Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

There was an endless expanse of white. An absolute void of nothingness and purity. A blank slate.

Honestly, as far as character generation went, it was pretty boring. Even kind of cliché. It was a giant sign that screamed, ‘Hey, we want to symbolize that there is infinite potential here, and a big endless, white room was the best idea we could rip off from The Matrix.’

No one had ever accused Ashes² of being particularly original. Their golden boy CEO claimed to have pioneered the field of Virtual Reality Gaming, but that was just a big lie that anyone with a basic knowledge of gaming or three seconds of Googling could disprove. His fanboys still ate it up. And this giant white room was about as basic as it got.

Thankfully, it extended beyond that.

A black silhouette of a man appeared, a featureless shadow pacing about, hands in non-existent pockets, pelvis thrust out a little bit. That could only be one man.

“Hello,” it said. “I am Ingram Holt, founder of Ashes², and director of Fell Champions. Welcome to my game.”

The silhouette’s voice was about as devoid of personality and detail as the shadow itself was. Which made sense. Matched reality.

“In Fell Champions, you’ll have total freedom. Free to be who you want to be, and do whatever you want. This is a world bound only by your own imagination. Do you want to be nine feet tall, and try to be an athlete in this fantasy world of your dreams? Shoot for it. Want to be an Elven warrior who likes to dance, and conquer your way to a ballet armageddon? Dance, my children. Live a cottage-core lifestyle, be a trash witch in the woods, a troll under a bridge, a Zen warrior who cultivates a sand garden decorated with the skulls of their enemies… don’t be bound by the class systems of our predecessors. Be what you want, how you want.

“As beta testers, you are the first to step into my world. Pioneers into the unknown. You’ll be free to stream your experiences via approved platforms, such as Spasm, ViewToob, Punch, and Clockwork. And we encourage it. We know those chosen all have a career in that venue, and we want you to spread the beauty of Ashes² to the world. Free advertising, am I right?

“A couple of quick rules and advice. The first, and foremost. Advance, and advance quickly. Those who fall behind will find themselves… at a disadvantage. Do whatever you will do, but do it quickly, and with style. You will be graded.

“Have fun. Enjoy yourself. Remember that this is a game. Defy authority, unless you seek to become authority. Make a little chaos.

“Every once in a while, I will issue a world quest. They will be the only official quests in the game. By virtue of wherever you spawn, you may or may not be eligible. Whosoever completes one of these quests will be handsomely rewarded.

“Don’t worry about the time. Days, weeks, months, maybe even years can pass in the game. You’ll eat, sleep, and piss, and discover no time at all has passed in the real world. Ashes² dilates your brain’s perception of time, so don’t worry about logging out manually.

“And most importantly. Don’t die. Any beta testers who die will be logged out of the game, and won’t be able to come back until the game launches, one year from now. But if you want out at any point, you’ll know how to do it. Just fall on your sword.”

He gave a snorting laugh at that, as if he’d made the most clever joke in the world. The shadow of Ingram Holt turned, as if staring directly at someone not there, at the person who was playing but whose body had not been manifested yet, and said, “Gather your tenacious self and push your will into the world.”

If the shadow had a face, it would be smiling as it began to stretch and pull, the figure becoming even more indistinct as it elongated into… a plain, black rectangle. It flickered, and rippled, like water standing upright in the air, water made from inky shadow. There was a sense of pulling, and then the black turned to gray, save a new silhouette, featureless and formless, but still a person, standing in the middle.

A reflection. A reflection of what?

Her.

She gasped, as if just taking her first breath, and the silhouette in the inky surface shifted, taking on her features, mirroring her. Still indistinct, still lacking detail, but now having her height, her curves. She moved, and it moved, reflecting her. She looked down to her hands, and saw they were made of the same shadowy substance as what was in the mirror. No detail, nothing, but if she just focused… there. Her hands now took on fingers, long and slender, like a piano player’s. She flexed them experimentally. They were so real, nothing like she’d experienced before in virtual reality.

She looked at her reflection, and willed herself into existence. Dark, sun-browned skin replaced the shadowy form, hair formed and spilled from her scalp. She could almost feel it growing out as it did. It was raven black, and curly. It stopped at her shoulders, and she ran her fingers through it, and it lengthened again, falling to her mid-back.

This was her, how she looked outside of virtual reality. She’d always been a beauty, known more for her looks than her skill at gaming, despite being one of the best in her genre.

Problem was, hot or not, she was still human, with all the little flaws that entailed. She’d always had a little forehead wrinkle that she hated, but looking at it in the mirror, she willed it away. Her brown eyes always came off as kind of boring, and she’d longed for something a little more exotic to go with her skin tone. The color bled to a dark blue, then waned lighter until they were a blue so pale it verged on gray. She added a little light to it, making them almost glow. A little oomph, so you could make them out, even in the dark if you looked hard enough. She had a tiny scar on her lower lip, from when the only man who’d ever dared to hit her had split her lip. The lesson was important, but the mark itself was meaningless, and disappeared alongside a mole on her arm, various body hair she decided she’d never need again, and a pale discoloration on her arm.

Focusing on other things yielded results. She could pull up a character status page, which listed her stats – Strength, Agility, Tenacity, Allure, Will, Fortune, and Awareness – all of which were at a 10. Probably the baseline. Through the status page, she found a way to log into a streaming platform – maybe later, she didn’t want to do that with her tits out – and a who's online list. Almost all of the names listed came up as ‘Unknown’, including a highlighted one which she assumed was herself. The only names displayed were Slavomir Risko, and Everett Brown, both with their handles TheRiskSlave and Sediment showing. A second later, Yamamoto Samishii came up. SamiRai.

Her eyes narrowed at that. Sami was already in the game. Already a step ahead.

She held out a hand, palm down, fingers extended. There was a little tremor. That just figured. She tapped on the name panel for herself, and it immediately filled in her real name and handle. She immediately deleted it.

What to call herself now? She had to go incognito. Who knew who else would be playing? People wouldn’t be expecting her. She was out, retired. A career that had been a beautiful fireworks display, burning brightly, dazzling everyone who looked upon it, but then gone.

No. No more fire, not this time. This time, she’d be water. Go with the flow, stay hidden and deep, have her fun, and stay the hell away from SamiRai.

She looked at the mirror, and willed her face to change. It stayed the same for the most part, but there were enough tweaks to make it unrecognizable. Her mouth a little wider, more of a pixie nose than before, her eyes spaced a little bit further apart, her earlobes a touch smaller. She molded her jawline a little, carefully sculpting it a touch narrower, and then made her skin tone just a touch lighter. Her black hair turned cotton candy pink. She kept her eyebrows dark. Make it look like a dye job, even if it was a good one.

When she was done, she entered in a name, something innocuous to keep people from looking at it too closely. Let them think she was some lucky unknown who’d managed to snag an invite, maybe a nepo baby or something.

Otter Kaos, GrandTheftOtter.

More names started popping up, some familiar, some not. JackBeQuick, LoneRunMan, NightmareWasTaken, Digimane, Brian Michael Bilker, Masked Baguette, PewPewGuy, CyberEdge, Dev Vision… One in particular caught Otter’s attention. The one she least expected to see.

Kwan Il-Su, Silence.

Before Otter knew what she was doing, she tapped his name, and a window came up for a video call with an image of a green phone ringing over top. It lasted a few seconds before it was answered, and the familiar face of Il-Su came up.

“Hey,” she said, and then realized she was still naked.

He looked away, his normally unflappable exterior thoroughly flapped. She didn’t really care. It’s not like he hadn’t seen her naked before, even if the two of them had never been intimate. But then, he didn’t know it was her. In theory. Time to test her disguise.

“Uh, hi,” he said, very carefully not looking at her.

“Sorry,” she said, trying to feign something like embarrassment, and holding an arm over her breasts. “Forgot I was naked.”

He was, too, but the window only showed his face and upper torso.

“That you, Silence?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah. Do… I know you?”

It was funny seeing him flustered, even if the face wasn’t the one she was used to. He’d made himself look wildly different, more K-Pop star than the gamer nerd he’d been. Old Il-Su looked like he’d never touched grass in his life, even if he did manage to get the hottest girlfriend in all the gaming sphere. Y’know. Before he’d screwed it up, somehow.

“Nope,” she said, giving him her best smile. She tried to look more friendly than flirty, but she’d always been bad at trying to make herself look approachable but not desirable to gamer dudes. Or just dudes in general. “Name’s Otter. GrandTheftOtter. Small streamer, just making my break. Got lucky and got an invite. Was wondering if the has-been wanted to clan up with the new kid.”

Il-Su’s eyes narrowed at that, and the cold look he normally affected came up like a wall. “Does Fell Champions even have a clan system?”

“No idea. But as a game marketed where you can ‘do anything’, I figure there has to be, right?”

He got that calculating look he did when he was trying to play mental chess against his opponents. Luckily, she knew all his moves already.

“And what are you bringing to the table? Do you even know how to play the game?”

“Game just came out, dummy. No one knows how to play. But we can figure it out together. As for what I bring… well, I bring the most valuable commodity of all in the streamer sphere.”

“What’s that?”

“A clean slate. Neutrality. No existing drama with anyone. Unlike, say, you.”

Kwan Il-Su had always been the best, a cold killer in RPGs like Gallant Stand II and Immortalized. He’d evoked jealousy in his peers, and hadn’t made many friends with his attitude. And then he’d gone and burned what few bridges he had with his … retirement.

“Point. Any experience with RPGs?”

“They’re my jam.” She had to hide a wince. That’s something the old her would’ve said.

“Hmm. Class choice?”

“Caster, long to medium range. Support and damage. No heals. So, don’t stand in fire.”

“Bad pairing,” he said, and she knew it was true before he said it. He was famous for close-range DPS, playing stealth characters. They’d both need a tank of some kind to handle aggro without getting overwhelmed, assuming Fell Champions played like other RPGs. “You have anything else?”

Otter almost made a comment about her perfect ass, but that was something he might catch onto. And she didn’t want him to think she was flirting. She scrambled, thinking, trying to grasp at any perceived advantage. But she only knew as much as he did about the game, which was a few screenshots, a bullshit trailer about a prisoner being marched to his doom, and what Ingram Holt had said. And it’s not like that man ever had anything important to say aside from his regular self-aggrandizing bullshit. ‘Tenacious will’, who said that kind of…

It clicked. She looked at her character sheet again, flipping through the few pages there were. Under stats…. there.

“Invest a few points in Tenacity and Will,” she said.

“What?”

“Holt. He said some bullshit line about us having ‘tenacious will.’ I think he was trying to tell us something. Leak a hint, right at the beginning.”

Il-Su paused, considering. He nodded once, and then the call disconnected.

“Fucker,” Otter said. She should’ve known he’d take what he could and then leave her out to dry.

She looked at her stats. Ten in each, Strength, Agility, Tenacity, Allure, Will, Fortune, and Awareness, with a signifier she had ten points to spend. Well, she was going caster. It was what she was comfortable with, and if Il-fucking-Su didn’t like it, well, she didn’t need him anyway. She dumped four right away into Tenacity, and then another five into Will. As she did, two semi-transparent bars appeared in her field of vision, one red, the other blue. Health and mana, probably. No indication of how many points either had, or what she could do with them. Didn’t matter. Ingram Holt said they’d be important, so she wasn’t taking any chances.

Nine points down. Only one left. She could start taking away from other skills. Casters didn’t really need strength, but she also didn’t know how magic worked in this game, assuming she even had any. And Allure sounded like a soft skill, if there ever was one. Probably some kind of charisma stat for social challenges. She was already hot, why would she need points in that?

Vanity was the only thing that kept her from subtracting from it. Vanity, and fear of the unknown. She didn’t know what kind of consequences min-maxing might have in a game she knew nothing about. Especially a game where she only had one shot. Die once, and you were out. What if putting her Allure below 10 made regular people hostile to her? What if she ended up in a starter village, and the NPCs all drew steel on her while she had her tits out? Otter much preferred her tits unstabbed, thank you very much.

Otter put the last point in Fortune. She figured she might need some.

Strength: 10

Agility: 10

Tenacity: 14

Allure: 10

Will: 15

Fortune: 11

Awareness: 10

“Okay,” she said. “I’m ready to start.”

A menu screen made of the same oily smoke as the mirror flashed in front of her, asking for her starting location. A list of places followed, with no information for context.

Virtuere, Mikovia, the Salass Wastes, Deresh, the Silayan Islands, the Jiridion Belt, Nguaria, the Criobani Empire, and so many others… no information on any of them, not even a map to go with it. No chance to make an informed choice. She highlighted the Silayan Islands. They sounded pleasant, at least.

A final prompt came up. This one had three runes as options with symbols she didn’t recognize, followed by a standard green checkmark for confirmation. She pressed one, and nothing happened. Otter gave herself a quick pat down, and turned herself around, trying to look over every corner of her body. Nothing seemed to be different. She clicked the second rune. Suddenly, her whole body changed. The same, but… male. Wider shoulders, rougher features. Something distinctly distracting between her legs. Her insides felt wrong. And her throat. And for once in her godamn life her hands and feet felt warm.

Still, she quickly hammered down on that third option. Novelty was fine, and the chance to use a dick and see what the type was about was tempting, but no. Not for her.

Otter’s body changed back to female. Everything was once more in its place. Except… she felt different. Something was changed, she could feel it inside, but she had no idea what.

She pulled up the customization mirror, and gave herself a thorough examination. Her new body was the same, as far as she could remember. Her eyes had a certain sheen to them, an almost glow.. Had she made them that bright before? Was she imagining it? Was it a trick of the light?

She hopped back and forth between the first and third prompts, and checked the difference. Yep. Definitely a very subtle glow in her eyes on that last prompt, and something in the lower pit of her belly felt different. Not good different. Not bad different. Just… kind of weird.

Screw it, her eyes looked prettier with the glow. She hit the confirmation.

As she did, there was a flash, and she felt a weight come on her. She looked down, and let out a sigh of relief. She was wearing a gray smock now. She wouldn’t have to wander around with her ass hanging out after all.

A window flashed, asking for confirmation of her choice. She was about to confirm when a call came through.

Il-Su, now wearing a gray smock of his own, was on the other side.

“Did you ask anyone else to clan?” he asked.

“You kidding me? Have you seen the list of people online?” Time to push some of his buttons. “Slavomir Risko? That man is only loyal to RNGesus. Probably dumped all his stats into Fortune, randomized his appearance, and logged on. Masked Baguette? The man’s a walking ego, even if he’s earned it. CyberEdge is probably going to do nothing but look for orphans to dropkick right out the gate. Nightmare and LoneRunMan are probably going to try to speedrun this, and whichever one you pick, you make an enemy of the other. And SamiRai? Talk about drama.”

She had to keep the satisfied smirk off her face when something around his eyes tightened.

“Where’s your spawn?” he said.

She told him, and he nodded and hung up again. That was probably as close to a commitment as she was going to get. Now she knew how Sami and Sediment felt.

“All right,” Otter said. “Log me in, game. Let’s see what Fell Champions has to offer.”

A window asked her to confirm if she really was ready. She picked the only choice that mattered. The one that sealed her fate. The one that would get her to break her record of saying ‘fuck’ the most in one day.

The white room disappeared, and GrandTheftOtter vanished from the Character Creation room, and onwards.

Chapter Text

Otter hit face-first into a particularly wet and slimy pile of mud. It wasn’t the grand entrance she was expecting back to the world of gaming. The impact was jarring, and worse, felt real. She groaned, tried to stand, and her bare feet slipped on even more cold mud, sending her back to the ground. She tried to brace herself with her hands, but of course those slipped as well.

She laid there, the side of her face sunk into the mud, and would have appreciated just how real it felt if not for the fact that it actually felt real.

“Where in Mayheel did you come from?” a voice hissed.

Something grabbed the collar of her smock and started to lift her.

“Oh no, I live here now,” Otter said. “The mud has embraced me.”

“Death is about to embrace you, get the tale up!”

Otter struggled between standing and jerking away from what held her as her brain tried to make sense of what the voice had just said. She got her feet under her in a meaningful way and took a step when she heard the shriek. It was low and grumbling, somewhere between a vocalized stampede and branches snapping. She didn’t know if she wanted to turn to see what it was or who was trying to pull her, but her feet answered for her and started stumbling forward in a clumsy jog away from that sound.

As she moved, she took in more details. It wasn’t night, but there was no sun. There was some kind of forested canopy blocking the sky, and the ground was wet and swampy. The stranger who’d pulled her up moved beside her, but she couldn’t get a good look at them. It was only when she said something once more, louder than before, that she finally realized it was a woman.

“Fables!” It sounded like a swear word, coming from her.

“The fuck is that?” Otter said.

“Ashborne Cutting.”

The look the stranger shot Otter communicated how stupid she thought the question was. She decided to ask anyway.

“What’s an Ashborne Cutting?”

“Do you have any…” she trailed off, looking at her, taking her in fully as they loped. “Of course you don’t. Keep moving, this way.”

The stranger picked up the pace somehow, and it was all Otter could do to try to trail after without slipping and falling on her face, or rolling an ankle on the uneven ground. Behind her, Otter heard the shrieking of whatever the Ashborne Cutting was, and the only thing that kept her eyes focused on the ground to keep her footing and not look behind her at what was inevitably chasing her was the thought that this was all a game. She was in a Quick Time Event, and she just had to not fuck up and the monster wouldn’t get her. It was that simple. Looking back would be a fuck-up. So she couldn’t do that. This was just an interactive cut scene. She just had to follow the NPC.

It shrieked again, closer, so much closer.

Yes. A cut scene. A really terrifying one.

She patted at her smock, swearing the entire time, but of course she didn’t have a weapon on her. No starter gear to speak of outside the clothing itself. There were dead branches stuck in the mud, but she wasn’t sure how effective they’d be in a fight, or if she’d even be able to pry them loose from the sunken embrace of the swamp.

“Just ahead!” her savior yelled. “It won’t cross the threshold!”

From the splashing sound of footsteps behind her, and how much closer they were sounding by the moment, she didn’t think she’d make it to whatever threshold the NPC was talking about. She wasn’t going to make it. Was she really going to die right at spawn? Was there a running stat or skill? Something she hadn’t invested in right from the beginning that she should have?

The idea hit her, and she yelled, “Magic! How do I do magic!”

“What?”

“Will! How do I use Will for something!”

“You mean Manifest? You don’t know how to Manifest?”

“Of course I don’t! I just got here!”

There was a pregnant pause, and then the NPC said, “You haven’t made your Pact yet, you can’t Manifest! Just run!”

Otter grunted and propelled herself forward as quickly as she could. She hated cardio. So much. But right now she was glad that she’d always forced herself to jog. She’d always done it more out of vanity and to get laid, less about having to outrun monsters in a video game.

Wait, did her real world jogging experience even matter here? Or was it all about her stats? What was more important here? Tenacity? Agility? Strength? A mix of all three?

She almost tripped on a root thinking about it. Otter had to focus her flitting brain to the task of not getting killed, and just as she was summoning up the necessary attention span, her running companion fell on the ground, panting and laughing at the same time. Otter ran another ten steps before she realized that meant they were safe somehow.

“Just my luck,” the NPC said. “Take a quick trip outside the border, and some Wayfarer barnstorms in and draws the attention of an Ashborn Cutting. Probably alerted the whole root system.”

“Sorry,” Otter said. “Didn’t know what I’d be stepping into when I logged in.”

She made her way to the NPC, and helped her to her feet. They locked eyes for a second, and Otter had to quickly remind herself that she was in a video game, and that this was a video game character, and that she wasn’t here for any type of entanglements.

But even through the mud, grime, and sweat, this NPC was pretty. Like, really pretty.

A messy bob of black hair, a cutthroat pixie type of face, and heterochromatic eyes, one green, one blue, with epicanthal folds, with a skin tone that made her look like a porcelain doll, it was all doing it for Otter. Something was definitely stirring in her lower regions, something both weird and aroused, and she had to mentally kick herself.

“What’re you looking at?” the NPC asked.

She didn’t just look real, real in a way that other VR games hadn’t managed to pull off yet. She sounded real, too. This was no AI-generated performance that she’d ever seen before.

Otter must’ve been staring, because the NPC leaned forward and flicked her nose.

“Ow.” She rubbed at her nose. That had smarted. A lot, actually.

“Who are you?”

“Otter.”

The NPC, who Otter decided from that moment on was The Mean Pretty Lady, flicked her across the nose again. “Lie.”

“Ow, fuck, it’s not a lie. That’s what I go by.”

The Mean Pretty Lady seemed to appraise her, and then did not flick her again, instead asking, “And why are you here?”

“Because I thought the Silayan Islands or whatever the fuck this place is called sounded pleasant! I wasn’t expecting a Slavic horror nightmare swamp! I didn’t pick where I spawned.”

“Who sent you Wayfaring, with that little control?”

Wayfaring? What did she mean by that? Some kind of in-game transportation? “An asshole named Ingram Holt, who I will stab right in the testicles if I ever see. Sharp piece of wood in one ball, right through the next, like a fucking kebab.”

“And where did this… Ingram Holt… send you from?”

“Canada. Well, that’s where I’m from, he’s from some shit part of Europe, I think, but bases out of the US.”

A frown. The Mean Pretty Lady had a cute way of frowning. Otter looked around, trying to get an idea of where they were, and why they were safe if they were able to just stand around and chat.

“Why isn’t that Cutting thing trying to kill us anymore?” she asked.

“We passed the Tiding,” Mean Pretty Lady said, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

“What’s a Tiding?” Mean Pretty Lady flicked her again. “Quit that.”

“Where is this ‘Canada’ that you are this ignorant?”

“Hey, our education system isn’t nearly as gutted as America’s.” She saw the flick coming and immediately added, “Yet.”

There was another sound of something that sounded like a scream mixed with branches breaking, and Otter flinched at it. She scanned the way they’d come from, but didn’t see anything.

“The Flow is moving,” Mean Pretty Lady said. “It’s getting dark.”

“Great. We have somewhere to go?”

“I have a place to go. You can pick any direction that’s not the way I’m going.”

“Oh, c’mon. Really? As you’ve established, I am very stupid. I’m liable to walk face first into a nightmare chainsaw monster with a barbed wire-wrapped dick.”

“Lie,” and this time, just took the flick to the nose without even flinching. She was even getting used to it. Maybe this was how Mean Pretty Lady flirted. “You are not stupid. Just an ignorant Wayfarer. Or at least, you don’t believe you are stupid.”

Otter narrowed her eyes at that. How was Mean Pretty Lady doing that? Was she reading her mind? She tried to imagine Mean Pretty Lady naked, which was hard to do. She was wearing a poncho that was covering most of her bits. Mean Pretty Lady gave no reaction, at least that Otter could see. So, probably not a mind reader.

“I also believe I am harmless to you, and can help with, uh, camp chores? Or household stuff? What’re we working with here in terms of shelter? I can be your hench monkey. I just need to get my bearings, and then I’ll be on my way.”

Mean Pretty Lady cocked her head at that. Probably her first time hearing the term ‘hench monkey.’ Someone hadn’t programmed her with a modern vocabulary.

“I don’t like chopping firewood,” she said, and then turned to walk away.

“So, is that a yes? I can come along?”

“It’s a ‘we’ll see how much you complain while chopping my firewood and use that to determine if I put you up for the night.’”

“Great! You won’t regret it!” When the Mean Pretty Lady whirled on her, Otter gave her an impish grin and flicked her own nose. “Lie.”

Chapter Text

The swamp was grey, muddy, and choked with weedy-looking trees. The kind of trees so scrawny, starved of light, and twisted, Otter half-expected them to start telling her that she wasn’t a ‘real’ gamer while staring at her tits. There were bugs but thankfully no mosquitos. At least, nothing she recognized as a mosquito.

None of the bugs looked familiar to her. The trees also weren’t of any type she recognized either, not that she was a … horticulturist? Or was it an agroforester? She’d read a term on it once, and promptly forgot it. Kind of like how she usually forgot to call her hookups back.

Any attempt to have a casual conversation with the Mean Pretty Lady was met with silence. Still, Otter chattered on about anything that came to mind, from complaining about her crappy spawn point to wondering how the game mechanics worked to commenting on a particularly blue flower she saw.

“Hey, what’s your name?” she blurted.

“Finally. It’s Rua.”

“Rua? Huh. I like that. It’s pretty, like your eyes.”

Rua whirled about, her expression a snarl of anger, and then immediately deflated. “What did you say?”

“Your name is pretty?”

“No, the other part.”

“Oh, that your eyes are pretty?”

Rua had gone still, like something inside of her had short-circuited or crashed. Maybe it had. This had been the most flawless performance from an NPC that Otter had ever seen, she was bound to have some bugs. But then, her cheeks turned pink. And then, after another beat, went fully red before Rua turned away and began stomping through the mud at a quicker pace than before.

“Ignorant Wayfarer,” she muttered, trailing off with what could only be a string of obscenities. “Do you recognize my name at all?”

“No. Should I?”

“You’re trapped here, you know. This is Asheborn’s marsh.”

Otter couldn’t help it. She leaned forward and flicked Rua in the back of the head, who whirled to face her, a little surprised and outraged.

“Deflection,” Otter said. “We’ll circle back to the marsh in a second. Why should I recognize your name?”

Rua went back to walking, pointedly ignoring the question.

“Oh, you’re gonna be one of those ‘when I ask questions I expect them to be answered, but when people ask basic facts about me, I’m gonna be quiet’ types, aren’t you? That’s cool. I can talk enough for the both of us.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“It’s fine, I can make up your backstory for you. Are you a witch? Some scary spellcaster, exiled away from civilization because you like to eat children? Feared throughout the islands because of your predilection of casting curses on your enemies via flicking them on the nose? Which, by the way, is very rude.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Oh, so it’s not just me that gets the special treatment. Thank god.”

“Don’t say that word.” Her tone wasn’t angry. It was flat, but subdued. As if she were afraid.

“What? Thanks? Or, oh wait, the ‘g’ word? This a religious thing? I mean, I get it, because fuck ‘em, right?” She felt a little awkward. Otter didn’t like hearing that kind of emotion out of people. “So, Asheborn’s marsh? What was that about not being able to leave?”

“It’s territorial.”

“What is? Is Asheborne a thing? Like, an alive thing?”

“It’s a force. But yes, it is alive. It doesn’t like people being in its marsh.”

“So why do you get a pass?”

“Because I live in the Ebb, out of its sight.”

“And in its sight is the Flow, right?”

“So you’re not completely ignorant.”

“Wait, really? The zones are called the Ebb and the Flow? Fucking hell, Holt, get some originality.”

Rua gave her a funny look at that. “We stay in the Ebb, where the Dreamer’s power is weak, and we are fine. We move into the Flow, and we’re setting our fates to the wind. We’re here, by the way.”

“Here where?”

Otter looked around, casting her gaze about, and saw in the distance, nestled between two trees, a small cottage. It had that look that could only be called ‘quaint’, with a thatched roof, walls made from logs, and a general homey atmosphere.

Rua shifted her poncho, and pulled a hatchet that had been secured to her belt. “Time for you to get to work.”

“But–”

“No whingeing.”

“Whingeing? Is that like whining? I don’t whinge.”

“You’re whingeing right now.”

She pouted, and snatched the hatchet from Rua’s hand. She didn’t bother to ask where the wood pile was. She’d figure it out.

She found it by a small shack outside the cabin. The land around it was surprisingly sturdy, and not at all the gross mud that had been freezing her tootsies like no one’s business, which made her confront a new reality.

She needed shoes. Badly.  She suspected any actual damage to her feet from the cold was being mitigated by her Tenacity stat, but how long would that last?

Would Rua have a spare pair? Would she even give them, if asked? Probably not. Otter sensed that line of goodwill was already being stretched a little thin.

No, better to ingratiate herself to the Mean Pretty Lady by being the best wood chopper Rua had ever seen. She’d done this kind of thing a time or two in the past, while camping. Well, rather, she’d watched other people do it. But how hard could it be? All you had to do was whack a standing log with an axe.

To say Otter disliked physical labour would be underselling it. She had long since cultivated a hatred against physical effort, with only two exceptions; the gym, so she could stare at other hot women working out while she was preventing her own body from breaking down under the stress of one too many bowls of mac and cheese, and what she did with some of those hot women when she was done. There was a reason why she'd been a professional streamer, beyond the fact that she was good at it. And that she enjoyed drinking the salty tears of squeakers in Gallant Stand II. And that it paid really well, even without sinking to the level of hot tub streams.

No, ‘dislike’ did not even begin to cover it. ‘Hate’ barely scratched the surface. No, as she chopped furiously into one log to the next, her shoulders and back aching from labour and poor technique, what she had was execratement for physical effort. She infini-loathed work.

Why did Ingram Holt have to actually program sore muscles into his stupid video game? As soon as she logged into her Spasm account to stream, she was going to fully review this. Zero stars. Do not recommend, do not buy. No nerd would ever put up with this.

But… dammit. She was incognito, under a new name. She couldn’t just log into her old Spasm account and start streaming and hope to maintain any anonymity.

But she could make a new one. She opened her game menu, and after flipping through a few semi-transparent pages hovering in front of her, she managed to get to her streamer settings. It let her pull up the site, and thank Buddha no one had stolen the username ‘GrandTheftOtter’ yet. Bad enough she was going to be using a new handle, it’d be humiliating if she had to add a bunch of numbers to the end of it, or worse, do what Nightmare had done and add 'WasTaken.'

She was tempted to start a stream, but the odds of anyone watching it were abysmal. Because of the way the time dilation worked, the only way someone would be able to watch it was if they’d already been logged in and watching when she started. Eh, she’d figure it out later.

She was about to get back to chopping, when a red indicator blinked at her in her menu under a heading named ‘Messages.’ She tabbed over, and stopped when she saw who it was from.

Sediment.

Not as bad as Sami, but damn near enough.

Still, there was no bad blood between her and Everett. He was the chillest person she’d ever met. He’d been hurt after the mess with Sami, but he’d also understood, without understanding why.

He didn’t know it was her. Couldn’t. Unless Il-Su had sussed her out and then ratted. No, he wouldn’t have done that. He was even less on speaking terms with Sami and Everett than she was.

Taking a deep breath, Otter held her hand out, palm down in front of her. Nothing. No tremors. Good. She accepted the request.

A window popped up, and it wasn’t Sediment staring back at her. At least, not the Everett she knew. Not even a glammed up version of him. No, what was staring back at her was a dragon. Shining black scales, brilliant purple eyes, and a grin that didn’t belong on something that reptilian.

“Hey,” the dragon person said. He even waved a hand at her that would’ve been human if not for the, well, scales. And claws tipping each finger.

“Sediment?” she asked.

“That’s me. And you’re the mystery girl.”

“Am I?”

“No one’s heard of you, and I just watched your Spasm profile get made in real time. So, yeah, you’re the mystery girl.”

She gave an innocent shrug. “Too much drama out there. Wanted a clean slate.”

A normal person might’ve been suspicious, but Sediment just shrugged, “True enough. Where’d you spawn?”

Should she lie? Nah, no point in burning that bridge. Sediment was a good guy.

“Silayan Islands, you?”

“Salass Wastes. We figured there’d be good loot here.”

“‘We?’”

“I’m with Sami. Or, I would be, if she’d spawned anywhere near me. We’re trying to find one another, but not much luck. Was hoping you were out here and could maybe point me out, but go figure, right?”

Which just confirmed to Otter that while Sediment was a great guy, he was clearly still not that bright. She almost asked if they were still together, but held back. Not many people knew the details about that whole situation, and an outsider like ‘GrandTheftOtter’ certainly wouldn’t know a thing about it.

“So, you looking to clan?” she asked. “I have skills. I bet I could take you.”

Sediment gave a genuine laugh. “That upfront about it, huh? I’ll have to ask Sami, but right now, no idea if we’re doing anything like that, especially with newbies. I like your spunk, though.”

It wasn’t condescension, so much as just casual confidence. Sediment had been known as one of the better tanks in Gallant Stand II. Just too bad ‘one of the better tanks’ didn’t equate to actually being able to beat ‘the best mage.’

“Better luck next time then?”

“Better luck next time, little Otter,” he said, and the call ended.

Which thank goodness for that. Sediment was a lot of things, but subtle wasn’t one of them. If he’d recognized her, he wouldn’t have been able to hide it.

She closed her menu, then looked down at the pile, her shoulders feeling a little better than they had a few minutes ago, but still not great. She was about to start chopping again when she noticed Rua, now cleaned up and not sporting all that mud, was approaching.

Hot damn, Rua had been pretty before, but she cleaned up nice.

“Here to check me out while I work?” Otter asked, giving a quick wiggle of her ass.

“More like watch you massacre my wood stores. Food’s almost ready, come inside and clean up.”

“I’m getting fed? I mean, thank you. Wait. Did you cook?”

“Yep,” Rua said, looking faintly amused.

“And you’d need firewood for that.” She vaguely gestured at the chunks of wood she’d conquered.

Rua’s smile brightened even further. “Yep.”

“And you already started.”

“Yep!”

“You made me chop wood for an hour for no reason, didn’t you?”

“Not ‘no reason,’” she said in a mocking consoling tone. “For my own amusement. And look, you even learned how not to chop wood in the future.”

Otter snorted. “If there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s that I never learn.”

“You think I’m keeping you around long enough to find out? I’m just fattening you up to sate the Cuttings, and then make a run for it while they’re busy taking bites out of your fat ass.”

Oh, so Rua had noticed her ass. She made a note of that.

“Come on,” Rua said. “My cooking’s not great, but it’s better than nothing.”

Chapter Text

Before coming in, Rua made Otter wash her feet in a bucket of warm water, for which her aching toes were grateful. She tried to make some kind of thanks, or joke about how badly she needed that, but Rua grunted a comment about not wanting her floors dirty.

The inside of the cabin was very homey. There was a kitchen complete with a counter, some cupboards, a pantry, and something that looked like a stove made from granite and fastened with metal. There were discs of some kind of polished, shiny material with runes carved into them, and one of them had a battered pot sitting on top of it, where something boiled inside. Adjacent was a small dining table, where a wooden chair that matched it was pulled up, and across from it was a padded reading chair that had been pulled from somewhere else to join it. A fire crackled in a hearth in a small living space that was bare save a rug on the floor, and a small shelf for books.

Otter’s stomach grumbled at the smell of food, which didn’t have a scent she normally associated with a cooked meal. It smelled almost lemony, a definite scent of citrus combined with something savoury. She didn’t know she was taking a step towards the dining table until Rua put herself between Otter and it.

“No, clean up first, barbarian. Follow me.”

She tried to look imposing, and for the first time, Otter noticed that as long as Rua wasn’t actively flicking her, she wasn’t that good at it. In fact, she was very small, maybe five feet tall, tops. Perhaps even shorter.

Otter couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward and lightly poked Rua on the nose.

“Boop.”

Rua gave her a shocked look, which quickly turned to irritation when she realized that her nose now had a small bit of mud at the end of it. She did a quick swipe to get rid of it, but didn't manage to get it all.

“Sorry,” Otter quickly apologized. “You’re just so tiny, I couldn’t help myself for a second there. I didn’t notice before. You’re just so… cute.”

“I’m… I’m not tiny,” Rua sputtered. “You’re just freakishly tall.”

“Am not. I’m like… 5’8”ish.”

“I don’t know what that means, but you’re very tall.”

Otter couldn't help herself. “Boop.”

Rua’s face scrunched up, but she didn’t look as annoyed as she should be. Especially since she was being taunted by a freeloader. Given the earlier blushing, Otter’s finely-tuned gaydar was pinging strongly. Something to keep in mind.

“Quit that,” Rua said, and then pointed towards one of two doors on the other side of the room. “Go.”

Otter gave her very best smile and did a small bow before crossing the room. The washroom wasn’t what she expected. There was a wooden tub, as well as what looked like a toilet made of the same granite-like stone the stove was made of. Was there actually working plumbing in this fantasy game? Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The wooden bath tub had two stone discs on the side, runes carved into both. Kind of like the stove.

“What do these do?” she asked.

Rua gave her one of those looks, and muttered some off-colour remark about ‘stupid Wayfarers,’ before showing her a basic framework of how runestones worked. For the tub, one added water in, and if you twisted your hand as you touched it, it would determine the temperature. Touching the other runestone would send the water away. Where it came from, or where it went was anyone’s guess apparently, better left for bookish scholars. The toilet worked similarly, adding water, or taking away anything inside the bowl.

Otter tried peppering her with questions, but Rua just pointed her at the tub.

“Clean, now.”

“Fine, if you wanted to get me naked that badly…”

She tried to make the comment innocent, and pulled off her smock in one smooth motion. She made sure to meet Rua’s eyes, as if challenging her to look anywhere else. Rua managed to maintain eye contact, and snatched the smock from Otter, but her cheeks turned a fine shade of pink as she marched out of the room.

“I’ll, uh, get you a change of clothes,” Rua stammered. “We’ll want to, uh, wash this.”

“That’s not the only thing you can wash,” Otter called after her.

She wasn’t sure, but it sounded like Rua made a squeak noise on her way out. Otter wanted to chuckle, but suppressed it. There was a difference between gentle embarrassment, and outright mortification. It was a fine line to straddle, and she needed to be careful if she wanted to straddle Rua’s fine line.

She slipped into the bath, which was just the right temperature, and began to scrub away with a coarse cloth that hung on the edge of the tub. It wasn’t the best way to get the thick, caked-on mud away, but it was all she had. When Otter realized Rua had left the door open on her way out, she made sure to languidly and slowly work at herself. Maybe Rua would see, maybe she wouldn’t, but on the off chance that she did, Otter wanted to make sure she had a show.

While working away at the grime covering her, she pulled up her menu and began to go through its pages and learn how everything worked. There were a few pages to sort through, for Character Stats, Party Settings, Messaging, General Statistics, Shop, World Quests, and Streamer Settings. The Shop and World Quest pages were suspiciously empty, and there was no Inventory UI that she could find, no way of gearing up inside the menu itself or stashing away items for later use.

That would be a problem. If meant any gear she wanted to carry, she’d have to actively have on her person. As a mage, she might even have to invest in Strength just to be able to carry stuff.

“Fucking shit game design, Holt,” she muttered. “Negative one stars.”

There was no experience bar anywhere. No way to tell when and how she would level up. The Character Stats page just proclaimed the attributes she'd selected at character creation, and nothing else.

Further exploration made her realize there were no maps. No way to use a UI to navigate to places she’d been, or give her a general lay of the land. Not that she needed help being a lay of the land.

More bad news kept piling up.

No new messages had come through. Nothing from Il-Su, or Silence, or whatever he was going to call himself in this game. Meaning he was probably going to go back on their deal. She didn’t want to be the one coming to him for help. She was already in a weak position in this relationship, and she didn’t want to make it weaker by being the first to break the silence. Even if she wanted to break the Silence and maybe strangle him a little. Kind of like back in the day.

Just thinking of Il-fucking-Su and his complete lack of ability to commit to anything ruined her mood. She stopped playing around in the tub and got to the serious business of washing. She had to replace the water in the tub twice via the handy glyph stones to get rid of all the mud, but in the end, she triumphed in the battle against poor hygiene, a skillset she was exceedingly good at, despite her career as a professional gamer.

Otter was just getting out of the tub when Rua came into the room, holding a small bundle of clothes. She froze in the doorway, as if unsure of whether to come in given Otter's nudity, or leave. There was still a small smudge of mud on her nose, apparently forgotten.

“Uh, I have, uh…”

“Thanks,” Otter said with a smile. “You’re being a lot more generous than I expected.”

“It’s... no trouble.”

“Well, thank you. Seriously. Without you, I’d be covered in mud and lost in the swamp.”

“Without me, you’d be dead by Ashborne Cuttings.” She puffed out her chest as she said it, some of her confidence returned.

“Point. Still, I appreciate it. And if you can think of anything…” Otter deliberately paused, and moved closer, inside of Rua’s personal space, “... absolutely anything I can do to repay the favour, just let me know.”

Rua went still, like prey cornered by a predator, which she very much was. Almost to prove her position over her, Otter deliberately licked her thumb, and then wiped the small spot of mud from Rua’s nose.

“There, like that, see? Already paying some of that karma back.” She took the bundle of clothes from Rua. “I suppose I should get dressed. It’s probably terribly rude of me to be standing around with my tits out like this.”

“Yes,” Rua choked. “Rude. Get changed.”

And then she fled the room. Otter watched her go, and by ‘watched her go’, that was to say she stared at Rua’s backside as she retreated.

“Okay,” she said quietly to herself. “Maybe not negative one stars, Holt. Some parts of your game look fun to play.”

Chapter Text

The clothes Rua gave Otter did not fit well. They also weren’t what could be considered ‘medieval’ or 'fantasy.' The stitching almost looked modern, very out of place considering the setting. It was a little too fine, a little too even. It hadn’t been done by hand. But it wasn’t done in a way that you’d see in the real world either. The needle work was done in an elegant pattern, looking more like art than utilitarian function. The fabric was also something Otter had never seen before. It was thick, smooth, and very stretchy, and if not for that last fact, she never would’ve been able to put on the pants she’d been given. Even so, the legs barely reached past her knees.

She’d had a cosplay arc during her career, so she knew how to do alterations. Provided she had the tools necessary, she could easily hem the pants and shirt into very tight-fitting shorts and T-shirt.

Rua was putting two bowls on the table, a pair of wooden spoons already set out. Dinner was a thick white stew, with chunks of what looked like some kind of orange and red vegetables. As a finisher, she put in a hollow yellow tube that looked kind of like a cinnamon stick. Rua watched her come, and pulled out the wooden chair and sat.

“And what’s this?” Otter asked as she sat down in the padded reading chair.

She paused, adjusted herself, shifted, paused, adjusted again, and realized that she’d been saddled with the single most uncomfortable chair she’d ever been in.

“Stew. With jaffa.”

“Right, sure, jaffa, I love jaffa.” When Rua moved to flick her, she dodged backwards, saying, “That was obviously sarcasm, I have no idea what jaffa is.”

“I suppose I can allow sarcasm.”

“Oh, you’re so kind.” She really should’ve seen the flick coming. “Ow. So you’re allowed to lie, but I’m not? How is that fair?”

“I am the host, and you’re the ignorant Wayfarer eating my food. My house, my food, my rules.”

“Bad enough you’re gonna give me a Pavlovian response to lying, now my ass can’t even be sarcastic?”

“Oh, is that why it’s so big?”

“So you did look!”

Rua paused, her cheeks turning scarlet, and then picked up her spoon and began studiously eating and avoiding eye contact. Otter basked in the victory, and began eating. The stew tasted just how it smelled – citrusy, with a savoury base. It was weird. A sour and savoury stew. It wasn’t gross, but it was weird, and she had difficulty deciding if it was good weird, or bad weird.

She watched Rua eat. Every once in a while, she would take the cinnamon-stick looking thing – the jaffa? – and would use it to stir the stew, so Otter emulated it. Somehow, it brought out the flavour of the citrus a little more.

“So, you live out in the middle of nowhere,” Otter said. “And not just nowhere. A death swamp. There a story behind that?”

“Yep.”

“I bet it’s interesting.”

“It is.”

“And you’re going to tell me, right?”

“Nope.”

“But I’m dying to know.” She dodged a flick. “That was, I dunno, an idiom!”

“No idioms if they’re lies.”

“Oh, come on. This is getting silly. I get it’s your house, your rules, and I agree, but isn’t this a little ridiculous?”

Rua drew in a long, tired breath. “It’s not ridiculous when it hurts.”

Otter blinked. She’d sounded so weary, so exhausted. She was glimpsing something she hadn’t expected. This very tiny yet mean lady was buried under a great weight.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“It’s my Pact. I know when someone, anything, lies. Always. And it hurts. It gives me a headache. The bigger the lie, the worse the pain.”

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. This is just a power you have?"

"One I bargained for, yes."

"Do you have a headache now?”

“Yes. Since meeting you. It comes and goes.”

Otter stood, and crossed around the table. “Here, I’m gonna do something. Is it okay if I touch you a bit?”

Rua’s eyes narrowed at that.

“Not like that,” Otter said. “My intentions are good. I’m not going to grope you or hurt you. I think I can help.”

“I reserve the right to withdraw consent.”

“No shit. That’s how that works. Now gimme your hand.”

“My hand?”

“Yep.”

“Does… does it matter which one?”

“Nope.”

Rua gave her a suspicious look, but held out her left hand. Otter took it in hers, and began rubbing, pressing, and gently pinching at the area between Rua’s thumb and index finger. She gently massaged at it, kneading the area and applying soft but firm pressure.

“What is this?” Rua asked.

“An ex of mine used to have really bad tension headaches and migraines. I learned a thing or two. Just give it about ten minutes, and then I’m going to switch to your neck, and then maybe your scalp. I don’t know what kind of headaches you get, so I’m gonna saturate you in everything I’ve got.”

“And what do you want in return for this?”

“Nothing. If I caused it, I’ll fix it, or at least try to. And even if massaging doesn’t fix your headache, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who complained about getting a neck and shoulder massage.”

“Wait, you didn’t say anything about my shoulders before. Will that help?”

“With the headaches? Probably not, but are you going to say no?”

“I reserve the right–”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. The second you’re uncomfortable, just tell me, and I’ll back off.”

She rubbed at Rua’s hand with patient intensity. She was so weird. Flirty and bashful one moment, stand-offish and aggressive the next. Holt’s team had done a great job with her. Were all the NPCs like this? She just seemed so … real. Contradictory and deep, not at all like the two-dimensional characters you found in most MMORPGs, eager to just give you a quest and send you on your way.

How much time and effort went into this? How many hundreds of hours, just for one NPC in the middle of a swamp? Or was this all AI? That thought was horrifying in a way. That level of AI was supposed to be illegal, and what, Holt was flaunting it in front of a hundred live streamers and encouraging them to broadcast it to the world? He was an arrogant shit, but no one was that arrogant.

Otter switched to Rua’s neck after a few more minutes, and found a lot of tension there. Built up stress, or maybe her mattress was just as uncomfortable as her reading chair, but something had caused absolute chaos there. She worked it loose, bit by bit, going at it slow, teasing out the tightness bit by bit.

“So, your Pact,” Otter said. “This is how you, what’d you call it, Manifest?”

“I can’t Manifest, but I have a Pact.”

“How does that work?”

Rua twisted, trying to look back at her, but Otter gently but firmly put her head back forward as she kept at the massage.

“What ignorant land is this Canada you’re from that you don’t even know about Pacts? Is this why you Wayfared here? To learn about them, and get one?”

“Not initially,” Otter said. “I came because I was invited to come here by someone who made me a pretty big promise. But your Pacts seem like something I should get into. Unless they all cause headaches.”

“What promise?”

“Uh uh, that one’s mine. And I wouldn’t even know how to begin to explain it to you. Let’s just say… I’m getting something out of being here, besides the pleasure of your company.”

Rua grunted, closed her eyes and sank into the massage. Otter hadn’t expected her to let it go. Rua was clearly paranoid about something, probably connected to why she lived in a death swamp.

Otter kept at it, going through the full gamut of what she knew. She worked Rua’s neck, switched back to her hands for a small moment, and then gave her a scalp massage before finishing with her shoulders. By the time she was done, Rua was almost asleep, with a small smile on her face.

“Feeling better?”

