inside to find you want them slavishly obedient? So insensate with lust that they’re basically mute, except for saying your name? Wouldn’t that be more the prize than the chase? Skipping the FUN part seems… well, it’s your choice.} Still shrugs at what no proper seductress would stoop to in order to prevail. {But, if you thought you had to force it, then you had to~! So much fun you must have constantly had?
Which is why you’re up here and not down with, no, isn’t that odd…?}
Ave’s drooping head tilts to her side, only staring with furrowed brows.
{Oh, but maybe… you’re fine with him at your heels like a dying puppy? Then, after you’re tired for the day, you’ll leave him cold and lonely outside until tomorrow? Everybody has their own preferences. It just… seems a waste to shuck the better parts to be left with an ordinary face that smiles because you ask him to?}
To make the challenge back with sultry fingers, Still finishes by drawing her hands down her own waist.
{Touching you at request instead of surprising with his attentions. Surprise, yes, something you said you’d look forward to each day? You still want that, I know you must, but…?} She shimmies and leans back with the assurance of having already thieved what poison could never take now.
{No, there’d be no surprises left in anyone taken by what you struck with! And needed twice to use at that, the legends overstate its potency! But, if you decided to leave his heart behind to ‘get’ him, then that’s your decision, Ave~. Maybe if it becomes too difficult, takes too long, cheating is okay? Breaking something a bit to have it, that’s what he forced you to do!}
(Feels good to cut into a so-called “ultimate man hunter”.)
The racial name that, by a delving party’s mutual agreement, can never be spoken names the monstrous snaking denizens who live deep below the earth.
Envy and jealousy and covetousness… these words should mean the same thing, but instead all three are needed to describe the grand curse called:
[Lamia].
(“A man is to a lamia like a goose-feather bed is a woman: a possession you would kill or steal to have all to yourself, and a simple comfort you leave your scent imprinted on forever.”)
It sounds comparable to the Castillo, but these furies made abduction and enslavement an art well before the Third Age when there were far less sexual predators.
When a lamia’s bed is worn through and the feathers are missing, what another might do with it next is different from their logic…?
(“It’s trash”, they’d think?)
As Ave shows off even now her sluttishness by baring milky skin almost to her nipples when stretching with confusion, Still notes this to ignore that prior thought.
Overtness without properly contouring the charm spots of front and back and all over, this isn’t appropriate except for the right time, person, place, and meaning for revealing.
Cultivating one’s body’s beauty for constructive self-fulfillment is the ultimate work. Debauched revelry that spoils one’s greater image undoes all that fun!
Sacrifices the worth of looking good for yourself, and knowing it!
(You set boundaries without the predator knowing, yes, but you don’t hobble the wolf that runs wild by shackling his mind and tearing out his heart! Ave, please be wiser, nobler, and better at being a woman.)
You become the predator instead of him by baiting with obvious honey traps like nakedness to lure a man into a bite!
And those you bother with your frivolities like nakedness should not become “victims” of your pursuit, either; they should be guests of your own designs, invited willingly to …!
(… Nnn?)
A ripple of doubt subdues her righteousness, a confusion spreading.
About how others witness Still, versus how she knows they overlook those who wish they were Still instead, the confusion infests her eternal confidence…?
(Your pedigree and natural talents are amazing.)
Only briefly does it tickle before she shakes it off.
(If you were just worthy of them, I could forgive such attacks.)
But “love”, or “eros”, is less valuable than when a man’s moods, interests, and hesitantly spoken inner thoughts start to resemble a foreign influence rather than his own spirit alone.
(The wonder of him offering himself one day, suddenly, unbidden… willingly~. Harming what is worthy, you instead imprint chaos on—)
“I’m… sorry, sister…?”
(Don’t call me that!!!)
“What are… we talking about?” With Ave breathless like she’s taken part in a race down Petripolis’ slope and back up, the arrogant viper slurps her rapist’s brew while still pretending to be ignorant.
(You can’t ignore your way out of this. Adris was already unstable after…)
An eternity in the bird sorcerer’s manse, followed by the nightmarish meeting with a “bioweapon” from Zennia’s distant past did much to change him. That man’s animus was clearly yanked from his false human body and drawn into the evil mansion, too.
When he came back…
(Pumping your venom into him made him act even more bizarrely than that! It’s vexing enough keeping him acting sane when I can share his emotional idiocy, but now that it’s gone after…)
The sudden uncertainty of when it truly disappeared hits all at once, stopping Still’s fingers in motion.
But, the anger that floods in makes her realize…!
(She’s the reason we’re here! Ave is to blame for everything.)
{It’s not wrong to want to be the best, Ave.} Deep within, she rejoices before even deciding to blame Ave, fueling her swooping hands! {How you do that can cause… issues you weren’t thinking about beforehand.}
“The best? Me?” Another blank stare, followed by a heaving sigh.
“… If only I could be anywhere near the best.”
An icicle stabs into Still’s ire. A beautifully raw disappointment with this downcast attitude; then, confusion about the means Ave has used if she isn’t acting haughty.
{There is no better cheat than what you’ve already been given. And used.}
“Cheat? For what? Used? To what…?” Of fluid gestures, this simpleton catches only what she pretends to see!
(Don’t think you can piss me off.)
Cutting fingers swish faster, though, the gestures thumping against the air as Still clarifies with the condemnation…!
{I don’t intend to be down on you, it just seems… cruel. Mind gone, body taken by addiction, what else do you call the looseness of another after experiencing your…?}
The source of danger has Still thumping the wrinkled painted lips of her porcelain mask.
Two fingers curl over them: [fangs].
“My…?”
Making the same gesture, the wretched pretender stops in mid-motion to stick those fingers against her needle-sharp fangs.
“… they…
… they do… what?”
How cleverly she freezes up as if realizing it only now!
Once might be a mistake; twice is maliciousness!
It makes Still’s innards crawl with indignation. Outrage feigned by Still suddenly burns real!
{You’re fond of fairy tales! Surely you know the way those evil beings try to win?} For a lamia to not know the might of her own bloodline is absolutely…!? {The almighty ‘love potion’ that the villains pull out when they think ‘no, no, no’ should mean ‘yes, please, now’, didn’t you read about it and go ‘what if’ about your own life~?}
“… No. I…
hate those parts…”
(Stop pretending! Just accept you took the easier path, then try to gloat a bit about it working, and then I’ll…!)
Stop staring with your face melting into sadness, as if it’s the first time you’ve…!
{Don’t be like that. It worked, obviously.} Whipping her crossed legs oppositely with flourish, Still ‘huffs’ with her dancing index finger. {Even if he’s a ‘false god’ or whatever, the key ingredient of those potions is an extract of a venom you already have plenty of.}
“… Wha…?”
{He’s pulled plenty such tricks on you, so you choosing the most brute-force method of getting back at him isn’t unforgive—}
“My fangs… and venom, I have that, does… what?”
Clutching her chest with her free hand while the crystal teacup shakes, a distant assailant starts to sniff.
“… Then… it wasn’t the dark waters we went beside? Adris wasn’t as strange before… it was… when I…
… bit him…?”
{Dark waters?} The only interesting thing she’s heard yet makes Still ask more! {You went out past the colored lakes to the black ones? What was in there? Did you touch it? Dive into…?}
“I… I…!?
Hurt him? I…?
Hick!?”
The stupid girl’s eyes are a fountain in a moment.
“… he trusted me… and I… HURT HIM…!?”
Tears that a child would shed make her pale cheeks ghostly with how her bare skin shines even in the dark.
“I… didn’t want to… bite… but, I couldn’t stop feeling…!?”
She tries to stop them by rubbing with a fist, but the tears fall to plop into her teacup.
(… Of course this wasn’t some plot of hers. Why would I think this was even a lame attempt to ensnare him?)
It gnaws within after admitting the obvious!
Makes Still feel loopy with the disconnect between the rising manhunter Still knew she was facing and the truth of Ave’s calm dissolving into a crying fit.
(She’s not Kol. I… made the wrong conclusion…? Thought… Ave could possibly be…?)
Almost like she’s splitting inside, Still begs silently for this wannabe elf to uselessly insult Still or brag.
(Ahhh, why did I even think she was a threat, when she’s just AVE? Every day that passes is another that her heart doesn’t age at all.)
Recalling that simple fact is physically painful for a moment when Still cringes…
“I…”
Ave is, after all, merely an inconvenience when those near her aren’t hoping for luck.
“Ave… hates…”
Unwilling to even throw her teacup in anger, Ave instead collapses slowly onto an emerald tail that coils into her bed.
“… this body…”
A boring, self-made teapot shatters instead of the priceless cup.
The view of the room that reeks of red heat distorts, shifts to other pulsating colors, almost falls away from recognition!
(… Uh…!?)
So many painful sensations rampage around the self-recrimination Still also experiences!
The feelings first, then the reason when Still’s hand brushes against her exposed thigh. Past the many-colored panel skirt she wears is the black mesh…
It feels… exactly like the same fabric on her hand.
(No texture but… that separation… forever isolated.)
Hateful sympathy is what overflows into Still as she shivers, then silently rages against it!