“Oh, the headache vanished after you did that thing to my hands the first time. I just wanted the full package, since I’m feeding you.”

“You’re going to hold that over my head the entire time I’m here, aren’t you?”

“Mmm, yes. Wait until you see what I make you do tomorrow. But for now, I’m getting a little tired.”

“Oh, and do you want me to put you to bed?” Otter returned to her very uncomfortable seat, and began to finish her meal. “Carry you over the threshold, tuck you in, and see where the night takes us?”

“No. But there is only one bed. Do you promise to keep to your side of it if…”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll tidy here, you go to bed. I’ll sleep in the chair.”

“That chair? Ignorant Wayfarer.”

Rua shook her head in disbelief, and then moved to the only other room left in the cabin, closing the door behind her. The entire time, Otter wondered why she’d turned down the invitation. Probably because, all things considered, it felt weird. Was Rua even real? It’d be like masturbating on camera, for whatever data techs Ashes² employed.

That thought sent a wave of revulsion through her. How much privacy did she really have in this game? She might’ve been openly flirtatious with Rua, and teased Il-Su with her nudity, but thinking that there might be a game dev out there jerking it in his cubicle right now to her digital avatar killed her mood. It was a lousy way to end a pretty good day.

So, Otter raised up her left hand, palm down, and watched her fingers, and smiled. No. There was no way some pervert was ruining this for her. This was the best she’d felt in years.

Chapter Text

When Rua awoke her in the morning, it was the worst she’d felt in years. Her lower back was agony, a tight black hole of pain for which no tension would ever escape.

“That chair,” Otter groaned, “is evil.”

“I remember saying something about offering you a better place to sleep.” She didn’t even have the decency to hide her smug look. Otter had never seen an ‘I told you so’ face quite so… pleased with itself.

“Your fireplace is a liar, by the way.”

Rua gave her an odd look and crossed her arms. “Is this a tired thing? Is this sleep-deprived crazy talk?”

Otter pointed at it. “Those aren’t logs in there. And it’s been burning all night, but no one fed it.”

She’d tried to figure it out for a good ten minutes while trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. The ‘logs’ were rocks shaped to look like them. The fire didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere. It was just there. And it didn’t give off enough heat to be a real fire. It was still warm, but not fire hot.

“Is your Canada so primitive you still use regular fires to heat your homes?”

“What? Oh come on, how am I in a fantasy game talking to a fantasy person and still getting jokes about Canada being a backwater. Want to make fun of hockey next? Make up a Minnesota accent and pretend like it’s ours? Something about maple syrup? Same five lousy jokes, every time, and people think they’re so clever.”

“You say a lot of strange things.”

“I’m a strange person.”

“I’ve noticed. Here, breakfast.”

‘Breakfast’ was apparently a dish-sized piece of flatbread with some kind of green paste spread on top of it. Rua called it ‘sarru’, and it tasted kind of like a peanut butter tortilla wrap, but a touch more bitter. When they were done eating, Rua motioned for Otter to follow her outside.

Together, they did some light gardening, followed by harvesting roots from a small, rocky outcropping not far from the cabin. They then checked a few traps Rua had set up around the area. None had caught anything, which was apparently the norm.

Then, armed with wooden buckets, they did some fishing by hand. Rua managed to catch a handful of minnow-like fish and something that looked like crayfish in the swampy waters.

The crayfish would be eaten later. The minnows would be used at a future date as bait for real fish at a deeper pond Rua knew of nearby.

Lastly, Rua had Otter scrape moss with a knife from a few trees, and then showed her one mushroom. She painstakingly explained everything about it, from stalk to cap, and made sure Otter paid attention the entire time. Each crude joke about the shape of the mushroom was met with a quick flick.

Once Rua was satisfied that Otter wouldn’t accidentally collect a bunch of poisonous mushrooms by mistake, she set her out, stressing not to stray too far, and to only pick the one kind, while she got to the busy work of preparing lunch and a ‘surprise.’ The entire time, Otter felt a little like she was being condescended to.

It was like a parent explaining a very simple task to a particularly stupid child. Otter honestly didn’t know if she felt insulted, or if it was kind of hot. She made a note to call Rua ‘mommy’ at some point, just to see if it did anything for her.

After an hour of traipsing through the woods, Otter returned to the cabin, where Rua inspected the offerings. There was a lot of green gunk, but only a handful of mushrooms. Apparently both the moss and the mushrooms could be eaten, but were better to make into a salve in the event either of them got injured. Rua had some of it on hand, but it was nearing spoilage.

She separated out the mushrooms, and then watered the moss down and ground it into a paste.

They had a light soup for lunch, and then after, they got to the real arduous task Rua had set out for the day.

“Naked?” Otter said. “Really? I mean, I’m down, but if you wanted to get my pants off, there wasn’t any need for subterfuge.”

“If you want to make a Pact–”

“You’re going to show me how to do that?”

Rua sighed. “Yes, obviously.”

“Really? I didn’t think you’d be down.”

“There’s something in it for me.”

“Oh, do you get a referral bonus? Sign away ten souls and get a free sub?”

Apparently Rua was getting used to just ignoring her comments, because she just continued on, “If you want to make a Pact, you have to be one with nature.”

“I’m not getting it on with any trees, plants, shrubbery, or animals. The only things that go inside me are me, various toys, and–”

“Spare me,” Rua said, her cheeks flushing in a delightful way. “There will be none of … that. You just need to be naked, and touching the earth.”

“Only the earth? Because there’s something I’d like to have touching–”

“Are you always this, this… this lewd?”

“Nah. It’s mostly because I’m getting a reaction out of you, and I like to tease. You blush more than a virgin at an orgy.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“An orgy? Well, it’s where–”

“No, the other word. What’s a ‘virgin?’”

“Someone who’s never had sex.”

“There’s a term for that where you’re from? Why?”

“Mostly a shame thing. Some men like to value a woman based on her sexual experience.”

“So they don’t like these… virgins?”

Otter laughed. “Oh, no. They prize them more than anything else.”

“What an odd thing. You’d think a competent lover would be more in demand. This Canada sounds more and more stupid the more I hear of it.”

“We have free health care and Tim Horton’s, so yeah, for every bit of good, there’s also some bad.”

Flick. “Lie.”

“What? No. There was no lie.”

Flick. “Lie.”

“When did I lie?”

“When you implied you didn’t like this Tim Horton person.”

“I… well, their coffee sucks, but you can thank Timbits for this big ass you like to stare at.” Otter noticed a small amount of pain in Rua’s eyes. “Sorry. Here, let me…”

She took Rua’s hand in hers, and began to gently knead at the flesh between her forefinger and thumb. Rua said nothing, and just let Otter work away the ache.

When she was done, Rua said, “Strip.”

“Yes, mommy.”

Rua rolled her eyes, no hint of embarrassment, so Otter put her clothes on the stairs leading up to the cabin, and sat down in the mud as instructed. Some people liked mud baths and even paid good money for it, but Otter was quickly discovering it wasn’t her thing. Maybe it had something to do with the temperature. Wet, cold mud on her naked ass in what felt like autumn weather was not enjoyable.

“Now what?”

“Sit in silence,” Rua said. “And don’t make any perverted comments. I know you can do it. All you have to do is keep your lips together.”

“I can put my lips together against–”

“Maybe if you’re good.”

Otter stopped, and realized that now she was the one blushing. Amusement danced on Rua’s face, which just made it even worse. There was no winning now, so she did as she was told. Rua pulled out the bucket that Otter had gathered her moss scrapings in, and began to smear the paste she’d made across Otter’s shoulders.

“Hey, I thought that was for medicine.”

“It is. But there’s enough for this purpose, too. Now quiet, or you can find someone else to guide you on the Flowing Way.”

Rua drew swirling lines up and down Otter’s arms, and then across her breasts and stomach. Otter squirmed the entire time, goosebumps forming wherever Rua painted. Otter had always thought if there was going to be any touching involved between the two of them, she was going to be the one to initiate. And for it not to feel quite so… clinical. She wanted to make a comment the entire time, but kept her lips closed as promised.

“I invoke the Silayan Dreamer, the Sleeper in the Depths, the Guiding Hand of the Mountain.” Rua drew in a deep breath and continued, her voice slower, her words more enunciated, “Listen to my voice. Imagine the waves of the ocean, as the tide comes in. The blue waters churn, and smash upon the rocks. The rocks stand victorious, not knowing that with time, they are weathered down, and will lose a war the waters never once took notice of.”

Otter could see it. A beach lined with smooth rock, seemingly eternal, if not for the texture of their surface betraying their inevitable defeat.

“Feel the winds of the ocean, bringing the cold winds of winter from the north, and herald the fires of war.”

There was salt in the air, and in the distance, fog parted. She could see ships erupt from the mist. They bore flags she did not recognize, and soldiers lined their decks. People stood at the beach to meet them, tan-skinned and blue-eyed. They wore plant fibres and dresses made from grass and animal skins. But they also wore steel at their hips, and were ready for what came.

No. Not just people. Women. They were all, with no exception, women. There were no men on that beach.

Drums began to sound, thrumming like a heart beat.

“I invoke the Queen of the Tides, the Breaker of Ships, the Lord of War, and pray she remains in her rest. This one, Otter, seeks to make a Pact. I call on ancient tradition and by blood, as one borne to these isles.”

“Hey,” Otter said, shivering, “I’m not sure this is a good–”

And then Otter was falling.

There was no ground beneath her, and she opened her eyes just in time for her body to fall into a black ocean. She struggled for breath, to stay afloat, to stay alive. She flailed at the water, trying to swim, which she’d never been the best at. She managed a doggy paddle, barely keeping on the surface.

The sky above was nothingness. The depths below were an endless abyss. And Otter began to sink.

Chapter Text

If Otter had known she was doomed to death by drowning, she never would’ve picked an ironic alias like ‘Otter.’

She hated her brain sometimes. It could never focus on the important stuff, only on the fun. A normal person would be trying to learn brand new swimming techniques or something, trying to enact a daring plan to save themselves, but no, all Otter could think of was her stupid choice in an online handle.

Well. This was how she died. First out of the game, doing a ritual to impress a digital made up girl. And she’d been planning to do some really scandalous things to Rua, too.

Otter crossed her arms and waited for the inky depths to pull her to her doom. Death by drowning was supposed to be one of the worst ways to go, she’d heard. Something about a panic response to the lack of air.

Wait.

Then why was she still breathing?

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she said out loud, completely unhampered by all the water threatening to crush her lungs.

Okay. She could breathe. And talk. Two things she didn’t know a few seconds ago, on account of being a complete moron. Still. Being able to talk helped. She was good at that. Or really bad at it, depending on who you asked.

“Hello? Anyone home?”

Okay, maybe not her best introduction. Right. Introduction.

“My name is Otter, of House Kaos, first of my name! Rightful Heir to the Iron Throne! Rightful Queen of the Andals and the First Men, and also the Rhoynar, if we’re being honest, the show kind of forgot that part. I am the Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, the Mother of Dragons, and the Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. The Unburnt. The Breaker of Chains. And the baddest motherfucker in this game!”

Something rumbled in the deep.

Otter could feel the black ocean positively vibrate around her. Below her, bubbles churned, rising to the surface all around her. And then, in long, sinewy tendrils all around her, the water turned even darker. They waved about, questing for this loud intruder, and though they were part of the same ocean that Otter was in, she knew tentacles when she saw them.

“I am here requesting a Pact!”

One of the inky tentacles reached for her, grazing against her arm. The pattern Rua had painted on her flashed green, light erupting from it, and the attacker retreated. Otter almost crowed a celebration before noticing that the section of the pattern that had been touched was now gone, breaking the design. Would it still be able to defend her?

Another tentacle lashed at her, clipping her leg. Pain. Quite a bit of it. It whipped her skin, and she didn’t need to see to know she was bleeding. There was another flash of light, and the new attacker backed off.

What else had Rua said? Anything useful? Not really. There’d been no advice, no explanations of what would happen, or what to expect. But she had said a name. And a name was all she needed in order to channel her inner-Karen.

She got hit again, right across the belly, drawing a thin layer of blood. More light, more darkness running away like a little bitch. It didn’t matter. She knew what she had to do.

“I want to speak to the fucking manager! I am here to request a boon of the Silayan Dreamer, the Sleeper in the Depths, the Guiding Hand of the Mountain, and the one who can suck my godamn dick if I don’t get any service here!”

Something positively roared, and everything shook. Reality itself bent. So Otter screamed right back at it.

Beneath, a shape moved in the darkness, blacker than black, eclipsing all hope of light. It rose, and the last thing Otter saw before she was swallowed by it was a lot of teeth.

She was yelling her defiance, and definitely not screaming in absolute terror as she would testify to her dying day, when she realized that she was no longer in the water. Everything was still black, but she was now kneeling on a polished surface, her reflection almost visible.

She clutched her belly. The wound wasn’t particularly deep, but it smarted like a bitch. She’d taken worse wounds in Gallant Stand II, but the pain simulation in that game wasn’t quite so realistic.

“It’s rare that I see that tactic,” a voice in the darkness said. It was velvety, soft and smooth, and faintly amused, and definitely female. “Challenging me in my own domain. Making demands. Most aren’t quite that brave.”

Otter cast her gaze about, looking for the source of the voice, but there was nothing but an endless black horizon against a black, polished floor.

The voice said, “But is it really bravery when it is borne of ignorance?”

“Probably not,” Otter said. “I came here to make a Pact.”

“Ignorance, again. You’re not of my Islands, and you come Wayfaring in from some foreign land to…” the voice trailed off, as if considering.

Otter could feel a weight press down on her as a consciousness appraised her, something so much larger than her she could not hope to comprehend it. She tried to rationalize it, tried to explain to herself it was just a game, that this alien entity in her brain wasn’t real, but one part of her mind began to laugh hysterically while another screamed incoherently.

It wasn’t gentle, nor was it malicious. It was as if something bashed open the door of her mind, and began to move the furniture around, looking for anything between the cushions, under the seats, or behind the sofa.

Old arguments were brought up and played and replayed, altered and changed and put back again. Her first kiss was relived and then taken from her mind entirely and then neatly placed back as if it had never been gone. A visit to a doctor’s office was filled with shadows and inky tentacles at the edge of her vision. A championship tournament that she had won now ended in her defeat, the joyful afterparty now an argument with her team, her family.

Her throat screamed itself raw, and it was the only sound she could hear save for the playing of a fiddle.

She didn’t know how long she laid underneath that watchful eye, but when her mind pieced itself back together, helped by that impossible presence, she was crying, tears freely flowing on to the polished black floor.

“You’re one of Holt’s,” the voice said, but now it was different.

Otter knew that voice. That fucking voice.

Otter wiped away her tears and stared upwards, and Sami looked back at her. Or only something that looked like Sami. She’d always been described as a classic Japanese beauty, with long, black hair, grace, poise, understated makeup, and smart style. People thought her cold, yet otherwise perfect. But Otter had always known her as warm, passionate, caring, ambitious as all hell, and very, very, beautifully flawed.

But this wasn’t Sami. Sami didn’t have yellow eyes, for one.

This impostor sat on a wingback chair upholstered in a deep purple, sipping a cup of tea. She wore a black blazer and matching pencil skirt and heels, but had no shirt underneath, allowing only two small buttons to protect her modesty. Something Sami would do, and had driven Otter wild with on more than one occasion.

“You’re the Dreamer,” Otter said.

“Yes.” She put down her cup of tea on a table, and then gestured at a chair across from her. Neither had been there a moment ago. They hadn’t appeared, or materialized. One moment, they had not existed, the next, it was as if they’d always been there. “Sit.”

“You want a polite conversation? After doing that to my mind? While I bleed on your floor?”

“What blood?” the Dreamer said, and the three wounds vanished, as if they’d never been.

“How is what you did possible? You were… in my mind, like it was a playground. Holt’s technology can’t… can’t just… do that.”

“Sit,” the Dreamer said once again.

There was a firmness to it this time. Otter knew there wouldn’t be a third request. She shuddered, and made her way to the chair, complying.

“Let’s get down to it. I raped you. Your mind. You feel violated. Damaged. I don’t care. But I also don’t care enough to leave you in this state. When you leave, the memory of it will be gone. It will have never happened.”

“Then why not make it unhappen right now?” Otter said woodenly.

“Because I need to impress upon you that this is not a meeting of equals. You come to me begging for power, as others have done in the past. But they knew respect. And more importantly, they filled the criteria I needed in order to impart a Pact. Even your little half-breed Lieseeker.”

“Did you… do this to Rua, too?”

“And what if I had? What if I had crawled into her mind, squeezed myself in where nothing belongs, and played with her essence however I saw fit? What would you do then?”

Otter didn’t know she was reaching for the tea cup until she’d smashed it on the table and was lunging to stab the shard into the Dreamer’s face. She stopped mid-attack, frozen in place. A pair of yellow eyes stared amusement back at her.

“You begin to understand,” the Dreamer said. “Just hours ago, you thought of the Lieseeker as only a…. What is your charming and arrogant term? Non-player character. But part of your mind is awakening to a truth the rest of you is not ready for yet.”

Otter struggled against her invisible bonds, and then found herself back in her chair, the shard of porcelain no longer in her hand, the cup restored and back in its place.

“What am I beginning to understand?”

“Wrong question. I cannot teach you by telling you. True lessons cannot be imparted in such a way. No, you must figure it out on your own. Only self-reflection and realization will allow the lesson to stick. But there are other lines of questioning you could be asking.”

“How did Holt… do this? With you. How can you do what you do?”

“Closer. But you’re in a simulation. This is all, as they say, in your head.”

“No, what you did to my mind… that was real. I can still feel you inside of me, like… like an oil slick that will never clean away.”

“I said I’d fix it, don’t worry. You’ll be ‘clean’ when you leave. But I see your reasoning. You think a ‘two-bit techbro’ like Holt would never be able to accomplish such a feat of engineering. And you’d be correct. Again, self-reflection, realization, la. You’ll figure it out on your own. You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for. Even this one knows that.” She gestured at the body she was copying. “I can feel her. Out in the world. Stuck in the Wastes. She’s out of my Domain, but she thinks of you. There is a violence in that one. I already know where her story is going. I have seen so many similar dreams over the years.”

“Is… is Sami okay?”

“Wrong question again. I may have to rethink my ranking of your intelligence. Don’t worry about her. She’ll attend to herself, as she always does, and you should know that. I’d be more worried about the quiet one. He’s getting himself into quite the amount of trouble.”

“Il-Su? What’s he done this time?”

The Dreamer sipped at her tea. She had not picked up the cup. It was just there, and gone again. She smiled, and all Otter could see were those yellow eyes boring into her.

“The Pact, then,” Otter said.

“Yes, the Pact.”

“What do you want?”

“Now there is a good question. Everyone is always asking what I can give them, without regard for consequences. But this is a transaction. A…. squid pro quo.” She smiled, as if she’d made the most clever joke in the world, but Otter had nearly been killed by those tentacles, had felt them in her mind. “I am bound by rules. I can only empower someone born of the Islands or the ocean, my Domain. But you are such a delightful loophole. You weren’t born in any of the Domains. And your first step in this realm was in mine. And even better, you made a choice, during your little… ‘character creation.’”

The Dreamer held a hand up, and a rune appeared in the air above it.

“That looks familiar,” Otter said.

“It should. You picked it, when given a choice for your gender. You selected yourself to be a Daughter of Silaya. That, more than anything else, makes you mine.” There was a fierceness to her voice, a possessiveness.

“I mean, sure, I picked that rune, but it didn’t do anything. Except…” Huh. She’d already gotten used to it, that weird feeling in her belly.

“There’s many terms for it, both in this world, and in yours. Daughter of Silaya. Pelanoa. Hermaphrodite. Intersex. Futanari.”

“What.”

“You probably haven’t noticed the changes yet. You’re a naturally flirty personality, but even so, it’s been dialled up a tad. You’ve been running around in a low-level state of arousal, but you haven’t activated yet, so to speak.”

As if the mental invasion hadn’t been enough. Otter couldn’t even begin to figure out how to process this information. She opened her mouth, tried to make some line of inquiry, some kind of question, and nothing came out.

“You’re going to need a demonstration, I see. Very well.”

The Dreamer snapped her fingers, and suddenly Rua was there. But she wasn’t the same. For one, she was naked, something Otter very much couldn’t help but notice. She tried to look away, but her eyes would not listen to her, tried to turn her head, but her neck would not respond, tried to shield her face with her hands, but they would not move. She was trapped, forced to look on by the Dreamer’s will.

Otter had given some idle thought to how Rua would look naked, and she exceeded expectations. Small breasts, but perfectly proportioned to her frame, an ass you could only get from crafting with exercise, but most of all, muscle. Rua wasn’t jacked, but she was toned all over, from her arms, to her legs, and to her abs that looked like they could grate cheese. Otter couldn’t look away from those abs.

Almost as an afterthought, Otter noticed that Rua was covered in similar patterns to the ones that adorned her own skin, but these were drawn in a red clay. Her hair was different, too. Shorter, a pixie cut rather than a messy bob.

“I’ve come to make a Pact,” Rua said, staring right at the Dreamer. If she even saw Otter, she gave no indication.

Was… was this a past version of Rua? An illusion? Or somehow pulled from the river of time to this moment?

Otter tried to say something, just to make noise. But nothing worked. She could not move. She was powerless to act.

“Yes, yes,” the Dreamer said. “No one ever comes to say hello. It’s always ‘Pact this,’ and ‘Pact that.’ Ask, Child of Criobani.”

Rua shifted awkwardly. She crossed her arms, and shrank in on herself. “I… I was told by my patron that I could be useful. If I have a Pact. I… I need the power.”

“Poor little bastard half-breed, asking for power.” There had been a banter, almost a playfulness to the Dreamer’s tone when speaking with Otter. Not here. Here, there was only open disdain. “You are barely one of mine. Perhaps I refuse to acknowledge you, just like your father did.”

“That’s… that’s not the Silayan way.”

“What do you know of Silaya? What could you know? You are tainted, stained in a way that will never come clean. There is an expression a visitor had tucked away in their mind I’d never heard before. ‘Sins of the father.’ And you are dripping in them.”

“Please,” Rua said. “I need this. I need to be… useful.”

“Kneel.”

It wasn’t a question or a request, and Rua took note of that faster than Otter did. She all but fell on her face in her haste to comply. The Dreamer stared at her impassively, and then removed her heels, the shoes clattering on the floor before disappearing. There was no command, no word spoken, but Rua scrambled forward to kiss each of the Dreamer’s feet once.

Rua looked up, and the Dreamer arched an eyebrow. She went back to work, kissing each foot in turn, at an increasingly frantic pace. When the Dreamer said nothing, Rua upped her game, licking her feet, even taking a toe into her mouth and sucking on it.

Sami had always been a dominating personality, and this kind of thing wasn’t outside of the norm for her. More than a time or two, Otter had been dommed just like this by her, and while she normally would’ve found it hot, just seeing Rua in this state was having the opposite effect on her arousal. This was just cruelty. She struggled against her invisible bonds, but her body just could not respond.

“Enough,” the Dreamer said, but this time there was a different tone to her voice. Approval. “You did good.”

Rua looked up, and then she was in the Dreamer’s lap, here and then there. The Dreamer stroked Rua’s hair, running her fingers through it.

“Do you want to be my daughter?” the Dreamer asked.

“Yes,” Rua hissed.

“Do you want to be loved? Accepted?”

“Yes.”

The Dreamer placed her thumb inside Rua’s mouth, who eagerly began to suck on it. “Only good girls can be my daughters. Are you a good girl?”

Rua moaned, not breaking away from her task, and nodded. There was a glassiness to her eyes, pleading.

Something stirred in Otter, something buried deep. She could feel a shifting. Something inside of her was begging to be let out, and she knew exactly what it was. The Dreamer watched her with an amused smile, Sami’s body playing with Rua. Otter tried to hold it back, to deny it. What the fuck kind of perverted game was this that this was happening to her? Everything about this part of the game was just fucked up, and she wanted out, she wanted–

“Yes, you are a good girl,” the Dreamer said, and Otter didn’t know if she was talking to her or Rua. “You will be my daughter, accepted and loved, flaws and all. I will watch over you, my hand always on your heart, and stay away the worst of the pain. You will be mine, my instrument. You want that, don’t you?”

Rua nodded fiercely, drool dripping down her chin.

“Look at how easily you submit. You’re so good at that. What if I could arrange a playmate for you? Someone you could submit to all of the time?”

Otter didn’t know who made that whining sound.

The Dreamer leaned in, and placed a kiss on Rua’s ear. She whispered, but Otter could still hear every word. “I have someone already picked out for you. She’ll take good care of you, just like you deserve. All you need to do is be a good girl for her, just like you are for me.”

Otter shouted, growled, yelled, screamed, she didn’t know what she did, but a dam inside of her burst, and she could feel the cock she had been denying erupt from her, growing from her nether regions.

Rua nodded along, murmuring a sloppy “Yes” around the thumb in her mouth.

“Good. I name you Lieseeker, daughter.” And then the Dreamer turned to face Otter. “And you… you, I name Fateweaver.”

Chapter Text

Otter came.

Later, she would have the grace to be embarrassed about it. Not the orgasm itself, but the fact that it happened so easily, without even being touched. She would be ashamed that her self-imposed idea of being amazing at sex had been completely shattered, reduced to the fumblings of a teenage boy after figuring out his way around parental controls for the first time.

But in the moment, she was completely blissed out of her mind, her hips jerking forward as her eyes rolled back into her skull. She made a loud, zombie-like moan as pearly white streams of ejaculate burst out of her in a series of ropey casts.

When she was done, she was panting heavily, and the only thing that stopped her from reaching for her still-erect cock was Rua’s voice.

“What the fuck is that?”

Otter dashed away a small bit of drool that had escaped her mouth, and noticed for the first time she was no longer in that endless black abyss of the Dreamer. She was sitting ass-naked in the mud, regular Rua staring at her, as cum dribbled from her brand new cock.

“I, uh, can explain?”

Rua’s face was beet-red, but not in outrage. Her eyes were locked right onto Otter’s member, her mouth half-open.

“You’re… you’re pelanoa,” Rua said. “But… they aren’t born anywhere except the Silayan Islands. And they’re… they’re…”

Her brain was short-circuiting, but Otter didn’t know if it was from arousal, or surprise, or any number of other emotions that could be driving her mental state.

“They’re called a few things where I’m from. Mostly futanari, I think, but I think that’s a fetish term.”

“Fetish. Right,” Rua said, her gaze still very much stuck on Otter’s newly-attained cock.

“Hey, my eyes are up here.”

It was a familiar enough statement, though it’d always been her boobs people had been staring at before.

“Right, yeah,” Rua said, but she didn’t look away.

“Listen, I know it’s interesting to look at…” She shifted, realizing that she herself had not given it an actual examination.

It was large, thick, and very veiny. She didn’t have a ruler on hand, and had never really been good at mental measuring, but it definitely looked somewhere between eight and ten inches. Just touching it sent a wave of pleasure through her. It was very sensitive. Or she was just very unused to how a cock should feel.

There were no testes that she could see, but she definitely had some kind of equivalent, given how much she’d come. It had to be coming from somewhere. Were they inside of her? The cock itself was coming out of her. It’d been inside, until it… woke up, and grew into this monster.

It twitched in Otter’s hand, and she wanted nothing more than to begin to stroke it, to rub herself to completion right then and there. It wouldn’t take much, she knew. It felt too good, too new and alien. She wouldn’t be able to hang on for long.

“You shouldn’t,” Rua said, and Otter jerked her hand away like she’d been burned.

“Right, yeah.”

“You’re not in control, are you?”

“I am. Barely.”

“I’ve heard that pelanoa can’t always control themselves.”

That statement brought Otter up short. She wasn’t some brute, swinging her cock around, ready to jam it into any hole it could find, willing or not.

“Well, I can,” she said, standing up.

She looked down, sighing. With her cock erect, it was going to make walking around a nuisance. How did boys get around with these things, always trying to lead the way?

“I need to wash,” Otter said. “And we need to talk.”

“About you being a pelanoa, and not telling me?”

“To be fair, this is a new development. I literally just found out.”

Rua cocked her head at that, probably expecting that statement to be a lie and surprised when it didn’t set off her Pact ability.

“Late bloomer?”

“I… I don’t know how to explain this in a way you’ll believe. And I know I said I could explain, but this is weird, with a capital What The Fuck.”

“Okay. Then you’re explaining now, before I give you access to my home again.” Rua crossed her arms.

“Fine, but you’re the one with the lie detecting ability, so if you don’t believe me, that’s on you.”

Rua made an impatient gesture for Otter to get on with it, so she did. “Okay. I’m not just from some country you’ve never heard of, I’m from an entirely different world. The real world, to be precise. And this, all this, is just a simulation. Someone named Ingram Holt, who is an asshole, by the way, made this as his personal playground, something we call a video game, which is just like… a world we pretend is real, but really isn’t, and we come here and have fun, however we want.”

Rua stepped forward and flicked Otter on the nose.

“Ow. None of that was a lie.”

“But it felt real, didn’t it?” She looked kind of angry.

“I mean, yeah.”

And then there was a vice-like grip on her dick, and Otter gasped in pain and tried to get away from that sudden feeling, but Rua twisted just a tiny bit, and she was forced to stay still.

“And that feels real?”

“Yes. Yes, it does, can you please let go.”

“No. Not until you admit I am real, and mean it. And remember, I can tell when you’re lying.”

Well, that certainly wasn’t fair.

How was she supposed to do that? She couldn’t just trick her brain into believing something that wasn’t real was. But there was something else in Rua’s eyes beyond the irritation and anger. Fear. Of what, Otter had no clue. But she hated seeing it.

It kind of reminded her of other Rua, the one in the Dreamer’s abyss. That Rua had been so desperate, so scared. So completely unlike what Otter knew of her. Was that frightened person always under the surface?

I mean, it wasn’t like Otter could disparage her for it. It wasn’t like she hadn’t just been a wreck in that place either. After… after…

Oh right.

She couldn’t remember the details. It was as if something had been cut away. But the Dreamer had done… something to her. Something… was it bad? She wasn’t sure. But Otter could remember that terrible presence, that weight on her mind. That hadn’t been fake. In a virtual world where everything felt real, that had been extra real. Undeniable.

Rua squeezed a little tighter.

Otter winced, but forced that memory to the forefront, the Dreamer’s mind touching her own, even if she couldn’t quite remember the specifics. It was like… reinforced reality. Fortified truth. She just had to apply that thought, that bearing, on everything else around her.

And with Rua literally holding her cock in her hands, the pain running through her, that was really easy to do in the moment.

“Okay, okay, you’re real, I believe you’re real.”

“And?”

“You’re real and your Dreamer’s real. I can trust that. I’m still not sure about everything else.”

Rua let go, and Otter breathed a sigh of relief. Now she knew why boys whined about getting kicked in that area, and she didn’t even have external testes.

“You’re dangerous,” Rua said. “Everyone with a Pact is. And you can’t just be running around, not believing people are people. I put you on this path, gave you access, so you’re my responsibility.”

“I understand, I think. Great power, great responsibility. Dao of Spider-Man.” What must that sound like to someone? Denying personhood to people who you know are real, even if they might be a simulation? A scary real simulation. “And… you’re real. Somehow, you’re real. I don’t know what that means… but the Dreamer was trying to tell me something, when I saw her. And I think this might have been it.”

Memories of other parts of her time with the Dreamer came to her. Memories of that other Rua.

“Which, uh… reminds me. What happened when you formed your Pact?”

Rua had zero poker face. She immediately blushed. “Why would you ask that?”

She was tempted to deflect, to come up with some other excuse. But there really was no lying to Rua.

“I think, uh, that the Dreamer might have, uh, shown me what happened. With your Pact. And, uh, how she, uh, interacted with you.”

“Oh.” If Rua had been blushing before, she was a blazing sun now. “If… if I’d known… she’d show you… that…”

“I’m not sure if she just… showed me. I think I was there. Or you were there. I don’t think time matters to her as much as it does to us.”

Rua looked absolutely like a deer caught in headlights. Just staring ahead, unmoving, her face absolutely crimson. Otter almost felt sorry for her, if she didn’t know that Rua would enjoy future developments.

“Don’t worry,” Otter said, moving closer. She whispered into her ear. “I’ll take good care of you. Because good girls deserve to be taken care of, don’t they?”

Rua squeaked. She might seem like a badass sometimes, but she was so weak against this kind of talk. She had a praise kink, and probably didn’t know it. She had no defence against it at all.

“Answer me,” Otter husked to her. She drew in a breath, sniffing right at Rua’s neck, promising so much more.

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“I… deserve to be taken care of.”

“Taken care of by whom?”

Rua trembled. “You. I deserve to be… taken care of by you.”

“And why? Why should I take care of you?”

“Because… because I’m a good girl.” Her voice sounded so small. But so filled with yearning.

Otter wrapped her arms around Rua, bringing her in for a hug. “And you’re my good girl, aren’t you?”

Her cock wanted at Rua. It absolutely throbbed. She wanted to strip Rua down, rip her pants off, and fuck her right then and there. And Rua was almost there, almost ready. She was so needy, so desperate for someone to love her.

But that wasn’t the tool for her. No, it was too early, and Otter couldn’t give Rua what she really needed, not yet anyway. But she could stoke the fire a little bit.

She placed a knee between Rua’s legs, forcing them open just a little. Rua inhaled sharply.

“I asked you a question.”

“Yes. I’m… I’m…” And then she pushed Otter away, gasping for breath. “I…. you need a bath. You said you wanted one. We should get you a bath.”

Otter paused, taking Rua in, but she was looking away and not meeting her eyes. She was so open and easy to read in these situations. She was scared. She’d probably been hurt before. Probably been hurt a lot.

That was fine. Otter could be patient. She didn’t need to push. Because she wasn’t going to be one of those people, someone who hurt Rua.

Otter reached forward, and ran a hand through Rua’s hair. She leaned into it.

“A bath sounds lovely,” Otter said. “And we can talk. About other things.”

“Yeah. Other things. Definitely other things.”

“And then after, I’ll give you a nice massage.”

“But… I don’t have a headache.”

“It doesn’t matter. Mine or not, I’m still going to take care of you. Because you deserve to be taken care of.”

Chapter Text

Otter managed to bathe without throwing any additional flirting or innuendos Rua’s way. A boundary was close to being passed, a threshold pushed wide open, but it wasn’t the time for it. Right now, what they had was fun, and playful. But what it couldn’t be was casual. Right now, they had a good chance of a one-night stand, but Otter knew that wasn’t what Rua needed.

But she also wasn’t sure of what she herself needed. Was she really going to commit to a relationship? Rua was pretty. Very pretty. And the combination of the take-no-shit attitude with the absolute vulnerability she’d displayed was doing things to Otter she hadn’t expected.

The time dilation from Holt’s tech made things tempting. Otter could spend an entire lifetime in this game. An entire lifetime to form a relationship.

She could have a future here. Weird, thinking that. If such a thing were possible, maybe Fell Champions really was the perfect fantasy that Ingram Holt preached.

Otter finished cleaning and dressed, joining Rua at the small dining table, where a meal had been prepared. It was more of the same soup from before, but Otter didn’t mind.

“So,” Rua said. “If this world is a game to you… if this… Holt person you keep talking about sent you here…”

“Sent a hundred people here. I’m just one out of a large group.”

“More of you. Fables.”

“There’s only one of me.”

Rua shook her head. “Even so… a hundred people from your world, with no concept of how things work here, all thinking that we’re just toys to be played with.”

“I don’t think everyone’s going to be running around, depopulating whole cities. Well, maybe CyberEdge. That man is terrifying with a weapon, and he figures out how to game systems quick. But it’s just as likely he’s trying to figure out how to steal candy from orphans right now. Or overthrowing a government. Or farming.”

“And… is this ‘CyberEdge’ a criminal where you come from?”

“I think he’s just a lonely shut-in with anxiety. He’s just content-pilled, I think.”

“Content…?”

“Oh, he likes to do random and unexpected things to entertain an audience.”

“Well, thank goodness he won’t have one of those here.”

“Yeah, about that… we might have a problem.”

Otter tried her best to explain streaming, and how streamers broadcast to an audience, and how that audience was frequently filled with trolls who just wanted to be entertained and delighted in suffering, but it was like explaining television to… well, honestly to someone who lived in a fantasy swords-and-sorcery world. Rua didn’t have much framing for context for a lot of what was involved, but luckily, she was intelligent. So it only took the better part of an hour for her to properly appreciate the sheer horror of letting loose a bunch of streamers on a potentially real world where they thought it was just a game.

“Can you… not just explain it to them?” Rua asked.

“I wouldn't know how to explain it to them. Holt put us in a video game, and you're real? Advanced AI, I guess? I don't know. And even if I could properly explain it... They won’t believe me. Their audiences definitely won’t. Worse, just because I’m female, that might egg some of them on to be even more obnoxious and begin raping and pillaging on the spot."

“Wait, are you streaming? Have you been… showing everything you’ve been doing this entire time?” Rua’s face had gone absolutely white in mortification.

“No, no, I never set up my broadcast. I’ve been, uh, too busy with you. But I promise I won’t turn mine on.”

“What is even the point of this game to you? Why come to my world at all? Games have rules. This is just my home. What kind of objective could you have? How do you even win?”

“This is what we’d call an open world sandbox game. Basically, we make up our own objectives. Let’s say you want to become a king. Well, it’s up to you to decide how you want to do that. Go into politics, run a revolution, assassination, bribe your way to the top…”

Rua shook her head in disbelief. “And what was your objective in coming here? How do you win your game?”

Otter shrugged. “I win just by being here. I wanted something… new. Holt offered that.”

“And now that you’re here? What’s your goal now?”

“Not world domination, that’s for sure. That sounds like too much effort. I dunno. I kind of like what I’ve been doing so far.”

“You haven’t been doing anything except… you know…”

“Boop.”

“This is a serious question, you know.”

“I’m not a serious person, don’t know if you’ve noticed that. I dunno. I’d kind of like to pamper you a bit. Maybe some standard RPG stuff, I guess. Go on a quest, solve a mystery, shag a princess. Hey, what’re your feelings on polyamory and polycules?”

“What are those?”

“You know, when you have a relationship with multiple people, either romantic or sexual or both, and people in your circle have relationships with others. No firm exclusivity, but clearly defined boundaries and communication.”

“You just described a relationship.”

“Wait, you mean poly is the default here? Oh my sweet merciful Morningstar, I think you just gave me a half-chub with that news.”

“What… no, I won’t ask. Everything I hear about your world lowers my opinion of it more. So, that’s it? You just want to go… adventuring into the sunset, and get in a relationship?”

“Well, I mean, ideally, a relationship with you. Have I mentioned that I find you very attractive? Hey, can I give you a massage yet?”

Rua was apparently building a defence to flattery, because she managed to only look a little flustered at the remark. “No. Not yet anyway. We still have things we need to talk about.”

“Right, like, what do you want to do?”

“What?”

“Well, I’m going to be following you around, I think. And you’re currently stuck in a death swamp. So, are we staying in the death swamp? Why are you even here?”

“I… that’s none of your concern.”

Otter couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward and flicked Rua across the nose. “Lie.”

“Ow. Rude.”

“Coming from you, that’s pretty rich. I’m concerned about you being a hermit in a death swamp, ergo, it is my concern. I don’t know how long you’ve been here, but you’re barely scraping by on supplies, from what I can tell. And you’re so desperate for some kind of company that you think I’m a good idea for a relationship.”

“That’s quite an assumption.”

“Oh, so you want me to check how wet you are the next time I call you a ‘good girl?’”

Rua flushed. “Just… because I might respond to that doesn’t mean I want a relationship with you.”

“You’re lonely, admit it.”

“I… yeah, I guess I am. I exiled myself here, because at the time I thought it was a good idea. And then I was stuck here, and yes, now I want out, because this was a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

“Then that’s my quest!” Otter stood, and struck what she thought was a suitably heroic pose. “I normally hate escort quests, but I will get you out of this stupid swamp! Now can I massage you?”

“We’re going to have to train you how to use your Pact,” Rua said, waving her back to her seat. “What kind did you get? Innate? Manifestation? Alteration?”

“Hell if I know. The Dreamer didn’t give me an instruction manual. She just called me a ‘Fateweaver’ and next thing I knew, I was sploojing all over your front yard.”

“Fateweaver. Hmm.” Rua leaned back in her chair, considering. “I’ve never heard that title before. But that doesn’t mean a lot. I only know about seventy or so, and there’s thousands that’ve been recorded. The knowledge of how to use it should be instinctive, but since you’re not from here, I guess that’s not the case.”

“Yeah. I wish I’d been given some kind of ability button on my menu or…”

Wait. When was the last time she’d checked her menu?

She pulled it up, flipping to the Character Stats page. There were a couple of changes waiting for her.

Strength: 10

Agility: 10

Tenacity: 14

Allure: 10

Will: 15 (16.5)

Fortune: 11 (12)

Awareness: 10

Pact of the Fateweaver
Fortune +10%

Pact Abilities:

Thread of the Scourge

Cost: 1 Will

Strike or bind, confound your foes.

Thread of Sanctuary

Cost: 5 Will

Create a garment of protection. Lasts 24 hours. Can be renewed.

Thread of Fate

Cost: 1 Will. Permanently reserved.

Entwine destiny.

Okay, those all sounded good. And she had a permanent stat bonus to her Fortune stat just from getting her Pact? But where was she getting that bonus Will from? She flipped through her menu some more, and found her answer in World Quests, where she’d unlocked something.

Form a Pact. Will +10%.

Okay. That was good.

Otter gave Rua a quick rundown of what her menu said, reading out the abilities and their associated costs. She had to give her a breakdown on her stats, and the points she’d allocated.

“We have a similar system,” Rua said. “But it’s not so neatly… divided up with numbers. It’s more a … sense of strength. If I had to compare what I can feel from you, versus what I can feel from myself, I think my Strength, for example, is twice yours. So it would be around twenty?

“But three abilities from your Pact. Three. Right at the start? Fables. Is this because of you not being from here, some interference from your Ingram Holt, or the Dreamer playing at a game?”

“Pacts normally don’t get three abilities?”

“They do eventually. Over time, they evolve with use. Especially if you’re nearing whatever goal the Dreamer has for you. I’ve heard of someone getting two abilities at the beginning of their Pact once. And that was an act of spite from the Mikovian Dreamer.”

“Wow.”

Just hearing that made Otter kind of want to try out her stuff, just to see how powerful it was. If she was going to be some kind of Chosen One, she was damn well gonna swing her metaphorical cock around. Especially since she wasn’t able to swing her literal cock around yet.

Her Thread of the Scourge was probably liable to break something in Rua’s cabin. And while Thread of Sanctuary sounded neat, it wasn’t something that seemed Chosen One-y.

Otter only hesitated for a full second before she focused on her Thread of Fate ability. The permanent reserving of one stat point for a skill sounded like a steep cost, and while most people would probably whine over it, to Otter, it was a big red button that said, “Press me, I give you promises of power, ponies, and blowjobs.”

“What do you think this does?” Otter said, as a strand of glowing red energy Manifested in her hands.

She held it up, looking at it from multiple angles, stretching it and bringing her hands back together. It behaved a lot like a regular string would. But shiny.

Rua made a strangled noise, and reached forward, “Whatever that is, put it away, not in my house, not in my house.”

And then Otter shifted. Just a little, really. She’d made a habit of moving into Rua’s personal space a lot, and she must have instinctively gravitated into it, because she certainly didn’t mean to move towards Rua with the shiny red thread made of magical energy whose use was still completely unknown.

So when Rua moved to take Otter’s wrist, she grabbed the Thread of Fate instead.

Chapter Text

The Thread of Fate exploded in an expanding sphere of red energy. Otter was thrown into her chair hard enough to knock both it and herself backwards onto the floor. As if her every interaction with that damned chair wasn’t uncomfortable enough, she received brand new experiences of pain associated with it.

Her head felt funny. And not in the ‘just smacked the back of it hard enough to see stars’ kind of way. Well, in that way, but also in a brand new form of disorientation as well. It felt kind of like that time when she’d experimented with some low-end hallucinogens with Everett and a few of his friends at a Spasm Con afterparty. But it was only in one small corner of her brain. It was like her awareness had expanded, and where there had once been a neatly ensconced wall, there was a tunnel opened to a whole new space entirely.

There was something going on just beyond her awareness. It was like… she could look into the tunnel, and see into another place entirely. A window into another room she could freely peer through, but too small to actually hop through herself.

It was like discovering a brand new sense. Like being able to see or touch for the first time, but without the frame of reference of other people trying to explain what it was like. There was information being relayed into Otter’s mind, but she had no idea how to process it.

There was a sense of… shock in that other place. And then confusion.

And Otter realized that as she looked into that other room, something in that room was looking back into her.

And she could feel where it was.

Otter rolled away from the very stupid reading chair, and looked between the legs of the dining room table, to find Rua staring back at her. Her vision went double for a second, one scene overlapping the other. It was like she was looking at herself for a moment, while simultaneously staring at Rua.

She felt her arm move, but it wasn’t hers that did. Rua shoved at the table between them, and Otter felt how easily it gave way as it was sent scraping along the floor and away from her.

“What did you do?”

Otter felt her lips moving to say the words, but they very clearly came from Rua. And she hadn’t been the one to ask the question, hadn’t thought it until she’d felt herself saying it.

Or, no. Hadn’t thought it until she’d felt Rua saying it.

The words weren’t angry. They were hushed, filled with an emotion Otter couldn’t readily identify until she looked through that window into that other room in her mind, and realized it was wonder.

Rua scrambled across the floor on all fours, bowling Otter over and climbing onto her and straddling her. Rua stared down into her eyes, and Otter could feel the absolute hunger inside of her.

“What did you do?” Rua said again, her breath coming out in ragged gasps.

“I don’t know,” Otter said quietly, almost a whisper. She wasn’t even sure why she answered. Rua knew the answer before she spoke it.

Rua was close, so close. They stared into each other’s eyes, and it was like gazing into an infinite mirror. Otter looked into Rua’s eyes and saw herself through them seeing herself gaze at Rua.

Otter tried to move only one time. When she did, Rua made a growling noise and firmly took her by the shoulders and forced her back into position. There was no resisting that grasp. Rua was stronger than her. A lot stronger.

Rua moved closer. Or maybe Otter did. She wasn’t sure where one ended and the other began. Their noses touched, and Rua’s warm breath, increasingly laboured, tickled at Otter’s mouth. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Rua’s pupils were dilated, those beautiful heterochromatic eyes nearly eclipsed.

Odin damn it all, she was pretty.

And Rua drank that thought in. Like she’d been feeding on everything Otter had been thinking.

Neither knew how long they stayed in that position. Time passed, their minds touching upon one another more and more heavily. Mixing. Neither could see each other’s memories, but in a way, it was so much deeper than that. For a moment, it was like their minds were one. Their wants, their desires, laid bare.

Rua, so alone. So achingly alone. She’d never had anyone. Just pain. Abuse. Love for two, but unrequited. No one wanted her. Not really. They looked at her, and saw a tool. A weapon.

It was the single-most intimate moment in either's lives.

And then it was gone. Retreated. The window was still there, but so much smaller. Like a keyhole that you could peek through.

“No,” Rua whined. “Put it back. Give it back.”

“It’s still there,” Otter said. “Just… just focus.”