How fugue to be despondent like Ave, and idiotic!
One girl crying filling the tower room with her singing shame and loathing burdens another with forced similarity!?
Repressing it is hard, and harsh!
(We are NOT the same! At all!)
“… I thought… he, like I do… maybe wanted much, and perhaps… more?
Because… he was, maybe for me, he, also…!?”
(He loves you, is that what you delude yourself into thinking!?)
Foolishness cares little for era, age, or race!
It seems, to this noble who was forced into another era, that eternal lessons must always be retaught by those who have already learned them.
So, too, do the imperious delights welling up along with Still’s memories of instructing other girls many times before agree with the logic, before demanding it happen again!
(It’s just, me? Helping… THIS?)
“Why do I always ruin things at the end?” Her teacup set down after being drained, a lonesome snake hugs her chest and stares up at the black ceiling from where she lays.
(Huh, not likely. It’s because you don’t pay attention to anything you’re doing. BUT — that isn’t particularly constructive to point out. Some tears I thought might help, but I don’t FEEL delightful, even after being hurt by you so many times…?)
So infinitely disappointed is the feeling instead.
But also, equally hopeful.
That’s mysteriously Still’s impression of this entire charade she is forced to endure. To be taught, one must possess the capacity for self-reflection, not just collapse, which Ave fails at.
(Usually it’s a diversion at least to show the lessers their true selves. Not a single tear she wastes feels good to watch fall.
… Sister, is it? Such a stupid allowance.)
Never having had one, it has become a one-sided thing for Ave to call Still this ever since their first “heartfelt friend’s chat”. When Still could no longer bear Ave’s idiosyncrasies without exposing why they existed, that fateful “date” occurred and nearly disintegrated the sneak with the rapture of spilling Ave’s guts.
Still had to agree to this farce to cajole Ave into sparing her.
(I know I shouldn’t indulge her, but… again, I am too kind.)
For the sake of their party, Still rises.
Ever for a noble’s obligation!
{Heyyyy.} Just like the first time with Ave, Still slowly closes on Ave with trepidation constrained so as not to spook her. {Have you already forgotten we’re chatting?} After waving her hand over the dead snake to rouse interest, Still’s gestures are followed by blank eyes.
{It’s hard being someone who isn’t special from the start, isn’t it?}
“… What…?”
{Other girls get to do, well, whatever they want, believe in their own truths every day, and so-me-how —!} Enunciating the gesture at the last word, Still taps her smiling mask with that “somehow”. {— it all works out for them. They just… suplex whoever pisses them off, or… menacingly dictate without needing to come up for air, prepared to nag until the world freezes over.}
Blinking at the examples, Ave’s clouded eyes clear up a bit.
“… it would be nice if… one time, I could be like them and…
‘win’ just because…”
(One day I’m going to drown you in a tub of water, then sell [Eau de Ave] to desperate gamblers, you born winner.)
That particular gripe feels far too potent to allow to run loose!
Even Still’s hand twitches when the girl looks hopefully up at her.
(Commit to your role! If Ave did something more serious than just bite Adris, I’ll need to hear about it all.)
{… Little sister, please remember that life is always fun as long as you’re trying~.}
Rather than issuing an obvious order, Still merely relaxes and opens her arms wide after saying that.
She exudes forgiveness, happiness, and love as hard as it is possible for a faceless, totally covered person to do.
“Sis…”
Ave snorts the snot in her red nose, then gulps hard! Her sobbing face contorts even harder… and an emerald blur becomes the wind that ensnares, and whirls the dark room!?
“STILL! Sister…! Ave…!? No! I didn’t mean to bite him, really!?”
{Yes. Yes. Yes.} Slapping the titanic boa with this gesture, Still allows herself to be crushed by Ave when the misbegotten girl curls entirely around her.
“I tried… REALLY HARD not to bite! This time! But… but…!? He…?”
{He?}
“… Adris said it was okay!? He… wanted me to for some reason, even though I thought I shouldn’t!?”
{Of course he did. Don’t worry. If he has the presence of mind to ask for it, then it’s not truly affecting him.}
(Anything that can make him shoot off harder, and he’s begging for it like it’ll save his life… but, I bet he thinks he’s riding an edge, too. He can feel it’s dangerous, insidious, yet he knows…)
Danger is the mightiest intoxicant, and the greatest pleasure.
After minutes of nearly shrieking whining and fervent denials of wanting to ever hurt anyone, it becomes time for Still (who is long past the point of caring about anything, even her own existence) to thank the gods that Ave’s holy power never flares up,
pat the girl’s head rapidly and hard to rouse her —
(Adris is who I need to fix, not Ave. Let him skin himself on her venom. It’ll just make it easier to guide with him, so long as Ave isn’t also trying to?)
— and refocus instead on a topic that actually matters while holding hands between them like “sisters” might.
{I swear to you, Adris wouldn’t succumb easily to anything. But… don’t keep biting him, even if he asks, no, begs? No, no, DEMANDS for you to! Understood?}
“Yes…”
{The both of you went to these dark waters? Just you two, no Neesiette or Kol? Then they affected you?}
“… Hick… yes…! It turned out… strange once we soaked in them. The single-color waters also did that, but the black waters were even worse. So much happened, before and then, and Adris’ power there was… it went wild, and so did the waters to join him! Especially after we left, Adris became like… another person. But… also…
The Beast… she, there she was, and… she…!?”
(The Beast? Was at the waters? The waters you two slinked off to in order to…?)
{Let it all out. But tell me on the way to check the place you confronted her. Do you understand now, that it was another’s influence and the location that led to this… teensy mistake?}
“… It was?”
{Obviously. I was just testing you to help you understand yourself. My, you need to be more observant, more careful. I stay within this tower only because it’s safe from that creature. The enemy out there is also inside your thoughts by how it’s corrupted the tree, making you strange, and him, because…}
(Dark waters that separate into colored ones. I should’ve known from the rainbow lakes in the sky everywhere. They cause you to feel bizarre, full of feelings? Just like proximity to the fairies, aaaah, it shouldn’t be possible, but it must be.)
And so it must be confirmed!
For it could clarify MUCH about the world tree if what feeds it is THAT.
…
…
“… and that’s what my kin cried out after he said that.”
{Lower.}
(Maybe you should just drop in yourself.)
A never-ending story finally ends.
With a return to norms, the squeaky Ave rattles out every last detail of the most incomprehensibly stupid “fairy-tale” day.
While Still slaved to discover ways to save them all, this freak has made life…?
(Astounding and insulting. Confounding too, that he has some sort of plot you’re a part of that sounds like it might even be potent. It’s just…?)
Even when kept in the dark about the ambush on Lycia, Still could figure out Adris’ intentions a bit by the target’s metrics.
It’s every proper woman’s duty to notice the details that depend on ensorceled swimsuits, sinister even when Still’s had no taint of the dark when delivered by elf-apault; or, the intentional seductions half-remembered by a feverish Ave, such that even her own fall into depravity seems like an ascension to paradise; finally, the inculcations he’s been imposing about the worth of Ave in destroying their mutual enemy.
Strange, almost disconnected ambitions all linking up in that man’s mind are a chaotic pattern.
{Lower.}
“The branch won’t go any lower, Still.”
(That you can make a world tree’s branch bend this far for us is bizarre. Just as bizarre as Adris’ recent fascination with you.)
Overhead, or as close to above as matters in this crazy realm, the groans of an enormous branch of Ysanne cry out its strain. From this main off-shoot down to the smaller veins of the tree, it obeys the request of a lamia to crane ever closer to the abyss below.
(It’s the right turbidity, but I can’t see past the surface. I should be able to. I’m almost there, but…)
The spider silk is stretched so far that the flask will bounce with the merest sway. That is an option for Still when trying to stretch herself.
{Hold on.} After flashing the sign, Still slips from the hands that grab around her waist.
“Ahh!? Tickles!” The long green “rope” tight above cries out, but doesn’t fling Still when she wraps her thighs around Ave’s arm to slide down.
(There.)
A few feet more obtained over this immense hang, and she drops the flask into the darkness. Spider silk dipping after smokes when it bounces back out of the ripple-less surface. So, too, does the pewter flask discolor somewhat when Still starts to haul up the last of Meltisha’s sold spider silk.
“Got it!?”
Ignoring the question, Still confirms after the long haul by turning the flask upside down. Shaking it produces not even a single drop.
(Liquid, but not something that can be contained. It matches.)
Afraid of this, but also hopeful, Still rolls her head and then disconnects the spider silk wrapped around the flask.
{Don’t move.}
“Okay…? Sticky!?” Another useless cry goes with tying the always bonding silk around Ave’s arms.
Then, Still starts her own descent.
(What are you doing, Partner?)
With plenty of time to ponder when so exposed to any malicious force that might attack, Still distracts by wondering about the worth of not only this trip into Ysanne, but also the sanity of her partner who doesn’t know how much of a monster he really is.
She tugs end-over-end the unfolding silk roll, finding that like her own sanity, it’s quickly running out.
(I… I get that you want to try out “your girls”. That seems to be the one honest pursuit you have is… us. But going off one after another with them is terribly sleazy, especially when…?)