Otter could feel a gentle probing at the edge of her awareness. Frantic at first, and then reassured.

“I think we’re stuck together,” Otter said. “Sorry.”

Rua made a low growl, and her grip on Otter tightened. “Mine.”

“Uh…”

And then Rua kissed her, hot and fast and hard and hungry. It was clumsy, unpracticed, her technique non-existent. She was all tongue and teeth, but the sheer desire behind it more than made up for it.

Otter was more than happy to let Rua take the lead. She sank back, letting Rua explore and figure things out. She ran one hand along Rua’s hip, the other running through her hair. That seemed to remind Rua that she could be doing something with her hands and quickly moved one to cup and squeeze Otter’s breast.

She squeezed a little too hard, and Otter sucked in a breath, but didn’t say anything. Even so, she sensed what was wrong and moved to be more gentle, slowly figuring her way through things.

She could feel that shifting again. Her cock was slowly sliding out from inside of her, straining at her pants. Rua noticed, and began to grind against it.

A notification blinked in the corner of Otter’s eye. Even without her menu up, apparently some messages still sent notifications. If ever there was a need for a Do Not Disturb mode, it was now.

Rua broke away, and said, “What’s that?”

“Oh, sorry, I got a message. I guess I have to answer it. Can you really sense that through… the thread?”

“Sense it? I can see it.”

“What do you mean you can see it?”

“There’s a blinking thing, right there.” She pointed up and to the left, similar to where the display appeared in Otter’s field of view.

“Wait. Are you getting my notifications?”

It had to be a side effect of Thread of Fate. If Rua could see her notifications…

“Imagine opening a book in your mind,” Otter said.

Rua arched an eyebrow at her, but then did so. The skeptical look turned into one of surprise.

“What is this?”

“You have Menu access!” Otter said. “Oh man, that means you can see all my statistics. That feels a little invasive.”

“Yes, because seeing whatever this is is more invasive than being in each other’s minds. Besides, it has my name on it.”

“Wait, what.”

If Rua’s name was on the character menu, then that meant she was now in the game. Which was impossible. Like… so many other things that had happened.

Otter pulled up the Online list in the Party Settings tab of her menu. She found two anomalies. One name, NightmareWasTaken, was now greyed out. And at the bottom of the list was a one hundred and first name that had not been there before.

Rua.

Chapter Text

“Poseidon buggering himself with his own trident, what the frell is going on,” Otter said, staring at the Online tab.

She didn’t get time to ponder it any further. That blinking notification decided it was time to stop waiting for an answer, and opened itself.

Ingram Holt was a handsome man, but more by way of a team of people trying to help maintain his appearance than out of any natural beauty. In the real world, it’d long been suspected he wore a lot of contouring makeup to give his face a chiseled look. Only Heimdall knew how many people he had to help him maintain the Viking beard he liked to sport. His one obvious flaw was that it was clear no one was telling him what to do with the hair on his head, though, from the absolutely douchey man bun he sported.

“Ms. Taufa,” he said as a way of greeting.

“Otter Kaos,” she countered back. “Or GrandTheftOtter, if you’re going by handles.”

“Of course, of course. Secret identities are so in style at this moment. We’re all prisoners to them. I’ve even been known to fiddle about with some from time to time myself. But you’re right. I should get used to calling you by your new name, especially considering the big meeting coming.”

“Who are you talking to?” Rua asked.

“Ingram Holt,” Otter said. “Was just about to hang up, too.”

Holt’s smile grew even wider. “Is that your little anomaly, over there?”

“None of your business, douche canoe. We’re busy.”

She tried to terminate the call, but it stayed open. Of course he had a way of doing that. Asshole had a reputation for being needy.

“I’m sure you are,” he said with a wide smile. “Even so, neither of you will want to miss this.”

He waved a hand, and his screen winked out. And then reality itself blurred, and suddenly the cabin was gone. In its place was a massive colosseum, Otter and Rua now seated on a bench overlooking the arena below. Others sat throughout the theatre, each figure shadowy and indistinct. With the exception of Otter and Rua, no one was seated near another person. The colosseum could probably seat tens of thousands, maybe even a hundred thousand, but only a hundred seats were taken up.

And at the forefront, sitting in a box seat all by himself on top of a golden throne, was Ingram Holt. He had one leg over the arm of his seat, and a goblet balanced in his hand. He wore the classic outfit of a Roman emperor, but with a crown to accompany it.

“Where are we?” Rua asked, her hand going to her side for a weapon that wasn’t there.

“I don’t know. But probably in Holt’s personal playground.”

“This isn’t any Wayfaring I’ve ever seen. He can do that? Just… move us somewhere else? No circles, no incense, just… we’re here?”

“Apparently.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“The power is kind of meh. Combined with his emotional maturity, though…” Otter trailed off, noticing one of those shadowy figures making their way over to their part of the colosseum seating.

Rua followed her gaze. “Trouble?”

“Won’t know until we talk.”

“If they lie, I’ll poke your leg.”

“Any excuse to touch me, eh?”

“I could go back to flicking your nose.”

“I wasn’t complaining, just pointing out that you want me, and that I’m more than okay with that.”

The strange person stopped only a few metres from them, seemingly bumping into some kind of invisible barrier. They knocked on the unseen wall. A notification window popped up for Otter.

[A user has attempted to enter your assigned seating area. Grant permission to enter?]

[ Y / N ]

Otter tapped the Yes button. The shadowy figure made another knocking gesture, which passed harmlessly through where the barrier had just been. They made a delighted noise, and stepped forward, and the illusion sheltering them melted away.

Her figure resolved into a tall woman with long, silky black hair, neatly cut with bangs so even they looked as if they’d been cut by a razor. She was wearing a grey smock, just like the one Otter had been wearing, but a bit rundown. Her skin was pale, unnaturally so, and her lips weren’t painted a glossy black so much as just naturally that colour. Her eyes were a steel grey, but the most notable features she sported were a pair of long, pointed elf-like ears, to go with the long, pointed demonic horns.

She didn’t look familiar, which wasn’t surprising. She’d probably completely redone her appearance from the ground up.

“Hey,” she said, giving an awkward wave.

“Hey,” Otter said. She waited a beat for the stranger to introduce herself, realized it wasn’t coming, and then said, “I’m Otter.”

“Oh, hi, I’m, uh, Pandemona.”

Otter didn’t need the poke to her leg to know that was a lie.

“Really?” Otter said. “I thought she was retired.”

She fidgeted, and shrugged. “Came out of retirement just for this.”

No poke that time. That was interesting. There was a pregnant silence as Otter waited for this 'Pandemona' to go on.

“Any reason you came over to see us?”

“You’re the only one with someone else. You’re different. Different’s interesting.”

“And that’s the whole reason? No nefarious schemes, just want to investigate the mystery?”

“That, and I figured your friend there was the mysterious ‘Rua.’”

So, that was already getting around. How long had they been on that floor, just staring at each other, if her presence on the Online tab was seemingly common knowledge?

Time to try another line of questioning. “I don’t remember seeing Pandemona on the Online tab during character creation.”

The impostor shrugged. “A lot of people took a while to pick their names. And some even changed theirs after initially entering them before joining. A few you might’ve seen aren’t on there anymore. Can I sit?”

“Sure, just be careful. We both bite.”

To demonstrate, she leaned into Rua, and before she could protest, Otter lightly bit her on the neck. Not long or hard enough to make a mark, but just long enough to make any reasonable bystander a little uncomfortable. Otter wasn’t sure who was blushing harder between Rua and Pandemona when she finished.

“Feeling a little uncomfortable there, Pan?” she asked with a smug grin.

“No, you know me, uh…”

“Giant lesbian slut? Was that what you were going for?”

“Maybe I should go.”

‘Pandemona’ turned to leave, but Otter grabbed her wrist. She turned to Rua and said, “Is it okay if I mess with her, just a little bit? I like making new friends.”

Rua caught onto what she meant before ‘Pandemona’, blushed a little harder, and said, “Of course.”

“I’m down to share.”

Otter could feel Rua positively squirming through their link. Outside of the blushing, she was doing a good job of keeping her face impassive, but there was a hunger in her. It might've been buried deep before, but it was unearthed now.

“Share what?” ‘Pandemona’ asked. “What’s, uh, going on?”

Otter shifted over, and then pulled Pandemona down to sit on the bench, so that she was now between her and Rua.

“We’ll answer your questions,” Otter said. “Any you could ask. But in return, we get to play with you a little for each answer.”

Pandemona made a stuttering noise, but no response.

Otter continued, “It’s the kind of game I hear you’d be down for. I saw you do something similar at a party once.”

“Right,” she said. “That’s me. Always, uh, partying. Typical party girl”

Otter almost felt offended at that. “If you ever get uncomfortable, you can just leave at any time. But I mean, you’re Pandemona, you don’t chicken out, right?”

The impostor shrank a little, but managed a strangled, “Yep.”

This felt a bit mean. But this impostor had walked willingly into this silly little game. It wasn’t Otter’s fault that this girl made poor life decisions.

Pandemona sucked in a deep breath, seemed to steady herself, and asked Rua, “So, uh, how did you get into the game after, uh, the beta started?”

“I was here before you,” she answered.

“Oh. I didn’t know there were any players here before us on the early access. But why–”

Otter placed a finger on her lips. “That’s not how the game works. You got a question. Now, one of us gets a turn at you.”

“Right. A turn.”

Otter grabbed ‘Pandemona’ from the back of the head, and pulled her in for a kiss. She went in, hard and assertive right from the start. She didn’t exactly try to shove her tongue down Pandemona’s throat, but she definitely worked it in with increasing pressure, stroking along the imposter’s own tongue. Pandemona was stiff the entire time, clearly unsure of what to do, but towards the end began to respond, albeit hesitantly.

When Otter finished, she gave Pandemona a devilish smile, and then planted a small peck on her lips. “I would’ve thought you’d be a better kisser.”

“Oh, you just surprised me. I, uh, didn’t expect you to just, uh, go in like that.”

“So, what’s your next question?”

“Oh. Uh… If Rua were on before us, how come she wasn’t on the Online tab when we logged in?”

Otter looked to Rua. She wasn’t sure if she should respond to that particular question, but Rua answered for her, “Because I was what you people call a Non-Player Character.”

“Wait, but–”

Rua mimicked Otter, and put a finger on Pandemona’s lips. “No. My turn now.”

Pandemona pursed her lips and closed her eyes, but Rua flicked her ear. “No. That’s not what I want. You have to tell me what you think of how I look. And you can’t lie.”

“Oh, uh. You’re… very pretty?”

“What about me is pretty?” she pressed.

“Oh, uh, well, you seem really, uh, confident, and–”

“No, not that. Physically.”

“Well, I don’t want to objectify you.”

Rua made a frustrated noise, so Otter said, “No, by all means. Objectify her.”

“Well–”

A gong sounded, reverberating throughout the colosseum. Waves of sound echoed, shaking stone pillars and rattling Otter’s bones. A screen flashed in the centre of the arena, appearing in midair, hovering over the centre. Ingram Holt’s smiling face was displayed.

“Welcome, everyone,” he said. “I hope everyone is settled. It is now time to explain the rules of my game.”

Chapter Text

Holt let his words hang in the air, reveling in the attention. Maybe some people were giving it, but Otter and Rua both were far more enthralled by Pandemona. It wasn’t that she was particularly attractive – she was, but that wasn’t hard to do in a video game where you could design your appearance to suit your fantasy – but more from the tension in the air due to Otter’s ‘game.’

Pandemona looked equal parts aroused and terrified, and it was a mix that both excited Otter, and also made her feel a little bad. But then her vindictive side reared its ugly head, and that feeling soon dissipated.

Holt was talking again, probably about something he thought was deadly important, but Rua was tugging on the front of Pandemona’s smock.

“Tell me why I’m pretty.”

Pandemona stammered, “We should probably be paying attention to–”

“The words of that man are trivial to this. You made an agreement, now pay, or I’ll find some other way to extract my compensation.”

She drummed one hand on Pandemona’s knee, before slowly working it under the hem of her smock.

Had Rua always been this forward? Or was it just Otter’s influence? She’d had a shell before, a protective layer, but that was proving to have been extremely brittle. Otter didn’t know the type of abuse Rua had suffered in the past, but she knew it was there from their link. And while Rua had weathered it and survived, now that she’d been exposed to genuine affection, those defences had shattered.

“Uhm,” Pandemona said. “I, uhm…”

Rua very casually raised her hand a little forward, gently stroking at Pandemona’s thigh.

“Your eyes. They’re pretty. I like your eyes.”

And just like that, Rua withdrew her hand, her face a serious mask. “So it’s not just you. Do all your kind find these eyes attractive?”

“Can’t speak for everyone,” Otter said. “But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful pair.”

“Do I get another question now?” Pandemona asked.

“No,” Rua said. “Your important person is speaking.”

Otter nodded along. “Yeah, Holt’s talking. It’s rude to be ignoring him.”

Otter turned to face the screen, and found that Holt was, in fact, not currently talking, but looking directly at them. He had that look most of Otter’s teachers adopted whenever she was caught goofing off in class back in high school. Which had been all the time.

“Are you done?” he asked.

“Yep! You may continue, you have my permission.”

Holt’s expression warred between annoyance and amusement, finally settling on that trademark PR smile of his that was achingly fake.

“Players of Fell Champions, allow me to introduce to you Otter Kaos, and our recent anomaly, Rua. As you all know, only one hundred players were invited to our little event, and somehow Otter here managed to get our one hundred and first. And how is just the damndest thing.”

He let that hang in the air for a moment, before spreading his hands in the air. “Truth is, I’m not sure how she did it. No one new logged in. I checked. She managed to pull a player into the game without doing that. But that just goes to show you the power behind Fell Champions. This world is so vast, so untapped, that not even I know all its secrets.”

“It’s official,” Otter said. “He’s a hundred percent full of bullshit and nothing else.”

“But it’s time for me to let you in on a few secrets of my own. When I started this beta test, I made sure to let everyone know that in the event of death, your time in the beta would be over. Just one hour ago, we had our first casualty.

“NightmareWasTaken apparently thought he was invincible, because he decided to attack an armed swordsman with nothing but his bare hands, presumably with the hope of getting some easy gear.”

“Hah,” Pandemona said. “He did a death speedrun.”

“Classic Nightmare,” Otter agreed with a chuckle.

“What I didn’t let anyone know beforehand, was that there are more consequences to death in Fell Champions.”

That PR smile turned into a grin, smug and full of itself and endlessly insufferable. He said nothing, but Otter had a sneaking suspicion.

“Oh my god,” Pandemona said. “He’s going to Tron us.”

Otter shook her head. “No. He can’t be. That’s… he’s messing with us. It’d tank Ashes²’ stock price. He’d destroy himself, and his company, for no reason. I mean, he’s an idiot, but… he’s not Elon Musk stupid.”

“What’s going on?” Rua asked, but Holt answered for them.

“Yes, as you all probably now suspect, I am going to Sword Art Online you.”

Yeah, it figured he’d go with the douchey reference.

"Oh my god, he is Elon Musk stupid."

“If you die in the game, your body in the real world will also perish. And as you all know, you all signed NDAs when you agreed to beta test the technology. You were isolated before you began playing, separated from your phones, taken to a location none of you knew in advance, and then were allowed to log in for the first time. No one knows where you are, and with the time dilation, it doesn’t matter anyway. By the time the authorities know that you’re in trouble, my game should be over.

“But why? Why, you ask. Why would I do such a thing? What about my reputation, my company, why would my software engineers ever go along with this madness? And this is indeed madness, at a level even Nero would look at and appreciate.” Holt laughed to himself, and Otter’s blood ran cold. “Why? Because chaos. That’s why. And that’s all the reason you need for now.”

His eyes had taken on a wild look to them, and he drank from his goblet, wine spilling across his chin as he did.

“If you die to the game, you will get one chance, one chance, to come back. And every time someone dies, you will all be brought here, and you will bear witness. I will pick one champion, one person to fight against the person who has died in a duel to the death. And if they prevail against the chosen champion, they will earn their chance, and the champion will die in their place.”

In the centre of the arena, a man appeared, dressed in a green peasant’s tunic and hose.

Otter knew what was coming next. She knew the words before Holt said them, and already had her response ready.

“For my champion for this fight, I choose Rua.”

“I volunteer as tribute, motherfucker!” Otter shouted, standing between Rua and the screen bearing that half-mad face.

“Accepted,” he said, with a tip of his crown and no hesitation, as if he'd already known the lines.

“What does that mean?” Rua said. “What do you mean, you volunteer as tribute?”

“I got you in this mess. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you risk your life just because of this asshole.”

“While I appreciate the sentiment. I think I’d have an easier time than you in a fight. I know what I’m doing.”

“We all know what we’re doing. Well, most of us. There’s a couple beauty ViewTubers, some React Andys, a political commentator… But most of us are at least somewhat familiar with these kinds of games.”

“And Nightmare’s washed,” Pandemona said.

“And Nightmare’s totally washed,” Otter agreed. “I’ve got this.”

Reality itself blurred once more, and Otter was now standing on the sand. In front of her was Nightmare. A pair of daggers were stabbed into the ground between them. 

Chapter Text

Staring at those two daggers, it began to sink in for Otter exactly what was about to happen. She’d had pre-fight PVP jitters before, but those had been easy. It’d been her reputation on the line before. Maybe a cash prize at a tournament or a convention event.

She made the mistake of meeting Nightmare’s eyes. He looked afraid. They were wide, and darting, checking from the daggers, to her, to Holt, to the crowd, and back. She’d heard his name was Seth, once. She wished she didn’t know that. The more impersonal this was, the better.

She was really going to do this. This wasn’t Player Killing, it was player murdering. Didn’t matter if he was defending his own life, scrambling for his one and only chance in a scenario he hadn't realized he'd signed up for. She’d romanticized it at first. Volunteered to keep Rua from harm.

But she hadn’t thought it through. Hadn’t thought about it at all, really. She’d put more brain power towards making a funny quip and reference than she had to one simple fact.

She was going to have to kill someone.

There was no other option. She was either going to have to walk out of this arena as a killer, or she wasn’t going to walk out at all.

“Sorry, ‘Mare. Nothing personal.”

“I…” He visibly gulped. “I was gonna say the same.”

Nightmare was known as a good gamer. But he wasn’t diverse, didn’t explore outside his own chosen niche of games. So, when you put him in a speedrunning situation, or a game that required good mechanical skill at a specific skillset that he’d grinded hours mastering, he was set. He knew techs, tricks, and all kinds of skips.

But this was a VR PVP match in a game he’d never played, in a genre he wasn’t familiar with. And while Otter was just as unfamiliar with Fell Champions, and just as bound to her particular genre of game, at least she was playing in the field she’d been in all her career.

Poor guy thought she was an unknown, some smalltime streamer he'd never heard of. If his version of reality had been true, he might've had a chance.

“Everyone, prepare yourselves for the first match of the series,” Holt called tauntingly over his screen.

A barrier flickered between both combatants and the two daggers between them. Likely, it’d always been there, to keep the fight from starting early, but now it was making itself known before violence happened.

“I’ll make it quick,” Nightmare said.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing else. He wasn’t much of a talker. He was one of those guys who locked in on one thing at a time. He couldn’t run his mouth and his hands at the same time.

He probably thought he was going to win this easily. He wasn’t a huge guy, but he was bigger than her. He probably thought it was all going to come down to physical strength and speed. Poor fucker.

Otter wasn’t quite sure how Thread of Sanctuary was supposed to work, but she activated it anyway. Information flooded into her brain. It was almost instinctual, just like Rua had explained. Otter just suddenly knew, and wove her hands in a pattern, envisioning what she wanted to create.

About a third of her blue bar of Will disappeared, and in her hands a cloak appeared. It was pure white, of a soft and light fabric. Nightmare took a startled step backwards as she whirled it about and settled it over her neck and shoulders. He gave her and then Holt an incredulous look, as if unclear if what she'd done was some kind of cheat or not.

“Get ready!” Holt called.

Otter took the hem of the cloak in one hand, and held it out like a shield in front of her. She cast her second arm backwards, ready to strike.

“Set!”

Nightmare took on a runner’s pose. The daggers were maybe ten feet away from each of them. His strategy was simple and apparent: to make a mad dash directly for them.

“Fight!”

Holt laughed as if doing his best Joker impression, a sad and pathetic man delighting in the pain of others. He made a slashing gesture with his hand, and the shields dropped.

Nightmare shot forward at inhuman speed. He’d probably dumped a lot of his stats into Agility. He wasn’t a speeding bullet by any means, but he’d probably give an Olympic athlete a run for their money.

Otter triggered Thread of the Scourge. Just like before, the information just appeared in her brain, like it’d always been there, which honestly made her ADHD brain briefly wonder why Thread of Fate hadn’t told her jack. Why was that ability different?

In the moment, it didn't matter. A golden wire about four feet long flashed into being in her hand just as Nightmare reached the first of the two daggers. He ripped it from the ground and kept going, changing direction to go for the second as well.

Otter held her ground. She’d never planned to contest his claim to either weapon. She wasn’t a melee fighter. She was a fucking wizard.

He reached out his offhand for that second dagger, probably thinking that ensured his victory then and there, and that was when Otter whipped her hand forward.

Thread of the Scourge was primarily used for two things. Binding, and cutting. It was great for tying things down, and while its cutting power wasn’t as good as a bladed weapon without empowering it, it’d still draw blood.

She didn’t use it for either purpose. The whip didn’t land on Nightmare’s outstretched hand, but the dagger he was reaching for, wrapping around its handle and hilt, tying itself into a knot by Otter’s will. She yanked backwards, and the dagger ripped free from the dirt, so when Nightmare moved to grab it, instead of taking hold of the handle, his fingers gripped onto the blade itself.

He didn’t jerk his hand back, or lose any fingers like she’d expected. There was a moment of startled silence between the two of them as he realized what had happened, how he held a knife by the scary part and not the safe bit like he’d planned.

He still reacted the way a sensible person would. He dropped the dagger to the ground before the steel could hurt him.

He reached down to try to grab it again anyway, and Otter kicked a spray of dirt at his face. It didn’t hit him, but made him flinch away.

His reactions were like a regular person’s in a fight, and not like a man driven to take the win at any cost. Nightmare gave Otter a shocked look, surprised at her ferocity, her unwillingness to give him even an inch of room.

And then his face twisted in anger, and he grabbed the Thread of the Scourge and looped it around both his arms and hauled backwards for all he was worth. He was finally getting it, on a level he probably hadn’t before. This really wasn’t just a game. But Otter was already a step ahead.

She staggered forward, but she pumped another point of Will into her thread, depleting her resource to about half, and empowered it.

Thread of the Scourge flared brighter, glowing with a burning hot intensity, and there was a flash around Nightmare’s arms. It was as if there were a forcefield protecting him, and too late Otter realized that whatever points he’d dumped into Tenacity must be protecting him.

Otter fell right into Nightmare’s fist facefirst, and though she felt the impact, there was no pain. The red bar in the upper right corner of her vision went down a small smidge.

So, that’s how it was going to be. They were going to have to slap at each other until they’d depleted each other’s Tenacity, and then they’d finally be able to hurt one another.

Nightmare realized a second too late that his other hand had a blade in it, and he moved to stab her, but she was already dancing out of his reach. He gave another sharp haul on her thread, but she dismissed it, causing it to abruptly vanish. His own pull unbalanced him, sending him falling backwards, and Otter wasted no time, stomping as hard as she could down on his knee. She missed, only clipping his shin, but she was already activating a new Thread of the Scourge, whipping it down at his face. She empowered it at the last possible moment, and he flinched at the sudden brightness in his eyes.

Covering his face with one hand, he slashed wildly at the air in front of him, but she was already moving around him, repositioning and striking at the dagger in his hand. The thread caught the blade, but he must’ve figured out what her next move was going to be, and he threw it at her before she could take control of the blade.

Steel spun at her face, and her Tenacity was the only thing that saved her from losing an eye. Her health bar jumped down to dangerous levels, flashing angrily at her. But at this point, it no longer mattered.

The dagger was bound securely in her thread, and it was no longer in Nightmare’s hand. Her whip, flashy but not particularly damaging, was now effectively a kusarigama, or a flail.

Otter began to rain heavy blows down on Nightmare’s arms as he held them over his head to protect himself, a gesture that was too little, too late. There was a final flicker from his shield, and then blood began to spill in earnest, his forearms taking bloody gouges as the swinging knife took chunks out of him.

He must’ve realized the position he was in, that his pitiful defense was useless. That it wasn’t a matter of losing a match, but his life. Nightmare made a grab for the dagger in mid-air, and she let him have it, dismissing her thread as soon as he caught it, the steel digging into the flesh of his palms.

He moved the knife up in something resembling a fighting posture, and his teeth were clenched in pain, tears in his eyes, and sweat running down his brow. Otter would always remember that defiant stance, that final look he gave her.

And then the last thread she had activated just as he’d grabbed the dagger came hurtling at his neck, holding onto the earlier discarded second dagger. She’d been aiming for his jugular, but even with years of experience in these kinds of games, this was still an unfamiliar weapon for her. She missed the artery, so there was no fountain of blood. No quick death. But death still came.

Nightmare made a sick choking noise, staggered on his feet, taking two steps one way, and then one the other. He looked confused, and then did the worst thing he could do by grabbing the blade sunk into his throat and pulling it out. It wasn’t arterial blood that came gushing out, but it was still a fair amount.

He dropped the dagger and fell face first into the ground. A small puddle of blood pooled underneath his head.

Otter wanted to throw up. Instead, she swallowed down bile and picked up the discarded dagger with her shaking hand.

She looked up at the screen, at Holt’s smiling face. There was nothing PR about his look now. He looked positively aroused.

Otter knelt by Nightmare, grabbed him by the hair on the back of his head, and lifted. As she did, he twisted, and a knife came flashing at her. It caught her on the shoulder, piercing through the last of her shield, and into her cloak provided by Thread of Sanctuary. It only made it in a few bare centimetres into the cloth before scraping off in an ineffective line.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Good game.”

And then she drew her own blade across his neck as deeply as she could, finishing the fight.

Chapter Text

The colosseum was meant to seat maybe a hundred thousand, and only held a hundred and one. So the fact that it was quiet was nothing surprising. Still, Otter felt as if some noise were justified. People screaming at her. Condemning her. Anything but just this… calm.

She took both daggers and cleaned them and her hands as best she could on Nightmare’s tunic, but the fabric was stiff and coarse, not made for the task, and only took some of the blood off before spreading the rest around in messy streaks.

Gamer instinct more than anything else made her check to see if he had anything on him, any loot worth taking, but he had nothing. It was probably better that way. She’d always think of him, just looking at those daggers. She didn’t need any further reminders.

“We have a winner,” Holt said, giggling to himself. “Everyone, applaud!”

Silence met his call.

“Applaud!” he screamed, fury in his voice.

There were some scattered claps, some half-hearted cheers. No one’s heart was in it, but effort was made only due to the madman who held them all hostage.

“Good job,” Holt practically purred, and from the way the screen’s image stared directly at Otter, she knew exactly who he was talking to. “I’m gonna call that one a World Quest. First blood, and all that. One dead already. Woof. Well, always knew that first one would be quick. Thank goodness no one screamed ‘Leroy Jenkins’, hmm?”

He giggled absently to himself, and seemed preoccupied with a screen only he could see. Likely designing a reward just for Otter. One earned with the blood of Nightmare.

Otter’s own menu popped open without her summoning it.

First Blood earned!
Limited Prize Event
+1 to all Stats

She closed the screen. She didn’t know if a plus one across the board was good or not. She didn’t particularly care. It wasn’t worth the trade. It wasn’t worth the stain.

“Cheer up! You’ll get used to it. You think this’ll be the last kill you get? Oh, far from it. I have my eyes on you, little killer. You think you made a deal with only the Dreamer? Whatever she has planned for your Pact, it’s a picnic compared to my ambitions.”

Otter tried to tune out Holt’s voice. How could that man sound so fucking happy? Was power tripping this badly the only thing that gave him an erection?

No. There was something else, something in his words. Holt had a plan. He wasn’t just trapping them in a video game, forcing them into a death match for entertainment. Something else was at play here, and as Otter looked up into the crowd and found Rua staring down at her, she had a good feeling what it was.

This wasn’t a game at all. She didn’t know what it was. But this wasn’t some trope-ridden cliche. Holt wanted something, and doing it this way was his way of getting it.

That manic glee, that joyous laughter. That was just as fake as his PR smile. Maybe more authentic, but it was still forced, a mask, hiding something else.

“Now onto the dirty part of the business,” Holt said. “Otter, cut out poor Nightmare’s heart.”

She felt as if someone had just done what he proposed to her. She looked at him with what she knew was a sickened expression.

“You want me to do what?”

“I want you to cut open his chest, break his rib cage, and get wrist deep in him before pulling out his dead heart. Are you deaf? I mean, really. Get to it, chop chop.” And then he laughed, as if he’d said the most witty thing in the world.

Her hands tightened over the pair of knives she carried, but something in Holt’s eyes warned her. His mouth might have been laughing, but his eyes weren’t.

“You fucker,” she said, and stabbed one dagger into the ground, and approached the corpse with the other.

While other VR games had been semi-realistic in terms of blood and viscera, there’d been limits. Certain things would never get past the censors and Parental Advisory groups. Like everything else in Fell Champions, things were a little… too real.

Cutting open a dead man’s chest was one thing, even as its eyes stared up at her. She tried her best to ignore that, to push his head to the side, but she couldn’t help but feel the judgement from a man who wasn’t there anymore. She tried avoiding breaking his ribs by going under, through the belly, but just the texture and the knowledge of what she was doing had her heaving. It was the warmth of his guts that got her, more than anything else.

She emptied the contents of her stomach the first time she tried. The second, her stomach convulsed and nothing but bitter, yellow liquid would come out. After that, she resigned herself to breaking her way in.

The ribs were easier to crack than she expected. After a while, she just kind of became detached to the whole experience. Her brain retreated, and she just stopped paying attention to what she was doing, her hands working while her mind was blank.

A minute later, she had Nightmare’s dead heart in her hands.

She wanted to hurl it away. She wanted to put it back and beg forgiveness, as if that’d bring the poor idiot back to life. Instead, she held it up to the screen Holt looked through, as if in offering.

“Good, now cut it open.”

She didn’t even question it at that point. She made a sloppy incision down the middle of Nightmare’s heart, and inside, there was a white crystal the size of her pinky nail. She pulled it out.

“Eat it,” Holt said.

Otter looked at the small gem in horror. She’d never been good with pills. She choked them up more than swallowed them. Hell, she even chewed mashed potatoes, her gag reflex was so strong.

Thank goodness she wasn’t hetero, she never would’ve been able to handle sucking dick, a distant and broken part of her mind said.

But even with all that, this blood-covered crystal had just come from inside a man she’d just killed. If she hadn’t already vomited up everything she had, she probably would have blown chunks at the mere suggestion.

“Eat,” he said, and almost sounded fatherly as he did.

She was too far gone now. She wiped off the crystal as much as she could, and threw it at the back of her throat, closing her eyes and swallowing and trying desperately to not think about what she just put in her body.

A message flashed in front of Otter’s eyes as soon as she forced the crystal down.

Choose Stat to Enhance

Agility / Allure / Fortune

What the fresh hell was this? The crystal enhanced her stats? Was this… was this how you leveled up in Fell Champions?

Fucking Zeus fucking on a pogo stick. Yeah, that made sense. Just yet another piece of shit on top of the pile of shit that was this stupid fucking game. She held a hand out, palm down, and watched her fingers. They shook, but more from nerves than anything else. She flexed her hand, tried to calm herself, and focused. It stayed still. Mercifully still.

“This,” Holt said, “is the primary way to gain stat points in Fell Champions. When you kill any player, sentient being, or monster-type, you can gain a stat crystal. Eating this crystal will present three randomized options. When you choose one, you will inherit ten percent of the slain being’s stats, rounded down, in that particular attribute. It must be a creature you killed. If you eat a crystal from something you did not kill… well, the results will vary. But I don’t recommend it. I know a couple of you have already figured all this out. But for the rest of the playerbase, if you want to advance, if you want to survive, you have to do exactly what Otter here just did. The weak get eaten in this world. Remember that.”

Otter looked blearily at the screen. She wanted to curse Holt out. To puke out whatever she had left in her, even if it was just her liver pushing out bile.

Instead, she pushed the button labeled ‘Agility.’ Nightmare was a speed build. He might’ve had something on Fortune, but Allure was probably going to get her dick all. Agility was the only one that wasn’t a gamble.

She felt weak for pushing that button. She wished she had the strength to not do it.

*-*-*

Sami watched the entire proceedings from her bench seat, absently drumming out a beat with the palm of her hand on the pommel stone of her sword. It was an old habit of hers, one that helped her think and kept her brain rational. It was how she processed, and compartmentalized.

“What do we know about GrandTheftOtter?” she asked.

Sediment, in the form of that ridiculous dragonkin he’d taken, shrugged. “Not much. Talked to her for maybe two minutes. Name's an alias. She's either new and trying to cultivate an air of mystery, or someone old, and is trying to hide. Said she doesn't like drama, which I think is true. She’s got spunk.”

Sami nodded along. She always valued his assessments. He was usually a good judge of character, and just having him nearby was a comfort. She had yet to find Sediment in the Salass Wastes, despite multiple calls between them and trying to pick out landmarks and track the sun’s position relative to the both of them. They were probably a couple hundred miles apart, with no telling how many wandering bandits between them. Holt bringing them to the arena was something resembling a comfort, right up until his sudden heel turn into madness.

Sami pondered for a moment. She always had to look at problems from all the angles. She couldn’t afford to be the one to rush into situations head first.

Sami watched this Otter as she gathered herself after that ordeal. She’d handled it well, all things considered. Her infighting was a little sloppy, but she was apparently playing a mage class, and she had guts, being able to actually kill a fellow player and then carve out his heart and eat a part of it. But it was the magic that had Sami’s attention.

“Any word from the other players on how she was able to do magic?”

Sediment shrugged. “She hasn’t talked to anyone other than me, from what I can gather.”

“That’s not true. She’s clearly acquainted with whoever this ‘Rua’ is. And someone visited the pair of them, where they were sitting.”

Everett spread his hands helplessly. “No one knows who Rua is. She doesn’t respond to any messages sent her way. She’s a mystery.”

“Not even Holt knows,” she said. That seemed odd. You’d think even a half-mad idiot would know how someone could sneak into his highly secure video game. Sami was good with patterns. She could recognize them quickly, isolate them, and predict them. But more importantly, she knew the importance of pattern breaks. “There’s more going on with this Rua than a simple logon mystery. She’s the key.”

Everett didn’t ask how she’d arrived to that conclusion. He’d always let her do the thinking. Well, her and Il-Su.

“Any response?” she asked. She didn’t need to specify. Not for him.

“No. He doesn’t answer. You know how he is.”

“We’d both still be dating him if he knew how to communicate,” she said. “And Pandemona? Has she responded at all?”

“No.”

That was odd. Another pattern break. You normally couldn’t stop Pandemona from talking. It’d been endearing, once.

“Any chance she’s colluding with Il-Su?”

Everett gave her a look that communicated very well that she was supposed to be the smart one of the two of them.

“Point,” she said. “We need strong players on our side. We don’t know what Holt has in store for us. We’re going to need to clan up.”

“I’ve been playing with the Community settings. There’s a way, but it looks expensive. Ten soul crystals, for a level one clan. Five people.”

Sami drummed a rapid beat on the pommel stone of her sword. “Now that we know how to get those, it should be easy. There’s no shortage of enemies in my part of the Wastes. We need to use this time to start recruiting.”

“You want Otter?”

“And Rua. Both, or neither. I’ll leave the fifth to you. Start mingling. I don’t know how long Holt is going to let us stay here like this. But don’t push yourself. We both need to be rested before we return to the Wastes.”

Everett nodded, and rose from his spot. He started to stride towards the nearest shadowy figure, their identity concealed with some kind of perception filter Holt had placed. But Everett could make friends with anyone. He was a big teddy bear.

“And Everett? Make sure… make sure they’re able to kill.”

“No way to feel that out in a conversation. But… I’ll know the types to avoid.”

"Good."

"You know... there is one who fits all your criteria."

"No. We are not recruiting Il-Su. He can't be trusted not to leave us hanging in the wind."

"He's good at this kind of game. Great at single-target DPS, stealth, and is nimble. Really nimble." Everett adopted a goofy look at that last comment. "He'd shore up a hole in our party, we work well with him, and we both know he'd... acclimate well here."

"No. Anyone but him."

"You still care for him."

"It doesn't matter how I feel about him, because I also know him. The answer's no. Find someone else."

Everett hung his head a little sadly, his wings flicking out in irritation. She gave him a small smile. "I know. But trust me. Anyone dealing with Il-Su will regret it. He'll always betray them, because that's who he is."

Chapter Text

Otter didn’t know when the transport happened, so she didn’t realize she was back at her seat on the bench until Rua’s arms were around her, squeezing tightly. She closed her eyes, and leaned into the warmth felt from the embrace and from the link they shared. She returned the hug, squeezing tighter, and tried to forget the memories of Nightmare.

“Are you okay?” Rua asked.

“No.”

She didn’t know how else to respond. She was pretty good at putting on a fake smile most of the time, but she just didn’t have the energy for it. As it was, she could barely hold herself from the edge of a breakdown.

It’d be a bad idea to show weakness here. It didn’t matter what Holt thought, but there were too many other players likely watching her every move now. They were going to be wary of her, now that she’d killed one of her peers. Nightmare had friends, too. Who knew if anyone would want revenge. And then there would just be the assholes who were going to judge her based on her gender, who would completely dismiss or vilify her from now on just because of what was between her legs.

Which, on second thought, was actually kind of funny, considering what she knew and they didn’t.

Otter just wanted to bury herself as far into Rua’s arms as she could manage, but instead she slowly extricated herself and pulled her broken pieces together.

“We’re surrounded by enemies,” Otter said. “I have to be okay.”

Rua nodded, as if what she’d said was the most logical thing in the world.

“I’m not an enemy!” Pandemona said.

She was standing off to the side, her posture awkward and clearly uncomfortable. Otter had honestly forgotten she was even there. She exchanged a glance with Rua, who shook her head, but didn’t give a poke indicating a lie.

“You’re not a friend, though,” Otter said.

“I could be. I like making friends. I’m, uh, famous for it?”

Rua firmly jabbed Otter in the thigh, but she wasn’t sure how much of the statement had been a lie. Definitely the latter, but the former could be easily open to interpretation.

“The shield’s down,” Rua said.

Otter looked about, and while she hadn’t been able to see the shield surrounding them previously, she now realized she could make out actual people in the crowd, and not just shadowy figures. People were beginning to gather in small groups, freely interacting with one another now that anonymity was gone.

“What in the name of Sun Wukong’s sodomizing pole is Holt up to now?”

The screen he’d been using to communicate was gone. The only things on his throne were an empty goblet, tipped on its side, and his crown, dangling from the arm rest.

What had even been the point of the anonymous game? Was it just to keep everyone separated until the fight had concluded?

People were probably going to start approaching her. After that fight, a third of them might be too frightened to come near her, but the others would either want to recruit her, or feel her out and see if she was a potential enemy.

It looked like some people were working up the nerve, but no one was making a move except…

“Shit,” Otter said. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Rua quirked an eyebrow and followed Otter’s sightline, and Pandemona said, “Oh, hey, didn’t think I’d see her.”

“You need to get out of here now,” Otter said.

It took Pandemona a quick second to figure out she was the one being spoken to. “What? Why?”

“Just get the fuck out of here, we’ll talk later.”

‘Pandemona’ seemed faintly amused on top of not knowing how to process what she was being told, so Otter began applying strong arm tactics. And by ‘strong arm tactics,’ she started to try to push her away only to discover that apparently Pandemona had invested into a Strength build, because she wasn’t moving at all.

“You could just ask,” Pandemona said.

“Nope, too invested in the aggressive approach to back down now. Rua, pick her up and get her out of here.”

Rua looked as if she didn’t know whether to be worried or to be entertained, and apparently settled on the latter, because she smirked and said, “No, I want to see how whatever this is will play out.”

“Traitor, you’re supposed to-- Oh, hey, SamiRai, weird seeing you here... what’s up, person I totally don’t know.”

Sami always looked good. Decked out in a loose, billowy shirt that had apparently been cut for a man and left a lot of her chest exposed, and something that looked like harem pants, she looked absolutely gorgeous. Not even a pair of ill-fitting sandals could take away from her looks, or the fact that she wore a pair of battered swords, one at her side, the other strapped to her back. How had she gotten gear already? Shouldn’t she have spawned with nothing like everyone else?

Sami drummed her fingers on her sword’s pommel stone, an old habit of hers. It meant she was thinking. And Otter suddenly realized she’d said a lot she probably shouldn’t have.

“I wasn’t aware we were acquainted,” Sami said.

“We aren’t. You’re just, you know, a big name in the industry. Everyone knows you.”

Rua sucked in a breath, and Otter found herself immediately by her side, and rubbing at her hand. Sami’s eyes narrowed at that.

Shit.

“Hi, I’m Pandemona.”

Sami tilted her head at that, looking at ‘Pandemona’ as if she were a strange worm she found on the ground and hadn’t decided whether she was going to step on it, or move around.

“Really? With that lily-white skin? You know she’s Polynesian, right?”

Pandemona must’ve realized she’d stepped in it, because she did the smartest thing she could’ve done. She shut up.

Otter laughed nervously, “She probably changed it in character creation.”

“Pandemona? Give up her own ancestry for aesthetics? Maybe. She always was kind of a sellout.”

Okay, that patently wasn’t true. She almost barked a response when she realized it was a test.

Oh no.

That meant Sami knew.

Ten seconds into a conversation, and already she’d been figured out. Or maybe not. If Sami was testing, it meant she wasn’t sure. She was testing a hypothesis. And it was likely more directed at ‘Pandemona’ than it was at Otter.

“Well, I guess you’d know,” Otter said. “Didn’t you two used to date? I think I remember reading that online somewhere.”

Pandemona gulped.

“I’d be surprised if you hadn’t,” Sami said. “Our Gallant Stand clan was a bit of a scandal, back in the day. Everyone knew we were poly.”

“Right, I forget how that whole thing worked. Pandemona was the one banging everyone, right? Hence the ‘pan’ in her name?”

Sami snorted. “No, Pan is about as lesbian as they come. She was only sleeping with me. ‘Pandemona’ was supposed to be a play on ‘Pandemonium.’ She loves her puns. Don’t you, Pandemona?”

The impostor gave a weak shrug. A very obvious sheen of sweat decorated her brow. “Oh. Uh. Yep. You know, I think I have something I, uh, need to do.”

Behind Sami, someone else was approaching, but she didn’t seem to notice. It was a big, burly blond man, nearly seven feet tall, and built as if from marble. He had an easygoing smile, the kind you had when you were about to sneak a hand in the cookie jar and you didn’t think anyone knew.

He’d changed his appearance a lot, but Otter recognized that jawline anywhere. This had to be that douche cryptobro, Paul Howlett. Ugh. Just what they needed.

Sami said, “I’m sure you do. You know, I’m just kind of confused, though.”

“Confused?” Pandemona said.

”I mean, why even pretend? You clearly don’t know the first thing about her. Why assume someone else’s identity?”

Pandemona’s shoulders slumped. “We collabed once. She was… she was cool. I dunno. I guess I just… hey, what’s he doing?”

Paul had just been so casual about his stroll up to them that Otter had honestly stopped paying attention, focused more on trying to ease Rua’s headache and not drawing Sami’s ire. He was approaching now with one hand outstretched, fingers grasping for the sword on Sami’s back.

Rua beat all of them to the reaction, but only by a hair. She drew one of the two daggers Otter had tucked into her belt and threw it in a quick cast with her free hand. Sami was already twisting around, her other sword ripping free from its sheath. The dagger took Paul in the shoulder, hitting his shield and shattering it in one blow, before sinking into flesh. Sami’s drawn sword took his reaching hand clean off.

It all happened in an eyeblink. Sami, probably more from muscle memory from Gallant Stand than out of any actual coldness, flicked the blood from her blade at him and then sheathed her sword in one smooth motion.

Paul didn’t react for a full second. And then it was a lot of bleeding, screaming, and falling to the ground and crying in pain. Typical asshole thief getting caught stealing behaviour.

“Bitch,” he growled.

“Seriously?” Otter said. “You literally just watched me kill someone who got put in that arena because he tried to do the exact same thing. Now go away, we’re busy, read the room, fuck.”

Even in pain as he was, she really wanted to go over there and kick him. How could he be so fucking stupid? Did peddling crypto to idiots make him just as dumb as the people he ripped off? As if someone hadn’t just been made an example of.

“Take your hand with you,” Rua said. “If your Tenacity’s high enough, and if you hold it to the stump, it might reattach.”

“Might?” he asked in between laboured breaths of pain, as if he hadn’t just been offered a miracle.

“Or you can stay,” Sami said. “I’m kind of curious what kind of stat points I can extract from your corpse.”

His face flushed red. A vein in his forehead began to visibly throb.

“Don’t,” Otter said.

But it was too late. He picked up his severed hand and threw it at Sami. Her sword left its sheath in an instant, catching the projectile and deflecting it away. But Paul had ripped the dagger from his shoulder and was already lunging at Sami.

Otter triggered Thread of the Scourge, forming a lash of golden light and ripped the dagger from his hand. In the next instant, Pandemona was there, and laid him out with a single punch to the jaw. Something audibly broke, and Paul collapsed.

“Do, uh, do we just leave him like this?” Pandemona asked.

Sami inhaled sharply. Otter could see the wheels turning in her head. She was debating just killing him and taking what stats she could, and just claim it as self-defense with the spoils going to the victor.

Those fingers of hers drummed along the pommel of her sword, and Sami took a step forward.

Chapter Text

Sami was really going to do it. Otter, probably more than anyone else in the world, knew exactly when Sami committed to a course of action, and more importantly, that once she did, she rarely backed down. She had a stubborn streak a mile wide, and enough arrogance to think she was right even when a roomful of people were telling her she was wrong.

“No,” Otter said, stepping between Sami and Paul.

Boy, did she ever not want to be doing this. Not only because Paul was a shit bag with no redeeming qualities, but because Sami was a living nightmare in close quarters combat. Otter suspected she might be the only player currently with a Pact, but that mattered for dick all this close, not when Sami had a sword.

“It has to be done,” she said, as if murdering a man were perfectly reasonable.

“And I’m telling you no. We don’t do that. We’re not going to descend to this… this… this idiocy unless we’re forced to.”

“He went for my weapon. What do you think he was planning to do with it, once he had it? And you know him. Everyone does. His pride will never allow for this kind of public defeat. If I don’t kill him now, he’s tomorrow’s problem. No, better to get it over with now.”

Otter bit her lip. More than half of her Will was gone. Her Tenacity was depleted, and waiting on recharge, and who knew how long that’d take. This wasn’t a fight she could win. Not even on a good day, and this wasn’t looking like a good day.

And then Rua was between them. Her posture was lazy, relaxed. Sami wasn’t a tall woman, but still she towered over her. And Rua wasn’t armed.

So why the hell did it look like she didn’t think she was in danger?

“Go attend to the idiot before he bleeds out,” Rua said. “I’ll cover this.”

Otter wanted to argue, to warn Rua she didn’t know what she was stepping into. But Rua was right. Paul had been bleeding for a while. He didn’t have the time for arguments.

She ducked away, getting to his side, used her Thread of the Scourge as a tourniquet, commanding the thin rope to wrap around his wrist tightly, and with a twist of her hand, forced it into a tight knot.

“Someone… someone get his hand.”

“I’ll do it,” Pandemona said, using it as a quick excuse to be away from Sami’s ire, and retreated into the aisles to go looking for where it fell.

“How do you do that?” Sami said. “The magic?”

Rua shot Otter with a sharp look. Otter looked between the two helplessly, and instead checked over Paul’s shoulder wound. He’d ripped out the dagger in his second attack, which only had led to more bleeding, but it didn’t look too deep. She ripped at his shirt, and staunched the wound as best she could. She wasn’t a medic or anything, but she’d watched enough hospital dramas to do a bad impersonation of one.

Sami’s fingers were drumming ever harder on her sword’s pommel, a beat to war.

Rua’s head tilted to the side. “If this is how you treat your own, I can only imagine how you’ll treat the people of my world.”

That stopped Sami’s drumming.

“Are… are you an NPC?”

“Does that suddenly make me more easy to kill?”

Sami frowned, and then said to Otter, “Is she a pet? Is that what this is?”

Otter snorted. “Not yet, she’s not. I mean, uh….”

“That makes her less interesting. A shame.”

Her grip changed on her sword, and she moved to draw, but Rua slapped her down on the sword and forced it back into its scabbard.

“Are you a creature of pride, too?” Rua asked. “Will you hold a grudge when I beat you in front of your compatriots?”

Sami tried to draw her sword again, but Rua’s hand didn’t let up, keeping it sheathed with minimal effort. She moved back, her feet gliding in a hasty retreat, but Rua followed her, not missing a beat. Sami pivoted, but Rua moved with her, as if knowing how she’d move before she did.

“By your logic,” Rua said, “I should start killing you all, here and now. You look like a threat to my people. So if I begin pruning weeds now, I avoid problems tomorrow. If this is the extent of your abilities, it wouldn’t even be an effort. There’s only a hundred of you.”

Sami shot Otter a startled look, as if pleading for help.

Otter raised up her hands defensively, before remembering she was supposed to be applying steady pressure to Paul’s wound. “Hey, don’t look at me, you started this.”

“I think a lesson is in order,” Rua said. “If compassion doesn’t ease your hand from murder, then I guess fear will have to do. But at the very least, I’ll spare your precious pride.”

Rua stepped back, her hand coming away from Sami’s hilt. The sword was unsheathed in an instant, but Rua didn’t seem to particularly mind. Instead, she snapped her fingers, and a black dome encircled the area, enclosing the four of them in a dome twenty feet across.

Sami’s eyes darted around nervously. The light from outside was blocked out, but there were no additional shadows, no obscurement of anything inside the sphere itself.

“What is this?” she asked.

“I’m merely blocking the truth of events from everyone else. For your benefit. You won’t want them seeing this.”

Sami had trained for years in both kendo and fencing when she was a kid. She’d been schooled in three different martial arts, in lieu of any actual parenting being done. It was apparently easier to just dump her at a dojo and then pick her up later than it was dealing with her at home.

Her father in particular had decided early on that so long as she was disciplined and busy, it was better than anything other kids her age were doing. Otter had always found hearing those stories a little sad.

Later, Sami used those skills in Immortalized, and then Gallant Stand II. Real world experience had translated well in both, and she’d become an overnight sensation in the streaming sphere, much to her parents’ disapproval.

“Rua, be careful,” Otter said.

Rua rolled her eyes, and then assumed a lazy fighting stance.

Sami changed her grip on her sword, and came at Rua with the flat of her blade, going for injury over kill. Apparently, she needn’t have bothered. Rua sidestepped the swing as if it were from a sloppy swordsman, and then leaned forward and flicked Sami’s nose.

Sami staggered back, not from pain but from surprise. She lifted a hand to her face, as if unsure of what had just happened, and before she could resume her posture again, Rua was inside of her guard and flicked both her ears.

Sami swung once, twice, thrice with her blade in short, controlled attacks that were more designed to hit her opponent with the pommel of her sword and her blade, but none connected, Rua just flowing away like the wind.

“Rua, stop,” Otter said in a strangled voice. “She’s proud, you’re just going to piss her off.”

“I know.”

“You need to take this seriously!”

“I always take my sparring lessons seriously. She needs to understand.”

Sami repositioned herself, moving from stance to stance, trying to decide how to attack. Rua maintained her same lazy stance, watching carefully, but not moving in response.

Sami’s next attack pattern was one Otter had seen hundreds of times over. A downward cut, followed immediately by a cross slash, then a feint to the left.

But as she feinted, Rua stepped into the attack, striking Sami’s wrist and causing her to drop her sword. And Otter suddenly realized how dangerous Rua was in a swordfight, and more importantly, why.

Rua knew when people were lying. That included not just spoken words, but body language, like feints. She could read attacks and intent naturally and with no effort. She didn’t need to interpret or guess or make split-second decisions for when to respond and when not to. She just knew.

Disarmed, Sami didn’t hesitate and switched to hand-to-hand. She was all about elbows and knees in close-quarters, and it normally worked out for her. This day, not so much.

Rua didn’t completely dominate her. She did take a couple of hits. But it was also clear she wasn’t trying particularly hard, and it was in less than a couple of minutes that Sami was a ragged, panting and tired mess, with nothing to show for it except some blood dribbling down her own nose, and a few angry red spots from stinging blows across her body.

“He’s a danger to us,” Sami growled.

“The same could be said about you. About any of you.”

“I’m not the one running around attacking people.”

“You’re attacking me.”

That seemed to fluster Sami, a crack forming in her normally unbreakable facade.

“She called me a ‘pet,’” Rua said to Otter. “And I don’t think the lesson is sticking like the way I want to. May I?”

Otter wasn’t sure what she was referring to, but said, “Uh, sure?”

Apparently she should have asked for clarification, because after the next clash of blows, Rua was seated on the bench, with Sami struggling but laid out across her lap, her arms pinned behind her back.

“Bind her, please,” Rua said.

There was something in Rua’s tone, something that normally wasn’t there. A level of steel and an edge to it sharp enough to cut. Otter didn’t question the order, she just summoned a Thread of the Scourge and used it to tie Sami’s arms, and then after a moment’s thought, also tied her legs together.

“Let me go,” Sami growled.

“No. You have a dangerous philosophy. I suspect all of your kind do. A mix of, ‘kill anything inconvenient to you’ and ‘only the strong survive.’ So, you’re the one who’s going to tell everyone not to go around murdering anyone and anything you encounter just because it’s easy.”

“Uh, I don’t think this is going to work,” Otter said. “She’s pretty stubborn. So I hear.”

“I’m trying to help you,” Sami said through clenched teeth. “If we don’t kill Paul now, he’ll try to get revenge. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself, and his pride’s been hurt.”

“And hasn’t yours, by now? I’ve humiliated you pretty thoroughly. Doesn’t that make you a threat to me, by your logic?”

Sami made a frustrated noise, but otherwise kept wisely silent.

“Are you going to leave him alone?”

“Yes, just let me go, and I’ll leave him alone.”

Otter winced. Poor Sami had no idea about Rua’s lie detection ability.

Rua sighed theatrically, and then raised a hand and brought it down firmly on Sami’s ass. It wasn’t a gentle spank. It was a sharp clap, with enough jarring force that Otter swore she could feel it herself through her teeth.

Sami hadn’t been expecting it, but she closed her mouth and made no sound.

“You’re a godamn NPC,” Sami growled. “Let me go.”

Rua brought her hand down in five rapid smacks. “That is the last time you call me that. I’m not anyone’s pet, toy, or plaything. I am not part of your game. The only one having fun around here is your Holt.”

Otter was sure Rua’s lesson was supposed to be instructional, but she’d be a liar if she didn’t say it was doing something for her. She’d had Rua pinned as a sub, but apparently that wasn’t the case. She definitely had a praise kink, but she also didn’t tolerate anything resembling disrespect.

“Here,” Otter said, scrambling to Rua’s side, a bit of mischief and more than some arousal in her heart. “She’ll respond better with this.”

Otter yanked Sami’s pants down to her mid-thigh, revealing her bare ass. Sami had a fairly athletic build, and it showed in her toned and sculpted rear. Rua looked down, and her cheeks flushed red, and she mouthed silent words of incredulity at Otter.

Sami began to thrash at her bonds. “I know it’s you, Mayumi. I’m not stupid, and only you’d be enough of a pervert to do this.”

“Who’s ‘Mayumi?’” Otter said with mock innocence. “I’m just Otter. Now hush and take your punishment.”

She placed a finger gently against Sami’s lips, and made a hushing noise. Sami looked absolutely furious, which was fair, but Otter’d had sex with that woman enough times in the past to know she was absolutely turned on, too. Otter gestured for Rua to go ahead, and after a brief moment’s hesitation, she spanked Sami again. The hit wasn’t nearly as hard as before, and Otter gave her an annoyed look, so Rua did it again, but firmer.

Sami, to her credit, made no noise, and kept her eyes locked on Otter the entire time, which kind of made it even better.

“Do you have something to say to her?” Otter asked Rua.

Rua seemed in a trance which she had to visibly shake off. “Right. Are you… are you going to be a problem for us?”

“I wasn’t before,” Sami growled, “but now that I know who GrandTheftOtter is, you better–”

Smack!

Rua’s hand came down the hardest it had so far, and this time Sami yelped. Rua didn’t let up. Now that she’d gotten a reaction, she kept at it, peppering Sami with a series of hard smacks, alternating cheeks as she went.

Otter knelt by Sami so they were eye-to-eye, and ran a hand through her hair. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m sorry about how things ended. If I could do it over again differently, I would. I still love you, you know. I never stopped.”

Sami made a growling noise which quickly gave way to a high-pitched whine. Sami loved to dominate the people in her life, both in and out of the bedroom, but deep down, she’d always been a sub. It just took the right hand to get her there.

Otter met Rua’s eyes and said, “Remember the Dreamer.”

Rua nodded, and then brought her hand down one last time on Sami’s ass, but this time, it was gentle, rubbing away at the burn. She ran her fingertips softly along the flesh, barely grazing her flesh.

“That’s it,” Rua cooed. “That’s my good girl. How much more do you think you can endure?”

Sami panted heavily, the beginnings of tears in her eyes, but she leaned into the touch. When Rua pulled her hand away, she whined pitifully.

Rua gave her another smack. “I asked you a question.”

“Whatever… whatever you can give.”

“Whatever I can give? Which do you want?” She ran her hand softly down Sami’s flank, and then followed it up with a quick smack. Sami groaned. “Do you want it all? Are you that greedy?”

Sami shook her head and bit down on her lip to keep from answering. So, Otter learned back and ran a quick finger along Sami’s exposed pussy. She let out a quick groan and tried to move into it, but Otter withdrew her fingers, but held them up for Rua to see the light glistening on them.

“What’s this?” Rua asked. “Are you enjoying yourself that much?”

When Sami didn’t immediately answer, Rua gave another smack, and then moved her own hand to stroke along Sami’s lower lips. Rua’s face was red with embarrassment the entire time, but her eyes were focused.

Sami groaned, and looked at Otter imploringly.

“Tell her who she belongs to,” Otter said.

Rua gave a quick cough, but Sami answered for her, “Rua. Please. Just… finish it.”

Otter smirked. “You always were as much of a slut as me, no matter what you said.”

Sami let out a frustrated groan.

“I… I want you to say the whole thing,” Rua said. “Say who you belong to.”

“I’m yours,” Sami cried. “I belong to you. Are you happy? I’ll leave that fucker alone. I’ll do what you say. Just… just let me finish, please.”

The tears were actually flowing now, and Sami was working herself to a desperate pitch, thrusting herself backwards into Rua’s hand.

“You know, I can tell when people lie to me. And good little pet that you are, you’re going to remember this moment. So when I come calling, you’ll answer, won’t you?”

“Yes. Just please, please.”

Rua thrust her fingers into Sami, and pumped hard and fast. It didn’t take long. Sami went off like a firework, her eyes rolling into the back of her head and groaning incoherently. She slumped forward, but her whole body twitched as she came and came often. Still Rua worked at her, setting her off multiple times in rapid succession.

Otter moved forward, her lips brushing against Sami’s. She wanted to say something. To gloat, or to apologize, or maybe to explain herself.

But then reality blurred, and Sami was gone, and Rua and Otter were back in the cabin in the swamp.

Chapter Text

As soon as they both realized they were back, Rua swatted Otter on the arm. Hard. It was enough force to stagger Otter to the side, but not nearly as much force as she suspected Rua could generate.

“I can’t believe you made me do that,” Rua said, her face positively flaming.

Otter could barely keep the amusement out of her voice. “Made you?”

“I’ve never done anything like that in my life before! You… you… tale-telling pelanoa!”

“As I recall, you spanked Sami first. And you were enjoying it.”

“Never you mind what I might’ve enjoyed. You’re a bad influence.” She crossed her arms and huffed. She was adorable when she pouted. “I’d heard pelanoa could… influence people around them. Talk them into… doing things they normally wouldn’t do.”

Otter snorted. “I don’t know about that. I’ve been able to talk people into sexy fun times for years before I got a dick. Speaking of…”

She’d been more focused on the time with Sami, but now that they were out of the situation, Otter’s erection was definitely giving her a hard time. It wasn’t exactly threatening to rip through her pants, but it was a bit uncomfortable. She didn’t exactly want to whip it out, and didn’t know the exact protocol for adjusting herself in a public place. How did boys manage these stupid things? She was going to have to rub one out. The amount of times she’d heart Everett complain that blue balls were in fact a thing and a terrible blight to deal with could fill a scrapbook in itself, and she didn’t particularly want to see if they were still a thing when your testes were apparently internal.

“Oh no, I am not dealing with that thing, too,” Rua said.

“What? No, that’s… that’s not what I meant.”

But now the image was in her head. She could just see it. Rua, on her knees before her. Looking up at her with those pretty eyes of hers. Just so eager to please. Maybe she’d–

Otter had to shake it off before she got too caught up in it. Maybe her libido was cranked a little bit more than usual.

“You should probably let Sami go,” Rua said.

“What?”

“Have you dismissed your Thread on her? If not, it’s probably still up, meaning she’s still tied up with her pants pulled down.”

“Right, yeah.”

Otter gave it a little bit of focus, determining which of her Threads she wanted to terminate. She’d have to leave Paul’s up, for now, just so he wouldn’t bleed to death, but she didn’t have a use for any of the others. She cut them, and it was like a tension in the back of her head that she hadn’t even known had been building was released all at once.

“It’s done.”

“Good. I’d hate to have put all that work into her and have her die in the wilderness or wherever she ended up.”

“Work isn’t the only thing you put into her.”

Rua swatted her again, her cheeks heating up. “Quit that.”

“Sorry, I think I’m a little, uh, keyed up. After the thing with Sami. I should probably go outside and, uh, deal with it.”

Rua practically pushed her out the door in her haste to get her away. It slammed shut behind Otter, who could only smile in amusement, made her way to the back of the cabin to the woodcutting area. She didn’t exactly know why she wanted privacy so badly. Part of her would’ve loved to have Rua watch. But she’d already pushed Rua pretty far on her boundaries already for one day.

Otter had to make sure the windows to the cabin were shuttered closed, because for some reason, it felt like someone was watching her. She couldn’t help but feel like she was about to do something terribly taboo and forbidden.

She’d yet to actually jack herself off. That was probably it. Some distant societal guilt where a made-up sky bully would judge her for touching herself, only doubly so since now she had a cock.

Except… she was in the world of Fell Champions now. This was out of the domain of any Earthly god. This was the providence of the Dreamers. And something told Otter that the Silayan Dreamer would approve.

Otter eased her pants down, and grabbed a hold of her cock. It still felt so weird to have one. Would she still have chosen this, if she’d known what that gender option would do?

As she eased herself with one long, slow stroke, Otter quickly realized, yeah, she probably would.

At first, Otter worked herself in a quick rhythm, eager for release, a slave to the pleasure. It was such a different feeling than she was used to. Not as deep, not a feeling in her core, where it just kind of built on itself and reverberated. This was more like electricity, hitting all her extremities and demanding to be let out. As she pushed herself along, she could even feel a nerve in her left foot twitching, warning her of what was about to happen.

At the last second, she stopped herself, panting furiously.

No. She couldn’t just do this for the release. She had a goal in mind. It wasn’t just about instant gratification.

All told, she’d managed to build herself up to near-orgasm in about two minutes of furious pumping. Good if she wanted to be over and done with quickly. Lousy if she actually wanted to be good at sex.

How embarrassing would it be if she actually managed to charm her way into Rua’s bed, only to be the most disappointing lay of all time.

No. Not on her watch, dammit. She was great in bed. She had a reputation to maintain. Legends were told of her skills at oral, and her finger game. She would be damned if she didn’t figure out this whole dick thing.

So Otter edged herself as well as she could manage. It was frustrating and a little bit agonizing, and she had to picture some pretty gruesome shit in order to bring herself down. She conjured up images she’d been sent from 4chan, memories of the comments section of ViewTube, every single time she’d been dismissed and belittled for being a woman in gaming…

She was really grasping for straws, trying anything that disgusted, annoyed, or angered her, discovering the latter only sent her into more of a frenzy. It was no wonder why so many ‘straight’ girls tended to become at least a little bisexual under the right attention if it were this easy to make a cock go off, even when actively trying not to.

And then, while looking through her memory for something, anything, that would stop her from cumming, she hit a recent one. And it didn’t just cause her to slow her arousal down, it halted it altogether.

For a moment, all she could think of was Nightmare’s stupid face. She remembered him pulling the blade from his own throat. Remembered him falling. Remembered herself finishing the job.

What was she even doing?

Her cock wilted in her hand, and she made no effort to try to get her erection back. She let it shift and move back inside of her, and readjusted her pants.

Was this what she was? Someone who forgot a man she had killed such a short time ago, and then immediately go off on whatever sexual escapade she could? She’d always used sex to run from her problems in the past, but this was taking it too far.

Otter turned back to the cabin, but stopped mid-step. She was too annoyed, too angry with herself, and she knew if she went back inside, she’d pick a fight with Rua, who had done nothing wrong. She knew herself well enough to recognize the Otter Self-Destruct Train as it was getting ready to set in motion. Step one, fuck. Step two, fight. Step three, run away.

She needed to blow off some steam, but she needed to do it some other way. The wood pile was tempting, but she had no particular desire to be mocked again for her wood chopping skills. Instead, she grabbed the bucket, and stomped off into the woods. If she was going to have a temper tantrum, she at least was going to be productive and get some moss or mushrooms or anything that looked like it might be able to be turned into food.

The entire time, Otter tried to get a feel for the air around her. Rua had previously instructed her on how to be able to tell the difference between the Ebb and the Flow. Apparently everything was supposed to feel more when you were in the Flow, but what that meant, Otter had no clue. More real, more sharp, more alive, they were all terms Rua had used, but they weren’t particularly useful. How did one thing feel more ‘real’ than something else? In theory, Otter was stuck in a computer game, and it felt just as real as it did the real world, especially the way the godamned mud clung to her as she walked through it, sucking at her feet and just making everything cold and gross and just muddy.

She was normally a strong advocate of personal hygiene, but the sheer amount of times she’d had to wash because of this stupid swamp was enough to justify burning the entire biome to the ground.

She needed to ask Rua why she was in this stupid swamp. It seemed like the kind of discussion they should have. But she was trying to respect boundaries. But it seemed important, like the kind of thing that might bite her the second they left said swamp. Rua clearly had some kind of history. You didn’t just get the skills she had just by being a swamp hermit who was only running from presumed racism. The way she’d completely took Sami apart in that fight… that was damn terrifying. How many more people out in this world were there like Rua?

And if Rua were hiding from something… what the hell could be scary enough that she needed to hide from it?

Otter worked as she thought, scraping at moss, and getting the odd mushroom. The harvest wasn’t particularly bountiful, but something was better than nothing. She kept an eye both on her Tenacity and Will bars as she worked. Tenacity seemed to regen at a steady pace, but so far, her Will had yet to regenerate. She’d need to run tests on that at some point. Or just ask Rua how it worked. Her Will was a far too important resource for her to just not know how it worked.

But for now, that Tenacity bar was proving important. So long as it had something in it, she had that forcefield back, and the deeper she went into the swamp, the more insects buzzed about. The little bastards kept connecting with her shield, but took off once they realized she wasn’t vulnerable. That made sense. If insect and animal life evolved on a world where this kind of protection was available, they’d either gain countermeasures, or eventually learn to just go look for easier prey after running into a shielded target.

Otter spent another hour in the swamp, not too worried about losing her way. She was a terrible outdoorsman, but the mud was so thick, and her tracks in it so obvious, that there was little hope of her not finding her way home. She tried avoiding crossing the small ponds that were strewn about, knowing she wouldn’t leave much trace through those, but took the time to try to catch some of the little crayfish-like things in them. She actually managed to get one, and when the little fucker pinched her, took great delight with the knowledge she’d be eating it later.

It was difficult to keep the time with the canopied tree cover, but when the light began to dim, she turned back and followed her path back. She opened her menu, and found a ton of message requests waiting for her.

Apparently a lot of people wanted to talk to her. Dev Vision, Digimane, someone just named ‘Moon’ who she didn’t recognize… Apparently she was quite the popular person suddenly. Everyone probably wanted the secrets of how to make a Pact, how to use the magic of this world.

Sami’s name was also on the list of people wanting a word with her.

Otter sighed. Well, better to rip that bandaid off.

The message window popped up, and Sami’s less than amused face came on screen. Wherever she was, it was sunny and positively inhospitable. Oh right, the Salass Wastes or whatever it was called. Everett had mentioned that.

“Sup,” Otter said.

“‘Sup?’ That’s what I get? Two years, and all I get is ‘sup?’”

“Two years? Dunno what you’re talking about. We just met earlier today.”

“And now you’re insulting my intelligence. Classic Mayumi. Did you really think I wouldn’t see through your disguise? Through your name? Did you think I’d fall for that impostor Pandemona?”

“Hey, I had nothing to do with her. Or, uh, anything else you’re talking about. Who’s Mayumi?” She winced at that one. Even Everett would’ve been able to see through that lie. “I’m just GrandTheftOtter now. Anyone else you might think I am isn’t here.”

Sami stared at her in silence, her expression a stone wall. An angry stone wall. An angry stone wall that would bite people if it could.

Otter continued, “If it makes you feel any better… I’m sure that whoever this Mayumi person is… she’s sorry.”

“You already said that part. Before, when…” She trailed off, and her cheeks heated just a little. “What you didn’t say was an explanation. You never told us why you left us. Why you retired.”

She shrugged, finding it harder to even look at the screen. “I’m not that person. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Can you please talk to me like I’m not an idiot, and pretend to be an adult for one second? Please?”

That brought up Otter short. Not the word itself. Sami was capable of manners. But it was the way she said it. Like she was in pain. Oh, she was hiding it well, but Otter knew Sami. Well enough to know the hurt in her eyes. Well enough to hate herself for putting it there.

“I’m not going to explain myself over… over a fucking voice chat,” Otter said.

“That’s an excuse, and you know it. I’m in a different part of the world than you, and you think that’ll buy you time to come up with a story.”

“No. I want to do it in person because I’ll have Rua there.”

“Oh, you want a bodyguard?”

Otter snorted. “Since when have I ever needed someone to fight my battles for me? No, I want her there, listening in on the entire conversation, for your sake. She’s a human lie detector. I don’t think it’s possible to run a lie by her.”

“If this is some kind of trick…”

“It’s not. Out of the old gang, I’m not the one who was the lying, manipulative one.”

“Hey, just because Il-Su also left doesn’t… ah, you meant me. I suppose you would see it that way.”

“Just… get to the Silayan Islands. Bring Everett with you, if you find him. Something tells me we’re going to need the whole clan back together if we’re gonna make it out of this game.”

She was going to add something to that, maybe some kind of inspirational speech about banding together and uniting against a common adversary, but something caught her eye. It was one of those crayfish-things, but bigger, the size of a lobster. Otter triggered her Thread of the Scourge, lighting up her section of the swamp with the glowing wire, and entangling the crayfish-lobster-meal in one smooth cast. She lifted up her catch for Sami to see.

“I’m eating well tonight,” she said proudly.

“Lucky. But never mind that. The whole clan?”

Otter left the lobster tied up and tossed it in her bucket, hoping it wouldn’t try to eat her smaller catch. But as she did, the shadows shifted in the swamp, the wire of Thread of the Scourge producing a glint off something in the swamp.

“Yeah,” Otter said distractedly, moving in closer to the source of the glint. “Me, you, Everett, Su, you know, the old gang.”

“You’re already a hard-sell for me, and you want me to include Il-Su?”

“Yeah, he’s here on the island somewhere. We’re supposed to meet up.” What was that? Was it metal? In the swamp? “I mean, if he ever responds again.”

“You haven’t told him who you are, right?”

“What? No. Secret identity. I mean, I have no secret identity, I’m just Otter Kaos.”

Sami breathed in sharply, and rubbed at the bridge of her nose with two fingers. “Just… stay away from Il-Su. And definitely don’t tell him who you are.”

“Sure thing, mom. Or, wait, do you still get ‘mommy’ privileges after what Rua did to you?”

“Can you… can you be serious for one second? Listen to me. Nothing good is going to come from you talking to Il-Su.”

“Yeah yeah,” Otter said, putting down the bucket and clearing away some mud from the metal object. It was bigger than she’d thought. Easily the size of her torso, and a good chunk of it was still covered in muck.

She got an idea. She staked her knife into the ground, leashed her lobster-thing to it – found that the lobster-thing had, in fact, eaten the smaller crayfish-thing – and emptied out her moss scrapings and mushrooms before refilling the bucket with water from a handy pool of water nearby, and rinsed away a bunch of the mud.

“What are you doing?” Sami asked.

“Dunno. Found something. Could be loot.”

“Guild rules, you need to share it with the clan if you can’t use it.”

“Well, thank goodness you don’t actually want to clan with my ass.”

“No, I want to clan with Rua. Unfortunately, you’re probably a package deal.”

“Rua does enjoy my package deal.”

“What?”

“What?” Otter replied innocently.

“You’re already fucking her, aren’t you?”

“Who, me? Honestly, no. But not for lack of trying. I’m wearing her down, and wow, how is this any of your business?”

“She literally spanked and fingered me. If you’re not fucking her, then it means I’ve gotten further with her than you have.”

Otter blinked at that. That… was true. How could that possibly be true? That didn’t seem fair at all.

Sami got that self-satisfied smirk on her face that she tended to get whenever she won an argument. Usually, it was hot. Now it was just really annoying.

Sami did a languid stretch, looking so positively please with herself, and said, “You know, I’m going to leave you to your little piece of loot. I’m going to message and see if Rua’s doing anything.”

“Don’t you even–”

The call terminated, the window closing on Sami’s smirking face. Otter swore to herself. This was just what she needed. Her ex trying to get with the woman she was interested in. She hated love triangles. Well, Hollywood love triangles. She preferred the type where everyone was banging at least one other person in the triangle, if not both. Poly-triangles were better than ‘love corners.’

Otter poured another bucket full of water on the large piece of metal, already formulating plans for her next move on Rua. She wasn’t going to lose out to Sami. Nope. She was gonna go home and literally seduce the pants off Rua. Just as soon as she was done with whatever this was.

Was she seriously procrastinating sex in favour of something shiny covered in mud? Why was she…

Oh right. Nightmare.

Fuck that guy.

His death wasn’t her fault. His own shitty life decisions put him in that situation. No. Holt’s shitty life decisions put them both in that situation. Nightmare’s blood wasn’t on her hands, it was on his. Stupid fucking narcissist wanting to do a Kayaba Akihiko impersonation. Couldn’t even get an original idea. Honestly, they all should’ve known better than to agree to play a fully immersive game that your mind completely entered. This was bound to happen eventually.

Enough mud had come off the shiny thing that Otter realized it was still even bigger. It was easily two feet wide, and three tall, and it was a helmet. Attached to a suit of armor below it.

Chapter Text

Otter looked at that weird helmet, wondering what the hell it could possibly be designed for. What was big enough to wear something like that? Were there giants in this game? Giants didn’t seem fair.

Well, it was a dead giant now. No way it could be submerged in mud for any length of time and still be alive. Meaning, as soon as she excavated this corpse, it was free loot. Universal rule of all video games. If you died, your stuff became someone else’s stuff. Unless there was some kind of keep inventory mechanic. But those were dumb. Competitive looting, that was where the real fun was at.

Otter scrubbed away at the mud the best she could with her hand. The helmet was fancy. It wasn’t just some battered piece of junk you’d expect to find lost in a swamp. There were runes etched into it, and as she changed her angle of view, she could see the light of her Thread of the Scourge reflecting back in different colours along them.

How was she even going to get this thing out of the mud? She was probably going to need a shovel. Which meant going back to the cabin. Maybe she could recruit Rua into helping her dig whatever this was out. She was strong, for such a tiny thing.

The light was fading, the sun going down. Otter didn’t want to be in the creepy death swamp at night. Which meant that, at best, she was going to go home, both sexually and loot frustrated, and have to try to sleep through the night like a kid waiting for Santa. And it was already hard enough to sleep through the night with that stupid chair.

Well, maybe it’d be better to see if the effort was worth it first. She couldn’t pull the full suit of whatever this was out of the mud – not yet anyway – but maybe she didn’t need to get the whole thing.

She tried to lift the helmet clear of the rest of the body, but it refused to budge. Pushing it didn’t work either. After some careful thought, she fully embraced the mud and put both arms around the helm and began to twist. There was some resistance, and then with a pained groan from somewhere inside her stomach, she finally forced it to turn a few bare centimetres. The steel made a sharp squeal as she did.

Bolstered by some actual progress, Otter gave it another twist, slowly working the helm loose like a screw. Once she got a rhythm going, it was easy.

“Loot, loot, gonna get me some loot,” she sang. “Loot, loot, steal this armour suit.”

“What are you doing?”

Otter let out a yelp and fell ass backwards into the mud, causing a splash and getting herself even more covered in absolute swampy filth.

She looked up, and sure enough, there was Rua standing over her, hands on hips, and an amused expression on her face.

“I’d hate you if I wasn’t planning on seducing you later tonight,” Otter muttered.

“What was that?”

She almost made a joke about something nicer she might’ve said, before bringing herself up short and remembering not to give Rua a sudden headache.

“Never you mind. What’re you doing out here?”

“Looking for you. I have a... what did Sami call it? A 'menu.' I had a headache from before, and I was trying to ease it with a mental relaxation technique along with your hand massage thing, and it appeared. I was trying to figure it out, and your Sami was able to speak to me with one of those windows. She told me you were looting something, and I got worried, for good reason. Do you even know what you’re playing with right now?”

So, Sami really was trying to talk to Rua behind her back. Just what she needed.

“No clue, but I figure it must be valuable. And I am a greedy little goblin-person.”

“I don’t know what a goblin is. But then, I don’t understand half the words you say sometimes.”

“Yeah, well, the English language is dumb and constantly evolving. Wait until I start speaking in memes and emotes.”

“I have no idea what that means, but you’re speaking Silayan.”

“Am not. Poggers, yeet, ex dee, skibidi, rizz. I bet you don’t have any of those words in Silayan.”

“You have me there. That sounded like you just had a seizure.”

“Honestly, it feels like I just had a seizure. Help me up?”

Rua tapped her nose in thought, and then shook her head. “No. You’re covered in filth. I don’t have any extra clothes, and I am not running around naked while washing our clothes.”

“Mmm, naked laundry. We’ve all been there.”

“I can assure you, I haven’t.”

“Really?”

“It’s called ‘planning ahead.’ It’s a basic life skill.”

“Life skills? What’re those?”

Rua gave a theatrical sigh. “Why did I let you into my house again?”

“Because I am a mighty hunter!” She pointed to the leashed lobster-thing. “I have secured us food!”

“I guess that earns you another night in my bed.” Rua blushed. “I mean, under my roof.”

“Aha! That’s a Freudian slip if I ever heard one!”

“More gibberish. Come on, we need to get home. Asheborn’s marsh isn’t safe come night, not even in the Ebb.”

“But my loot!” Otter gave her very best pout.

“Leave it. It’s a Criobani weapon. Not only will it not work for you, but if any self-respecting Silayan sees you with it, they’ll attack you on sight. Maybe even the Mikovians, too.”

Rua picked up the lobster-thing, and gathered the mushrooms and moss-scrapings as well as she could with all the mud, while Otter struggled to get her feet back under her. She slipped a few times, but luckily didn’t fall back in, each time narrowly catching herself before she ended ass-first back in the mud.

“Can I at least look at it?” Otter said. “I almost got the helmet off.”

“You’re only going to find a dead body inside.”

“Dead bodies mean possible stuff!”

Rua rolled her eyes. “Fine, but be quick. We can’t be here much longer.”

Otter made a squeal of happiness, and almost went right back to singing her looting song, but after a sharp look from Rua, realized maybe it was best to stay at least a little quiet in the dangerous death swamp with night encroaching.

She went right back to unscrewing the helmet off the suit of armour. With the heavy lifting part of it already done, getting the rest of it done was easy. When the helm finally came loose, she unceremoniously dumped it to the side, and leaned over to look inside, summoning a Thread of the Scourge to provide light.

“Huh.”

What was inside was not what she expected.

Inside was a body all right. But the pale, nude figure inside showed no signs of decay. And if anything, from the way her breast moved slightly in time, it sure looked like she was breathing.

“Is it me, or does this corpse look a little… fresh?”

Rua hissed, and pushed Otter aside, drawing a knife. Otter reacted by instinct, entangling the drawn blade with her Thread and drawing it to the side as Rua stabbed down. The knife scraped against the steel of the armour instead of stabbing into vulnerable flesh.

Rua looked down at the Thread with a frown, and then peered into the armour.

“If she lives, we can’t allow it to continue.”

“Seems rude. Any reason for that?”

“Because she’s a Vexurian. She could kill us both. With ease.”

That made Otter’s eyebrows raise. There was something out there that could kill Rua easily? That put things into perspective.

Rua wasn’t trying another attempt to stab this ‘Vexurian.’ Otter didn’t believe for one second that she’d win in a contest of brute strength with her. The fact that Rua wasn’t ripping her way free of the Thread and getting right back to stabbing was more an indication of respect than of being bound from acting.

Otter leaned over, looking into the armour again. She twisted her hand and sent a thought to her Thread, causing it to release Rua’s knife. Lowering the glowing Thread into the armour, she tried to get a sense of what she was seeing.

The naked woman inside – was she really naked if she was inside a suit of metal armour? – was much smaller than the suit itself. Her whole body probably took up just the torso section, and she was bound inside with straps of a white cloth that had runes painted in blood over them. She was a redhead, and a proper ginger at that, looking to be covered in a smattering of freckles from head to toe from what Otter could see. Her hair was long and wild, curled and matted from the moisture, but otherwise preserved.

“What’s with these Vexarians?”

“Vexurians. They’re elite units out of the Criobani Empire. This one’s probably a leftover from their last invasion, before the Mikovians helped push them out.”

“What’s so scary about them?”

“They’re mindless killing machines. Slavebound to their armour.”

Otter reached inside, and pulled the woman’s hair aside. There was a collar around her neck, a black circle of metal, bound with more of those blood-soaked cloths.

“Slavebound,” Otter said. “Meaning, what? She has no will?”

“She and whatever her Pact is act as a fuel source for the armour. She’s stuck inside. If she leaves the armour, she dies. If we try to free her, she dies. No one’s certain how it works, but the theory is that the slavebinding is linked to the Vexurian’s life force. Remove it, and it’s like they hemorrhage their lifeforce without anything else to feed it into and work as a circuit.”

Something in Otter’s stomach felt a little sick. “Do… do they volunteer for this? Or are they actually slaves?”

“Slaves. During the war, the Criobani were looking for ways to tweak what they were doing. Alter it so it’d work with the Silayan Dreamer’s Pacts. They put some of our people in those things. It never worked. They all died, screaming in pain, whenever it turned on.”

“How is she still alive?”

“I don’t know. We drove them into the sea ten years ago. It might be her Pact keeping her alive somehow. Or maybe the armour is. It doesn’t matter. If she wakes up, she’ll kill us both.”

Otter stared down at that face. She looked so peaceful in her sleep. Otter didn’t need a second face burned into her memory, another person she murdered because of choices outside her control.

“We can’t just kill her. She didn’t ask for this.”

There was no anger in Rua’s voice. Just a resignation. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing with Criobani blood belongs on the islands.”

Otter whirled on Rua, staring into her eyes. Her two heterochromatic eyes. One blue, one green.

“Child of Criobani,” Otter said. “That’s what the Dreamer called you. Half-breed. She said that, too. And with how squirrelly you are about your eyes. If I peel back this lady’s eyelids, what am I going to see, Rua? Blue, or green?”

“It’s getting dark. We need to leave.”

“I’m not leaving until I get answers. So, you can go home, to safety, but I’m either getting answers now, or I’m sticking with the victim in the armour that can’t defend herself.”

Rua had the good grace to look guilty. “Green. Her eyes will be green. Silayans only have blue eyes. The only way you can get eyes like mine is if one of your parents is one of ours, and the other is one of them.”

“So, what? Some Criobani soldier raped your mother? Victim of war?”

“No. Worse.” Rua sucked in a breath. “My father was pelanoa. My mother was a Criobani soldier. My father defected to the enemy, betrayed the Islands and allowed the occupation to happen.”

Part of Otter wanted to press for more details. To get the whole story, because there was definitely more to it than that. But it was a wound in Rua, and there was nothing to be gained from digging into it. Instead, she tried a different tactic.

“Killing her won’t get rid of the Criobani blood in your veins,” Otter said.

Rua took a step back, as if struck, but otherwise said nothing.

“We have to help her.”

Rua held her knife out, handle-first. “This is the only help we can offer.”

“No, it’s not.”

And Otter triggered her Thread of Fate.

Chapter Text

“Are you insane?” Rua hissed, grabbing Otter by the wrist.

“Hey, offensive. Don’t stigmatise my mental health issues.”

Rua made a frustrated noise, but made no move to let go of Otter’s wrist. “You can’t just use that skill every time you meet a pretty girl. We still don’t even know what it does fully.”

“I can make a few guesses.” She didn’t quite want to vocalize her theory it might be a weird Harem no Jutsu. But it definitely had other uses. “But based on what it did to us, I think it might help her.”

“It might. But also remember, when you used it last time, it put us both on the floor. For a long time. And it’s almost night.”

“No, we have to–”

There was the sound of breaking branches, and then a high-pitched shriek. Otter felt herself freeze up, before casting her gaze in every direction, looking for the source of the sound.

“Get the helmet back on,” Rua said in a hushed voice, pulling a hatchet from underneath her poncho.

Otter didn’t waste any more time arguing. Their window had passed. She dismissed her Thread of Fate, relieved to see the reserved Will did not take effect yet, and scrambled for the suit’s helmet. She jammed it back on, and as quietly as she could, began to twist it back into place.

The entire time, the metal squealed in protest, and that wooden scream from deep in the marsh responded in kind.

“How do we kill one of these Cutting things?”

“If it’s one, with a lot of chopping,” Rua said. “If it’s more than one, we don’t. We either run and hope it doesn’t follow, or we die.”

“Great. How smart are they?”

“They aren’t. They just kill anything they perceive as an intruder. They’ll always use the shortest route to their objective.”

“That’s something at least.”

Otter heaved a few more times at the helmet. It wasn’t all the way back on, but it refused to budge any further. It’d have to do.

She scrambled away from the suit of armour, grabbed the bucket from Rua, and they both ran. The mud churned under their feet as they did, slowing their progress. The last time she’d been in this exact situation, she’d just been afraid of being kicked out of a beta test. Now it was with the knowledge that her actual life was on the line.

She stumbled once, but Rua was there, steadying her. Behind them, Otter could hear footsteps splashing in water not far behind them.

She still had her Thread of the Scourge active, wrapped around her wrist. It was faintly glowing, and likely acting as a beacon for the Cutting chasing them. She cast her hand upwards, the thread extending and reaching for a branch. When it looped around, Otter released it from her wrist, and then sent a command to make a noose.

Rua gave her a questioning look, and then nodded. Together, they stopped after running a few more metres, and turned to face what was coming.

After all this time, Otter wasn’t sure what to expect from an Ashborne Cutting, but somehow it fit neatly into her projections anyway. When it charged into the light made from her Thread of the Scourge, she saw that it had the form of a bipedal tree. It was twisted, and made from wood, and had no anatomy save for three grasping arms and two legs to support it, all gnarled and covered in jagged bark. It paused when it saw them, though it had no eyes she could discern, and when it did, its chest opened into a cavity that could only be a mouth and screamed the sound of broken branches and tortured souls.

It charged, throwing itself forward in a mad dash that was heedless of its own safety. It slipped in the mud, stumbled, and didn’t seem to care that its own haste was slowing its progress.

“Do you know what a pinata is?” Otter asked.

“No, but I get the feeling you’re about to show me.”

The Cutting scrambled forward, not paying attention to the noose it passed under, heedless of the danger. Otter sent a mental command, and the noose reached down, looping itself around one of its arms, and yanked the Cutting off its feet and upwards.

“Hit it until candy comes out!”

Rua was already moving, her hatchet swinging in a clean arc and sinking into wood. Even bound and hanging from the tree, the Cutting still tried to get at her any way it could, chomping at the air and lashing out with its arms and legs. Rua’s axe came down many times, chunks of wood flying from the Cutting, but it was heedless of the damage, not caring that large sections of it were being hewn from it.

“How much damage can these things take?” Otter muttered.

“It’s like felling a tree,” Rua said. “You don’t kill it. You cut it down.”

Rua chopped with workmanlike precision. There was no technique, only repeated strikes. She cleanly took off two arms, and both legs, only leaving the limb it was bound by. After, she moved in for the trunk-like torso, cleaving bark and wood away until a cavity had formed, and a pulsing heart was revealed.

Even without appendages, the Cutting still shook its stumps at her, questing with limbs that were no longer there.

Rua handed Otter the hatchet handle-first. “Kill it.”

“Why me?”

“Because if I kill it, the soul crystal will only work for me. And while I rarely turn down more power, you’re the weaker of us right now. I want out of this swamp. And I need you to be closer to where I am in terms of power in order to get us out of here.”

“You still haven’t told me why you’re in this swamp.”

“You haven’t asked.”

“I like to respect boundaries.”

“Well, respect them at home. Chop out the heart.”

“Work, work.”

Otter took the axe, trading the bucket for the weapon, and lined up her swing. She hesitated for a second, remembering doing this to Nightmare just hours ago. But she steeled herself, and swung into the heart, cleaving out the arteries in a series of chops. The Cutting stopped moving, going limp.

Otter pulled the heart from the cavity, and the two fled back to the cabin. In the distance, there was another scream from a Cutting, but it was well behind them. When they made it back home, Rua threw a latch bar into place on the door, locking it, and moved to close all the shutters, something she hadn’t done before.

“Will they follow us here?” Otter asked.

“They shouldn’t. The cabin was built in the centre of the Ebb. Ashborne’s influence is at its weakest here. They shouldn’t have the strength to function here. Still, it’s better to be safe.”

“Wait. Who even built this cabin?” she asked, setting the wooden heart she collected down on the kitchen counter.

“Ah, finally thought to ask. It wasn’t me. It was owned by a… friend. No one’s used it in years, not since the Criobani tried using this island as a staging area and kicking up a feud with Ashborne.”

“Wait, the whole island is like this? This isn’t a death swamp, it’s a death island?”

“No. Once we leave the swamp, we’re out of Ashborne’s influence, but there’s nothing else on the island to stick around for. Once we leave the swamp, we’ll be leaving the island.”

“Oh, you have a boat just lying around?”

“A boat? Why would we use a boat? We’ll just get a soo-meng.”

“Okay, you’re not allowed to pretend I speak gibberish all the time when you do it right back.”

“You don’t know what a soo-meng is? How do people get around where you’re from?”

“Honestly, that’s a good question with how bad traffic is these days. A lot of ride sharing.”

Otter dismissed her previous Thread of the Scourge that was still holding up the mangled corpse of the Cutting in the woods, and got to the business of stripping down to take a bath. She had nothing to change into, but that was all part of her master plan.

She made sure to disrobe in Rua’s line of sight, bending over just so that her best asset was on full display when she pulled her pants off, and to be facing Rua as she pulled off her shirt. She set all her clothes in a bundle, wrapped in the cloak she had conjured back in the arena battle.

She set the glyph stones in the bath to conjuring hot water, making sure to stretch and bend more than was necessary. She couldn’t see Rua, but she knew she was watching.

Otter reached down into the tub, running her fingers through the water. She let out an entirely unnecessary groan of satisfaction. She kept it tasteful. No need for porn acting. Not too much. Just enough.

“I’m going to wash,” she said. “I’m covered in filth.”

“I… I know what you’re doing,” Rua said, her voice weak and wavering.

Otter turned to look over her shoulder, giving a faintly sultry look. “I know. And that’s why it’s going to work.”

Poor Rua looked like a mouse cornered by a cat, frozen between the desire to hide or run away.

“Remember our first night?” Otter said. “How often did you think of joining me, that first time I was washing myself?”

“I… I didn’t.”

Otter faintly wondered if Rua was immune to her own lies. “Then your will’s stronger than mine. I wanted you the moment we first met eyes.”

Rua’s cheeks burned like the sun.

“Why don’t you come here,” Otter said, “and help scrub my back. I promise, when I do bite, you’ll enjoy it.”

Otter stepped into the tub, not taking her eyes off Rua, and sank into the hot water. She stretched as much as she could once fully submerged, making herself as comfortable as possible.

“Okay,” Rua whispered, and moved into the washroom to join her.

Chapter Text

Otter leaned forward in the tub, letting Rua run a cloth along her back. She made all the right noises. A soft sigh here. A small inhalation there. Nothing too exaggerated. It all sounded natural, and while some of it was, it was all very carefully choreographed. Otter knew all her steps before she made them.

Rua looked as if in a trance, somewhere between mystified and terrified. Her focus was entirely on the job set out for her, and her entire world was on Otter’s back as she worked, both completely entranced at the bare skin in front of her, and too afraid to look anywhere else.

“Right there,” Otter said as Rua pressed against her left shoulder blade. “That feels good.”

Rua paused for a brief moment, startled out of whatever reverie she was in, and then doubled down on her effort, as if she needed to make up for hours of lost time. It was a little too rough for Otter’s liking, but she wasn’t about to start criticizing and risk breaking Rua from her spell.

She just closed her eyes, and let herself ride the wave. She didn’t realize she was drifting off into sleep until a splash roused her. The water hit her face, warm, but not hot. How long had she been in that state?

Rua had an intense look on her face, her eyes focused, her mouth just slightly open as if she wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words.

“Yes?” Otter asked.

“I… I need to change the water. You… you had a lot of mud on you.”

“Then by all means.”

Otter leaned back, kicking one foot up onto the edge of the tub and watched Rua, who gulped. She reached for the glyph stone that controlled the water, not pulling her eyes away.