A bit onerous, and plenty obsessive, Adris’ indulgences are uncute; yet, when Still considers the memories of being near him, and conversations with him that always turn prickly, that he cares only about them is a bit cute… yet, she wasn’t included?
(You pursue, I encourage, both going our own ways after you suddenly veer off, then we end up somehow running head on into each other when you can’t forget about me?)
It’s honestly strange how he subverts her expectations. Always being the one setting off the chase, Still feels a growing tightness inside that makes her wonder what their actual game has become with Adris not biting as the other “hunters” might.
Back and forth; then and there; with other people added on, testing the fun that two very disgruntled souls have indulged in on their merry way to vengeance, all until it morphs into a growing issue after less than a season of being together.
(Adris is always rational, especially when he goes mad. Why is he more mad than rational after yesterday? No, at least he’s able to manifest his powers. That’s a good sign… even if what he’s doing seems darker than even in the Castillo, somehow?)
Nearing the gloom below, coming so close to the open jaws of some apocalyptic monster ready to devour Still, she finds little happiness when Adris’ plans include Ave.
To make Ave the centerpiece of them defies belief and invites painful chaos.
(… WE ALL SINK.)
The touch upon her fingertip is a pull greater than the tides!
(Would Ave?)
Viscous, heavier than her own sins, and darker than black, the unending sea that this devilish world tree has sunk its roots into defies the boundaries of reality and invites harms beyond imagination.
([The Great Placid]. It’s a direct connection to the ruinous plane of shadow.)
It’s so painful to touch there while bathed in the twilight of Ysanne. Torn between two realms, the weight of the floating place demands she plunge into the shadow crossing.
Beyond the pain, an unusual mania clutches her upon realizing what this means!
(I can leave this fey hell at any time?)
She can, but no one else.
Even the “peerless lady” Neesiette, she of stellar construction, will denature and dissolve under the caressing, crushing weight of Zennia’s regrets in the length of time needed to swim back.
(… Just one slash.)
The silk rope she dangles by is already cut when she flips over to stare up at the damn snake.
“What is it?” Ave asks this with some interest, and also concern.
A dirk Still thumbs in her free hand is already in flight in her mind. It’s through the rope, lodged in the corrupted world tree, and Still is swimming for her atelier deep beneath Petripolis while a dumb “elf” stares in shock.
(Do it. Leave. Get out.)
Hanging from the branch like the useless caterpillar she is. Left to fend for herself in this “paradise” she wouldn’t shut up about!
(Let Ave cry. A whole sea of tears. Enough to drown the Great Placid itself…!)
It’s awfully tempting, because Still has a million gestures to flash before she slips through the lake surface.
To escape from all of her problems is a rare excitement and opportunity!
“Still… are you okay? Did… did, did the lake hurt you too!?”
(AH HA!?)
The sneak lifts suddenly, then bounces and swings!
“STILL!”
She clings to the silk rope that yanks upward, desperately trying to make a sign to stop!
“HOLD ON!”
{IIIIIIYAAAAAHHHHHHMMMMMMM!}
“I’ll save you!”
(Damn skink! You’re gonna toss me off into…!?)
By the time Still reaches the hanging Ave to climb from her limp ponytail up back to the world tree’s branch, she almost forgets that that was the plan…
“You’re okay? No… of course you are, you’re Still, the great witch!”
(… Great witch?)
A strange compliment to receive while sitting back on the smaller branch of Ysanne, but there’s only more questions now.
“The others, and me, he treated us so differently from usual. What we would’ve wanted, he didn’t like to do that. Instead, what we did seemed like…?”
{What he knew he could subject you all to, then warp your minds into enjoying it. That’s what Adris does, yes.}
(Riling up the elves? Making them hate him? After going so far to use them as props in his escapades? Why?)
“… every time he was unhappy… or, maybe not unhappy, just… offended…? He’d go stormy with his feelings that I’d hope to make happy. His dark troubles he should separate from stormed out so wildly! Why… couldn’t I dissuade him from embracing bad thoughts when he was like that, or resist him pulling me along to… s-s-show me off when he didn’t need to…?”
{As if there is a single woman who would say ‘I want a boring, safe guy!’}
(Being covertly dangerous is his lifestyle. But he’s giving up the covert! Did ‘winning’ against that eastern meister destroy the balance between his unlimited arrogance and limited brilliance?)
“I didn’t… really want, or thought I didn’t want, to parade around. Ahhh, to be paraded… he showed me off, didn’t he? I let him show me off like a farmer would a calf…?”