“You’re going to get your clothes wet,” Otter said.

Rua gave a panicked glance at her hand and the stone, but it wasn’t so submerged into the water that she’d get her sleeve wet by pressing it.

“What?”

“I’m going to pull you in here in a second,” Otter said. “Would you rather be clothed for it, or not?”

“But… I… I only agreed to wash your back.”

“But you’re dirty, too. You also need to be cleaned.”

“I can wait my turn, it’s fine,” she said, but her expression looked halfway caught between wanting to run away, and wanting to join in.

She pressed on the glyph, her hand missing it twice before tapping it, and the water began to vanish, taking the mud with it.

“But you’re absolutely filthy. And a good girl stays clean, doesn’t she?”

Rua froze, like prey having caught the sound of something it knew it should flee from.

“The Dreamer made you a promise,” Otter said.

She honestly felt both aroused and guilty for invoking this, but she couldn’t let Rua dictate the pace of their relationship. For one, she wasn’t the one in control, and for two, if that was allowed to happen, things would never get anywhere. Rua was just so firmly against the idea that anyone could find her attractive or loveable, and whoever had contributed to that, Otter would make pay, but that was a problem for another day.

“What was that promise?” Otter said. When Rua looked unsure of how to answer, she continued more firmly, “I said, what was that promise?”

“That… that she’d find someone for me. Someone who would take care of me. Someone I could…” Her voice faltered and fell to a whisper. “... submit to.”

“She meant me. You know that, right?”

Rua gave a small nod.

“Good. Then, here’s my first order. The Thread of Fate that I bound us together with… I want you to focus on it. I want you to look into me, as much as you can.”

Otter suspected Rua had explored their bond a lot more than she had. She seemed entranced by it at times, at a tangible source that could confirm actual affection directed at her. That someone cared for her.

Thread of Fate was different than Otter’s other skills in that she still wasn’t entirely sure what it did. There was no innate knowledge upon using it, but there was an instinctual level to it. She somehow knew that if she focused on it, poured her own feelings into the link, they would shine all the brighter.

So she did just that. She thought of her gratitude for Rua saving her life that first day they met. She recalled every single time Rua was gruff with her, and every time she became meek. She thought of meals by her fireplace, and her fond annoyance at getting constantly flicked for every little lie she told, intentional or not. She thought on Rua's bravery, and her willingness to fight to make others see that not just she was a person, but everyone else in this game, and how despite having the power, not going on a murder rampage to stop a possible tragedy in the making.

Otter barely knew Rua, but it felt like they’d been together for years, not days, because of the link. And she sent all of that to her. She wanted Rua to see all the things she liked about her, from the mundane things like the way she had a small, sly smile when she thought no one could see, to the lazy yet scary way she held herself when violence was about to happen.

Rua soaked it all in, her eyes misting over with tears. It wasn’t the reaction Otter expected, but then Rua closed the distance between them, and suddenly it was all lips and tongue, and a little bit of teeth, and that was a language Otter spoke very well, and knew how to respond.

And as they kissed, Otter could feel Rua’s affection back. And not just affection, but desire. Otter had restrained herself from transmitting that as much as possible, not wanting to scare Rua, but apparently that had been unwarranted, because what Rua threw back at her was like a furnace in her mind of heat and need for something to fuel it.

So Otter fueled it. She sent every bit of desire she had been harbouring for Rua right back, every dirty thought and fancy that had crossed her mind since coming to know her. She imagined gently making love to Rua in her bed, and then switched it up to a fantasy of roughly taking her and fucking her on her kitchen table. She thought of ideas of just laying in the grass, holding hands and kissing, and finding creative uses for her threads and having Rua at her mercy, which she would refuse to show.

There was no way Rua could see the actual images. The link didn’t work like that. But she could feel it, could bask in the pure sexual energy being directed at her.

Otter broke off the kiss, leaving Rua positively mussed. She wasn’t a great kisser – Otter had plans to show her the ropes as often as possible – and it showed from how there was just an absolute mess of drool coming from one side of her mouth. Her eyes were half-lidded and glassy, and Otter wasn’t sure how much rational thought was going on behind them.

“This is the part where you get undressed,” Otter said.

Rua made a noise of confusion, blinking, but not entirely comprehending.

“Strip,” Otter said, invoking as much command in her tone as she could. “Strip, or you’re doing naked laundry tomorrow. I might just make you do that anyway.”

Something came back in Rua’s eyes, some glimmer of recognition, and she jerked her top off in a series of clumsy motions. Otter watched her all the while, turning the glyph stone back on to add new water to the tub. Her eyes focused on Rua’s absolutely magnificent muscles as they were bared. She had the kind of build that looked soft but toned, and Otter knew that it’d undergo a radical transformation if she so much as flexed even a little, showing far more hardness than expected. A hardness matched only by her own, which had emerged at last, and which Rua stared at in noiseless wonder.

Otter ran a finger along her own length, and then shook her head, “Maybe later, if you’re good. For now, finish and get in here.”

Rua nearly fell over in her haste to get the rest of her clothes off. There was a wildness to her eyes, an animalistic desire that completely flaunted itself over the in-control stoicism she normally displayed. Water went everywhere as she all but threw herself into the tub, leaning into Otter and kissing her jawline.

“Easy,” Otter said, letting loose a small laugh. “You’re so much more eager than I expected.”

“Mine,” Rua said, a hint of a growl at its edge.

“Yes. But you’re also mine.” She lightly poked the end of Rua’s nose. “Now, what do I do with you?”

Rua reached for her cock, but Otter swatted her hand away.

“None of that.”

That seemed to deflate Rua a little. She looked small for a second, and there was the barest of flickers of something nasty through their link.

“What was that?” Otter said, trying to focus on it.

“What was what?” Rua said, a bit of a sulk to her tone.

“That thought. I felt it for a second. Tell me.”

“Make me.”

Otter briefly entertained the thought. Rua wanted to submit, wanted to be owned, but most of all, she wanted to be loved. And Otter would be damned if she fumbled their first time together just because of a passing desire.

“No. Just, talk to me, for a bit.”

She leaned forward, and gave Rua a quick peck on her lips, and then motioned for her to turn around. Rua looked unsure, but did as instructed, facing away and sitting down, and Otter pulled Rua into her, wrapping her arms in a soft hug, and then placed a few chaste kisses on Rua’s neck.

“We need to talk,” Otter said. “I want to talk. With you.”

Otter had never been good at this part, but not for lack of trying. She never could seem to find the right words, usually only the wrong ones, but this day, she somehow landed on the correct ones.

“You… you wanted to use that skill. On that Criobani.”

Jealousy. So, that’s what it was. Not over another woman specifically, but for wanting to share the link with someone else.

“I didn’t want to use it,” Otter said. “I… just had this feeling.”

“Feeling?”

“That it’d work. That… her armour was taking up a piece of her soul. You said if we disconnected her from it, freed her, she’d die. And part of me just… knows that, if something were there to catch her… she’d be fine. I don't know. It seems sad to me, that someone made her a weapon and then discarded her.”

“Is that all?” Rua asked. “It’s not that you saw another option, and just wanted to…”

Otter squeezed her a little tighter, and sent what affection she could through the bond. “No. You’re stuck with me. I mean, I’m poly, so, I might get another girlfriend or two along the way, but I don't even know this girl. And I'd never take another without talking to you about it first.”

“Talk,” Rua said, some humour returning to her voice. “Is that what we did before you had me spank and then finger your old lover?”

“Hey, you started spanking her first. Don’t put that one on me.” Otter ran one hand up and down Rua’s abs. They felt every bit as good as she'd thought they would. “And it goes both ways, you know. If you want to pursue something with someone else, you can. You just have to talk to me first.”

“Oh, then I can message Sami?”

Something in Otter’s heart clenched a little at that, but Rua laughed, and with that she knew everything was going to be okay.

They spent some time just sitting there, Otter gently stroking one hand up and down Rua’s abdominals, occasionally planting a kiss or a soft bite on Rua’s neck. Finally, Otter couldn’t restrain herself any longer, and moved one hand to cup at Rua’s breast, gently rolling a nipple with her thumb.

“What do you like?” Otter asked.

Rua made a contented noise, but no response.

“Soft and gentle,” Otter said, continuing her ministrations, and then pinched down on Rua’s nipple between her forefinger and thumb. “Or something a little more rough?”

Rua hissed a little and positively squirmed in her grasp. “I’m… I’m a… ah, what was that word you used….”

“A virgin?” Otter said, a little bit of playfulness in her tone. “I thought you said you didn’t like the idea of people prizing them.”

“It is stupid. But… I want to be prized.”

“You are, virgin or not. You’re mine, just as much as I’m yours.” But those words, that Rua had confirmed what Otter long suspected, set her into a near frenzy. She’d always thought the obsession with virginity and purity was ridiculous, but now, with her cock pressed into Rua’s back, there was just a sudden desire to plant her flag, so to speak. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I… I don’t know. I think I like both.”

“I can do both. But since it’s your first time, I think I’ll be gentle. I wouldn’t want to break you right away.”

Rua shivered at that, and Otter ran a long kiss along her ear, taking the lobe into her mouth and sucking on the edge. All the while, she played with Rua’s breast with one hand, while running her other up and down along her abs, sinking further with every pass. Rua opened her legs, and Otter wasn’t sure if it was a conscious choice or not, but she knew an invitation when she saw one.

Her hand dipped lower, playing with Rua’s lips, running one finger along them, and Rua let out a pitiful noise. Otter didn’t make her plead, or beg, although she knew she could, if she wanted. But that wasn’t the kind of experience she wanted to deliver, not this time. This wasn’t about her own gratification.

She teased Rua a little longer, gentling nibbling at her ear while she stroked along her nether regions, and then slowly inserted a finger. Rua held her hand to her mouth, covering it as she made a whine, but Otter pulled it away with her free hand.

“None of that,” Otter said. “I want to hear you.”

Rua gasped as Otter slowly worked her finger inside her tight channel. She stroked slowly and lovingly, getting accustomed to the feel of Rua and how she reacted. It was easy. Rua was just so responsive, just as easy to please as she was eager. It didn’t take long before Otter added a second finger, and began to work at her clit with her thumb.

She moved her fingers in time to Rua’s breathing, which was becoming increasingly more frantic. The noises she made as she became more and more undone were hypnotic.

“Give it to me. It’s okay. Just let it go.”

Rua made unintelligible noises, low but wild, and her head flopped backwards into Otter’s shoulder, and then lower, in between her breasts. Water splashed from the tub, as she flopped, and her mouth worked, as if she were trying to speak, but only sounds could come out.

She was getting close to her peak, and it had been easy to get her there. None of the usual buildup required, and Otter realized belatedly it was all thanks to the link. She knew she could be exploiting it to find Rua’s weak points, but hadn’t wanted to ‘cheat’ in this encounter. She hadn’t understood that Rua was just as capable of using it to please herself, honing in on the desire Otter was feeling and using that to amplify her own.

Otter knew she could still drag this out. Tease Rua and edge her and keep her from falling into bliss. Make her absolutely beg for it. And Otter would do that exact thing, but later. She’d already made the decision. No, there would be no waiting.

“You can let go now. I’ve got you.”

Otter curled her fingers just so, alternating between a steady pumping rhythm to pressing down on Rua’s walls, and applied pressure just so on Rua’s clit, and just like that, Rua went off. Everything in her rippled in a wave, and her eyes rolled back into her head. She made a long, self-satisfied groan, her body going stiff, and then all at once turning into putty in Otter’s hands.

She could easily work her into another one, she knew. Probably set off multiples. But no. She’d promised gentle.

"There's my good girl. You did a great job. Just rest now."

They laid there in the tub for some time. Otter picked up the wash cloth, and wiped at Rua, waiting for her to come back to herself. The orgasm had hit Rua hard and drained her, left her dazed and disoriented. Likely a side-effect of ‘cheating,’ although part of Otter wanted to claim it was because of her efforts. Maybe it was both.

The focus came back to Rua’s eyes, and Otter smiled down at her. “Welcome back, beautiful.”

“Mmm. Is it always like that?”

Otter chuckled. “That was me being nice and showing you mercy. Wait until round two.”

“Round… two?”

“That was just a little bit of finger play. Now… now, I’m going to fuck you.”

Chapter Text

Otter absolutely hated the term ‘slut’, except when labelling it on herself. And sometimes Sami, but only because Sami absolutely got off on being degraded. And most of the time when Otter used said term, she put it in conjunction with things that didn’t actually involve sex. For example, Otter was a slut for a good burrito. And not some shitty fast food burrito. A handcrafted one, lovingly constructed as if by someone’s abuela. Or fabrics. Otter was a bit of a texture whore. She absolutely loved alpaca wool, and learned both how to knit and crochet because there wasn’t enough alpaca products in the world to sate her desire for it.

So, typically, when she referred to someone as a ‘slut’, it was more out of a way to express their desire for something not related to sex. But looking down at Rua’s eyes, the way her pupils positively dilated at the promise of fucking her, there was no escaping it.

Rua was going to be one gigantic slut-bag whore.

But more importantly, she was going to be Otter’s gigantic slut-bag whore.

They let the water drain, and Otter insisted on towelling Rua dry, getting every part of her with a towel much higher quality than what she expected of a swamp cabin getaway. Where Rua had been hiding it all this time, Otter had no clue, but she was not going to bathe without it going forward.

Otter went over Rua’s body both with precise determination to leave every part of her dry – well, every part except one – and to worship her subtle curves and beautiful, toned form. Rua took it all with a faint blush on her cheeks, but no comment. Likely, she was still ‘cheating,’ focused on their link, and basking in whatever desire she could feel pouring from her partner.

Otter spent much less time drying herself, only giving herself a cursory once-over, knowing that she’d regret it when it came time to brush out her hair. But that thought was so far-removed from her priorities, she didn’t even know how to rank it beyond ‘completely fucking unworthy of her attention.’ Her hair was tomorrow’s problem.

Or maybe the next day’s. It really depended on how much of an endurance boost their Tenacity stats gave them.

Otter wasn’t particularly physically imposing, especially with how her stats were distributed, but Rua was so tiny, she picked her up in a scoop and carried her bridal-style to the bedroom. Rua let out a small laugh, wrapping her arms around Otter’s neck and going along with it, despite both of them knowing if Rua wanted to, she could easily be the one doing the carrying.

She’d yet to be inside of it, and didn’t particularly pay attention to what it looked like beyond the bed, which was a delightful queen-sized mattress, a weird choice for such a cozy cabin in a death swamp island.

There was only one blanket and one pillow, but that was fine. After sleeping in that evil chair, she’d sleep in a bed without a pillow. Not that she was particularly thinking about sleeping at that moment.

“How soft is that bed?” Otter asked.

“Soft enough.”

“How sturdy?”

“Afraid you’re going to break it?”

Otter raised an eyebrow at her and smirked.

“It’s made from sjardwood. It’ll be fine.”

“Challenge accepted.”

“No sex can be so good that it’s worth breaking a bed over.”

Otter’s smirk just widened in response to that, and she tossed Rua onto the bed. She bounced a little, but managed to right herself just in time and move before Otter landed next to her.

“This bed is soft,” Otter said. “You mean I’ve been sleeping in that chair when this was an option?”

“I offered.”

“Yeah, but you wanted me to stick to one side of the bed. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist all this within arm’s reach.”

Rua blushed at that, but managed to keep a neutral expression. “Are you going to keep talking, or–”

Otter didn’t let her finish, capturing her lips with her own. She went soft and tender, and when Rua tried to push for more, she pulled back. Rua made a frustrated noise, and Otter placed one finger on her lips to quiet her. Rua apparently didn’t get the message, because she caught Otter’s wrist and began to suckle on that finger. She bobbed her head up and down on it, maintaining eye contact the entire time.

Otter watched, entranced. She’d expected Rua to be more passive, more of a blushing maiden, waiting to be shown everything.

Otter lined up her middle finger to Rua’s mouth, and she happily took that one, too.

“Do you have an oral fixation?” Otter said. “Are you getting ready for me to jam my cock down your throat?”

Rua’s eyes widened, and she let out a happy groan.

“Well, too bad. It’s not your mouth I want right now. I’m going to fuck you nice and proper first. I’ve been eager to try this cock out. Don’t you want to feel it inside of you?” With her other hand, she reached for Rua’s pussy, and ran her finger along her entrance. “You’re wet. You’re practically drooling from both ends for me.”

Rua drew back from Otter’s fingers in her mouth, her eyes a little foggy, but clinging desperately to some form of rationality in her lust-filled haze. “Not inside.”

“What?”

“You…. you can’t finish inside of me. My only rule. I can’t get pregnant.”

Oh. Shit. Otter hadn’t even thought of that. Why hadn’t she thought of that? It seemed like the kind of thing that made perfect sense. She wanted to immediately assure Rua that she didn’t want to knock her up, but… the sudden thought of it.

Godamn.

Now, her head was just filled with images of it. Filling Rua with her seed. Getting her pregnant. Breeding her.

Would it really be so bad?

“Compromise,” Otter said. “I’m finishing in you. But it’ll be down your pretty throat, after I fuck you stupid.”

“You’re still talking.”

“For good reason. Because I’m going to be a bit rough. Not, like, full sadist rough, but I want to be safe, which means a safe word. Do you know what those are?”

Rua shook her head after a brief hesitation.

“Ah, fantasy worlds without internet. Don’t even know the bare minimums of BDSM, and I have a whole library of free porn to pull from. Okay. Briefest of summaries. We agree on a safe word. If I do anything you’re not comfortable with, anything you can’t withstand, I go too far on anything, you say the safeword.”

Rua’s eyes narrowed in defiance, as if she thought her badass certificate was being threatened. Otter needed to cut that short.

“Don’t try to be brave, or tough. If you don’t like it, you tell me. When I hear the safeword, I stop. No questions, no arguments. Trust me. I know what I’m about. I’m going to push your boundaries, and you need to be ready to tell me where they are.”

“Fine. What’s the safeword?”

“‘Red.’ Always go short, simple, and easy to say for a safeword. Red also means ‘stop’ where I come from, so it’s like a preconditioned response. If you say anything else, like ‘no,’ ‘stop’, ‘enough,’ whatever, I’m not going to listen to it, because I’m just going to assume it’s all part of the play.”

“I can take whatever you can give.”

Otter leaned forward and flicked one of Rua’s nipples. She hissed, her hand coming up to rub the sting.

“I don’t doubt that. Because you’re my good girl. Hey, wait, why did that work? Why do any of these flicks work? I never thought of that until now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your Tenacity. Shouldn’t it be shielding you from damage?”

Rua sighed. “Really? You want to know about this? Now?”

Otter pushed Rua down as forcibly as she could. She suspected if Rua didn’t want to be moved, she wouldn’t have been. Otter straddled her, looking down with her best menacing grin. Rua met it with a look of stubborn dissent. Oh, how Otter wanted to wipe it from her face.

She wasn’t normally a top. Well, she was, but she was more of a switch. She could go either way. But recently, just like her libido, it was like her aggression was amped up. Her need to control, to be dominant. She wanted to own Rua, body, heart, and soul.

Was it the game? Was it her being pelanoa? Or was it just getting back into sex after a bit of a break from, well, everything for so long.

Better to not think of that. She was here now. Still, she raised a hand, palm down, fingers splayed, and gave it a quick check to be sure.

And then she brought it down on the top of Rua’s head. Not hard, but her fingers wrapped into Rua’s hair, tugging it and her head to the side, and Otter moved in for her exposed throat. She ran hard, bruising kisses along her nape, and alternated to biting. She sunk her teeth into Rua’s neck, not hard enough to break skin, but definitely hard enough to leave a mark.

Rua stiffened at first, panicked, but then she ran a hand along Otter’s back in a soft caress, and in reward Otter ran her tongue along Rua’s pulse point.

“Mine,” she whispered, and Rua let out a shuddering breath.

Otter worked herself lower, always switching between kisses, nips, and running her tongue along smooth skin. There was something so alluring about the salty taste of sweat on skin, something that drove her wild.

She worked a knee in between Rua’s legs, and began rubbing at her core as she moved her way to her breasts. She suckled at one, and then the other, and then looked up to meet Rua’s eyes before taking a nipple into her mouth and biting.

Rua gasped, but grit her teeth and said, “I can take it, keep going.”

“Of course you can. You’re my good girl. But I haven’t even started yet.”

As if to prove her point, she ran her nails down Rua’s abs, hard enough to scratch but not break skin. She let up on the pressure from her knee to work her fingers into Rua, thrusting hard and fast. God, she was wet, and quickly turning into a moaning mess.

Finally, when Otter couldn’t bear to wait anymore, she pulled out, leaving Rua to moan a strangled protest which was cut short as soon as she saw Otter lining up her cock. She lined up her tip with Rua’s opening, rubbing the head against it, but hesitated.

“I have no idea how this is going to fit,” Otter said. “You’re so small. And I’m, uh, not.”

“I’m Silayan,” Rua said through gritted teeth. “I can take it.”

“Hey, this isn’t a toughness thing, I legit don’t know how I’m going to–”

Rua let out a groan of frustrated and shifted her weight towards Otter. It wasn’t enough force to shove Otter into her, but it was enough to get the tip in and to deliver her message.

“Just… remember the safeword,” Otter said.

“Won’t need it.”

“I’m sure you won’t. Just… remember it, for me, okay?”

Rua grunted, something that was probably supposed to be an assent, and Otter began working herself in. Normally, she liked to apply a lot of lube when using a strap or a toy, but Rua was absolutely soaked. And what was more, her fluids felt… a little different than what she was used to. She wasn’t sure how to describe it. It almost felt… slippier.

Otter managed to get a full four inches inside before she encountered any resistance. Even then, while tight, it gave in with enough pressure, and she moved herself in a gentle back-and-forth rhythm, not trying to force anything. Rua gripped onto her length like a vice, but also seemed to accommodate her whenever she tried to push in further.

The entire time, Rua whispered to herself in a chant, over and over, and it took Otter a minute to realize exactly what she was saying, and why.

“I’m a Silayan, I’m a Silayan, I’m a Silayan.”

Otter honed in on their link, and she felt defiance, anger, a whole lot of lust and affection, but also a touch of self-hatred.

Otter had long since suspected that Silayan biology wasn’t exactly the same as a regular human’s. Possibly no person’s was in this world. But Silayans in particular were different. That vision Otter had back when she’d invoked the Dreamer. It’d shown people from the island. And there’d been no men in it. Which meant, they were either sheltered away, extremely rare, or… the Silayans did not have men, and pelanoa stood in place of them.

And if all pelanoa were as endowed as Otter, it stood to reason that Silayan women would have some kind of way to accommodate them.

“That’s right,” Otter cooed. “You’re Silayan. You’re my Silayan.”

She managed another inch in.

“You’re not some frigid Criobani, are you?” Otter felt a spike of anger from the bond. But good anger. Heated, but passionate. “You’ll take my cock. It’s what you were born for, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Rua moaned.

Another inch slid in, almost effortlessly.

“Say it. Say you’re mine.”

“I am. I’m yours. I’m your slut. Your Silayan slut.”

Otter thrust once more, and it was like a key had been turned in place. She glided right through Rua’s tight passage to her hilt. Otter groaned in satisfaction, but Rua jerked once, her arms clinging to bedsheets in tight fists as she spasmed and came from the simple action of being filled.

Otter smiled down at Rua, pinching at her nipples before running her nails over her skin roughly. Part of her wanted to be nice, and let Rua ride it out, gently coast through it. But she was done being gentle.

She pistoned once, twice, and got herself into a beat. She switched her pace and her motions. Always before, when she’d been doing this kind of thing, it’d been with a strap-on, which was a clumsy device. This felt so much easier. No bits that could come loose, no parts that needed to be adjusted and refastened, an easy way to feel what was going on inside. This was sex on easy mode, as far as she was concerned.

Otter had been worried about finishing like a firework before, and that danger definitely still felt real. But Rua was like a Roman candle, going off over and over at a steady pace, small orgasms rippling through her from minimal effort. Maybe all Silayans were like this, or maybe she was just riding their bond and amplifying her own lust again. It didn’t matter.

Otter leaned forward and whispered into Rua’s ear, “You’re so fucking easy. I can’t even edge you, you’re so ready to cum.”

She gave a light bite to Rua’s ear, and even that set off a small orgasm through her. There was a glassiness to her eyes, her vision completely fogged over from lust, and Otter absolutely revelled in how undone Rua was.

She leaned back, pulling Rua up with her so that she was straddling her lap, and had to fully support her body. She’d gone completely limp, putty in Otter’s hands, and she had to deliver a sharp spank to Rua’s ass just to get some kind of response out of her.

Rua grunted, some spark igniting behind her eyes, and then she was gyrating her own hips, strength coming back to her as she thrusted herself up and down on Otter’s cock.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to finish inside of you?” Otter taunted. “Think about it for a second. I’d keep you barefoot and pregnant, happy to take my cock and my seed.”

Rua moaned, a noise filled with both frustration and desire, and thrust herself all the harder into Otter’s cock.

Otter slapped Rua’s ass again, setting her own hand to stinging from the force. “Say it. Say you want to be filled with my seed and bred. Come on, you Silayan slut, say it!”

Rua shook her head, riding out yet another small orgasm, and choked out a whispered, “Red.”

Otter pushed Rua down back onto the bed, and with all her willpower mustered, pulled out and repositioned herself. Rua eagerly took her cock into her mouth, managing to only fit maybe a third of it in before Otter came with a roar. She shook from the orgasm, and felt weak, like lightning had passed through her body, and it was all she could do to not fall forward on top of Rua with her cock still in her mouth and pulsing cum into her.

Rua sucked on it sloppily, white fluid spilling out the sides of her mouth, and a spurt erupting from her nose, but for all that, she refused to remove the cock from her mouth, and began working the shaft with both hands, pumping it until it was done. Only once it was finished did Otter forcibly pull herself away, leaving them both gasping and spent. They collapsed on the bed beside one another, meeting each other’s eyes.

Rua looked a positive mess, her eyes bleary and tears leaking, cum all over her lips and cheek along with drool. Otter was sure she probably looked pretty bad herself. Rua started giggling, and that set Otter off as well.

She didn’t know why she laughed, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world. When they were done, Otter reached forward, trailing one finger along a streak of cum on Rua’s cheek, and then put it to her lips. Rua locked eyes and eagerly sucked it off her finger.

They laid there for a few minutes, Otter just feeding her cum to Rua, who seemed all too eager to do it. The weirdness of the situation struck her, having a cock and threatening to breed this woman who’d so unexpectedly come into her life, and even the fact that she was stuck in a death game couldn’t damper any of it. This was the happiest she’d been in a while. It might’ve been the post-orgasm glow talking, but Otter just wanted to be there and nowhere else.

“You used the safeword,” Otter said.

“I didn’t expect…” Rua blushed. God, she looked adorable like that. “... that.”

“Boop.”

“So, what now?”

“I get to introduce you to aftercare. Come here. I need to show you how much of a good girl you are.”

Chapter Text

Otter pulled Rua into her arms, and they just laid there for a bit. She ran a hand up and down Rua's back, not really seeking anything, but just giving reassuring touches. The entire time, she focused on what she was feeling, basking in the afterglow or a particularly good orgasm, and maintaining eye contact with Rua.

Rua didn't seem to know what to do with any of this. She fidgeted and blushed, and tried to look away, but every time she did, Otter tilted her head back into position. In part, because she never could get enough of those lovely eyes, but also because she wanted Rua to see that she was cared for.

Of course, the little cheat being a little cheat, she was probably already abusing their link to feel it. And while Otter was hesitant to use it herself, she focused on it herself.

Rua was a mass of conflicting emotions. Tired, satisfied, hungry for more, but also afraid.

Otter planted a small kiss on Rua's nose, and then again on her lips. Nothing passionate or desirous, but nothing mechanical either. Just affectionate. If Otter had her way, she'd kiss her way across Rua's entire body, leaving no inch uncovered. But she was tired, and it was setting more and more in. So much for Tenacity boosting endurance to any noticeable degree in the bedroom.

She really was going to have to ask about that forcefield question at some point, but it'd be weird now.

"Hey," Otter said.

"Hey."

"You doing okay?"

Rua seemed confused, but she smiled. Wow, she had a smile Otter would fight an army to see. "Better than okay, I think."

"One sec."

She didn't want to, but Otter pulled away and got up. Her muscles groaned a little at protest. She'd spent just a few minutes too long resting, and now her body thought it was time to sleep while there were still things to be done. She padded over to the washroom, securing a pair of washcloths and wetting them, before returning to the bed. Rua was sitting up, but Otter motioned her back down.

"And what are we doing now?" Rua asked.

"Cleanup. Sex is messy."

Rua's face was a testament to that, but even tear-streaked and with a little bit of cum still on her cheeks, she looked beautiful. Probably even moreso. There was a raw look to her, a 'just fucked' feel that made Otter want to go in for more. Really leave her mark. But it wasn't the time for that. There were better ways to make an impression, especially with someone like Rua.

"Just lean back," Otter said. "I'm going to attend to you for a bit, and while I do, I want you to think about what we did."

If it were possible for Rua to blush any harder, she'd burst into flames. "You want me to just think about that?"

“Not about the sex. Well, yes, about the sex. But, like, what you liked. What you didn’t. And I need you to tell me. Be honest. I know it was your first time, and you’re probably eager to impress me–”

Rua made a snort of derision.

“--but this is important. I don’t want to do stuff you’re not comfortable with in the future.”

“Who says we’re going to do this again? Maybe I was just curious, and now I’ve had my fill of you.”

“You definitely got filled by me,” Otter said with a smirk. “But we both know you’re coming back for seconds.”

“Nope. You’re a fad. A passing fancy. Lucky to even be taken under my roof.”

“Poor little Rua. Sensitive to everyone else’s lies, but you’re so good at lying to yourself.”

It was meant to be a playful jab, but Rua flinched, looking away, and part of Otter panicked. She leaned in for another kiss, which was immediately returned with need. They lingered for a bit, just trading kisses and basking in each other’s warmth, until Otter pulled away and pushed Rua down when she attempted to follow.

“Now think,” Otter said. “Be my good girl, who did so very well tonight, and think about what you liked. And what you didn’t.”

Rua looked about to say something, but Otter silenced her by putting the first of the two washcloths against her lips. She lightly wiped away at the mess they’d made together. Rua didn’t seem to know what to do with herself, and settled on reaching for Otter, who just swatted her hand away and went back to cleaning, making gentle, reassuring noises as she went.

Rua closed her eyes and settled in, but her fists clenched onto the bed sheets, and her hold body was stiff. She clearly wasn’t comfortable being pampered in any way, which was too bad for her. Otter was going to do her best to make this a habit.

“Look at the pretty face under there,” Otter said when she was finished, and planted a quick kiss.

She ran her cloth lower, wiping away sweat, and paying special attention to the nipple she’d pinched. It looked like the area around it might bruise a little, and Otter winced. She normally wasn’t this kind of rough, unless she was really into that level of play. This had been more of an ‘introductory’ run. Maybe later she’d find inventive ways to use her threads, and maybe try some applications of pain. It all depended on what Rua said, and wanted.

For now, she tried to soothe away some of the swelling on Rua’s breast, carefully applying the wet cloth and being careful not to rub too hard.

“You took that well, didn’t you?” Otter praised. “My strong Rua.”

“Not strong,” she fussed. She sounded sleepy. Well, there was only one thing to be done about that.

Otter switched to her secondary washcloth. It wasn’t good to cross-contaminate, especially not when there was actual cum on the other one, and began to slowly wipe away at Rua’s vulva. Rua jerked at the sudden touch, her eyes flaring open, but Otter made hushing noises and went to work.

Her intent was to clean, and give comfort. She didn’t mean to start fingering Rua. Didn’t mean to get her to another quick, small orgasm. It just happened. Rua was just so responsive, and ready to go, her arousal obvious and her body communicating constant hungry neediness.

“Mmm,” Rua said. “I liked that. Is that what you meant?”

Otter set the two cloths down on a bedside table, and pulled herself along Rua and pulled her back into her arms. “No, that’s obviously not what I meant. Everyone likes orgasms. That’s like saying, ‘I like sunsets.’ It’s meaningless. Everyone likes looking at sunsets.”

“I like this,” Rua said, snuggling into Otter’s arms.

“Cuddle-slut, gotcha. Anything else?”

“I liked it all. Except the bit at the end there, where you… you know.”

“Threatened to turn you into my little breeding cow? Yeah, that’s fair. I was pushing your boundaries. Needed to figure out where they were, and needed to impress upon you the importance of safewords.”

“Well, I didn’t like it. No more of that.”

“No pregnancy kink, gotcha. I can avoid doing that easily enough. But truthfully, I think I was into it a little.”

More than a little. Once she’d realized she could actually impregnate someone with this thing, it’d been all she could think about. Not that she was going to run around, sowing her oats wherever she could. The last thing she needed was a whole army of bastards out there.

“Find someone else to do it with. You’ll find lots of volunteers on the main islands.”

That stirred something in the pit of her belly. She wanted to press, ask for more on that. But Otter wasn’t dumb enough to start asking after other, more breedable women while still in bed with her partner.

“What about anything else?” Otter asked. She ran her finger along Rua’s bruised breast. “Was this too rough?”

“I can take a little pain.”

“Of course my good, strong girl can. But that’s not what I asked.”

“I guess… I liked it? And when you smacked my ass. It’s weird. I didn’t think I’d like that, didn’t even think you’d do that kind of thing in bed, but…”

“It’s just another sensation. And you release endorphins when…” Rua gave her a confused look, and Otter realized she was going to have to explain brain chemistry. She fumbled through the explanation as best she could, but it wasn’t exactly her area of expertise.

“I don’t know if your world is very wise, or very stupid,” Rua said.

“Both, I think. But I imagine the same is true of your world, or any others out there.”

“Mm. I also liked when you… get possessive.”

“Do you know why that is?”

Rua gave a shy shrug.

Otter leaned in and whispered into her ear, “Because I fucking own you. You’re mine.”

Rua made a noise, long and low, something like a moan and a whine.

Otter couldn’t help herself. She moved one hand high, and the other low. One set of fingers gently pried open Rua’s lips, and then stroked along her tongue, while her other hand’s fingers slowly played with her her other lips before inserting themselves in.

“Definitely an oral fixation,” Otter said, as Rua began to bob up and down on her digits. “Do you like that? Having some part of me in your mouth?”

Rua nodded her head, her eyes half-lidded as Otter slowly fingered her.

“I can’t wait for you to suck my cock. Break in your pretty little throat properly. But not tonight.”

Rua made a plaintive whine, and sucked on Otter’s fingers all the harder, as if desperate to prove how good she’d be at it.

“I’ll let you have one more,” Otter said. “One more orgasm. But that’s it. Do you want it?”

Rua nodded her head frantically, and Otter increased the pace of her lower fingers.

“You’re going to have to ask me for it.”

She pulled her digits from Rua’s mouth, who let out a frustrated mewling noise and tried reaching for them with her own hand.

“None of that now,” Otter said. “I want you to ask for it. Ask me to let you cum.”

This time, she cheated. She sank herself into the link, getting a feel for how close Rua was. She was nearly there, and based on how hard Otter was working her, she was going to finish soon. So, she let up.

Rua bit her lip and made a frustrated noise.

“Ask for it.”

Rua shook her head.

“You’re being a brat. And it’s adorable. But I need you to be good. And good girls ask for permission.”

“Can… can I finish?”

“Say ‘cum.’”

A low moan. “Can I cum?”

“Where’s your manners?”

“Please?”

“Please, what?”

Rua bucked against her hand, and Otter withdrew her fingers. Rua seemed to get the hint.

“Can I cum please?”

Otter gave her a quick kiss. “Anything for my good girl.”

And then she moved down, kissing her way down the path to Rua’s nethers, and ate her slowly and languidly, giving her long, broad strokes with her tongue. Rua, for her part, flickered from surprise to ecstasy, throwing her head back and making a satisfied noise. Her fingers sank into Otter’s hair and tugged, pulling her in as close as she could.

Otter could tell through the link that while her efforts were appreciated, Rua liked it a little faster, a little harder. She seemed to enjoy oral, but what she really wanted was to be penetrated in some way, and Otter was happy to oblige her, working in two fingers again while sucking on her clit.

It didn’t take long for Rua to finish. She’d been so close, and the two-pronged attack worked perfectly. Her right leg twitched, and her abdominals absolutely rippled, a sight Otter was entranced by. Otter guided her through it, helping her crest the wave with careful kisses and the perfect application of pressure where it was needed. When she was done, Rua was a panting mess, her eyes glazed over once again. Otter pulled up next to her, hugging her close.

“There’s my good girl,” She said, stroking her hair. “Isn’t this good? Being mine?”

It took a few minutes for Rua to respond, but when she did, it was a quiet, “Yes.”

Chapter Text

When Otter woke up in the morning, she was the little spoon for Rua. Her everything was a little exhausted, muscles just absolutely drained, but in a good way. She was tempted to wake Rua up with some kind of sexy time, but what they had was a little too new for that. She was too prone to screwing things up, and she was determined not to do what she normally did.

So, with a little regret, she slowly extricated herself from Rua’s grasp, placed a kiss on her forehead, and went to attend morning activities. The little lobster-thing had apparently tried to escape during the course of the night, having gotten down from the counter, but couldn’t find freedom with the door latched. She picked it up, placed it in the bucket, and went to the annoying task of naked laundry.

She would’ve made breakfast, as was her post-sex tradition, but in this damn game, she didn’t know how to cook anything. All the ingredients beyond a small jar of salt were foreign to her, and she had no idea how anything went with each other. She was going to need to relearn an entire life skill.

Well, she had time.

Rua had previously shown her the basin for clothes outside, complete with a washboard. She’d never had to use one before, but how hard could it possibly be?

After an hour and doing a thoroughly shit job at it, Otter remembered she had her Thread of Sanctuary skill. It specifically stated she could make a garment, but the skill didn’t say how big or small it had to be. Casting it, she wove a long, white overcoat that would fasten together in the front. Her own instinctual knowledge of the skill let her know that any dirt would count as ‘damage’ to the clothes, and would fade away naturally over a short time period. She’d need to renew the casting every day, but screw it, this had to be better than pants that barely fit, and having to do naked laundry every time you went out into the death swamp.

Before spending the five will points, her resource had apparently fully regenerated at some point. There were a few message notifications waiting for her, none of them live requests. She went through them, all recorded inquiries. Sami, asking how things were. Everett, following up on Sami’s offer to clan up. Apparently they’d found a fifth, but no word on who it was. Something from ‘Pandemona’, but it was a stumbling, stuttered attempt at an explanation that she wasn’t the real Pandemona, and had only impersonated her ‘hero’ as a way of honouring her. A whole lot of requests from people wanting to know how to use magic. A lot of people wanting to know where she was, and if she could help them. Apparently a few people were stuck in the wilderness with no civilization in sight, and being gamers, had no life skills to help them survive the wilderness. There were a couple pleading for help, worried they’d die from dehydration soon after failing to locate water.

Otter didn’t know if she could trust those. Her heart went out to them, but her position in this community was tenuous.

When she came back inside, leaving the barely washed clothes to hang dry, Rua was waiting for her. She was wearing nothing but a shirt, which almost distracted Rua enough to not notice the pair of steaming mugs of something that smelled good. Between them was the wooden heart of the Cutting they’d killed.

“That had better not be breakfast,” Otter muttered.

“It’s not. But it’s better to eat it on an empty stomach. Soul crystals aren’t always… appetizing.”

“What happens if I throw it up?”

“You can’t. In the sense that, it dissolves as soon as it hits your stomach. If you vomit after that, you’ll just be losing everything else in your belly. It’s fine. Most people do.”

“So, suppose I should get that morning kiss before?”

Rua rolled her eyes, but Otter could tell it was just for show from how eagerly she reciprocated once they did. Although after, she made a noise, and pointed to a cabinet.

“There, in the bottom drawer. Ytha root. Break off a piece and chew. Spit it out when you’re done.”

Otter followed her instruction, and in that one drawer was a giant pile of gnarled twigs. She took a small piece off one, and bit into it. The surface was dry, but the inside was kind of soft and mushy. It tasted kind of minty.

“Is this your dental hygiene?” she asked around the bit of root in her mouth.

“Yes. Your kisses smell like my feet after walking in the swamp. Drink some tea with it, it works better if your mouth is wet.”

“I wouldn’t mock my breath right now, after how much of my cum you drank last night.”

Rua blushed faintly, and suddenly found the contents of her mug very interesting.

“Sorry, low blow. Kind of like the one you did last night, am I right?” Otter held up her hand for a high five, and then remembered they probably didn’t have those here. “I’ll stop, I swear. I don’t mean to tease. I just… tend to talk when I’m nervous.”

“You’re nervous?”

“Rua, you scare the shit out of me in the best possible way. I don’t wanna fuck this up, and my mouth tends to get me into trouble.”

“I don’t know. It kind of helped your case last night.”

Otter had just taken a sip of tea, and nearly choked on it. “Was that banter?”

“Eat your soul crystal before I force feed it to you.”

Otter tried her best sulk, to which Rua was apparently immune. When she hesitated, poking the wooden heart and watching the way it rolled, Rua snatched it up, carved it in half with a knife, and handed the sliver of white gemstone within.

“I better get a reward for this,” Otter said.

“Power is the reward.”

“No, I meant like, kisses.”

“I only kiss adults. You’re being a child right now.”

Otter sighed, grabbed the crystal, tried to suppress the memory of killing Nightmare and eating his, wasn’t able to, and then swallowed it. She nearly gagged the second it hit her tongue, definitely did the moment it hit her throat, but managed to get it down.

Choose Stat to Enhance

Strength / Agility / Fortune

“My choices are Strength, Agility, and Fortune. I kind of want to pick Agility, make myself a little quicker.”

“No. Strength. With those threads of yours, you’re going to get pulled every time you try to bind someone. I don’t think we’ll be able to get you to the point where you can win any match of brawn, but I want it so you don’t just get pulled off your feet every time your thread hits something.”

“Fine.”

She made the selection, and pulled up her stats.

It looked like she’d gotten at least two points from the Cutting, which meant it had at least 20 Strength. She read off her numbers to Rua, who nodded thoughtfully.

“Better than average. Most people don’t have any soul power.”

“No? I figured people would be farming livestock for these things.”

“Livestock doesn’t drop them. Only self-aware creatures. The only reason why Cuttings have them is because they’re pieces of Ashborne.”

“Still, you’d think someone would set up a farm somewhere for something that does.”

“It’s been tried, by the Criobani. Why do you think they invade lands like mine?”

“Shit, really?”

“The Dreamers permit it. To an extent. The Criobani and the Salassians have both found out the limits. The Salassians especially. It’s why their land is the Wastes now.”

“What’d they do?”

“Exactly what you said. Tried to raise people like cattle. Breeding them and killing them for soul crystals. They did it for a hundred years before the Dreamers woke up. Now everyone knows better. The Criobani test the limits, though.”

“And the Dreamers just… let them?”

“The Dreamers don’t care, for the most part. We don’t know why they wake up sometimes. It’s why we pray for them to sleep.”

“And does that work?”

Rua took a drink of her tea, and motioned Otter to the door. “Go outside. I want you to run laps around the cabin. We need to train your endurance outside your soul power. Tenacity doesn’t count for everything.”

“Outside? Cardio? That’s it, I want a divorce.”

“We’re not married.”

“Yet!”

“I’ll make breakfast while you run. Get to it.”

“Wait, how many laps do you want me to do?”

“Until I’m done cooking. I’ll be watching, so I’ll know if you cheat. And I’m going to ask you how many you ran when you get back in, and if you think you could’ve done better.”

“Okay, using your lie detecting powers is not fair.”

“I never said I was fair. Get to running. I’ll give you kisses if you do a good job.”

“Sold!”

For the next three days, Rua had Otter train. First it was simple cardio. Then she set up a simple agility course using old logs. It was primitive, and Otter had seen better at some children’s playgrounds, but they made do with what they had. On the last day, they moved onto actual sparring.

Otter learned pretty quickly that using her threads to try to bind someone who was both thinking and stronger than her was a bad idea.

Each day, she asked to visit the woman in the armour in the swamp. Each day, Rua said she had to earn it. It pushed Otter harder.

It wasn’t all gruelling work. There were more than enough moments of tenderness in between, but Rua steadfastly refused to have sex again. Otter didn’t want to push it, but when she asked why not, she got the only answer she needed.

“Because it’d be easy to just stay here with you.”

Otter got the unspoken message. Just as Rua was driving Otter’s performance by not letting her go save the Vexurian, Rua was pushing herself as well by denying herself what she wanted until they got out.

They trained from morning to sunset, only pausing for meals, basic chores, and to gather more food to replace their dwindling supplies. Otter had been right to be worried about those. Rua had already been close to living day-by-day. Now with two mouths to feed, they had to work hard to keep any kind of surplus going. Luckily, Otter had one type of skillset that Rua did not.

She knew how to set a snare.

She wasn’t some great hunter. She barely knew her way around a campfire. But Everett had shown her how to do it a few times, and it’d stuck. Combined with her Thread of the Scourge, it was actually surprisingly easy. It was like the thread knew what she wanted to do, and worked to accommodate the request. Her snares had to be reset three times a day – the threads didn’t last forever – and they rarely caught something, but it allowed them to stay ahead of the food game with a few captured lizards and in one case, something that looked like a cross between a rabbit and a frog.

They’d need the surplus once they had to worry about a third mouth to feed.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Rua and Otter set about their morning routine as if it were something they’d done a thousand times together. Otter set about doing her wretched, vile, filthy cardio while Rua made breakfast. Then came the interrogation, followed by a few kisses which Rua tried to keep chaste and failed utterly at.

The training was brutal, and yielded little gains beyond getting Otter used to the odd feel of how real everything was, which only made a part of her worry. Some portion of her mind had long held onto the belief that she was still in a video game. That, despite everything, Rua was some kind of AI, and the world around her was generated.

But the technology wasn’t there yet. Nothing could pass the Turing Test so well. This entire world was real. Which meant, she wasn’t in a video game at all.

The thought didn’t bother Otter as much as she thought it should. If anything, she felt relieved. It meant that what she had with Rua was real. It meant she had a future here. An actual future.

How long since she’d thought she had one of those?

Rua was practically whipping her to run another lap on balance beams through the mud, and breathing was beginning to hurt. She’d always hated cardio. It was getting difficult to concentrate, but her mind was on the edge of something.

She jumped off one log, and ran barefoot through the mud to the next. When she jumped on this one, Rua leaned in and smacked her on the ass. She nearly fell off the log in surprise and shot her a look.

Rua waved her hand along, and Otter got back to running.

Her girlfriend – was Rua her girlfriend now? Labels were so weird – was growing out of her shell more and more, and Otter couldn’t be more proud.

The wet bark of the tree wasn’t pleasant to run on. It simultaneously felt both gross and ouchy. So many virtual reality games didn’t try to make up experiences like this, so much as just pull from your memory and simulate from there. But Otter had never run barefoot on wet, dead trees before. Older gen VR games would just give that value a question mark, and make it feel like normal ground. Not Fell Champions.

It was the real thing.

But how’d Holt do it? This couldn’t be virtual reality. This was something else.

How had she come here? She’d gotten the invite. An e-mail sent to her via her manager, who technically didn’t work with her anymore. Promises had been made. Wild ones. She’d been tempted to just ignore it, but the lure had been set. She’d driven to the location it’d told her to go. And then…

Otter was eating one of those tasty peanut butter flatbreads Rua had made for lunch, trying not to give her ‘fuck me’ eyes and failing.

“I am a slut for these,” she said. “What’s this called again?”

“You’re a slut for a lot of things. And it’s called sarru. Better enjoy it. We don’t have a lot left.”

“What dragon must I slay to procure more? What mountain must I climb? What pervert wizard do I have to suck off?”

“There will be no sucking of pervert wizards in my house.”

“Is this even really your house?”

“I live here. No one else can get here, short of dropping in from another world out of the sky. Ergo, it is my house.”

“You literally have a comatose woman living a few hundred metres away that might have a better claim.”

“No Criobani has a claim on this house. She’ll be lucky if I let her sleep on my stoop when we pull her out of the armour.”

Something filled Otter’s chest. “You just said when.”

“Of course I did. Didn’t I agree to your very stupid plan to rescue the Criobani?”

“And then we’ve done everything but that since. Well, that and sex.” Did she really just say that? She had to play it cool. She couldn’t come off as desperate. “We should do that again. I’m really good at it.”

Godammit.

Rua blushed faintly, and looked away. “I want to. I do. But we have two weeks before the migration begins to happen. We need to get off the island before then. It’s why I’ve been pushing you. We need to be ready, or we’re stuck here for another six months.”

“There’s a time limit? You should’ve mentioned that sooner. I can work with crunch. Wait, what migration? Don’t tell me the death swamp island is about to be infested with more problems.”

“No. The opposite. In two weeks, winter ends, and the soo-meng migrate north.”

“Wait, this is winter?”

The weather had felt like early fall, at most. It’d been downright warm during the afternoon most days, and with all the trees, they weren’t exactly getting a lot of sunlight bearing down on them.

Rua blinked, her expression confused. “Yes?”

“Sweet Buddha at a buffet table, do you mean the Silayan Islands are tropical?”

“If that means we have very warm weather compared to other parts of the world, yes. The Mikovians always complain about our summers.”

“Fuck. We need to get out of your country before that hits. I’m from Canada. I can’t be in some tropical islands, I’ll die. Where’s Mikova? Somewhere filled with snow, right?”

“Snow isn’t real.”

“It is too real, and you have a lie detection skill, you can’t possibly believe it’s fake.”

“I refuse to believe that water can turn into a white crystal and fall from the sky. It seems silly.”

“And my girlfriend rejects actual evidence she knows is true. She’s a science denier. This day is getting worse by the second.”

Rua coughed. “What did you just call me?”

“Oh. Right. We haven’t, uh, had that talk yet, have we? I mean, if you don’t want to put a label on it, that’s fine, it won’t bother me.”

Rua tilted her head, and flicked Otter’s nose. “Lie.”

“Okay, I do want to put a label on it. I like you. A lot. I like our talks. I like how you scare the hell out of me some moments, and make me want to protect you others. There isn’t a moment of the day when I just want to hug you. Well, except when I want to clear this table off and pin you to it and fuck you like crazy. So, yeah, I want you to be my girlfriend. I want you to know this isn’t just a fling, and I want to see where it goes.”

Otter was used to Rua’s blushes, and was in no danger of becoming immune to them. But she didn’t know what to make of her face going absolutely white. Was that good? It was probably bad. People did that when they were afraid. She didn’t want Rua to be afraid, she wanted her to be happy. That was like… the opposite of what she’d intended.

She was about to stammer out an apology, an explanation, just fill the silence with mindless noise. And then Rua growled at her. Absolutely snarled, like an animal.

“Uh, Rua?”

“Well?” she said. There was a wild look in her eyes. “Is my pelanoa going to take me, or do I need to be in charge?”

There was an urge to just clear the table by shoving everything off, but the crockery was very fragile, and they weren’t exactly well-supplied to replace any of it. Instead, Otter hurriedly stacked the plates and cutlery and ran them to the counter. It felt awkward and a little unromantic, but there was a look in Rua’s eyes. A hunger. And Otter was more than eager to match and return it.

She circled around to Rua’s side of the table, who was still seated.

“Are you gonna get up?”

“I’m waiting for my pelanoa to stop talking and start taking.”

Otter knew Rua would beat her in any contest of arms, but that wasn’t the game. It was a challenge of authority, and while Otter wasn’t sure why this particular game was happening, she was more than happy to play it.

She grabbed Rua by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. Rua opened her mouth to say something, probably taunting, but then Otter slammed her into the table face-first. Maybe a little too roughly.

Something in her lower belly was stirring, and it wasn’t just her cock. She could feel something bubbling in her, something that wasn’t just the usual lust. It felt weird and foreign and it made itself completely at home as it spread across her nerves.

“Mine,” Otter growled directly into Rua’s ear.

Rua made a hum of approval. It just spurred Otter on harder. She dragged Rua’s pants down, jerking them to her knees, and then placed a hand at her entrance. She was absolutely soaked.

“How long have you wanted this?”

“Since… since minutes after the last time we fucked.”

“And poor you deprived yourself. So I’m going to make a new rule, and you’re going to agree to it, because you’re mine.”

Otter slipped a finger inside, and Rua sucked in a breath.

“What… what rule?” she asked.

And then an emergency message window triggered, opening up in front of them, Holt’s face smiling at them until he realized what he’d just interrupted. He had the grace to look embarrassed, and looked away.

“Son of a bitch!” Otter yelled. “Fucking cockblocking, blueboxing son of a gutter fucking whoremonger!”

“Ah, there’s a thing,” Holt said. “You really should check your messages more often. I made an announcement an hour ago and everything. Make yourselves presentable, I will be transporting you momentarily.”

The window closed, and Otter swore some more.

“Do you think we have time?” Rua asked.

“No, knowing him, it’ll happen any second now. What’s your thoughts on exhibitionism?”

Rua pulled her pants back up, and shook her head. “Not in one of those arena settings. You might have enemies looking for weakness, and… well, sex is very distracting.”

“Especially the way we do it.” She held her hand up for a high five, and then remembered Rua still didn’t know how to do those. She was really going to have to teach Rua basic Earth interactions at some point.

“We’d do well to try to make a good impression. We could use the allies.”

Otter theatrically sighed. “Fine!”

Rua stood on her tiptoes, and gave Otter a quick kiss. “But… when this is done, I don’t want you to hold back. At all.”

“What happened to my shy little Rua? It was just a few days ago, you couldn’t even think of sex without blushing.”

“No. I couldn’t think of someone caring for me without blushing. I always enjoyed the idea of sex. Maybe even just as much as you. I just never had opportunity.”

Otter didn’t know how to respond to that with words, so she let her lips and tongue do her speaking for her. But then, those already were used for speaking, weren’t they?

Focus. She had to focus.

She sank into a very thorough kiss with Rua, reality blurring all around them, and felt as if there were something else she had to be focusing on. Something she’d forgotten.

And then they were in the colosseum again, and it no longer mattered.

Chapter Text

Otter and Rua were seated together right from the beginning again. It looked like that was going to be a regular pattern. But everyone else in the arena wasn't shadowed or partitioned off like before. There was no more protection of anonymity this time around, which was probably for the better. WIth them spawning in as a pair, they’d stuck out before. The shadowy cloak had just made that worse.

It didn’t take too long for ‘Pandemona’ to join them. Otter didn’t know what to make of her, or what to do about her. There needed to be some kind of conversation, or action, or something. It was funny at first. But there would probably be consequences or something if she let it keep going.

“Hey,” Pandemona said.

She looked awkward, like she didn’t know if she should sit down, or start up a conversation. Or maybe she was afraid they’d mess with her again.

“Sup,” Otter said, and Rua waved a hand in acknowledgement, but seemed more focused on everyone else in the colosseum. Probably watching for potential threats.

“Is it cool if I hang out with you guys?”

“Sure.”

“That’s it? Just, ‘sure?’ No games this time?”

“Eh, not in the mood. I got cockblocked pretty hard. You want something?”

“Can I sit?”

“I dunno.” Otter turned to Rua, her tone thick with implication. “Can she sit?”

“We’re trying to make allies, remember? It probably wouldn’t be good to be playing these kinds of games when we all know someone is about to die.”

“Two someones,” Pandemona said.

“No shit?” Otter said.

She pulled up her online list, and sure enough, there were two names greyed out. Paul Howlett had apparently either finally bled out, or maybe died of an infection, or maybe just his own general stupidity. Running around with just one hand in the wilderness while being a complete fucking idiot was probably hazardous to your health in any number of ways.

The other name made Otter a little sad. While her in-game name, Yumi Baird, was new, Otter recognized the streamer handle next to it. TheMightyChinchilla was a popular VTuber known for her crazy antics, high-pitched voice, and general desire for chaos. Otter had always gotten on well with her, even if they’d rarely collabed.

There was no way to tell at a glance how she’d died in the game, but it wasn’t much of a surprise. Chinchilla was a renowned shut-in, plagued by health issues all her life. Dumped in the middle of the wilderness, with no tools, food, or water? It was a miracle she’d lasted this long.

“Fuck,” Otter said. Chinchilla might survive in a fight, but put her back into the world, she might just end up right back here. And then Otter realized there was a very real possibility Holt might summon her to kill her. “Fuck!”

“Slavomir’s going to lose it,” Pandemona said. “He’s been pacing around his part of the arena since I got here.”

“What? Over Chinchilla? What’s the Risk Slave care about Chinchilla for?”

“I’m not in the gossip circles, but they’re dating. It’s a recent thing. I think he’s afraid Holt’s gonna pick him to fight her.”

“For the content,” Otter said bitterly. “Yeah, that tracks. Make a giant power play, show off your god complex, and make a more entertaining spectacle. No matter who wins, it’s a tragedy.”

“Why do you think he’s doing this? I just can’t figure out what he gains from all of this.”

“Tiny dick? Tired of getting made fun of on Reddit? Tired of getting made fun of on Reddit for his very tiny dick? I dunno. My guess is, he’s just really, really stupid, and thinks this’ll immortalize him or something.”

“Ego, huh. I guess that makes sense, but something tells me it’s more than that.”

Otter realized Pan was still standing, and waved her over to sit beside her.

“Paul’s cronies are probably going to want revenge on us,” Pandemona said as splayed herself out across the bench. “For what we did to him.”

“Who? STI and Beast Infection? Who gives a fuck, neither are gamers, just personalities. Bring it.”

“I just don’t wanna get into any grudge matches. I don’t mind the idea of killing someone in a video game, but I don’t wanna kill someone for real, you know?”

“I think you should get used to it,” Rua said. “People are beginning to square off into tribes. Tribes fight, whether they want to or not.”

She pointed to a few spots in the arena. The last match, mostly everyone had sat individually, with only a small pocket of people paired off. Now there were groups forming. Very rarely did you see anyone sitting by themselves.

“Think we should join anyone?” Otter asked.

“You’re all children in this world, and you know my thoughts on kids.”

Otter snorted in laughter at that one, and Pan gave them a questioning look. “Am I missing something?”

“Inside joke, sorry. Unless you want a picture in your head that won’t leave.”

Rua gave a small smirk. “I wouldn’t let her finish inside me.”

Pan looked a bit confused at first, and then looked between them, her expression quickly changing to one of mortification. “You… you… what?”

“Sex talk,” Otter said. “If you’re going to pretend to be Pandemona, you should learn how to play the part a bit better. Pan’s a giant slut. She’d probably get off on talking openly about having a dick. Probably even discussing aloud that she has a dominance kink she’s suddenly into a lot more than she used to be. And that she might even be picking up a pregnancy kink that her girlfriend doesn’t want to indulge in, which, yeah, fair.”

Rua flicked her, but they shared a conspiratorial look. Whoever this Pandemona really was, she was thoroughly uncorrupted, and they were inevitably going to break her of that one way or the other.

“You have a dick?”

Otter looked over and nearly swore, but instead kept a wide smile on her face. Of course that was the exact moment Sami decided to show up. Well, no point denying it. One day she’d learned to look around before talking. Or giving any thought first.

“Yep. Big ol’ ladycock. What, you wanna see?”

Sami scrunched up her nose, as if she’d been asked if she wanted to see a particularly big poop. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Right, gotcha. You’re saving it up for when you’re in the Silayan Islands. I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want you to have the thought of it stuck in your head, and not being able to get your hands on it.”

“You probably wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway.” Sami looked at the side of the bench that Pan was sitting at, who had managed to take up most of it with an open-legged sprawl. “Stop manspreading and make some room.”

“Oh, sorry,” Pandemon said, shifting her position, but Otter countered it by throwing her legs over her lap and taking up the rest of the bench.

“Looks like there’s no room,” Otter said. “Guess you’ll have to sit somewhere else.”

“Really, Mayumi? This is how you’re going to do this?”

“Who’s ‘Mayumi?’ I’m Otter.”

Sami snorted at that, and then, looking insufferably smug, moved in front of Rua and sat on the ground at her feet.

“Hey,” Otter said.

Sami stretched out luxuriously, trying to look as comfortable as she could, and leaned her head back so that it was resting against Rua’s knees. “What? I needed somewhere to sit, and this looked comfortable.”

Otter gave Rua a look, trying to psychically communicate to not engage with her ex-girlfriend, and better yet, kick her to the curb entirely. Some playful banter was one thing, but this was beginning to get weird, and not in the way she usually enjoyed. Unfortunately, their link didn’t actually work like that, and Rua got a flash of mischief in her eyes.

She leaned forward, and ran one hand through Sami’s hair. Sami normally kept her appearance perfect, just like everything else about her. Normally, a hair was never so much as out of place, but she’d seen better days. She’d clearly been roughing it somewhere hot and dirty, because she had sweat streaks and caked on dirt and dust covering her. Her hair in particular was a mess. She probably hadn’t seen anything resembling hygiene since arriving in the game, and probably hadn’t scrounged up a comb yet.

Sami, for all her normal poise, jumped a little at the touch, but then leaned into it as Rua ran her fingers through her hair.

“It’s a shame I left my brush at home,” Rua said. “I normally enjoy taking care of my belongings.”

Sami had a great poker face, but Otter knew her well enough to see right through it. She was positively squirming under the attention.

“Uh, what?” Pandemona said.

“My current girlfriend is domming my ex-girlfriend, keep up,” Otter muttered.

“Does she have to do it in front of us?”

“She’s trying to make me jealous. It’s working.”

Rua was pretending to ignore them, but she was being a little too obvious about it. Faking not hearing what they were saying while cooing over Sami’s hair. But there was a self-satisfied air about her at hearing that Otter was jealous. Probably because she’d never had anyone be jealous over her before. Well, Otter could be supportive. If Rua wanted to experience high school drama for the first time, she could go along with it.

“Wait,” Pandemona said. “SamiRai is your ex-girlfriend? And your real name is Mayumi?”

“Oh, the hamster wheel in her brain is finally spinning, guys, she’s about to figure it out.”

“Finally,” Sami said.

“Even I figured it out, and I don’t even come from your world,” Rua said.

Pandemona pushed Otter’s legs off her lap, and scooched further down the bench away from her in horror. “You’re Pandemona!”

“No, I was Pandemona. I’m Otter now. I can’t believe I have to explain this every time it comes up. You’re Pandemona now. Have fun with it.”

“But… you were one of the best VR PVPers in the genre!”

“Uh, I still am?” She’d killed Nightmare in front of a crowd of people only a few days ago. Maybe she was a little rusty, and still unfamiliar with how her combat abilities worked, but she’d straight up kicked his ass.

“You disappeared! Why?”

“Yes,” Sami said, her tone very pointed. “Why?”

Otter knew if she engaged, they’d keep pestering her about it. So she just crossed her arms and focused on the arena. Still, she could feel Sami’s eyes on her.

“You said, if I were by you with Rua, you’d tell me,” Sami said. “That she’d be able to tell me if you were lying or not, and that you’d explain yourself.”

She had said that, hadn’t she? Fuck. She never did know when to keep her mouth shut. And yet, now that it was time to actually open it, she found she couldn’t. She tried to get the words out, but they failed her. They normally couldn’t stop spilling from her, and the drought season had finally arrived.

“Give her time,” Rua said. “She’s hurting, and doesn’t know how to express it.”

“She’s not the only one hurt,” Sami said, standing up.

Otter tried to get her to stay, but it was too late. Even if she could say it now, it wouldn’t matter. Pride was the mightiest, yet weakest, force in the universe; unyielding to all things, but bowing always to injury. A fragile titan, a conquering rabbit. Impressive and powerful until challenged.

“Give her time, too,” Rua said.

“You don’t even have a link with her.”

“But I have eyes.”

“Should… should I also go?” Pandemona asked.

“Nah,” Otter said. “Sami and me just have drama that needs to shake itself out. That I need to shake out. This day was going so well until Holt messaged. Can he please just get on with his sadistic death game already?”

“We’re going to need new allies,” Rua said.

“Probably. Good luck getting them now, though. No one here knows ‘GrandTheftOtter,’ you don’t even understand streaming culture, and Pandemona here is a phoney who can’t even explain herself without sounding like a crazy person.”

“What? I wouldn’t sound crazy. I’m not actually Pandemona, I just impersonated her because I thought she was cool and took her identity and I can totally see what you mean now. But you’re Pandemona! We can just tell everyone that.”

“And then we have that conversation on loop,” she countered, waving her hand at Sami. “You know how many friends I ghosted? How many bridges I probably burned?”

“Have you tried just, I dunno, apologizing?” Pandemona had a very dry delivery, and her sarcasm game was all the stronger for it. And it also made her sound completely reasonable.

“I can’t just… apologize. It… it wouldn’t work. Wait. Do I need to apologize to you? I still don’t know who you actually are.”

“I’m Pandemona now. Whoever I was before doesn’t matter, right?”

“Fine, use my own logic against me.” Holt’s giant screen finally lit to life, his smile beaming down at all of them. “Oh finally, we get the crowning event to this shitshow. Let’s get this over with.”

Chapter Text

“Welcome once more, players!” the image of Holt cried. His throne was empty, the would-be king’s presence non-existent, and yet still he plagued them. “It’s that time again.”

If he were expecting applause he did not get it. Maybe he was hoping for an intimidated silence. He should’ve known better to posture to a small crowd of people whose job was to vie for attention from uncaring masses.

To call the response simple jeers would be to call the sinking of the Titanic a minor incident, or The Last Airbender movie adaptation an unfortunate mistake of cinema. Everyone yelled something at Holt, ranging from angry demands to be released to insults targeting his stupid hair to mismatching slurs that made no sense of the surface but were part of a Punch streamer’s regular day-to-day vocabulary.

“Death to the hipster fucklord!” Otter yelled.

“Skulls for the Skull Throne!” Pandemona called.

Holt took it all in with a bemused smile, and waited for the crowd to yell themselves out, but even his control began to slip when it didn’t seem to want to end and most of the insults began to turn very personal. Between insults about why he couldn’t hold down a relationship to attacks on his ability as a game dev and CEO, he finally began to lose patience and snapped.

“Enough! Anyone still yelling in ten seconds gets to fight in the arena!”

“Fart gobbler!” When Rua gave Otter a look, she shrugged. “What? It was within the time limit.”

Holt watched them all, his arms crossed and his face grim. He apparently had an idea about how he should be received, and wasn’t getting the power trip he thought he would.

“Get all that out of your systems?” he said. “Bet you feel real big now, huh. Bully the god.”

Rua made a noise, somewhere back in her throat.

“Oh my sweet Shiva,” Otter said. “Is he going to throw a tantrum?”

Pan grunted, “Well, you know, it’s hard being all mighty and powerful.”

The face on the screen looked in their direction, and they immediately quieted.

Realizing that people were actually listening to him now, that dead smile of Holt’s returned. “Well. What a day I have planned for you all. Two deaths. Ooof, am I right? Everyone’s gotta be wondering about their own impending doom right about now. But don’t worry. I am a kind and benevolent god. I honestly didn’t foresee death by dehydration, but I probably should’ve, huh? My bad. Don’t worry. I will be equipping all surviving players with travel packs today, filled with food, water, and a waterseeking glyph stone, as well as a firemaking kit, and one knife each. If you can’t survive with that, well, that’s not on me anymore. Should’ve picked a career that’d let you touch grass every once in a while.”

Otter couldn’t tell if he believed his own psychopathic bullshit or not, and she was too afraid to ask Rua if he was lying or not. She didn’t need a fact check to let her know that something was wrong with him. A barometer for it would just make it worse.

“Well, don’t all cheer at once,” Holt said, his eyes hardening.

There were some scattered applause, and a solitary, half-hearted whoop.

“Fine, fine. I can read a room. You want the fights. Who lives, who dies, etcetera etcetera. Well, the original plan was to have the Risk Slave kill his girlfriend. But I see he’s been moping. Probably figured me out. That’s what you get when you plan these things out by committee.

“So, I’m going to try a different avenue of attack. One fight. Chinchilla versus Howlett. Whoever wins gets to live. Exciting, right?”

“Woo,” Pan said in a flat tone.

“Can any of us volunteer as tribute?” Rua yelled. “Like last time!”

“Tempting. Very tempting. I’d love to see what our little anomaly can do. But… no. Can only accept so many last-minute script changes. Maybe next time.”

“Bully! Coward! Everyone else might be afraid to say it, but I’m not! You’re not god,” she spat after saying the word, “and you’re not all powerful! You have a Pact! A powerful one, to be sure, but this is Pact magic. I felt the touch of a Dreamer the first time you Wayfared us here. But I wasn’t sure, so I waited, and now I’m certain!”

In an instant, Holt disappeared from his safety behind the monitor, and reappeared before Rua. Before anyone could react, his hand was around her throat, and he lifted her from the ground, her feet dangling in the air. She gripped his arm, her fingers digging into it, and he didn’t budge.

Otter stood, triggering her Thread of the Scourge, and a golden wire Manifested into her hands. She swung, and the thread looped around his neck, and she empowered it with a point of Will. The wire flashed, but Holt didn’t even seem to notice.

Bare steel flashed in Rua’s hand, and a dagger descended at Holt’s face, glancing off an invisible shield around him. It didn’t stop her. She struck again and again, but he never lost the intensity or focus, the sheer anger in his eyes.

Pandemona drew a dagger of her own, stabbing at Holt’s unprotected back, and encountered the same impassable shield. But none of the three let up. Otter jerked this way and that, trying to throw him off balance at the least if she couldn’t strangle him.

And then, flying through the air, Sami came down like a falling meteor, two swords drawn. Otter had no idea where she’d come from, but it’d probably been a few sections upwards in the arena stands. She hit Holt hard, and finally he was pushed backwards a step and finally took notice that others were attacking him.

“Oh, hey. Just having some fun, don’t mind me.” He even had the grace to look a little sheepish.

Even so, Sami stabbed a sword at his head, the point deflecting off the unseen barrier mere centimetres from his skin.

“Put her down,” Otter growled. “Or I will fucking rip your fucking head off.”

Rua was beginning to gasp for breath, and Otter could feel her panic through the link. Something had to be done, something to get Holt to back down.

She dismissed the thread, leaned in, and flicked Holt across the nose.

“No!” she said. “Bad!”

He reached to his face in surprise, pain flickering in his eyes, and in that moment, Rua tore herself free from his grip and stumbled backwards. Holt lunged, not at Rua, but at Otter, and then he was sent careening to the side as nearly seven feet of bulky muscled dragonkin tackled him. Everett hit Holt like a freight train, and sent him on his ass. And before he could recover, the Risk Slave was there, stomping downwards at his face.

Holt rolled, surprisingly spry and agile for a do-nothing game dev, but it didn’t help. Others had shown up, more and more people realizing this was their best chance to get him down and maybe get free of the game. Gamers in all sizes and shapes were waiting for him. Next to none of them were armed, but it didn’t matter. If enough of them even so much as grazed him with punches, they were sure to whittle his Tenacity away and expose him to injury.

And Holt realized it, too.

There was a flicker of surprise, and then outright panic as he realized what he’d gotten himself into.

Otter summoned another thread, lashing it around one of his arms just as a big man who could only be STI slammed a fist into his chest. Pandemona threw her dagger, and it bounced off his shield as Digimane threw herself onto his back, screaming the entire time and wrapping an arm around his eyes to cover his vision.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Holt screamed. “Everyone, go back to your seats, and we can–”

Apparently no one wanted to hear what he was about to suggest, because a roar grew from the increasingly larger crowd. Someone stabbed at him with a crude wooden spear, and someone else clipped his knee with a rock. Holt stumbled this way and that, and then finally managed to get a hold of Digimane before throwing her off him entirely and into a small group of three people who’d been getting close to attack.

He looked more annoyed than anything. Someone else threw a rock, and he made a sharp gesture with his hand. The rock vanished. Another gesture, and then the sky darkened, and it began raining pebbles from above.

Most were deflected by the various players’ Tenacity, and those that weren’t only hit with enough force to inflict small bruises. Even so, it left everyone ducking away, covering their heads with arms. When it finally stopped, Holt was gone, back on his throne, smiling at them behind the safety of a screen.

A few people swore. Others shook their heads and wandered off aimlessly. One girl who Otter didn’t know broke down and cried, sitting on a bench and openly weeping.

“Why antagonize him?” Sami hissed.

Otter looked over to see Rua smiling faintly, a mirror to Holt’s expression.

“Because I couldn’t tell if he was lying when he was behind a screen. I needed to get face-to-face with him.”

“And?”

“And now I know, he doesn’t actually want to kill us all. He was telling the truth.”

Chapter Text

The fight against Holt was like something out of a movie. Just a bunch of titans coming together to combat evil together, forgetting old grudges and drama and uniting into one force. Well, mostly one force. Maybe half the people on the server had actually participated, a lot of people too afraid to make a move, or too slow to join in on the action.

Even so, Chinchilla had watched it all from the dubious safety of the arena, bouncing on her feet and cheering where cheering needed to be done. Even her little booboo sugar bear, Slavomir, had joined in on the fight, probably to defend her honour. He was always doing stuff like that, flying off the handle and leaping to her defense, whether she needed it or not. It was kind of sweet, in a patronizing kind of way, but it made him feel manly, and she was kinda into it, so she let him do his thing.

And then Holt had to go ahead and do the annoying thing of actually getting away, which honestly seemed kind of rude. It really would’ve been in everyone’s best interests if he’d just rolled over and died, even if it would’ve been as anti-climactic as announcing to your audience the only way to leave your game would be by clearing a hundred floors and then finishing at seventy-five.

Chinchilla giggled to herself, and then looked over at Paul Howlett across the way, and giggled harder.

He was sweating. Probably because he’d thought Holt actually was going to die this early into things, and now since that hadn’t happened, it meant back to the death game. Mortality was reaching for them both, and it wasn’t sitting well.

It wasn’t like everything was going bad for him. He had both his hands again. Apparently they got healed to full before the big fight. Maybe Holt liked the illusion of fair fights.

“What’re you laughing at?” Paul said.

“Oh, nothing much. I just know something you don’t know.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“It’s a secret. I can’t just tell you. Then it wouldn’t be much of a secret, would it?”

He shifted, taking a step back. It was like part of his body was trying to tell him something, but his mind hadn’t caught up yet. That stupid smile of his flashed on his face. Cocky, daring. The kind of thing that made people think he was some kind of alpha male garbage.

“No hard feelings, all right?”

She answered his smile with one of her own. “What would I have hard feelings for?”

He shrugged. “It’s not my fault things ended up this way. That you got set to fight me. I’d never hurt you normally. So, it’s not personal.”

She placed her hands over her heart. “Oh. Oh, you poor thing.”

“I’m trying not to be a dick about this, okay? I don’t like the idea of, y’know, hurting girls–”

“Didn’t you literally attack SamiRai at the last one of these?”

“I was just trying to see her sword. None of us got one. Not fair she started with weapons, and the rest of us got dick. I didn’t think it was fair.”

“You… you think SamiRai started the game with those swords?”

“Well, yeah. Everyone knows it. How else would she have gotten them?”

She wanted to point out the obvious. That she’d either found or stolen them, or more likely, killed someone for them. That SamiRai was famous in the Virtual MMO scene for a reason. That she was always placed at the top of the Gallant Stand leaderboards, and it had little to do with who she was sleeping with, despite what some people claimed.

But there was no reasoning with people like Paul Howlett. They had their own limited world views, and refused to believe anything outside of them.

Instead, she looked up into the crowd. Slavomir, her Mirko, was sitting on a bench not far from where the fight had happened. He looked defeated, but his eyes were only for her.

She waved at him, and after a moment of hesitation, he waved back. Good for him. Still holding onto hope. He hadn’t given up yet.

“I bet you I’m going to win!” she yelled.

He probably couldn’t hear her. There was a lot of distance, and there were too many people bumbling about him. It didn’t matter. He’d figure it out.

Holt started talking through that giant screen of his. She barely paid attention. Honestly, did he ever have anything important to say? There was always too much self-aggrandisement. Honestly, the sign of a weak-willed person, too desperate for attention than to achieve real greatness. Not that greatness really meant anything. The whole point was to have fun. Who cared what other people thought?

She laughed to herself again, and Paul took another step back. Maybe not as stupid as he looked.

“Good effort,” Holt said. “I mean, you didn’t even come close to breaking my Tenacity, but–”

She groaned, absently digging at the dirt with her toes. Was he honestly going to give a condescending speech about how he was so powerful, and how everyone had to respect him? Again? What a little man-baby.

“--but now that you know the futility in your attempts, we must now move on to the main event.”

Chinchilla did a quick series of stretches, and watching her, Paul started doing the same. He didn’t look as serious about it. He had a lot of bulk, and was known for his wrestling and boxing skills outside of his media personality. He was going to come in with fists swinging, expecting to disable her quickly. She just had to stay ahead of him.

Adrenaline hummed in her veins, and she couldn’t help feeling a little giddy. There was a kind of rush to PVP in all games, where you put everything on the line in a single moment. Do or die. Or do and die. It was part of what attracted her to Slavomir, a man who was always willing to risk it all, to go in on any hand of cards and let RNG win him the day. More often than not, he lost, but winning was never the point. Only he got that.

“Did you know soul crystals can get pretty big?” Chinchilla asked.

Paul gave her a confused look.

She held up her thumb and forefinger, and spaced them an inch apart. “Biggest one I ate. Took it from this farmer NPC I ran into. Would you believe that’s how I died? Choking on a stupid level up token. Wild, right?”

He took another step back. This time, he seemed to realize he’d done so.

“Get ready!” Holt called.

“Suppose I should tell you that secret now,” she said with a crooked smile.

“Set!”

“I found out about the soul crystals way before Holt told us.”

Paul’s gaze flicked down to the pair of knives embedded in the sand between them.

“Fight!”

He took a lone step towards the knives, but it didn’t matter. In that moment of time, she’d already closed the distance between them and was on top of him. It was kind of a cheat, really. She pushed off the ground with one foot, focusing all her Strength to send herself hurtling forward like a missile. Then, just as she was about to hit him, her Agility let her catch one of his shoulders and twist herself over and behind him in a stunning display of acrobatics. She was on his back like an adorable little koala before he’d even registered what was happening.

If, you know, a koala had a desire for murder and mayhem.

It was all too easy from there. One arm looped around his neck, squeezing down in a messy chokehold. His Tenacity wasn’t too great, not that she had anything to really judge it on. Random peasants didn’t seem to have anything invested into their stats, and she hadn’t run into any who’d been able to fight back yet.

Still, his shield broke just from her giving a series of quick rabbit punches to the back of his skull.

“Poor little podcaster,” Chinchilla said. “Thinking you’re still a big man just because your subscriber count is huge. But this is a video game, idiot. And I’m a fucking gaming VTuber.”

And then she snapped his neck. She’d gotten used to that sickly sound after the third time she’d done it. Now she was even beginning to enjoy it.

“Burn all the babies!” she shouted as a victory cry.

She let Paul’s corpse fall to the ground, and was greeted with a stunned silence from the crowd. Even Holt looked a little perturbed.

She waved at Slavomir again. He waved back, a smile on his face. She blew him a kiss, and then went to go pick up one of the knives on the ground. She didn’t actually need it. She had a couple back in her camp, as well as a vicious wood axe that was also pretty good at splitting skulls.

She gave Paul’s corpse a kick to turn him over. This part made her a little squeamish. Harvesting soul crystals from NPCs was one thing, but this was a real person. Still, life or death, win or lose. No in between.

Carving out his crystal was pretty easy. She’d gotten good at the impromptu surgery called for to get your stat bonuses. She wiped it clean on his shirt, and then held it up. Not too big, this one. No way she was going to choke on it. Man, she really needed to get to Slavomir in the game so he could do a Heimlech if that happened again. What a stupid way to go.

And if Chinchilla was going to go out in this game, it wouldn’t be like a bitch.

When she was satisfied with the general cleanliness of the crystal – she really wished she’d be able to boil the thing, like she’d begun doing normally – she popped it into her mouth like candy and swallowed. The prompt came up for stats, and she settled for Fortune. Paul’s luck hadn’t saved him, but maybe it’d help her.

She looked back to Slavomir to give him another of her smiles, and screamed instead.

Her warning came too late.

STI, that wretched little stain that followed Paul in all his endeavours, stood behind Slavomir, a rock in his hand, and struck downwards. It bounced off Slavomir’s shield, which shattered instantly. Her boo bear had invested everything into Fortune. His defenses were almost non-existent.

Apparently no one had seen the attack coming. All eyes had been on her, so when it happened, everything came to a crashing end before anyone could react.

STI smashed down with his rock a second time, and it was done. Simple as that. Win or lose, all in. And just like that, Slavomir had lost.

“Well, I did not see that one coming,” Holt’s taunting voice called. “Guess we’re going to have that Chinchilla versus Risk Slave fight after all.”

Chinchilla screamed again, but not because of what Holt had said. She stared directly at STI, murder in her eyes. Beast Infection was already pulling him away, and a few of his cronies were jumping between him and others who’d been nearby but not close enough to do anything. GrandTheftOtter was swinging around one of those golden wires of hers, and Sami had a sword out, and just as things looked like they were going to descend into the bloodshed Chinchilla so desperately wanted, there was a blurring to the air, and suddenly everyone was separated, placed into different parts of the arena.

Holt’s interference. She stared at his face on the screen and howled her rage.

“Hey, c’mon, babe, look at me.”

Chinchilla stopped dead at the sound of Slavomir’s voice. Her Mirko. Her honey boo sugar candy bear.

She turned, and there he was, standing in the arena. He looked a little sheepish.

“Should’ve been watching my back,” he said. “Didn’t think they’d go for me as retaliation.”

“I’ll kill them.” She said, and then stopped, and shook her head. “No. You’ll kill them.”

He gave her a small smile. “I’m a card player, babe. I’m no good at these MMO things. Not enough ways to manipulate the odds. It’s gotta be you.”

“No,” she mumbled. “No.”

“All in, babe. I knew I was all in with you the moment I met you.”

Something in her gut sunk. Or maybe it was threatening to rise. She didn’t know whether to cry or throw up. She settled on rage.

“I’m going to kill Holt.”

“Good. Get a goal, babe. Figure out how to get him. Figure out where this place is, get to it while he’s not here. Maybe you can set a trap, or burn it down.”

“I can’t do it without you.”

He sighed, and walked up to her, holding out his arms. She settled into his embrace.

“You have to kill me,” he said. “If you don’t do it, I’ll kill myself just to make sure you make it out. And then you won’t get my stats.”

“Noble idiot.”

“Don’t know about noble. But definitely an idiot. Always an idiot.”

They stood there for a minute. She could feel his heart through his chest. For the first time, she was glad for how real the game was. Glad to feel this last bit of warmth from him.

“Get on with it!” Holt yelled.

Slavomir held her more tightly, and he made a sad noise somewhere in the back of his throat. He was putting up such a brave face, but she knew him. He didn’t want to die.

“I’m not going to burn his colosseum,” she said.

“No?”

“No. I’m going to burn his whole fucking game. When I’m done, this world will be your pyre. I will give it all to you to follow into the afterlife.”

“A funeral fit for a viking,” he said.

“I love you.”

“Ditto.”

She shook, and she wasn’t sure if it was from laughter or tears. He joined her, both of them making the same strangled noise.

Her knife work had gotten better in the last week. The blade slid up under his ribs and into his heart in one soft push. Slavomir went stiff in her arms, but managed to stay holding onto her until the very end. And she vowed in that moment, just as he did not let her go, she would not let him go.

Chapter Text

Kwan Il-Su was a patient man. He knew the importance of waiting, and not taking steps that were not needed. You always had to take the shortest route possible from Point A to Point B, but it also wasn’t a race. Efficiency was paramount, and haste was sloppy.

The first time all the players had been summoned to the arena, he’d watched, and waited. Observed participants, anomalies, and most of all, he’d kept his eyes on Ingram Holt.

There was no easy way into his private booth. It was separated from the rest of the colosseum through simple hostile architecture. One would normally only be able to enter through a door in the back of the balcony-like structure, but no such door was present. You could only get in via Holt’s teleportation abilities.

Unless you were very good at climbing or parkour.

So that first day, while everyone else stared in some mixture of wonder, fear, disgust, and who knew what else as NightmareWasTaken and GrandTheftOtter duelled to the death, Il-Su had made a mental map of how exactly to get into Holt’s balcony.

It wouldn’t be easy. He had no climbing gear. No ropes, no grappling hooks. It’d all have to be done hand and foot, a proposition he normally wouldn’t baulk at in Gallant Stand II, but everything was just too real in this game. He’d already tried his hand at scaling what passed for walls in Ri Oa, and nearly been caught and arrested by those pale barbarians that enforced order twice.

He was having to relearn skill sets he’d long since mastered simply because the concepts of muscle strain and pain had been introduced. But Il-Su was nothing if not a fast learner.

Even so, he’d also kept an eye on GrandTheftOtter at the time. Something about her bothered him. Honouring their deal had always been a secondary concern. He didn’t need to be burdened by some untalented nobody. An opinion that quickly disappeared after watching her kill Nightmare. It wasn’t a particularly impressive feat. Everyone knew Nightmare was washed, and that this wasn’t his type of game. Even so, he’d been forced to reevaluate GrandTheftOtter.

She went from an unknown potential ally, to someone he definitely needed to know more about.  Because he’d either be working with her in the future, or he’d need to remove a potential threat.

The second time they’d been summoned to the arena, Il-Su came better equipped. Time had been good to him. He’d gained a patron, and with that, some funding. He was no longer a hungry thief on the streets of an unknown city, he was quickly becoming a player in bigger events.

And with that, came perks. Specifically, the climbing gear he’d been gifted.

So, when everyone was busy with their little revolt, attacking a GM in his own domain in a completely useless act of defiance, Il-Su was doing more important things.

The grappling hook was an ingenious little device he hadn’t expected from a fantasy world, but Il-Su was quickly beginning to realize that fantasy did not mean inferior. The technology in this game was similar to the real world’s, but it’d worked parallel to unique mechanisms and laws of magic available. It was odd seeing the depths of a world made by a narcissist like Ingram Holt, someone who’d made games based on the same principles for years. A man who steadfastly refused to try anything new, now reinventing himself as a visionary who would pioneer gaming.

All gone to waste now. What would he be remembered as now? A monster. Not just a monster, but a derivative one. That was the true tragedy of Ingram Holt. Even in his inhumanity, he was a plagiarist at best.

Il-Su threw the hook, securing it to the top of Holt’s balcony, and swung himself in. A foolhardy move, if there weren’t such a perfect distraction to cover him. Once he was inside, he gave a twist and a tug to the rope, and the hook released. How the mechanism worked, Il-Su had no idea. He secured the rope about his waist, the hook digging into his side, but he’d need his hands free for what he planned next.

While everyone else had focused on Holt’s display of wealth and pomposity through his screen, Il-Su’s eyes had looked for anything else that might be in this section of the arena. Unfortunately he hadn’t found anything, which just encouraged the idea that there must be something hidden. A man like Holt wouldn’t just be sitting in an empty balcony, and then make it completely inaccessible.

He wasn’t threatened by the players, and the little attempt at a revolution below proved that. Maybe, once they’d gained more stats, better gear, more experience with Fell Champions, they’d possibly be able to injure him. But even then, it was doubtful. Holt had likely programmed in some kind of God Mode to go with his god complex.

So, if Holt wasn’t in any danger, why separate himself?

Il-Su began to memorize everything in the booth. He didn’t dare touch anything. Not until he knew where everything was first, and in its exact position. Only once he was confident to know where things were and how they were kept would he begin to investigate. There was no point in leaving evidence behind.

There was the throne, and a small table containing a goblet and bottle of what Il-Su assumed was wine. This was for the audience’s benefit. Props, meant to send a message about Holt’s power over them, and likely served no other purpose.

The ceiling was vaulted, and there were no lights suspended from it. No torch sconces on the walls. No lamps on either of the two tables in the back of the room. And yet, there was a light source, seemingly from nowhere, illuminating the throne. The rest of the room was cast into shadow.

There was nothing else.

Il-Su frowned. This wasn’t expected. There had to be something. Not necessarily an admin console that would be queued up with a command to release all players, but something.

He walked the perimeter of the room, running his hands along stone walls, pushing, feeling, trying to find anything out of place. This was his role, what he was good at. The scout, the point man. Oh, sure, everyone made such a fuss about how he was a legendary assassin, how no one was safe from his blade. But any monkey could be a killer.

No, his true talent had always been in finding what others did not want him to find.

The walls were not made from brick, nor even known the touch of a chisel. They were smooth, like cement. Or so they appeared. His eyes never would have found it, but there was no fooling his fingers. On the back wall, there was a groove. He followed its line, and found a doorway.

Oh, there was no handle to be found, but when you found a groove that came in the shape of a rectangle, and one of those grooves was along the floor, what else could it be?

Il-Su hesitated. It would be easy to try to push at it and see what was on the other side, but it might very well be trapped or alarmed in some way. But the need to know was strong.

Abandoning all caution, Il-Su shoved against the doorway, and it gave under the slightest pressure, swinging inwards. Nothing else happened. No blare, claxon, alarm. No trap raining fire or arrows or bullets or who knew what else Holt could summon up.

Il-Su entered, closing the door behind him. Inside was a bedroom. It was lit in the same way as the throne, seemingly from nowhere. The room’s primary fixture was a canopied bed, the white sheets rumpled and stained from sweat. There was a strong stink of body odour to accompany them.

The rest of the room was chaos. A bulletin board on one wall, sheets of paper tacked to its surface. A discarded violin – viola? Il-Su could never tell the difference – on the floor in the middle of the room. A table with dirty dishes, and a tipped over bottle of wine, half its contents staining the floor. A stand mirror, cracks spider-webbing across its surface from where something had struck it very hard, likely a fist. An assortment of weapons on display in a corner, a heavy axe taken down and embedded into a nearby training dummy.

Il-Su was tempted to steal a weapon. They’d likely be of better make than anything this world had to offer. But even with the disarray of the room, Holt would surely notice its absence.

Il-Su headed to the bulletin board. It was the only logical place. Information, kept right out in the open like this? It was something Holt would have gone over many times. Which meant it was important.

Most of it read like gibberish. Maybe it was in code, or maybe Holt really was half-mad. Or maybe it was written in an in-game language. Or maybe even a real world one that Il-Su wasn’t familiar with. He wasn’t exactly a linguist.

Other pages were drawings. Odd patterns, displayed on sketchings of bodies, like tattoo designs. A scribble of a stone well. An old tree, barren of leaves. A snow-capped mountain. A sword, broken in half, the guard sheared off on one side.

He had no way of making any copies, or taking notes. He’d have to come back, with the appropriate supplies. Paper, ink, or charcoal. Whatever the game’s equivalent was. Or…

He opened his menu, toggling through his streamer settings, and turned his stream on. There was only a couple of dozen people waiting for him. With how the time dilation worked, only people who were online and waiting would be available, or people he pilfered from others’ streams.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t need a lot of people. As a matter of fact, the fewer, the better.

“Chat,” he said to the empty air. “Take a screenshot of what I’m looking at. Clip it. I need to be able to review this later.”

It was risky. They’d share it with other players. Chat was always a bunch of snitches, and none of the people on were his mods. They were likely all sitting in Sami or Everette’s streams. Not that he blamed them. They were probably doing exciting things, like uselessly attacking a god king.

No one responded. He swore. They might all be afk, or bots.

He’d need an ally. Someone who was streaming, and had an audience, and wouldn’t immediately rat him out to Holt. Someone who didn’t hold a grudge.

He pulled up the Online list, going over the names.

GrandTheftOtter was out. Whoever she really was, she’d only just set up her Spasm account not too long ago, and hadn’t streamed once on it. Sami was still angry with him, and anything he told Everette would inevitably get back to her. Man couldn’t keep a secret to save his life, and he acted like he was married to her, despite the fact that their sexualities were incompatible. Why they were still together was beyond Il-Su.

He couldn’t involve any of the grifters like Paul Howlett, or content whores like Fitzkim or Masked Baguette. Neither group could be trusted to not immediately share anything learned here.

Il-Su didn’t recognize half the names on the list. Apparently a lot of the players had decided at the last minute to swap their identities around, either for ‘roleplay’, or because they wanted to remain incognito. Most of those were smart enough not to be streaming.

He finally settled on one name, one he’d been surprised to learn was playing the game at all, not after her disappearing act. He was loathe to hit the call button. She’d always been notorious for never responding, in-game, on a messaging app, on her phone, anything.

He almost withdrew the message entirely thinking about it, but then a window popped open.

Pandemona didn’t look anything like Il-Su expected her to. She’d always been proud of her heritage, as mixed as it was. Some called her Polynesian, but it was safer just to call her southeast Asian, or possibly just ‘ethnic.’ She’d one time tried to detail out her family tree to Il-Su, and after listing ethnicities between Tongan, Filipina, Kiwi, Chinese, Samoan, and Hispanic, Il-Su had honestly stopped paying attention.

She’d always tried to bring that mixed heritage to her avatars. So… why was this Pandemona so… Caucasian?

“Oh, hey, Il-Su, what’s up?” she said.

She was panting, as if she’d just run a marathon. She’d probably been participating in the fight against Holt. That tracked. Despite being the mage in their old party dynamic, and having a sound tactical mind, she tended to lend herself towards impulse.

“I need someone in your chat. Anyone. Doesn’t matter who. Send them over, I need them to take some screenshots.”

“No can do. I’m not streaming.”

“You? Not streaming? I would’ve assumed you the first to go online out of everyone.”

“I do like soliciting donations from chat,” she said, and then seemed to catch herself. She looked around, as if afraid someone had heard her. “You know me.”

He did. Probably a little too well, which had always been a problem. Things would’ve been so much simpler if he’d known her a little less.

“Then I need a recommendation,” he said. “Someone who’s streaming, and whose chat can be trusted.”

“No one’s chat can be trusted. The bigger the secret, the quicker they’ll post screenshots online and tell everyone.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“What do you need them for?”

He hesitated for a second. “I’m in Holt’s area. I need someone to take a screenshot of something I found.”

“Get out of there, dummy. He’s back on his throne right now.”

Il-Su sucked in a breath, and looked at the doorway. It was still closed. How much longer would that be true for?

He’d already worked out his escape plan, days before committing to this. In the event he couldn’t get out before Holt returned or was no longer distracted, all he had to do was hide and wait it out. Holt would eventually initiate a mass teleport out. At which point, Il-Su was free.