{All men do that, it’s the basis of their egos. Plus, being seen is… well, it’s mostly normal to want others to…?}
Added on to Still’s questions is a reluctance to ask for answers from the snake that won’t cease venting about her insecurities. Again, Ave taps her shoulder.
“… and… the things we did… no, ways we ‘frolicked’… I would’ve never thought to do any of that, but when I did it, I… felt like…?”
{That was most of what you shared. It’s just how people are. What feels good is good. What about that?}
(You think you’re an elf, right? All elves are like that, but worse. I haven’t heard of a single one that was ‘unliberated’. Are you just now realizing your usual flighty antics attract the horniest men and monsters?)
Between figuring out the dangers of the Placid manifesting in a physical way and determining what mighty powers this Beast could obtain by mastering the alien realm’s influence, Still has no mental powers to listen to a child bumble through how a man thoroughly used and abused her, mind and body.
(His sexual tastes are becoming… excessive. He wasn’t like this before. Well… not as bad? Not pure in the least, but he’s always been more self-aware, dutiful about being pleasing, and…?)
“… it’s getting hard not to think about.
Every time I’m around him, it’s like I can’t breathe without him holding me. Then, I remember what we’ve done, and wonder if… we’ll do it now, some more.
And…”
Breathless again, beyond annoying with how she keeps touching her bare stomach, the slutty snake moans the last part.
“… when he puts his…!? When I feel warm deep inside, I… all over, and completely…!?”
(Wait, ‘warm inside’?)
Only half listening before, Still turns to stare.
“… even if it’s squishy, and I feel dirty, I’m…?”
{Wait, wait?}
“Yes?”
Still’s hands grab hers again, breaking the red-cheeked idiot from her mumbling. One lifts off to sign.
{You’re… not letting him finish your little ‘game’ without pulling out, right?}
“… I…
… said… at first, I tried to…”
(You absolute idiot who cannot be properly measured.)
{A kobold getting knocked up is to be expected, hardly preventable! It’s their basic instinct to be breeding bags for anything that can mount them, but…!?}
“… Kol also seems like she can’t say no, I agree…”
{Ave, dearest little sister, you’ve got an actual life ahead of you. You can’t behave like that dog does! You’ve been promised so much fun in your youth that is going to vanish the moment you…?}
(I’m not your mother! Shouldn’t she have warned you about the fun ending the moment you grow heavy?)
Especially those hedonistic monsters! The first lesson is always…
{“Consequences are things forced on you by men who don’t have to bear them”, that’s half of motherhood! If… it were the Castillo ones doing it…?}
“I don’t want that!?”
{Not my point. You could at least ‘donate’ the child through their evil channels. It’d be raised by them. But if it’s him, that will be yours.}
“… I… don’t know about being a mother, though, I don’t feel good when thinking about it, or about mothers…”
{Then don’t become one! Oh, why are you letting that irresponsible asshole do what he wants to just because he can?}
“He shouldn’t? Maybe. We’re both…? But, life, and love, and… closeness, if you’re doing things like… crossing branches…?”
How this idiot’s face softens when babbling means only one horrific thing.
“… pressing down on me… when he’s over me, I can’t even remember my own name. Pushing up against him is impossible, even if I feel like what he’s saying isn’t right, I still believe him…?”
(Not only incompetent, but spineless!)
{Ave, are you one to let yourself be chained up by another person?}
“No!? But… it’s not… a chain, it feels more like… I’m being cuddled when we’re naked? Made into someone else by his weight! Like, the moment he starts going fastest, when he acts like he can’t hold back, or ever leave me, I’m becoming…?”
(Please, please, don’t be this slovenly! Or retarded! Pleasure is good, but…!?)
The snake touches her stomach again, an affectation that perfectly is explained by remembering how a sleaze dumped his hope to saddle her with offspring deep inside!
“… everything we do feels too good. I don’t even remember what I’m supposed to say no to… if, if Adris asks, no, demands something, I…? It just makes me want to pass out…?”
(Being easy is an unforgivable sin, you absolute fool.)
Still tries to sign this, but her fingers cross and shake.
“He… he’s the only one who asks these things of me, instead of trying to take, and… even then, he’s not asking… he… knows, just knows that… with me, what I feel, want, need, and…?”
Collapsing even more as a woman, Ave’s slavish fealty is branded on her face.
A dopey mouth opened slightly lets her snaking tongue flick, and she tilts up her head to stare at the memory of surrender playing in her mind instead of giving Still her due!
“… why is it bad to be his, even if…?” A delirious erotic haze has stripped away dignity, revealing entirely Ave and Adris’ true abusive paradigm while flaunting its false joys!
“No, because he wants a child with… me, not asking, demanding as… if destiny wants it too…
It’s hard to… and, can’t I just let him, trust him, and give him wh—?”
{GO DEEP FUCKIN’ DOWN AND DIG UP SOME DAMN DIGNITY.}
Six furious, swinging hand signs sober a bitch up real quick.
Ave’s opened mouth drops to hang. Her rosy cheeks turn white, her whole loose body down to her tail tip freezing.
“…
… S-S-S-S-S-SSSSSorry…!” Stuttering all of this sibilant apology, Avenalliah Aurmaris shuts her mouth tight!
(That’s… not what I meant to say.)
Ave tilts toward the floor and stares. Hands once holding Still’s now rest on her tail, gripping for dear life as the snake starts to shiver.
(At least not that harshly.)
“…” A queasiness that’s borderline sickening to others strikes Ave with her cheeks turning greener. Dizzy with shame when none had been found before.
(Don’t act like I’m the bad one.)
Still turns away, staring off at nothing as the pickled mood makes her want to leap off the world tree’s branches.
It’s fine to be indulgent with sex, fantastic even!
(I’m just… annoyed by how needy you are.)
Being fooled so easily is boring, and also pathetic.
To play into the proclivities of a man entirely…?
Again, this snake sends doubts and disappointment racing through Still. It was more preferable to be filled by hatred of elves than marooned here wondering why Still suddenly loathes Ave even more than usual.
(Hah, then let’s let it be his fault. Why should I care if this idiot ruins her life by being stuck with his spawn, just because she wants to feel him spurt a bit and make a funny face for her?)
It’s so annoying, to be stuck with so many conflicting thoughts and feelings rampaging about Ave, of all people.
Plus…
(I can’t be seen as abusive by her, or it’ll be impossible to ‘guide’ her properly into not further ruining Adris. Plus, if she runs off, I’ll be pressed to make it back to the village.)
Why Adris suddenly became a national-threat-level degenerate is an answer not even Still can explain, so Ave will unfortunately need to “share more”. Hearing all about their disgusting exhibitionist stroll through the village provides a rare glimpse into Adris’ potential fetishistic choices.
Even by Still’s refined lack of standards it left her frozen, enraptured by the sheer disregard Adris flaunted without the appropriate…?
(Performances aren’t uninteresting.)
{It’s really hard to talk with your fingers.}
“… Hhhhuh?” Snapping to attention when Still starts signing, Ave’s sharp distress lessens immediately with the next ones.
{I’m not furious with you. Just… worried, for you. If I could, I’d do anything possible to help you. I think that, but it’s all too impossible for me to ‘say’ that, much less how I feel. About the problems you face, how can I share… with…?}
To sell the saccharine heartache she feels, Still stares at her hands, then touches her mask, and finally lets both hands rub down that smooth surface slowly.
(“I’m such a troubled woman, Ave, hurt by my inability to help you. Please comfort me, because I’m not mean, just isolated”, that’s the gist of it.)
{What I tried to say was…}
Shifting body language does bring Ave back to Still’s proximity when inviting the snake with reaching hands.
{‘Dig deep inside and let out the dignity within yourself’. It’s easy for a man to overshadow your own worth! Especially when it’s Adris, who enjoys that sort of victory.}
“… Oh, I misread your signs! You meant for my sake, to be dignified, right?” Ave’s distress vanishes, making Still sigh within at how gullible she is. “Not being able to talk… to open up, you have it really hard, sister.”
(You have no comprehension of my true difficulties, but…)
“With how nice you are to everyone, it’s easy to forget that. No, bury your problems with mine, sorry.”
{I’m used to it by now, but thanks~.}
“Mmm… I’d thought about it before, but what kind of undead are you?”
(… Don’t think.)
The question alone is impermissible.
No answer is at hand, not even a misleading one, other than to ‘say’…
{One that can’t talk. That’s the troubling bit.}
“Of the ones that can’t talk…? Yes, that’s right, I thought about if it was your choice, because I read something that should help if it isn’t! And, now is the best time!”
{Help?}
(You? Help me?)
Still’s creep away from the suddenly bright-eyes and smiling forest creature becomes a blur of colors the instant that idiot’s hand firmly grabs hers.
(… Adris, why aren’t you rescuing meeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEE————!?)
Through every bush, and brush, thorn patch, and barrier of green that approaches at arrow-speeds, Still silently screams at the full traversal of Ysanne when dragged by Avenalliah!
Becoming someone’s hand bag is the most undignified existence imaginable, even worse than this fake elf’s own!
They chase the hooting and clapping and ringing beats of the vast forest that pine for Ave’s notice!