He just needed to not be discovered.

When he dared speak, it was as hushed as he could manage and still be audible. “I can’t. I’m committed now, May.”

She always hated when he called her that. He gave her a knowing smirk, but she offered nothing in response.

“Fine. I’ll join your chat, and make a clip myself.”

“You can do that?”

“Heck yeah, you can. Haven’t you played with the streamer settings at all?”

He ignored the bait. A moment later, someone joined his chat, but under an anonymous throwaway account, a name that was all random letters and numbers. That was odd. Why wasn’t she using her Pandemona login?

“Just start taking screenshots. Send them to me when you’re done. And don’t share this with anyone else. No clips. They’d be available to anyone who comes to my channel.”

He went through the papers again, giving as many lingering looks as he could. When they were done, Il-Su disabled his stream, and then hid under the bed. It was the perfect crime.

So, as he laid there with a self-satisfied smile on his face, he was a little shocked to hear the door open, and Holt’s voice call out, “Come on out, Il-Su. We need to talk.”

Chapter Text

Otter knew she should’ve been watching the fight. Or maybe watching out for Slavomir, after. But the entire time, she was checking Rua’s neck, making sure there wasn’t any lasting damage. Rua took the examination with a quiet, annoyed calm, but still allowed it just for Otter’s sake.

“What you did was stupid,” Sami said. “Incomprehensible.”

“It was needed,” Rua answered. “I didn’t see any of the rest of you going against his game, or trying to figure a way out of your situation.”

“You learned one thing! That’s up to interpretation! And you risked your life over it.”

Sami rarely raised her voice. She was normally all about maintaining her composure. Otter hadn’t seen her this angry since… well, since the breakup, and even then she hadn’t borne the full brunt of it.

Advantage of ghosting, even if it’d been a shitty thing to do.

“Hey, ease down,” Everett said, trying to play the peacemaker as always. “No need to be so angry, eh?”

Rua was giving him a look, and Otter realized no one had explained why there was a nearly seven foot tall dragon man. She gave her a quick rundown on character creation, and it was why some of their number looked so… odd.

“Normally, when people look like that, it’s a result of a Pact,” Rua said. “But I knew something was off since none of you know Pact magic. Of course it relates to your game.”

“We get to be whatever we want to be. Everett here just happens to enjoy being a dragon man. Just like Pandemona seems to like having horns. Hey, wait, where did she go?”

“Wandered off over there,” Sami said, waving at a point in the back seats. “Got a message and suddenly that was more important than this.”

“What is this ‘Pact magic’ you keep mentioning?” Everett asked.

“Yes,” Sami said. “Let’s focus on that. Is that how you’ve been doing those golden wires?”

“Uh…” Otter looked between Sami and Rua. She couldn’t recall if she’d been specifically forbidden from mentioning how Pact magic worked, but Otter definitely got the impression Rua didn’t want that information being spread. “Maybe?”

“It is,” Rua said. “Someone makes a deal with a Dreamer, and in return they get power.”

“A deal?” Sami asked. “What kind of deal? And does everyone get wires?”

“No. When you make your Pact, you gain a title. There’s thousands of recorded titles. Every Dreamer has a set they can pull from. Some overlap. Some are unique to specific Dreamers. Each title has its own set of powers, but just because two people share a title, doesn’t mean they’ll have the same powers, but it also doesn’t mean they won’t. For example, I’m a Lieseeker. I know of one other Lieseeker in the Silayan Islands. My base ability is that I can tell when someone is lying, whereas the other one can make someone else speak untrue things.

“No one knows for sure what the Dreamers get out of the Pact, but the theory is that they guide events to outcomes they desire. And as you get closer to fulfilling the destiny they set out for you, your Pact abilities can either evolve, or you can gain more powers.”

“And these Dreamers are, what? Gods?”

Rua made a low, angry sound. “You people need to stop saying that word. Tales, what is wrong with you?”

“Not religious here?” Everett asked, an amused tone to his voice.

“We don’t talk about it. For good reason. Just… stop saying that word. And tell others of your kind to also not say it.”

Otter gave them both a helpless shrug. “She won’t explain it to me either.”

“So, can you tell us how to make a Pact?” Sami asked.

“No,” Rua said.

Sami leaned closer. “I thought you said you took care of your possessions.”

“It’s not about wanting. You’re in the Salass Wastes. I can tell you how to do the ritual to perform a Pact on the Silayan Islands, but I have no idea how it works there. I don’t know the Salassian Dreamer’s titles, or the wards to protect you from it. And not everyone who tries to form a Pact gets one. The Dreamer sometimes isn’t interested and just doesn’t respond to some people.”

“So, we just need to find someone who does know the ritual?” Sami asked. “Where can we find someone like that?”

“In the Salass Wastes? I have no idea. If it were the Silayan Islands, I could do it. If it were Mikovia, I’d point you to one of their Great Fathers. Criobani, ask any soldier. All I know about the Salass Wastes is that it's hot, desolate, and its people are nomadic.”

“Can we just come to the Silayan Islands and get a Pact there then?”

“Probably not,” Otter said. “When I spoke with the Dreamer, she made it sound like she only deals with people born on the Islands. Or in the case of players, people who spawn there. I don’t think you’ll have any luck here.”

“Ugh, NPCs and their silly quest requirements,” Everett said.

“Yeah… that’s another thing we need to talk about.”

“What? Quest requirements?”

“No. NPCs. And the fact that this game doesn’t have them.”

Rua looked a little grateful at that remark, but said nothing.

“What do you mean by that?” Everett asked.

“She means that Rua is an NPC,” Sami said.

“No shit? But… she’s so life-like.”

“Exactly,” Otter said. “I don’t know how to explain her, except that she’s real. She doesn’t just pass the Turing test, she beat the shit out of it in a 7-11 parking lot and went through its pockets for loose change and cognitive function.”

“Maybe Holt cracked some kind of AI code?”

Sami kicked him in the shin, and he let out a howl of pain, hopping up and down on one leg.

“Felt real, didn’t it?” Sami asked. “I’ve had… thoughts… since I had my first fight here. Everything is too much. Graphics are too good, pain is too real, people make mistakes in combat, and not just AI-generated openings. Either Ingram Holt made the most advanced game in every possible field ever made, or something else is going on.”

“What?” Pandemona said, joining them from wherever she’d absconded herself to.

“Game isn’t a game, everything is too real, keep up,” Otter said.

“Who what now?”

Otter decided to give her the same demonstration Sami had given Everett and kicked her in the shin. She let out a sharp exhalation of pain, and rubbed at the hurt area.

“Caught up now? Good. Wait, why do shin kicks go through Tenacity? And flicks and stuff.”

Rua rolled her eyes, “Because it has to do with intent. You’re not actually trying to injure the person, so the defender’s Tenacity doesn’t react. If you were trying to do damage, you would’ve hit her shield. I was really hoping you’d figure that one out on your own.”

“Wait, how much stuff are you expecting me to figure out on my own that I’ve just been blundering through?”

“Experience is the best teacher.”

“That sounded like an ‘everything’ to me.”

“We’re getting a little far afield,” Sami interrupted. “And we have a time limit. For some reason Holt is letting us just sit here, talking amongst ourselves after we all tried to kill him. Soon, he’s going to realize that’s a mistake. We need a plan. Like, trying to figure out how we’re going to get out of this game, or whatever it is.”

“Il-Su’s got that handled,” Pandemona said. “He told me to get on his stream and screenshot a bunch of stuff from Holt’s room.”

“Holt’s what?” Sami said, her voice gone icy.

“He broke into Holt’s place. I assume while we were all fighting. Didn’t he tell you guys? I thought you were tight.”

“That stupid son of a bitch. He never communicates. Ever. Always goes and does the most asinine things, and never communicates. This is your fault, you know.” She jabbed a finger at Otter. “He learned it from you.”

“Why would he have learned it from some newbie?” Everett said. “We all know he learned it from May… ah.”

His gaze settled on Otter, recognition dawning on him. She gave a polite wave, and he ruefully shook his head in return.

“You knew about this?” he asked Sami. “Of course you did. So, that’s why you’ve been so hot and cold about her.”

“I was going to tell you. Just… when I sorted my feelings for it out.”

Everett gave out a single barked laugh. “The day you sort out your feelings for Mayumi. So, the heat death of the universe? But no, no time for this discussion now. Tell me what my idiot ex-boyfriend has gone and risked his life for.”

Pandemona relayed what little she knew, sending them copies of the information that she’d uncovered.

“What even is this?” Sami asked, looking at her menu. “It looks like gibberish.”

“It’s Criobani,” Rua said. “I don’t know what it says, but I recognize the text.”

Otter smiled, feeling a little bit of hope. “Well, luckily, we might have someone who can translate whatever this is. It might give us a plan.”

“You might?” Sami asked.

“It’s complicated. She’s stuck in an armour in a death swamp and might be permanently bound to it and I might be able to free her from a curse or something.”

Everett whistled. How, Otter had no idea, considering his mouth and lips were definitely nonhuman.

“You always get yourself into the stupidest things,” Sami said, shaking her head. “You and Il-Su.”

“Hey, but at least our stupid helps. You know. Sometimes.”

They went over some logistical details. Sami was sure she was only a week’s travel from Everett, and Pandemona was apparently in the Jiridion Belt, in a fishing village. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get passage, but she promised that as soon as she figured out how to perform a Pact, she’d do her best to get to the Silayan Islands. They would all meet up in the capitol, Ri Oa, once they were able.

The entire time, they avoided the topic of Il-Su. He hadn’t come out of Holt’s office, and hadn’t messaged Pandemona. They all knew none of them possessed the skills or equipment to get onto Holt’s balcony without being spotted. Any attempt at rescue was tantamount to suicide.

“I think we should invite Chinchilla,” Everett said.

“Good idea,” Otter agreed. “Did you see how she ganked Paul? It’s not great he’s dead, but fuck I did not want that guy anywhere near me.”

“I don’t know her,” Rua said. “But… won’t she want revenge? Do we want to be pulled into that?”

Everett shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. She needs a helping hand right now. We offer it. If she chooses revenge, we can revisit.”

Sami agreed, “STI and Beast Infection weren’t going to be our allies anyway. Not after Paul started conflict with us.”

Otter wasn’t sure she liked it. Chinchilla was a good friend, but something nagged at her. She wasn’t sure what it was. Probably nothing. But she felt like she should say something, while they were all gathered.

So of course, in that moment, reality blurred once again, scattering them back to their old locations.

Chapter Text

When they got back home – it was so weird that this little cabin in the middle of a death swamp felt like home already  – they found a pair of backpacks waiting for them on the dining table. It felt invasive and poisonous that Holt could just drop whatever he felt like in their home whenever he wanted, like he could intrude wherever he pleased. Him interrupting their most intimate moments with forced messages wasn’t enough. He could just walk into their residence. It tainted the cabin in a way nothing else could.

Otter wanted nothing more than to throw out both packs into the deepest, dirtiest mud puddle she could find, but Rua, ever practical, insisted on going through them and inventorying their contents.

“Aren’t you mad?” Otter asked.

“Furious. But never mind that we need the supplies, the backpacks themselves are useful. Besides, when your enemy gives you a knife, you don’t question it or throw it away. You just stab him with it.”

The packs were exactly as Holt had advertised. One knife each, a tinderbox with flint and steel – something Rua viewed as disgusting primitive – a glyph stone that could find fresh water, a canteen, and enough food for three days of meals.The food was nothing fancy. Dried fruit, nuts, some jerky, and a single loaf of crusty bread, but it was better than nothing.

Rua made a face inspecting it. “What kind of fruit is this?”

“Looks like… apricots, cranberries, figs, mangoes, prunes, apples, raisins… oh, hey, banana chips. I hate banana chips. Thanks, Holt.”

“And you… eat this?”

Otter cocked her head in confusion. “Well, yeah. Ideally, you eat it fresh, but it’s supposed to be travel rations.”

Rua picked up a single craisin, sniffed it, made a face, and then tried it.

“That wasn’t bad,” she said after a moment.

“Craisins are delicious, and actually fit your food tastes. Everything you’ve fed me has either been a little bitter, or sour.”

“This is food from where you come from?”

“Oh, right. You guys probably don’t have our fruit. Huh. This might be the last time I ever get to throw banana chips into the garbage.”

“And these are banana chips?” Rua asked, pulling one out and looking at it askance.

“Honey, no. No. Do not…”

It was too late to save her. Rua put it into her mouth. She chewed. And then somehow, she swallowed. It took everything Otter had to not gag in sympathy. And then, the impossible happened. Rua picked up another one and ate it, too.

“I am never kissing you again,” Otter said.

“These are good.”

“No.”

“I think I like these.”

“Well, I guess you had to have some kind of irredeemable flaw. You were nearly too perfect.”

“Your irredeemable flaw is that you don’t like these.” She ate another one.

“We need to save those. We’re rationing, remember?”

“But you’re not going to eat them, so I can have mine and your share. And I don’t even need to trade for it, because you’re so vocal about it.”

“I’m breaking up with you.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. I was going to suck your cock later tonight, too.”

Rua gave her a winsome smile, which was immediately ruined by her eating another banana chip. She licked her lips when she was done, and Otter could do nothing but watch her tongue. Something in Otter’s brain broke.

“I mean… I guess we can stay together.”

“No, too late. You broke it off. Now you’ll never know if I’d be good at it. At how much I’d want it, on my knees, looking up at you, taking you with my pretty little mouth. You’d like it, wouldn’t you? To see my eyes, these eyes you like so much, looking up at you as I’m your good little girl?”

Otter didn’t realize her breath had grown ragged until she barked out a quick cough. “You’re… you’re a tease.”

Rua leaned in close. “It’s only teasing if I don’t follow through.”

“Oh. Okay. So, you’re going to…” She left it hanging. She could feel her cock throbbing.

“Continue to tease you? Yes.” Rua took a quick skip backwards. “We need to plan. We need to rescue your fair Criobani maiden.”

“She’s… she’s not my, well, anything.”

Rua’s expression turned serious. “Good. Because she isn’t. We’re not going to save her just for her to join our relationship. She’s not your future girlfriend. She’s my enemy. And I want you to understand that. Just because she was enslaved and put in that suit of armour, does not mean she is my friend.”

“She could be, you know.”

Something like anger flashed in Rua’s eyes. It was there and gone in a flash. And then they turned soft, and she shook her head.

“No. She can’t. And that’s just the way it is.”

Otter let it drop. She didn’t know enough. Didn’t know the history between the Criobani and the Silayans. Didn’t know about Rua’s father, and why she’d betrayed her country. Didn’t know what it was like to live a life as a half-breed in a world that apparently detested them. And she wasn’t going to push.

If there was one thing Otter was good at in relationships, it was respecting boundaries. Too bad everyone else seemed to suck at it.

“Okay,” Otter said. “I understand. We’re not saving her to be part of my future harem. We’re saving her because it’s the right thing to do.”

Rua snorted. “You wish you could command a harem.”

“She says, as the first member of my future harem.”

“More like you’re the first member of my harem.”

“I can share. We’ll be co-owners of the future harem.”

“I suppose I can agree to those terms.”

“Although, since I am poly, everyone is technically a co-owner of the harem. Equal rights for everyone.”

Rua rolled her eyes. “Can we get to the planning now?”

“I’d, uh, love to, but after your teasing, I’m actually a little, uh… distracted.” She was going to have to go outside and rub one out or something. Her mind was getting a little too focused on banter, and the urge to just spend the day fucking Rua senseless was quickly becoming a fixture in her mind. “Just excuse me for a minute, and…”

“Excuse you? No, I don’t think I will.” Rua placed one hand on Otter’s length, tracing it with her fingers through her pants. “If you can get through this, and actually participate in the planning, I’ll give you a treat.”

Images of Rua on her knees, fulfilling her earlier promise, flashed through Otter’s mind.

“Deal.”

Otter squirmed the entire time, and Rua didn’t relent or show mercy. The entire time they put together their ‘plan’, if it could be called that, Rua fondled her. Whenever Otter attempted to touch her back, Rua backed away. There was a delight in her eyes, every time she did, Otter’s happiness with it was only matched by her growing frustration.

There wasn’t much to their plan. It was simple enough that there was no opportunity for a fuckup on their part. It would only come down to dumb luck in the end. It was the kind of plan that could’ve been put together in two minutes, if not for the completely distracting presence of Rua’s hand.

“Are we done now? Please tell me we’re done now,” Otter said.

Rua stroked her chin in thought, hummed for a bit, and then sighed. “I suppose you’ve been kind of good. You can have your treat.”

“Oh thank fuck. Treat, and then we go rescue the girl.”

“Agreed. Now, close your eyes.”

At this point, Otter didn’t even argue it. She closed her eyes, and balled her fists in anxious anticipation.

There was a feather light touch on her lips, there and gone. A soft kiss that promised more. Otter leaned forward, trying to capture Rua’s. Something pressed against her, and she opened her mouth.

And then was assaulted by the vile taste and texture of a banana chip.

She went to gag it out, to spit out the taste of betrayal, and then Rua’s lips were on hers, her tongue pressing against hers, and suddenly, betrayal didn’t taste quite so bad. She was happy to have that taste in her mouth, which honestly wasn’t even that bad now that she thought about it, just to be kissing Rua.

She didn’t know where the chip ended up. She didn’t remember swallowing, so she assumed Rua must’ve taken it, but after a while, she noticed it was gone. Rua’s technique was getting better, if she’d managed to pull that off.

And then Rua proved her entirely wrong by running her tongue over Otter’s teeth in an awkward fashion which was honestly still kind of hot in a way she couldn’t explain. She reached forward, trying to grab hold of a breast, a shoulder, a hip, really anything, just so long as she was touching Rua, but her hands were swatted away, and Rua pulled back.

Otter opened her eyes, and even though she’d only kissed with no touching between them, Rua looked a positive mess.

“Did you like your treat?” she said, her tone playful.

“I swear to holy fuck you better give amazing head, because if that was your idea of a treat…”

“Oh, if you didn’t like it, I can just never kiss you again.”

“I take it all back, I’m weak, please give me more of your disgusting banana chip kisses.”

She sat back and seemed to think about it for a second. “No. You don’t properly appreciate these. They’re mine now.”

She took the bag, and popped another one in her mouth.

“Shouldn’t you be saving those? Rations, remember?”

“Fine. But your Criobani maiden isn’t allowed to have any. If she touches these… what did you call them? Banana chips? If she touches these banana chips, she can find her own way off the island.”

“Agreed, I guess.”

“Great. Now, let’s go get her.”

“Now?”

“What? Were you expecting something else?”

“Weren’t you going to… you know…” She gestured towards her pelvic region.

“What kind of slut do you think I am? We have things to do. Come on. There’s a maiden in need of rescuing.”

Chapter Text

Otter decided that she hated living in a death swamp.

It had little to do with the impending doom of possible Ashborne Cuttings, or the impending doom of future hot, muggy summers, or the impending doom of running out of food, or even the impending doom of possible pathogens from insects and the water in the event her Tenacity ever failed.

No, Otter just really hated the mud.

She was tired of slogging through it, she was tired of washing it off, and she was just tired of how it felt. It wasn’t even gross. She didn’t care about the hygienic aspect of it half as much as she should. No, it just kind of felt cold and gross. And she was tired of feeling cold and gross.

“Can we leave yet?” she whined.

“You’re the one who wanted to do this.”

“No, I meant the island. Can we leave yet? Like, right after this?”

“Probably not.”

“Why not?”

“Are you sulking right now?”

“No.” She crossed her arms and huffed.

“You’re sulking.”

“Am not.”

“Is this because I didn’t suck you off?”

Right. Otter had almost forgotten about that. Her dick was definitely unsucked right now, and after all that teasing, it definitely felt in need of a good sucking.Sbe could feel herself literally twitch in anticipation.

“Well, it is now.”

Rua turned and gave her a wide smirk. “Poor, horny baby. Have to wait a few hours before your girlfriend gratifies you.”

“You know, I could just force you to your knees and ram it down your throat. I bet you’d even enjoy that. Being reminded that you belong to me. That you’re mine.”

Rua took in a sharp breath, but other than that, betrayed no reaction. Her poker face was getting better. Too bad it wasn’t good enough.

“I can just imagine it now,” Otter said. “You struggling against my length, trying so badly to fit it all down your throat. To prove that you’re my little Silayan. My good girl. Because if you were good, you’d be able to take it all. And you’d have so much difficulty. You’re so small, and I’m… not. But you’re so eager to please.”

She was all but stumbling over her words, working herself to a fever pitch. And the imagery was doing a lot for her. But it was doing more for Rua, because while Otter was tripping over what she was saying, Rua was beginning to trip over her own feet. Rua, who was normally as sure-footed as a goat on this ground.

Otter had to reach out and grab her arm to keep her from falling face first into the mud. Rua, her cheeks flaming in embarrassment, let out a mumbled ‘thanks’ and continued on, quickening her pace.

It didn’t take long to reach the armour in the swamp. And things had changed since they’d been there last. Rua swore softly, and it wasn’t difficult to see why.

One of the suit’s arms had torn itself free from the mud, and it was holding a struggling Cutting in one hand, its steel fingers enveloping the thing’s entire torso and crushing it in its grip. The Cutting seemed to not notice the damage, smashing its limbs against the fist over and over, but wood was never a good matchup against metal. Those arms and legs which unceasingly slammed against their captor had long since reduced themselves to splinters of their former selves.

The Vexurian made no move, content in holding its attacker at bay. It made no move towards them or acknowledged their presence.

“Is… is this a problem?” Otter asked.

“Yes. Probably. I don’t know. But yes.”

“Is it going to attack us?”

“Not unless we try to damage it. The Cutting probably sensed the Vexurian’s Pact core and attacked, and it defended itself. I’m more worried about other Cuttings.”

“We just stick to the plan, right? We’ll be fine as long as we do that.”

“I’m not so sure,” Rua said, shaking her head. “Ashborne isn’t stupid, even if the Cuttings are. It knows how many it sends out. It knows how many report back. If that Cutting’s been here for a while, Ashborne might have sent more Cuttings to look for it. Bad enough we killed one. A second missing one means a pattern.”

Otter went cold. Some part of her so badly wanted to be a hero here. Make a difference, even if it was a small one. Just one person.

“I say we go forward.”

Rua took a full five seconds before saying, “I agree.”

“Really? Even with the risk, you’re still going to do this for me?”

“No. I mean, yes. But… I have an ulterior motive. If this works… it could change so much. About the war with the Criobani. Vexurians are terrifying. Both for us, and for the Criobani themselves. If word got out that someone found a way to free someone from those suits… it’d shake their whole empire.”

“Oh.”

Otter had been kind of hoping that Rua had been doing this just for her. Because she cared. Or maybe because she also wanted to save someone. She hadn’t been expecting that.

“Hey,” Rua said. “I can do things for more than one reason.”

The damn link. And Rua always being plugged into it. She must’ve sensed the mood change. That was so annoying sometimes. And now, if this worked, Otter was going to be plugged into someone else, too.

“We stick to the plan,” she said.

‘The plan’ was very simple. Cuttings weren’t smart, according to Rua. They were kind of like classic movie zombies. If they didn’t see something to attack, they wouldn’t. If they couldn’t get at something because there was an impediment, they’d go somewhere else.

Despite the treetops covering most of the sky in a canopy, there weren’t really that many of them. Even so, there were enough for Otter to trigger her Thread of the Scourge five times, forming a perimeter around them that was at about waist-height, the threads tied to trees and forming a circle around the Vexurian. It wasn’t a wall by any means. You could easily go over or under it, depending on your preference. But if you were just walking forward, it’d keep you out. In theory.

The second level of defense was Rua’s Truthshield, a barrier that looked like a black dome to anyone on the inside, but to the outside, it looked like anything Rua decided. You could easily walk in or out of it, and if you knew it was there, you could apparently perceive the edges of it. But for something dumb and mindless like a Cutting, it was the perfect camouflage.

With the Truthshield in place, a wandering Cutting wouldn’t have a reason to try to bypass the Threads of the Scourge. One piece by itself would be useless without the other.

“How long will this shield last?” Otter asked.

“Four hours, if left unattended. Longer, if I’m aware enough to pump more Will into it.”

“Oh. So, you can do that?”

“Remember last time you used your skill? We were both on our backs for who knows how long. And I wasn’t exactly able to… focus.”

She meant able to focus on anything other than exploring as much of Otter’s psyche as she could. Which, fair. It’d been an extremely intimate experience.

“No time like the present, I guess.”

Rua grunted, and staring very pointedly at the struggling Cutting in the Vexurian’s grip, she reached over and began to unscrew the helmet from the torso. She dropped it to the ground when she was done. The Vexurian did not react.

Otter summoned her Thread of Fate. The blazing red wire flared into existence in one hand, dangling from her fist. Before she could lower it in, Rua grabbed the section directly below Otter’s hand. The wire pulsed, but nothing else happened.

“Together,” Rua said.

“Always.”

The glowing red Thread of Fate lit the inside of the Vexurian, showing the helpless ginger bound within. Rua drew a knife.

“Before, or after?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t exactly done this before, but…” Her gut knew the answer, somehow. Maybe it was the skill itself. Maybe it was intuition. Or maybe it was the Dreamer, talking to her through fate itself. “During. We touch the wire to her, and you cut her loose.”

“That’s not exactly going to be easy.”

Otter drew her own knife. Inside the armour, the redhead wore a metal collar that was bound in white cloths painted with runes. One cloth covered each arm and leg as well, as well as another cinched about her waist. Rua hadn’t been sure, no one outside of the Criobani Empire really was, but it was theorized those strips of cloth were what slavebound someone to the armour. Probably the metal collar as well, even if it lacked the same runes, but they didn’t have anything in their repertoire to deal with that. They had to hope removing the cloths would be enough.

“I know,” Otter said. “On three, I lower the thread. And then we start cutting. I take the left side, you take the right. Be careful, but… if you have to cut her to get it off quickly enough…”

They didn’t know how long they’d stay upright. As long as she didn’t bleed out, any harm would be better than staying stuck in that suit. Even killing her might be preferable to leaving her trapped.

Rua nodded. “Okay, do it.”

“One… two… three.”

Otter lowered the wire, touching it to the slave’s hair. The thread blazed with light, and so did the woman’s hair.

Otter didn’t stop to think. It was like something slammed right into her mind. She stabbed downwards. Her first cut scraped the metal of the collar, swiping away white cloth while scraping loudly against steel. She’d meant to be more delicate, but she stumbled. Not a good sign for when she’d have to try to cut away the cloths against skin.

There was a high-pitch whine in her ears, and it took a moment to realize it was the slave. She wasn’t just screaming. She was shrieking, shrill and raw. It was pain and terror and the unknown, and it was unfettered.

Otter tried to shut it out, but it followed her into her mind, slamming against whatever defenses she thought she had.

Her knife moved down, cutting away at the cloth on one arm, parting it as easily as the skin it was against. Blood flowed freely.

She moved for the one around the slave’s waist, but it came away, undone by Rua’s own knifework.

The slave’s head thrashed upwards, and her eyes shot open, green eyes blazing with unearthly light. They didn’t just gleam or shine, they glowed like beacons. Otter tried to shove the questions as to what that meant to the back of her mind.

Before, this had felt like her awareness expanded. Like some small room was being added to her brain, but she could only see through a window that shrank the longer the event went on. This wasn’t a room, or a window. It was a black hole.

It was an endless hunger in her mind, a maw wide open and ready to devour everything in its vicinity. Otter could feel panic from Rua, and knew that she wasn’t the only one in danger.

Otter couldn’t be gentle. She jammed the knife into the last of the strips of cloth, tearing it in twain and running a bloody furrow along the woman’s thigh. Her hands wouldn’t allow for anything more delicate.

That black hole in her mind double in size, and Otter could feel an awareness behind it. There was nothingness incarnate in it, aside from hunger. It was just… empty.

Reality fractured. Otter saw double, and she realized her own voice had now joined the screaming.

It was Rua that saved her. Maybe saved them both. Or all three. Some part of Otter’s mind was cognizant enough to see Rua drop her dagger and, with her now free hand, grab the red Thread of Fate and tie it around the collar.

She didn’t know why, until she realized that she had screamed it, had been screaming for Rua to do it all along, as if her own skill had hijacked her vocal chords and shouted what needed to be done.

There was a shuddering sensation in mind, and the black hole snapped shut, leaving behind a small opening, similar to the link between her and Rua. The same sense of emptiness emanated from it.

It was the last thought Otter had before she passed out.

Chapter Text

Otter woke with a headache and a grogginess that refused to shake from her brain meats. Consciousness was slow to return, and she groaned, grabbing a pillow and jamming it over her head. There was resistance, as if there’d been a weight on top of it, but Otter didn’t particularly care given the circumstances.

Somewhere, someone was making noise, and Otter didn’t care for it. It sounded like clattering and clanking. Why would someone do that to her. She was clearly hung over.

“Pillow,” someone mumbled, and Otter realized it was Rua.

A synapse fired somewhere in her broken head, and she concluded that the weight on top of it must’ve been Rua’s head. She’d stolen Rua’s pillow. That seemed mean.

Her brain stuttered and stopped, then flickered to life again, and she pulled the pillow off her head and handed the pillow back to Rua, who was sleeping next to her in the bed. Her eyes weren’t open, and she seemed to be in a state of mostly asleep, but partly awake. Rua grabbed the pillow, and hugged it to her chest, before turning over and softly snoring.

There was a bang from outside the bedroom, probably from the kitchen, followed by a surprised noise. Rua was making a lot of noise in there for someone who also happened to be sleeping in bed with her.

Wait.

The hamster in Otter’s head ran a little faster on its wheel, chugging along and turning gears for her. If Rua was in bed with her, then it stood to reason that the person in the kitchen was not Rua. And since Otter was in bed with Rua, then she wasn’t having an out of body experience and was in fact also not in the kitchen.

That meant it was someone else. A third party, if you would. Which meant a third person. Was there a third person? Otter remembered herself being in the cabin. And Rua. And sex with Rua. She really remembered sex with Rua. Was there a third person who existed?

Thinking hurt.

Wait.

How did she get in bed?

Otter’s last memory was of passing out, next to the Vexurian. Some kind of psychic backlash from using the Thread of Fate. Rua must have carried her back. Carried them back? The third person, the one in the kitchen, she was the redhead they’d gone to free from the Vexurian.

There was a stranger banging around in their kitchen. Was she cooking? Seemed rude. Unless she was cooking for all of them. Then less rude. Unless she was secretly plotting to poison them and usurp the cabin as her own. Then it went back to rude.

She should probably do something about that. But her head was pounding. Just thinking thoughts made everything ache.

“Rua,” she said, poking her in the back. “Wake up. We’re being poisoned.”

Rua made a fussy groan, but didn’t move. So Otter poked her again. There was some flailing, followed by more noises.

“Your turn,” Rua said. “I dealt with last poisoning.”

“This is our first poisoning.”

But Rua was already back to snoring.

Otter tried to go back to sleep in protest. It was so easy. Her body just wanted to sink into oblivion. But every time she came close, there was another clang or smash from the kitchen. Schroedinger’s Assassin was apparently very clumsy.

Otter finally threw off the blanket covering her. She was still dressed, and still very muddy. It had all dried and caked to her, and chunks of it had fallen off and been smeared into the bedspread and sheets. Rua was going to be annoyed about that. But maybe also grateful that a stranger hadn’t decided to strip her naked and wash her down as well.

Otter began to sit up when the door swung open with a thud, and in marched something she had not at all expected.

“Weren’t you… taller?” Otter said.

The redhead carrying a pair of plates had been a full grown adult. Otter was pretty sure about that. She’d had tits and everything. The person who walked in did not, nor did she have the height of an adult. She was very much a child, maybe eight years old. Maybe less.

The only thing that was recognizable from the person they’d rescued from the armor was a mop of very unruly red hair, and a light smattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks. Her eyes were still green, but they did not glow like they briefly had, and she was now wearing Otter’s old grey smock, which was comically large on her. The thing had come down to Otter’s knees before. This looked like an oversized dress – or maybe a tarp – on a, well, child.

The redhead smiled at her, beaming with some kind of inner joy that Otter could not understand, not with her head pounding the way it was.

She held out a plate, which was covered in what appeared to be a stack of pancakes, lightly sprinkled with dried fruit and a light drizzling of syrup, and a side of some kind of grilled meat. Where she’d gotten the food, Otter had no honest idea, but it smelled delicious.

Thankfully, there were no banana chips in sight. Rua had separated them out from the rest of the dried fruit and hidden them somewhere. Hopefully, they stayed in exile.

“Is… is that for me?” Otter asked.

The redhead shyly nodded. She looked nervous, unable to completely meet Otter’s eyes. Otter took the proffered meal, and though there were no utensils, she began to eat, going at it by hand. The syrup tasted odd, and was very warm, as if it’d been heated, and the texture of the pancakes was a little softer than she’d expected. The dried fruit was also an odd but welcome touch.

“Thank you,” Otter said with her mouth full.

As far as hangover food went, it wasn’t bad, especially since her stomach was actually welcoming of it. She made a noise of appreciation.

The redhead looked at Rua, who was still sleeping, and to the second plate she was holding, and then put it on top of the nightstand.

“M’Otter. What’s your name?”

The redhead looked away.

Okay, so, not a great conversationalist. Was she just shy, or was it some kind of side effect of freeing her? Was the reason she was so… little…. some kind of side effect as well? Otter’s brain might currently be a little messed up, but she was definitely sure they’d rescued an adult. So unless there was some other random Criobani redhead on the island, she must’ve shrunk. Or de-aged. Or something.

“That’s fine,” Otter said. “If you don’t wanna talk, I mean. I can do it enough for the both of us.”

She leaned forward and patted the girl’s head, and she practically preened under the attention, even letting out a small giggle.

Okay. Yeah. That was kind of cute.

“Did you eat?”

The girl shook her head, coppery ringlets flying in all directions.

“Are you hungry?”

A brief pause, and then a shy nod.

“You made all this food, but didn’t have any?”

A small shrug.

“Do you want some?”

There was a long pause, and then a very small nod.

Otter patted the bed next to her, and after a moment of careful consideration, she climbed up. There was such a hesitance to everything she did.

Otter briefly probed at their link. She didn’t like using it. It always felt like an intrusion, even doing it with Rua, who actively got off on the sensation.

The little girl was afraid. It wasn’t terror, or panic, just more of a general anxiety. An apprehension that she’d done something wrong. Right. She’d been a slave. Probably wanted to please her new ‘owner.’

God, that made Otter feel sick.

She tore one of the pancakes in half, and rolled it up, handing it to the redhead. She looked unsure at first, and then thought better of it after a second and grabbed it, wolfing it down.

“So, what do I call you?” Otter asked.

A small shrug. The link transmitted confusion. Fear, that she didn’t seem to have an answer to the question. Or maybe…

“Can you talk?”

Another shrug, smaller.

“You’re allowed to talk.”

A small smile, barely visible under that mess of red hair and syrup smeared face. Wow, how had she gotten so messy so fast?

“Uh oh,” Otter said. “Now I’m going to have to clean you.”

The girl flinched.

“Oh, sorry, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not mad. Be as messy as you want. Do you want some of this meat? It looks good.”

Another hesitation, followed by a very emphatic nod. Otter tore a piece of meat in two, and handed one half to the girl. She didn’t even pause, she just grabbed it and threw the whole thing in her mouth and swallowed, as if afraid it would be taken back. Otter chuckled and ruffled her hair again.

“Chew your food.”

Otter ate hers, and then tore another piece in two, offering it once more. The girl looked between it and Otter, and then took this one, pausing to actually chew this time. A little bit of grease dripped down from the corner of her mouth, to join all the other mess.

“Definitely going to need to clean you. You are very messy, but that’s okay.”

Rua made a groaning noise, blearily looking about the room. Her eyes settled on the girl, and she sat up, throwing herself against the wall.

“Why is there a child in my house,” she said, her voice confused, surprised, and maybe a little afraid.

The girl’s composure dropped entirely, the food being offered forgotten. Her arms outstretched, and she positively yeeted herself across the bed, shouting, “Mama!”

She landed on top of Rua, hugging her tightly. Rua cast a bewildered look at Otter.

“The fuck?”

Otter wasn’t sure which of them said it, but it was clear they were both thinking it. Still, Otter decided to take it in stride, even grinning at Rua.

“Wow, you have a kid. I didn’t know.”

“I do not have a…” she looked down at the redhead attempting to squeeze the life out of her. “Is this the woman from the Vexurian?”

“I have no idea what’s going on. But I think so.”

“Why does she…” Rua paused, and then directed her questioning at the child. “Why do you think I’m your ‘mama’?”

The girl didn’t answer, content with burying her face into Rua’s chest.

“Ugh. I feel like I have a hangover. How did we even get home?”

“You mean you didn’t carry us?” Otter asked.

“No. I passed out seconds after you did, I think. Why is she a kid now?”

“Dunno. She made food.”

Rua looked at the plate in Otter’s hands, and then at the one on the nightstand. Otter grabbed it and handed it over.

“Make sure to share some with the kid. She hasn’t had anything to eat, and I have no idea how long we’ve been out.”

“She didn’t have anything to eat for ten years in that armour,” Rua said. “She can probably stand to wait a little longer.”

Otter narrowed her eyes at that. “Fine. I’ll share with her. Never mind that she probably carried us both to safety, got us in bed, and then made us food.”

“What even is this,” Rua said, pointing at the pancakes. “It looks awful.”

“You shut your mouth, she made pancakes, the most delicious of foods. She even made syrup to go with it, I think.”

Rua dipped her finger into the syrup, sniffed it, and then licked her finger. She made a face, but the link didn’t lie. She liked it, even if it was maple syrup.

“Where did she even get it?” Rua asked.

“You have something that looks like flour in your pantry, and I dunno. Maybe she harvested some sap or syrup from the trees? I might be Canadian, but I only get my syrup from the grocery store.”

“This is tree sap?” Rua said, her voice disgusted. “You can’t eat tree sap.”

“You can, and it is delicious, and if you disparage my nation’s food of choice, I’ll…. Wait. You guys don’t have pancakes. Or maple syrup. But she… she made both.”

Rua looked confused, and then it seemed to dawn on her as well. “How does she know how to make something from your world?”

“Hey, runt, how did you know how to make pancakes?”

The girl pointedly ignored them both, content to remain hugging Rua. If anything, she might’ve fallen asleep. Otter reached over, and tickled the sole of one of her feet. The girl squealed, kicking her legs, and gave Otter an adorable pout.

She shrugged.

“Oh, no you don’t. You’re going to answer…” Otter grinned, giving Rua a devilish grin. “... your dad when she asks you a question.”

“You aren’t her father.”

“Well, she seems to think you’re her mother.”

“I am not her mother. I’m not anyone’s mother.”

“Mama!” the girl said, smiling wide and happy and apparently oblivious to the deeper meaning of their conversation. Or maybe she did understand, and this was her way of protesting.

“Hey, just because you won’t let me put a kid into you…”

Rua sputtered, and then looked down at the girl in annoyance. “This is your fault. I didn’t even want you, you know. This was entirely her idea.”

“Just what any bad parent would say. Don’t listen, my child, I’ll be the good parent. I’ll spoil you rotten, don’t you worry.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“I never said it was.” Although she was certainly thinking it. “Come on, look at her. She is, as the people in my world would say, totes adorbs. Don’t you want to pinch those cheeks and ruffle that hair?”

“I’d rather throw her in a lake,” Rua growled. “What’s the little cretin’s name?”

“No idea. She hasn’t said anything beyond ‘mama.’”

“Well, I’m not calling her that, and she shouldn’t be calling me that.”

“Ignore her, my sunny little girl. Come here, I’ll give you more food.”

The girl looked between Rua and the plate of food, leaned up and gave Rua a quick, sticky kiss on the cheek, and then threw herself back to Otter’s side.

“Gross,” Rua said, wiping syrup from her face.

“You love it.” Otter handed the girl another piece of meat. She nearly bit Otter’s fingers in her haste to get it inside of her. “There’s my good girl.”

“Hey,” Rua said. “Do not call her that. You can call her anything else, but not that.”

“Oh. Right. Guess that one has a different meaning in this house. Well, what do we call her?”

“Vex. To remind us she’s a Vexurian.”

Otter wrinkled her nose at that. “No. I’m going to call her ‘Sunny,’ because she’s my sunny little girl. Do you like that? How do you feel about being called ‘Sunny’?”

The girl nodded frantically, but her gaze was entirely fixated on the plate in Otter’s hands. She would probably agree to anything if it meant there was food in it for her.

“Sunny it is, then,” Otter said. “But if you want to change it later, that’s fine. I’m not the boss of you, even if I am now apparently your dad.”

“Not her dad.”

“Don’t mind her,” Otter said conspiratorially to Sunny. “She’s just upset I didn’t put you into her.”

“Food,” Sunny said, still staring at the plate.

“Should’ve named you ‘Hungry.’ Fine, let’s eat. And then, we’re going to wash up. And then, maybe solve the mystery that is you. How does that sound?”

“Food!”

Rua grumbled, “Still not too late to throw her in a lake.”

Chapter Text

Cleaning Sunny up was a chore. She was absolutely filthy, which hadn’t been noticeable at first between the oversized smock and the smell of grease in the air, and Otter’s sense of smell being absolutely dulled by her brain still being burned out from using her Thread of Fate.

It hadn’t been like this the last time. The link with Rua had gone smoother in every possible way. In a sense, it’d even been an enjoyable experience. The link with Sunny was anything but, and Otter wasn’t sure if it was the girl’s fault, something to do with the Vexurian armour, or the skill itself. It was entirely possible that running around, using it in succession wasn’t a good idea.

Otter was going to have to take care not to use the skill again. Not only did it have permanent consequences by reserving one point of Will, but it also allowed someone access to her mind. It wasn’t full telepathy, or a hive mind, or anything like that, but it was still too intimate a thing to share with just anyone.

In hindsight, she probably shouldn’t have used it on Sunny. But something in her mind had just been telling her over and over and over again to do it. Once the thought had entered her brain, it’d been unshakeable. An incontestable truth. It was just something that was going to happen, just like the sun coming up in the morning, the wind continuing to blow, or banana chips remaining absolutely disgusting.

Sunny was covered in grime, sweat, and swamp stink. Apparently ten years worth of it, if that truly were how long she’d been stuck in that suit of armour. They’d had to switch out the water in the tub four times before it finally didn’t come out a very gross colour.

Cleaning her gave Otter the opportunity to inspect Sunny for injuries. She distinctly remembered cutting the girl’s skin open and drawing blood getting those cloths off her. But there was no sign of any wounds. No scars. Just unblemished skin. Another mystery to add to the pile.

And then there was the matter of her collar. The thin band of metal remained intact, and no amount of filing at it seemed to even scratch it. Otter had to resign herself to leaving it on for the time being, and trying to wash under and around the damnable thing.

Afterwards, Otter and Rua took their turns, the other having the duty of watching Sunny and making sure she didn’t hurt herself if left unattended. Not that it seemed an issue, after cooking them breakfast and not setting the cabin on fire.

Honestly, she’d done a better and neater job of food than Otter would’ve.

Still, it felt irresponsible to leave a kid unwatched, especially when they had no idea why she was a kid. Rua grumbled about ‘parenting responsibilities,’ very stubbornly remaining adamant she was not in any way anyone’s “mama.”

Sunny, of course, disagreed.

Afterwards, they began the somewhat shameful task of ‘naked laundry.’ Sunny was the only one of the three with clean clothes, and apparently they hadn’t been out long enough for Otter’s Will to regenerate, something that according to Rua only happened at the hours of noon and midnight, coming back all at once.

They only let the clothes air dry for an hour before putting them back on. Prancing around naked with a child in the house felt weird at best, absolutely scandalous at worst. They really needed to stop making trips into the swamp until they were ready to leave. Or at least, Rua had to stop burning all her Will when they did so they’d at least have some replacement clothes.

The entire time, Rua watched Sunny with narrowed eyes, as if suspicious she were up to something. Otter found the whole thing amusing, and Sunny remained oblivious to the scrutiny, flitting between absolute joy at every little sensation around her – oh how she giggled as Otter had scrubbed her down in the tub – and worry she’d make Otter upset in some way. Despite that, she seemed completely ignorant of Rua’s actual tangible disapproval.

Brushing her hair proved a challenge. Her hair was just so thick and unruly, and she didn’t seem capable of sitting still while Otter worked at it. The entire time, she looked pleadingly at Rua to save her, who showed no mercy or sympathy. If anything, she seemed grimly happy that Sunny was undergoing some distress.

It was a homey kind of domesticity. One Otter was happy to enjoy, even if Rua’s teeth were on edge the entire time. Half the fun was in teasing Rua’s newfound entry into motherhood.

Otter went through her messages, and as usual, there was nothing interesting. A lot of people whingeing that it was unfair she had magic, and they didn’t. People she never really cared for requesting alliances, people who never would make the request if they’d known who she really was. Beast Infection apparently trying to be STI’s PR man and requesting aid of any kind.

And, of course, an obligatory dick pic message. Yeah, that figured. This was why she didn’t check these stupid things.

In retaliation, she showed Rua how to set up a Spasm account with a throwaway burner e-mail and phone number, and had her take a clip of Otter’s dick. It got sent to the offending idiot, with the caption, “Mine’s bigger LOL.”

The rest of the day was spent trying to pry information out of Sunny. Any information. Where she came from. Why was she a kid. Why she thought Rua was her mother. Who put her in the armour. How long had she been in it. Why was she alive if she’d spent the last ten years sleeping in it. What was her favourite colour. What kind of food did she like.

She always answered the same. With a shy shrug. She even held up under tickle torture.

Sunny helped Rua cook. She knew her way around the kitchen and all of its contents as if she’d lived there for ages. And Otter wanted to blame the lingering headache, but it wasn’t until she sat down in a chair at the dinner table did she notice something that should’ve been obvious to her the second they’d left the bedroom.

She was sitting in a dining room chair. And not the cursed chair, the destroyer of spines and lower back muscles. Because there were now three dining room chairs.

“Where did this come from?” Otter asked. “Have you been holding out on me this whole time?”

Rua looked confused, and then noticed the chairs herself. “Huh.”

Rua’s original chair was an unadorned wooden piece, nailed together by a competent if not skilled carpenter. The two new additions were all one piece, wood with no seams, no nails, no glue.

“Did you do this, my sunny girl?” Otter asked.

Sunny nodded, smiling.

“How?”

She shyly shrugged.

Rua leaned into one, sniffing. “Pact magic.”

“Really?”

“I can smell it.”

Otter gave it an experimental sniff. It just smelled like wood to her.

“Can you do Pact magic?” Otter asked.

Sunny shrugged, then thought better of it as she’d clearly been caught, and nodded.

“It’s weird she can do Pact magic, right?”

“No,” Rua said. “She needs a Pact if she was made into a Vexurian. The armour feeds on it. It’s how it functions. So, it looks like she has some kind of wood shaping ability. Probably crafting-related. Useless to a warmongering empire, so into the suit of armour she goes, I guess.”

“Is that true?” Otter asked. “Can my sunny little girl craft things with wood?”

Sunny smiled, and nodded.