“Found you!”
Still flops down to remain flat on the dark-blue mosses while her wild horse slithers to pluck something from a wizened tree much shadier than the rest.
“Going by… what Mython said, this should be a flower you’d only now find within a world tree, even though it should grow practically anywhere that kin call home.”
Unable to avoid being grabbed again, Still tenses and curls up when Ave thrusts something against her breasts!
(I am getting so — very — TIRED of being subjected to excru—!?)
A bunch of noodles squirm over her mesh, then she feels several stabs through the mesh that touch below!
(—ciating selfishness by you!)
“—cccciiiaaatuuung… ssself-ish-nessss by YOUUuuuuu!”
A tinny voice cries out from her right breast!
(Huh?)
“Huh?”
The twisting tone that struggled with its words settles, then becomes so nostalgic!
“[Exvoco]! A flower that speaks our heart’s truths!”
“I don’t believe in such fairy tale excre—! Eh?”
(I don’t believe in such fairy tale excre—! Eh?)
Still rushes to sit up, then cradles the golden moth-antennae-like flowers hanging from her breasts. At the center of the fronds are a hard, toothed shell that just closed again after cracking open. From it, tendrils that must be roots reach through her mesh.
(That… voice was…!?)
The shell cracks open, and out comes absolute beauty!
“That… voice was…!?”
“Oh, you sound so cultured even with the flower translating? I don’t recognize the accent…? Were you a noble? Maybe, a princess like Rouvenor met when traveling the human lands!? At the very least, you sound like the rich ladies who visit The Bumbling Bee and try the spiced honey cakes.”
“It’s… my…?”
“It’s your voice, Still, one unburdened by even language! It borrows the elvish tongue that calls the chattering air! No matter how long ago your breath was stolen, nobody on Zennia that’s ever tasted the wind can forget the sound of their own voice!”
Nostalgia surrenders to panic as she grasps at the many fronds!
Almost pulling it out…!
(It’s been so long since…?)
“It’s been so long since…?”
“Don’t forget it! Who you truly are is heard now!”
“I… am…?” Even whole sentences are hard to make when each syllable and word is so exciting to hear!
It’s not the same as listening to it from your own skull, and the pitch is a bit higher than normal, but…?
Nothing before this has made her so gleeful, but also struck dumb and not even able to think!
“Still… please, help me. Neesiette has tried, Kol has too, but the only one that knows everything about anything is always you!” To the ground and shedding her last shred of dignity like she’s molting, Ave bows with her face flat to the moss toward a girl grabbing onto a goofy flower. “If I can hear you, I won’t mess up on using your advice like I do with Neeseitte’s weird ramblings!”
“… What a sneaky girl.” The acidic congratulations lifts Ave’s head.
“H-Huh?”
“Quid pro quo is quite the devious strategy.”
“No!? That wasn’t my plan! Before everything became weird, I was going to take you to find this flower if we could, but I didn’t remember until you told me. As to… why, I wanted to hear your voice? But, now that I have, and I know how much you know about life and… men, I thought maybe…?”
“I wasn’t reproaching you.”
Still pulls her knees up sultrily, clinging to them while getting used to the thrill.
Insecurity she’s never felt vibrates with the same tones as her heard voice. To never hear it, then suddenly remember, then dread that you can once more because…?
(It’s only a mockery.)
“Words.” Even fake blessings can be nice. “Giving me them back, numbing me with the pleasure of hearing my own voice so that you can benefit from it? I think your first intelligent act all day deserves some praise, Ave.”
“… The… first…?” It’s absolutely a compliment, but the bubbly elf-lover almost droops like she’s pouting.
“Right now you’re charming, so don’t fret too much. I’m versed with, and appreciative of, obligations.”
“It’s not supposed to be… mmm!?”
To her cowardly lips, Still presses her index finger to seal them!
“Act graciously and let it be one, or else teaching you won’t be worthwhile. No, maybe…? Being a teacher sounds awfully boring, doesn’t it? Like what Neesiette pretends to do? Droll! Especially asking about men.” It’s still annoying to have your voice project from the wrong place, and it certainly messes with her sense of aesthetics, but for Still to be heard is a blessing for everyone else, too!
“I never bother talking about them, and why should I? What’s there possibly worth sharing about them~? Instead, let’s observe some of your ‘kin’ and have a… sisterly chat.”
A newer thrill edges out in the voice from her collar, dripping with contempt!
“About the false idea that tragedy and comedy are opposites? Does that sound interesting, Ave?”
Even Still experiences a bubbling euphoria of interest about those topics, one that seems to come from all around and feels delightful!