“Well, she hasn’t lied so far,” Rua muttered, as if that were some kind of indictment against her characters instead of a vindication.

Otter leaned back in her new chair, her back blissfully enjoying not being assaulted by shoddy construction and poor padding. Sure, it was hard and stiff, but it was better than the alternative by leagues.

“What is weird is that the Dreamers don’t make Pacts with children,” Rua said. “Sixteen, at youngest.”

“Well, we already knew she was an adult. Something happened to her to… I don’t know. De-age her?”

Rua grunted, her arms crossed and her eyes on Sunny, who seemed to enjoy the attention.

Sunny giggled to herself, and waved.

“She’s a weird kid, though,” Otter conceded. “She probably gets it from me.”

“She’s not our kid.”

“If you want, I can always knock you up. We can give her a sister or a brother.” Otter waggled her eyebrows in what she assumed was a seductive way.

“Damned pelanoa. I cannot wait until we get to the main island.”

“What, so you can ditch me and our poor daughter? Leave me a single father? You’re breaking my heart.”

“No, so you can finally… you know what, never mind. This isn’t as funny as you think it is. You know there’s going to be a problem when we get to the mainland. For one, she’s very obviously Criobani. People aren’t going to take kindly to that.”

“You hear that, Sunny? Fantasy racism. Man, this sucks. All because you have green eyes.”

Sunny giggled, staring off into the distance away from them both. She gave a shrug.

“You don’t even actually want to be a dad,” Rua said. “You’re only saying that because you think this whole thing is funny, and because you’re pelanoa.”

“Hey, it can be a combination of things. I think I’d be a great dad. I could teach her how to own the noobs, and how to prepare for and run raids, and how to do the math to know when it’s optimal to burst down your enemy with DPS. And then, when she’s safely eighteen and not a day before, I’ll show her how to flash just enough cleavage to border the line between a gaming streamer and a tiddy streamer.”

“I don’t know what any of that is, but I’m going to assume none of it is a relevant life skill.”

Sunny shook her head furiously, enough to send her copper ringlets flying in every direction. Then she pointed at Rua and said, “Mama.”

“See?” Rua said. “She’s on my side.”

“Lies, she was clearly disagreeing with… wait. If she’s talking to us, why isn’t she looking at either one of us?”

“She just said… well, not my name, but she said that thing she calls me in error.”

Sunny smiled shyly at the distance, and shuffled her feet.

“Sunny,” Otter asked. “Pay attention to me, girl. Are you talking to someone right now?”

She looked over, and nodded emphatically, and pointed at the air. “Unca.”

“Unca?” What the incestuous Greek pantheon did that mean? Wait. “Uncle?”

“Unca,” she said again, nodding and pointing at something that wasn’t there.

Panic hit Otter.

“She’s looking at a chat window,” she said. “Someone’s talking to her. Sunny, disconnect. Right now. Just think the word.”

Sunny looked between Otter and the window, as if uncertain.

“Listen to her,” Rua snapped. “Disconnect!”

Sunny yelped, and her whole posture changed. Otter brought up her menu, checking the Online settings. Sure enough, another name had been added to the list: Sunny.

“I should’ve realized. I’m so fucking stupid,” she said. “Who do you think that was?”

“Holt, obviously,” Rua said. “Probably sniffing around for answers. Trying to figure out how you’re adding people into his game. The fact that Sunny’s a child is probably adding to the mystery on his end.”

“What do we do? She can’t talk to him.”

“Obviously.” Rua squatted down, gently taking Sunny by the shoulders. “You need to listen to me. If that man tries talking to you again, you disconnect, okay?”

Sunny’s brow furrowed, and her lip began to quiver.

“I’m not mad at you,” Rua said, her tone going gentle. “I mean, I still want to throw you in a lake, but I’m not any madder than I was ten minutes ago. That man is no good. As a matter of fact, if anyone tries to message you that isn’t me or Otter, you disconnect. It’s for your safety. Do you understand?”

Sunny wrung her hands, but she nodded.

“You’ve had a big day. We got you out of that armour, you carried us all the way home all by your little self, you made us food, you had your first bath in ten years… How about we eat, and then I put you to bed?”

Sunny held out her arms. “Up.”

“You heard the girl,” Otter said. “She wants uppies.”

Otter didn’t have the bravery to make the joke that any uppies with Rua was not in fact that far up. She was already irritated enough as it was, and Otter liked the idea of having sex in her future.

“Uppies,” Sunny repeated, flexing her fingers.

Rua dramatically sighed, and picked Sunny up, and then sat her in her lap at the table. Otter set out the bowls and food. Nothing fancy this time. No questionable otherworldly food. Just stew, with jaffa.

Sunny was a messy eater. She couldn’t seem to make up her mind on whether her movements were very precise and coordinated, or childishly clumsy, flitting between the two from one moment to the next. Rua allowed her the mess right up until Sunny snuck a surprise kiss on her cheek that left a spot of stew behind. And then it was diligent, annoyed wiping with a cloth at every opportunity.

Afterwards, Otter took her to bed while Rua cleaned up. Sunny was all tucked in and ready to go to sleep, if not for one problem.

“Not tired,” Sunny said.

Otter rolled her eyes. Of course.

“Okay, I’ll tell you a quick bedtime story, and then you have to go to sleep, okay?”

Sunny’s eyes widened, and then she gave a furious nod.

“Alright. I’ve got just the one. Stood the test of time and everything. Just won’t get into the later bits. That’s where the real divisive stuff is, and the last thing I want to do is hear you repeating it and having some ince… you know what, never mind.

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

Chapter Text

Story time both lasted longer and not as long than Otter expected. Sunny’s eyes were wide with rapt attention as Otter described valiant rebels defending their ship from the wicked minions of a knight clad all in black with a gleaming red sword, excited hearing about a brave princess rescuing her life to secure the plans for an enemy weapon and give them to a pair of servants to flee with, but promptly fell asleep once the farmboy protagonist was introduced. Everyone was a critic.

The door clicked shut softly as Otter went to join Rua back in the kitchen, who was doing the dishes.

“One of your world’s history lessons?” Rua asked.

“Something like that.” She crept up behind Rua, hugging her from behind. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not her mother.”

“Obviously. She imprinted on you. Like a duck.”

“What?”

“They’re birds where I come from. Very stupid ones. And baby ducks imprint on the first thing they see, and think it’s their mother. Probably not smart, but survival instinct usually doesn’t involve a lot of room for rational thought.”

“Well, she needs to get over it.”

“She’s just a kid.”

“No. She isn’t. She’s an adult. One who thinks she’s a kid, because something went wrong with your skill. Or the armour. Or who knows what. We don’t know what happened to her. You have her resting in my bed, and for all we know, she’s going to wake up in the morning thinking she’s a soldier in the Criobani army and try to kill us.”

“Maybe me, but not you. You can do no wrong in her head. I watched. You literally threatened to throw her in a lake. Repeatedly. And she thought it was the best idea in the world because you said it. Like a duck, I tell you.”

Rua grunted. And then Otter realized this wasn’t fully about Sunny, and followed up with the link, just to be sure. What she found there was surprising.

“You’re jealous,” Otter said.

“What? No, I’m not.”

Otter laughed quietly. “I could probably fuck Pandemona and Sami at the same time right in front of you, and I bet it wouldn’t bother you. But I give Sunny some attention, and you get jealous?”

Rua bristled, and scrubbed harder at the pot she was working on. “I can’t give you a family. I don’t have it in me. And you apparently want it.”

“I don’t know how poly relationships work in your world, but that’s part of why we have them in ours. At least, it’s why I do. There is no perfect partner out there for me. Just like there isn’t one for you. We click. It’s great. But I’m going to want some things you aren’t, and there’s going to be things you want that I can’t provide.”

“I’m new to this. No one’s ever…”

“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll work it out together. Besides, I’m not even sure I actually want a kid.”

“You’re pelanoa. Trust me. You want kids.”

Otter let one of her hands roam up and down Rua’s belly. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“No. I’m not. But this definitely is.” She reached awkwardly back with one hand, her fingers brushing up against the area between Otter’s legs. Her cock hadn’t emerged yet, but it was shifting, ready to make its appearance.

“I can think with my brain just fine,” Otter said, letting her hand sink a little lower, fiddling with the waistband of Rua’s pants. “My dick is not in control. Even if sex might be on my mind a little more than usual.”

“Are you sure about that?” Rua said. “You know, I set a rule about us not doing this. Not until we got off this island.”

“Dumb rule. Compromise. During the day, I’ll work at any chore we need done. Do any training to your satisfaction. Spar with you until you beat my ass black and blue. But during the night… after we put Sunny to bed… you’re mine. However I want.”

She dipped her fingers deep into Rua’s pants, and rubbed at her. Maybe it was the dampness of her clothes. Maybe it was something else. But she was absolutely soaked.

“However… you want?”

“Yep. You’re mine, after all.” She leaned in, and gave a lingering kiss along Rua’s neck, followed by grazing it with her teeth. “Of course, we have a safe word for a reason. So if you’re not comfortable, you can always quit.”

Rua shuddered, but didn’t say anything.

Otter tilted Rua’s hand back with her other hand as she strummed fingers up and down her lover’s entrance, not quite pushing in. Rua made a soft whine. Her hands gripped the counter, the dishes forgotten.

“I want you,” Otter whispered into her ear. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anyone more than you.”

“I know.”

Cheating with the link again, coupled with that lie detection ability. It was both unfair, and kind of gratifying. Sweet nothings were no longer sweet nothings. Everything said had real meaning.

Well, if Rua was going to cheat, then Otter didn’t feel bad about doing it herself. She let herself sink into their link. It was like Otter’s and Rua’s sensations overlapped one another, each set distinct and different, but she could feel both as clearly as they were her own.

Otter really wanted to finger Rua to a quick orgasm, but that’s not what Rua wanted at all. She wanted to be teased. To be brought close, to be edged, and then to be used. So that’s what Otter gave her.

She played with her, but did not penetrate her. She coaxed her, but did not commit or go further. It was what Rua wanted, and Rua knew what was being done because of their link, but even so she moaned in frustration and thrust herself into Otter’s hand, and each time she did, it was withdrawn.

It was a dangerous game. Rua had a hair trigger where it came to her ability to orgasm. Otter had never seen a woman so easily able to cum before, and it was hard to tell if it was a peculiarity of Rua’s, something all Silayans did, or a result of their link. Or maybe even some combination of the three. But with the link, edging someone had never been easier. She knew exactly what Rua needed to get off, and knew exactly when she was about to get there. In a way, it was making Otter almost as desperate, being able to feel the mounting frustration almost as if it were her own.

“Ask me nicely,” Otter said.

“You’ll… you’ll just say no,” Rua said through gritted teeth.

“You’re right. I will. Ask anyway.”

Rua bucked against her, against the counter, trying to get relief from anything, and each time Otter guided her away from it. She knew Rua could overpower her at any time. Just as Rua knew that if she did, Otter won.

“Please,” Rua said in a harsh whisper. “Let me finish. Please.”

Otter placed a kiss on the edge of Rua’s ear, and said, “No.”

And then she spun Rua around and pushed her down by the shoulders, forcing her to her knees. There were no more words. No verbal communication was necessary. They both knew what the other wanted. They could feel it as if it were their own desire, and not just because of the link. Their earlier teasing of one another had taken a life of its own. They’d both been fantasizing about it since. This was just the inevitable conclusion.

Rua reached up and lowered Otter’s pants down, revealing her cock in all its glory. Rua leaned in, rubbing her nose against it, but the time for gentleness had long since passed. With one hand, Otter angled it to Rua’s lips and prodded at her entrance. Rua gave a tentative kiss to her tip, but that’s not what either of them really wanted.

Otter could feel Rua’s nervousness, her hesitation, even a little fear. She was delaying, embarrassed that she wouldn’t be able to do a good job. But underneath that was a sea of arousal, a desire.

“Pinch my leg if you want me to stop,” Otter said. “Because you’re not going to be able to talk.”

Rua nodded.

“Take a deep breath. You’re going to need it.”

And then she slowly slid her head into Rua’s mouth. She didn’t want to take it too far at first, not being really experienced on either end of a blowjob, but Rua seemed to have other ideas. She forced herself further, taking as much of Otter’s cock as she could in one go. There was resistance, somewhere in the back, and Otter had no idea how deep she’d made it, if she was already pressed up at the back of Rua’s throat or not.

It didn’t seem to matter to Rua either way. She lingered for a moment, adjusting, and then pulled back, and worked her way forward again. Otter winced as Rua’s teeth scraped against her, which must’ve been felt through the link, as adjustments were quickly made.

The entire time, she looked down into Rua’s beautiful eyes. She was having difficulty keeping them open, and the deeper she worked herself, the more they watered. Rua worked hardest at trying to maintain eye contact, knowing she wanted it, needed it, more than any amount of tongue, more than reaching any amount of depth.

Otter ran fingers through Rua’s hair, petting her and giving sounds of soft delight. She didn’t need to yank Rua down on her length when Rua was so willing to do that on her own. No, she could do all the heavy lifting, and in return Otter would feed her all the affection she could.

“Oh, you’re so good. My good girl.”

She ran her hand down along the side of Rua’s cheek, wiping away a tear with her thumb, and brought her fingers lower, tracing along Rua’s throat.

“You want it, don’t you? To take all of me?”

Rua made a needy whine.

She was making good progress, more than halfway, but Otter wasn’t sure she could do it. Rua was just so small in comparison. It felt impossible.

But there was a part of Otter that really wanted to see her try, to defy the odds. And as if she’d sensed the thought – which she very well may have, Rua experimented with their link far more than Otter did – she redoubled her efforts, working herself forward and back, building her tempo.

Otter just stood there, riding the wave, giving Rua light touches of encouragement where she could. The way some guys talked about blowjobs, she’d expected it to feel one step from divinity, and while it was good, she was getting far more enjoyment just watching Rua than in the act itself. The sense of control, of dominance, all without having to do anything at all. It was intoxicating. Or was that what the guys liked about it?

It was so unlike the oral attentions she was used to. She couldn’t quite describe it, except to say it was different, almost alien.

Rua was working herself to a fever pitch, catching a comfortable stride. She fondled her breast with one hand, and moved the other into her pants. Otter reached down and knocked her hand away from herself.

“None of that,” Otter said. “You don’t get your reward yet.”

Rua made a frustrated noise somewhere in the back of her throat, and godamn if that didn’t feel good against Otter’s cock. Could sound vibrations really do that, or was she just extra-sensitive?

She needed more of it. And Rua sensed it. She let out a long, needy sound, and it was like a subtle wave of pleasure rode up Otter’s cock all the way to the base of her spine. She shuddered, and almost involuntarily, she thrust herself forward just as Rua did. There was a brief pushback, like something not quite open enough to except the load, and then it gave way, and suddenly Otter was in Rua’s throat.

They both paused there for a second, looking at each other, Rua’s face a mess of spit and tears, so unbelievably gorgeous and lovely, and then suddenly Rua pulled herself away, coughing.

Otter let Rua catch her breath, kneeling down and holding her in her arms. She ran one hand down Rua’s back as she stroked her hair with the other. She could feel the burning of Rua’s lungs through the link. How had she only just noticed that now? She should’ve been paying attention for it. But she’d been too caught up in the moment.

“You did so good, so very good. I knew you could do it.”

Rua made an angry noise. “No. I’m not done yet.”

“It’s okay. I don’t need to finish. You did enough.”

“No. I need you to finish. I want it.”

And she could feel it. The absolute lust pouring off Rua. She wanted Otter to cum more than Otter herself did.

So Otter stood back up, ran one hand along her length, and gave Rua the most arrogant smirk she could. “Well, it’s not going to suck itself.”

Rua gave a small shudder. Some part of her craved being talked down to. Wanted to be told what to do. How passive she’d been in their encounters, wanting to be taken control of and have things be done to her. Otter could give her that.

Rua moved in, completely shameless in her eager approach, and took Otter in her mouth once again, making sure to look upwards as she did and catch Otter’s eyes. She was such a quick learner. She recaptured her rhythm quickly enough.

“Play with yourself,” Otter said. “But you’re not allowed to cum.”

Rua squeezed her eyes shut as her hand found itself down her pants, rubbing furiously as she bobbed up and down. Otter made a soft tsking noise, and Rua’s eyes snapped back open, and for a moment Otter was stunned for the thousandth time just how pretty Rua was.

Otter could feel Rua pulse at that, all the way down to her core. The validation, the attraction, the absolute desire did things to Rua that no amount of fucking could match. This, more than anything else, was what Rua wanted the most. Needed the most.

And Otter fed on it. She rode the wave of pleasure Rua felt, making it her own, and thrust forward. She didn’t make it back into Rua’s throat like before, but that was fine. They were both new at this, and they had time to learn together.

Finally, Otter came. Rua pulled back, so that just the head of Otter’s cock was in her mouth. She rolled her tongue along it, savouring the load as it was deposited directly into her mouth. Some of it escaped, drooling from her mouth and ejecting from her nose, but Rua didn’t seem to mind. If anything, she worked Otter’s shaft even harder with one hand, pumping it as if to extra what she had initially missed.

Otter slumped, nearly falling backwards, but stayed locked in place, trapped by Rua’s beautiful eyes. Rua hummed in appreciation, and made a very deliberate swallowing motion. And when she was finished, she made sure to lick Otter clean before swiping the cum from her own face with a finger before also running her tongue over that, swallowing everything she could.

Fuck, that was hot.

“Can I cum now?” Rua said.

Her tone was so even, so matter-of-fact, but Otter knew she was about ready to pop like a champagne bottle. Otter ran a hand through Rua’s hair, settling on her cheek. Rua leaned into it.

“Do you agree to my compromise?” Otter said. “The days are yours, but the nights are mine?”

“Yes,” she hissed softly.

“Then you can cum,” Otter said, a smile coming over her face. “Tomorrow night.”

Chapter Text

There was peace in the abyss. In sleeping in between the moments in time, of having no awareness beyond knowledge of the endless dark. It was the only true beauty in a world filled with ugliness, if such a being could truly understand concepts like ‘beauty’ and ‘ugliness.’

But something was wrong. The long sleep was providing no rest. Reserves were not refilling. The coefficient was standing at a meagre 23%, and showing no signs of replenishing.

Unit 003 extended its senses, running them through its body, and found abnormalities. There was light scratches to its frame. The injuries were insignificant, only cosmetic. No damage had been sustained, and these had long since been catalogued. They were not new, and were introduced during Incident Report 7845, two rotations ago. The perpetrator had been identified as a Class 3 enemy, and subdued before it could do actual damage.

The diagnostic highlighted a problem in Unit 003’s growing awareness. Something had removed its cranial device. It was close enough that Unit 003 could still see from it, should it wish for it. The aura was intact. No permanent damage incurred.

Its battery was missing, the connection runes and bindings cut away crudely.

Curious, it noted in a detached manner, though curiosity was not something that ever drove it. Anomalies were to be catalogued and reported in logs, but never to be investigated. Investigation was for those that had their will unshackled.

But this was different. If such an event had happened, Unit 003 should have perished along with its battery. But it could still sense the will of its battery, still used as fuel through its core. The slight shiver that permeated its shell, which the Designer had once remarked idly to be the screaming of a soul, could still be sensed. The diagnostic would not be possible without that pain.

There were no protocols for what to do in this situation. A battery could not be removed without killing the Unit. But if the Unit did not have a battery, it would eventually perish, given time.

The Unit did not have a protocol for a missing battery. But it did have protocols for self-preservation. The Unit could not be destroyed. It was valuable to the Empire. A rare resource. The might of the Imperial army, so the Designer had once said.

The Designer said many things. The voice of the Designer superseded all else. Unit 003 could not hear as meat could hear. Could not feel as meat could feel. But it remembered warmth, the heat of the forge, and the reverberation of hammer on steel, and above all, the voice.

The Designer spoke not just of survival, but of striving ever forward. To always improve in order to drive forward. Unit 003 could not evolve. It only could follow what had been etched into its steel, and what had been carved into its stolen soul.

And what had been etched there were instructions for survival. For violence, in the wake of a threat to the Unit. And failing that, to report to the nearest Officer for assistance.

Unit 003 opened its awareness, riding the aura and connecting to its cranial unit. The Runes of Seeing had been etched into its steel, and those same runes now ignited with a red light.

All around Unit 003 were the broken remains of the enemy. Some had been crushed by its own hands, a threat response in line with preprogrammed conditions. One had been detained for later study by an Officer unit or perhaps the Designer. That instruction now fell behind in the queue. Survival was now primary priority.

Unit 003 crushed the Class 3 with the same effort it would use to fully close its fist. The Class 3 struggled for a moment, and then deactivated as its core was destroyed. When it was done, Unit 003 dumped the remains inside the hole provided by its missing cranial unit. The shattered soul crystal could normally work as a fuel source for the battery.

It did not draw any conclusion that it could use it as a new source. It merely performed the act because it would feed the battery. The fact that the battery was now missing was immaterial.

Next, Unit 003 recovered its cranial unit, screwing it back into place. Once secure, it began the slow process of extricating itself from the mud in which it had been encased for years, awaiting new instructions.

*-*-*

Ashborne, above all, was patient. It was a restless kind of patience, one filled with wrath and an urge to act. But still it waited.

For what, it wasn’t sure. There was a guiding principle to its creation. A desire to protect, to maintain its territory. A territory that extended the length of its entire root system, which gripped the majority of the island.

Long had it worked in tandem with the Islanders. There had been a time when all that had come to Ashborne’s trunk would be rewarded with fruit from its limbs, with bark from its body, with discarded branches to be fashioned into tools.

Ashborne had been the guiding parent for the Islanders in the wake of the Binding, entrusted to a great task. A task it had not enjoyed, but committed to with zeal.

Until the Betrayal.

Ashborne did not understand the passing of seasons beyond knowing when to rest, and when to bloom. But many seasons ago, the Enemy had come. And Ashborne did what a guardian was supposed to do. It defended its home. And it did it well. The bones and bodies of its enemies littered the soil of its roots, grim trophies displayed for any who would come to the great tree.

Ashborne’s memories became… unclear… where the war was concerned. But it remembered the sting of treachery, the feel of fire, the bite of the axe.

It remembered a face.

Ashborne was not given to dwelling on the past. And it was that realization that roused it, made it feel the inky touch upon its mind.

“Mother?” it called from an opening in its trunk.

Sunlight barely penetrated the dark canopy of the swampy forest, and even though the dawn threatened to chase the night sky away, still no light touched upon Ashborne. It could feel no nourishment from its leaves, no warmth upon its foliage, only the cold of the Depths.

Shadows stirred, and Ashborne felt the Presence, and knew its vague questing to be truth. In the darkness, in the distance, two yellow eyes opened, unconnected to any body that Ashborne could perceive.

“Yes,” she answered, and then coalesced.

A body formed around the eyes, taking on the visage of a Silayan woman, short of height, hair hacked short. Ashborne had seen this form before, many times. Always through the eyes of its Cuttings, after they returned from their patrols. The Silayan thought herself safe in the Ebb. In reality, Ashborne just did not care to deal with her.

But while the form itself did not warrant the respect of Asheborne’s attention, the one who took it did. If a tree could bow, Ashborne did, bending its mighty trunk with a great creaking of unyielding wood.

“There will be a trial,” she said.

She did not explain any further. She did not need to. Dreamers were not required to explain anything, only demand.

Ashborne’s bow deepened. It, as always, was eager to serve.

“There is a new thing on your island,” the Dreamer said. “A new thing born of an old thing. It must be removed. Taken off the board, before it can become a bother.”

A bother? Nothing could bother a Dreamer. They existed on a different level of existence. Time and space and anything that bound mortal existences did not apply to them.

Ashborne did not question. It was not its place to do so.

“I will crush it under the weight of my Cuttings,” it said.

“No. No, no. Such a brute. This thing is not to be destroyed. It is to be a reward. For you, Ashborne.”

Inky tentacles Manifested in the air, larger than any branch the old tree possessed. Ashborne fought the urge to flinch away as one of those tentacles brushed against its bark, running along a hideous scar, the kiss of fire.

“She will heal you. All you need to do is devour her.”

Ashborne did not know much about human expressions. But it understood what a smile was, as that expression slowly came across the Dreamer’s face.

“Find her,” the Dreamer said. “Find the Lifecrafter.”

*-*-*

In the darkness, something stirred. An impossibility. A forbidden thing. A new thing. A new thing born of an old thing. Something beyond even the Dreamer’s view.

There, in the darkest part of the island, something drew in its first breath, a long and wheezing affair, and a black form stood, crafted from nightmares and tales.

Chapter Text

When Otter awoke in the morning, she was treated to a warm sight. Rua, who’d started off the night on the left side of the bed, leaving Otter sandwiched between her and Sunny, had somehow migrated to the middle, pressed against Otter with her arms wrapped around the little redheaded girl.

She would have appreciated it more if her brain didn’t feel like hammered potato mush that had been fried in sriracha. And with her luck, this world probably didn’t have ibuprofen. Her brain hadn’t felt like this since…. Well, since before she’d logged into the game.

But this was a different kind of headache than she was used to. More battery acid, less icepick in the eye.

Otter tentatively reached out through the link to both Rua and Sunny. She withdrew her questing senses the second they touched either. It was like part of her brain burned when she tried, and she didn’t know if it was due to something wrong with the link itself, or if both of them were in just as much pain.

It’d been starting to feel fine by the end of the night. Otter had been freely able to use it during her… activities… with Rua. But now that she was just waking up, it was back to nothing but pain.

Well, years with Sami had taught her how to deal with a headache. She began to rub at the area between her thumb and forefinger, and went questing for cups to fill with water, and a warm washcloth.

She returned with a tray filled with what she could muster, placed the washcloth on Sunny’s head – she was on her back, as opposed to Rua’s awkward side-sleep position – and settled for massaging Rua’s hand while drinking her own water.

The room wasn’t exactly lit well, even with what passed for sunlight filtering in through the room’s only window, but something seemed off. Watching the two of them while easing her aching head, Otter wasn’t exactly sure what it was. But the hamster wheel in her brain slowly chugged along, and the more she looked at the two of them, the quicker it turned.

Rua was short. An inescapable curse, to be sure. The kind of small that would make her look like a child if she definitely didn’t have woman parts going on, or the tone and definition you really only got from being an adult that worked out. The kind of small that made Otter want to just kind of … pick her up and throw her down, maybe bully her a bit. But in a fun way.

But Rua seemed shorter than usual. No. That wasn’t right. It wasn’t that Rua was shorter. It was that Sunny was bigger.

If Otter had to make a guess – and she was particularly bad at on-the-fly measurements – Sunny had been maybe four feet tall before they’d gone to bed. She’d easily gained maybe eight inches overnight. She was nearly the size of Rua.

“Huh,” Otter said.

Okay. Chalk that up in the ‘weird’ column for Sunny, which was an increasingly longer list.

Maybe she’d hit puberty overnight or something. Fantasy world puberty. Which was apparently super fast. Or… was she regaining the age she’d lost, since her severing from the armor? Why had she lost it in the first place?

Otter checked with the link again, focusing wholly on Sunny. She pushed past the pain, trying to get any information she could. It was an intrusion, she knew. Sunny had never consented to the link. She hadn’t asked to be emotionally and mentally bonded to someone else.

But she also probably hadn’t consented to being shoved into a metal suit of armour and forced to fight as a mindless soldier. Hadn’t asked to be buried in the mud and forgotten for years. Maybe forever. Just stuck in the filth of the swamp, entombed forever.

And Otter had to make sure Sunny wasn’t a threat. It was easy to dismiss her, to just assume she was harmless because she looked and acted like a child. She should’ve done this sooner. If not for her own safety, than for Rua’s. Maybe even for Sunny’s herself.

Navigating the link with Sunny was like walking naked through a thornbush covered in salt and lemon juice. Every synapse cut and then burned. Every thought was a landmine of stinging pain.

And through it all, Otter couldn’t discern any of it. Reading Rua was easy. It was like having a second body, where she could feel base emotions and bask in them, experience every sensation, both physical and mental. It wasn’t telepathy by any means, but in a way it was so much more intimate. It was like donning a warm blanket on a cold night.

Sunny was like a cloak made of razor blades. Putting those sensations over herself, Otter could feel herself being cut, blood being drawn at even the slightest shift. And worse, it was like every wound was being lapped at, her essence being gobbled down and devoured for fuel.

But there was no sense of maliciousness. No feeling of spite or anger or deviousness. No malign intent.

Something about being in Sunny’s mind made Otter think of a leech. Parasitic, to be sure, but not out of any desire to do harm. Just… surviving.

Otter withdrew herself carefully from her awareness of the link, tucking it into the back of her mind. Her headache intensified, but it was a small price. When she came to, focusing back on the real world, Sunny’s eyes were open and watching her.

“Hey, kiddo,” Otter said in a whisper.

She made a grunt. The kind you’d make when rudely awakened from a good sleep.

“Wanna make some breakfast?” Otter asked.

Sunny yawned, and then stretched before wriggling out of Rua’s embrace. She held out her arms, and Otter picked her up. She hadn’t noticed before, not used to her new strength given to her by the game, but now that she was actively looking for anomalies, she noticed that Sunny was heavy. Heavier than a little girl should be.

She carried Sunny from the room, making sure to close the door behind them, and put her down once they were in the kitchen. Sunny immediately set to work, getting out a baking sheet before going to the pantry and pulling out some red root vegetables.

“We need to talk,” Otter said.

“I know.” Sunny sounded older. Not a lot. She was still very much a kid, but her tone was more mature than before, particularly given that she was now capable of more than one word at a time.

“Where do I start?”

Sunny gave her a small smile, and then shrugged. It was the same shy smile she’d had the day before. So, that hadn’t changed.

“What are you?” Otter asked.

That same shy shrug. Otter focused on the bond through the pain. There was a hint of sadness at hearing the question. Well, at least it kind of worked. Stupid mystery class feature. Even so, it made Otter feel a little guilty.

“Sorry, bad wording. I just… I don’t want to hurt you. But I also need to know. Are you dangerous?”

Sunny put the vegetables in the sink, activating the glyph stone to make water. Just yesterday, she would’ve needed to stand on one of the chairs in order to do that. Now she could reach the stone just by standing on her tiptoes.

She seemed to be thinking, delaying her response, but ultimately settled with, “Yes.”

“Dangerous to me and Rua?”

“Maybe. Yes.”

Otter sucked in a breath, and she felt one hand flex into a fist. “On purpose?”

“No.” Sunny began to scrub at one of the red vegetables.

Otter nodded, and forced herself to relax. She wasn’t sure what she would’ve done if she hadn’t liked the answer to that question. She was glad she didn’t have to find out.

“Do you know your name? Who you are?”

The girl paused, looking at Otter as if she’d asked the stupidest question in the world. “Sunny.”

“No, I mean… from before.”

The girl put the vegetable she’d been cleaning aside and moved to the next one, working at the skin with a brush and warm water.

“No. She died. I’m not her.”

“Do… do you know what you’re doing? To me and Rua? Through the link?”

“Eating,” she said. “Hungry. Not on purpose. Putting… mind together. To replace the old one. Woke up. Body was… a shell. Empty.”

“And you carried us home. Both of us. What, in two trips?”

“Just one. M’strong. Swoll, got gains.” She gave a mocking flex, but there were no muscles to display. “Was awkward. Small. Don’t know why. But knew had to get you safe. Both. You and mama.”

Otter snorted. “You know she’s not actually…”

“I know. Imprinted.” Sunny shook her head as she put down her vegetable to work on another. “Not sure what word means. But also know. Because… you know.”

“You’re assimilating our minds. You’re a gestalt of me and Rua.”

“You’re my parents. But not. Dunno. Weird. Brain… like child. But not. Some ideas too big for me. But won’t be as they settle. I think.”

Huh. Well, so much for Rua not having a kid. Or, was she really their daughter? The whole thing was weird. But Otter figured she’d signed up for this, the second she’d triggered her Thread of Fate and thrust it on this girl.

“And you’re… what? Growing up as your mind expands?”

Sunny finished cleaning her food, and pulled a knife from a block on the counter. She began to chop at the vegetables, her hand steady and sure.

“Has to do with my Pact. I think. I should know what it does. But I don’t. Old me did. New me doesn’t. S’not in the game menu. Skills are all blurry. Know what my Pact is, though. ‘Lifecrafter.’ Don’t know what it means. But… the wood listened, when I told it I needed syrup. It bled for me, into a jar. Then fixed itself when it was done. Then when I wanted chairs… it was like they grew out of the trees.”

Otter grunted. Could she do this with all trees? All plants? What else could she make?

“Huh. Neat. Anything else you can do?”

“Make hash browns. Or… something like them.”

“I am a slut for hash browns, tell me of your sorcery.”

“No magic. Just… You know how. And ma… Rua… knows what everything here tastes like. Think can make with ingredients on hand. Will taste… funny. Not same. But can make.”

“Think we can make some ketchup? Worst comes to worst, put ketchup on it. Then it just tastes like ketchup.”

“Do you know how to make ketchup?”

“No.”

“Then what makes you think I do? Only know… what you know.”

Did little Sunny just sass her? They grew up so fast. It nearly brought a tear to Otter’s eye. She leaned in and gave her a quick hug.

“Shouldn’t we be skinning these not-potatoes?” Otter asked.

Sunny shrugged. “Skin on these has… salty flavour, almost. Might be better with.”

“You’re the boss.” Which felt weird to say to… how old did Sunny look now? Twelve? Felt weird to say to a twelve-year-old who was clearly having trouble sorting out her speech patterns. “I don’t think we have any eggs.”

“Jar in pantry, has a kind of fish oil. Doesn’t taste like the kind you’re used to. Can use as egg substitute.”

“These are going to be some gnarly hash browns.”

“Science. Won’t know until we try.”

“For science!”

Otter held up a hand for a high five, and Sunny gave her one, that wide smile of hers taking over her face.

There were a lot of substitutions to be made. About the only thing that they needed that had a one to one correlation between their worlds was salt. Even the flour Rua had was milled from some weird fantasy wheat equivalent that wasn’t entirely the same. They made do.

In an hour’s time, they had three plates of hash browns served at the table that didn’t look terrible. At the scent of food, Rua came stumbling from the bedroom, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She peered at Sunny, and grunted.

“Is the future lake denizen bigger?”

“Mama!” Sunny cried in what sounded like joy. Weird that she seemed to enjoy being threatened with lake dunkings. “I made food.”

“And she’s talking in full sentences now. Yeah, that’s not weird.”

“We’ll catch you up,” Otter said. “We’ve had some… revelations.”

“I don’t take revelations on an empty stomach.”

“That’s why we have hash browns.”

Rua poked the edge of her plate, sending it scraping along the table. “This is… hashed brown?”

“Yep!” Sunny said, pulling Rua’s chair out for her. “You’ll like them, I promise, mama.”

“Not your mom,” Rua said, as if by reflex. “Well, whatever these revelations are, I better like them and the food. If either are upsetting, into the lake you go.”

She poked Sunny on the nose as she said it, who giggled at the threat. Otter wasn’t sure if it was a joke.

Chapter Text

The door banged open, and Rua, holding Sunny aloft by her ankle, declared, “Throwing her in the lake now.”

Sunny squealed in laughter, her hair dragging along the floor as she was dangled. Otter was torn between trying to intervene, and letting it play out. It was hard to tell how serious Rua was with Sunny enjoying the attention so much.

Instead, she just sat in place, finishing off the last of her hash browns. They didn’t taste quite right. A little too salty, the texture a little grainy, but overall, okay. She’d had worse drive-thru hash browns.

“Mama!” Sunny cried, but her tone was happy, so Otter paid it no mind.

Rua hadn’t finished her hash browns. Was she coming back for them? Maybe she hated them, and that was why she was going to go dunk Sunny. She hadn’t actually communicated what her displeasure was with. And Otter was still kind of hungry.

“You gonna kill her over hash browns?” Otter called.

“I’m going to use her as bait for better food!” was the response.

Well, that settled that. Those hash browns were now the property of Otter’s stomach. She reached over, dragged Rua’s plate across the table, and dug in. Overall, not bad. Not bad at all. It would probably be a shame to let Sunny get turned into fish food. Maybe she could cook fish. Otter was Polynesian. It was hard-coded into her DNA to enjoy fish.

There was some yelling from outside. Probably more roughhousing. Still, it was getting a little overboard.

Otter took another bite from the stolen hash brown, and then got up. She didn’t actually need to intervene, but Rua might not be willing to give up the bit without interference. Assuming it was a bit. It really was hard to tell if Rua actually had a sense of humour.

She was just getting up to join them outside when Rua, Sunny thrown over her shoulder, ran back into the house and slammed the door shut behind her. Her eyes were a little wild, casting about the room.

“Get everything we need,” she said.

“Need for what?”

“To get off this tale-telling island, do it now.”

Otter blinked, wanting to ask more questions, but she knew that tone. Had been trained to listen to that tone, from years of drills and raids with Sami. She just got to work, grabbing the two backpacks they’d acquired, and shoving supplies into them.

Rua darted into the bedroom, only pausing long enough to gently put Sunny down on the ground. She emerged a second later with the bed sheet tucked under her arm. She turned it into an improvised bag, and began throwing things into it from the pantry, followed by a single pot, a pan, and a wooden spatula.

“What’s going on?” Otter asked.

“Ashborne Cuttings. They think they’re being sneaky, but stealth isn’t their strong suit. They’re trying to hide in the treeline, watching the house.”

“How many?”

“More than three, which is about as many as I dare fight, even with you.”

“They’re not that tough.”

“Yes, they are. We’ve been lucky so far. If you mess up your bindings even once, they’ll be on us. It takes too much damage to kill one, and you can’t disable one.”

“So, what’s the plan?”

“They’re hiding to the east. So, we head west.”

“That’s not helpful, I can’t tell what direction is what with the tree cover.”

Rua pointed to one of the walls. “That way is west. The other is the direction of death. We don’t go that way.”

Otter got her boots on, and when she realized Sunny didn’t have any of her own, debated between making her some with her skill, and just carrying her. She hesitated for a second before sacrificing the five points of Will necessary, and handed the boots, which were of a rubbery material and would nearly reach Sunny’s knees, to the girl.

“Boots on, kiddo,” she said.

Sunny nodded, trying to look brave, but clearly scared.

“Can you be quick?” Otter asked. “Run if you need to?”

Again, that fearful nod.

“If fighting starts, you run. We’ll catch up. Don’t come back, no matter what.”

How Sunny would survive in the death swamp without the two of them, Otter had no idea, but she’d probably have a better chance than sticking around during a fight and getting jumped by Cuttings.

Sunny’s lips thinned into a grim line, and her fists clenched. Otter bent down, taking the girl’s chin in her hand.

“I don’t know how much of our memories you have. How many of our skills. Or what kind of soul power you have packing under the hood. It doesn’t matter. You’re tiny. I mean, you’re even shorter than Rua, and that’s ridiculously tiny–”

“Hey.”

“--like, so small I’m worried I’ll lose her under an errant pile of laundry some day.”

“Hey!”

“She’s lucky she’s so pretty, really, otherwise I wouldn’t take such pains not to step on her all the time.”

“If you’re done making fun of me,” Rua growled, “we really should be getting gone.”

“Right. So, Sunny, I’m gonna carry you, but if those things get close, well, run, and no arguments. Honestly, I should probably be carrying you both, your mama’s legs are so small it’s a wonder she hasn’t drowned in all this mud yet.”

“I’m going to throw you both in a lake at this point.”

Otter gave Rua her best smile, which did nothing to diminish her annoyance. If anything, it got a little worse. Kind of reminded her of Sami, immediately after one of her brilliant ideas during a raid or PVP match. Especially during that time with CornStar, damn Sami had been mad that time.

“Wait, I have an idea,” Otter said. “Grab the kid, I’ll be with you in a minute.”

She didn’t take time to explain, just ran to the pantry and grabbed the jar of fish oil in there, followed by a container of salt. The door banged again, and Otter assumed Rua had followed instructions. She upended the salt into the oil, and mixed it as best she could with a spoon until it was a slurry, then took a dry dish cloth and putting it inside.

Alcohol made for a good Molotov. Cooking oil plus salt, though, was homemade napalm. Really kind of scary what you could turn into a weapon just from the contents of your pantry. The last time she’d done this, she’d had the protection of being in an actual video game. If she’d screwed it up then, she and her guild would’ve died, their gear looted. And Sami had been pissed then.

If Otter fucked up here, she’d die. Probably Rua and Sunny, too.

Right. So, she’d have to make sure she was the only one risking her life.

She looked at the walls of the little cottage. The home she’d found. She hadn’t been here long, but she’d really gotten to like this place a lot. And made some pretty good memories in such a short amount of time. She ran a hand along on the table. She was going to miss this table. And hadn’t even gotten to bend Rua over it like she’d planned.

No. No time to get distracted. She had arson to do.

She looked at the rag, at the bottle, and let out a sigh. This kind of thing was so much easier when you didn’t feel the pain of being burned, or didn’t actually have your life on the line. How was she even going to safely ignite this stupid thing?

As if to answer her question, the window burst open in a torrent of broken glass, a wooden monster throwing itself into the cabin. The Cutting hit the ground in a clumsy thump, which quickly became a ferocious scrambling of limbs as it pulled itself along the floor towards her. Otter didn’t even think. She just threw the jar at its face.

It smashed, improvised accelerant splashing everywhere without any fire to finish the job. Another Cutting climbed through the broken window.

Otter triggered a point of Will into her Thread of the Scourge, and a golden lash appeared. She reared backwards, away from the Cuttings and towards the fireplace. She never did figure out how the glyph stone worked, why the logs in the hearth were never consumed, or even why Rua had insisted she chop firewood for the stupid thing, but they definitely were on fire.

With a flick of her wrist, the thread entangled itself around a burning log, and she swung her arm forward. It wasn’t her most accurate attempt, but it was good enough, clipping the soaked Cutting across the area where it’d gotten hit with oil.

Too bad the stupid thing didn’t instantly ignite.

“Shit.”

Otter hit another Thread of the Scourge, making it form in her other hand, and she grabbed a second burning log with it. She swung the two brands in short arcs, clubbing both Cuttings, embers and smoke filling the air, but doing little actual damage. The first Cutting found its footing, while the other began to move on her. She swung and managed to hit a ‘knee’ with enough force to knock it down, but it didn’t pay any mind to the damage, crawling towards her with a mindless determination.

She willed one of her threads to loose the burning brand just as she swung, and then lashed the soaked Cutting. It was heaving towards her, and as it did, she pulled. Its own momentum carried it forward more than what she added to it, but it helped, sending it forward off balance and tumbling. She tried to get out of its way, and was mostly successful, but two of its many arms managed to claw at her as it passed, slashing away at her shield.

It was worth the trade. She gave it a kick as it staggered by, sending it directly into the fireplace. Finally, it came ablaze, and that weird creaking scream it made sounded.

And then it pulled itself out of the fire and turned to face her, stumbling back at her, only now on fire on top of everything else.

“Oh come on.”

Chapter Text

For some reason, Otter had thought that when you set an enemy on fire, they would just be like, ‘Oh noes, I am the fire, now I will perish.’ Apparently, when that translated to a mindless monster that couldn’t feel pain, it actually meant, ‘I’m going to fist your mouth while I’m on fire and you’re going to like it.’

As she took a flaming branch to the jaw, some part of her mind noted that she really needed to think her plans through more.

Even with the shield, the hit hurt. She could feel some distant memory of heat, and the way her head snapped back from the impact wrenched her neck. She stumbled backwards, a hand reflexively going to her face, and swung both her threads in sweeping lashes that left a line of splintered wood on the surface of the two Cuttings, surface damage that would leave both wary if they actually cared about incurring damage.

Instead, they both charged directly at her.

Otter flicked her wrists, and entangled both Cuttings in her threads and crossed her arms to the sides. The two Cuttings, bound, crashed into one another. She loosed the threads from her hands, and willed them to entangle her two foes to one another. The Cuttings made that same rattling shriek of theirs, trying to get at her and clumsily setting each other off balance as they stumbled and fell about the room.

Acrid smoke filled Otter’s nose, and she let out a rough cough into her elbow. The fire was spreading, not just from one Cutting to the other, but to other parts of the dining room. They crashed into the table, the chairs, the counter, all in their unplanned and uncoordinated frenzy to get her, and as they did, flaming bits of oil spread across the room.

Otter let out another hacking cough, and covered her mouth as best she could. The door slammed open, and another Cutting came running into the room directly at her.

Like with everything Otter did, she didn’t think. She yelled, “Yeet!” and threw herself out the broken window.

Her stupid shield didn’t protect her from diving headfirst into the ground outside, which was good to know there was fucking fall damage. Somehow, she didn’t break her neck, but it sure as hell felt like it. Her shoulder briefly went into a position that didn’t feel quite right before bouncing right back to where it belonged, and her neck was lit up by sparkles of pain throughout. Even so, she managed to get to her feet and started running.

Right into another Cutting.

Luckily, some part of her brain had been thinking, planning all along, and only just let the rest of her know what it’d come up with. She triggered her Thread of the Scourge and sent it flying to the side, well away from the incoming Cutting, and when it found its target, she pulled it towards her.

The fire axe that she’d had to use to split wood the day she met Rua smacked into the palm of her hand in a sure catch, and as the Cutting dove at her, it made the blade in a heavy swing right at its midsection.

Otter sucked at woodcutting, but it turned out, when the wood threw itself into the blade for you, it suddenly became a lot easier.

She didn’t quite chop the Cutting in half, but she didn’t need to. She’d aimed right for the juicy centre mass, right at the spot the last Cutting she’d killed had its heart. She was looking for that candy inside, and she hit it square.

The force of the hit sent the Cutting to the ground, and Otter down along with it, but she knew she couldn’t spare any time. There were others in the woods, and the three still in the cabin, and her odds weren’t good against either.

She scrambled to the dead Cutting, the axe having neatly cleaved through its outer wooden skin and into the heart beneath, and pulled her weapon free, then dug inside for the soul crystal. She didn’t hesitate, throwing the gemstone into her mouth and swallowing it down as she rounded to look for the next enemy.

Choose Stat to Enhance

Strength / Tenacity / Allure

Maybe another time, she’d give the choice more consideration. This time, she just defaulted right to Strength. The other two were likely duds, in either case. There was no chance in hell these Cuttings had any points in Allure, and the fact that they didn’t seem to have their own shields indicated a low Tenacity score.

A sound from behind her told her that at least one of the Cuttings had finally managed to get out of the now burning cabin. Otter didn’t turn to face it.

She visualized the walls of the cabin, where they were in relation to her, and remembered Rua pointing out which way was which. Enemies to the east. Safety, and the location they were fleeing, to the west. Death one way, presumed safety the other. Rua and Sunny would have gone west. That’s where they’d be.

So, as Otter ran, she deliberately veered east.

What was the worst that could happen? She’d die, and then respawn, and then be forced to fight someone she probably knew to the death for the right to live.

Knowing Holt, he’d probably pick Sami. Dammit.

She turned to the north.

The change in direction saved her more than her own speed. Just as she did, a Cutting flew past her, three arms outstretched for a tackle. She felt the wind and heat of it pass, and turned to face it. It was on fire and rolling in the mud.

She could’ve kept running. Instead, she slammed her axe into its chest. Her swing didn’t hit her target, and she had to strike three more times before she knocked out the heart from its chest. This one wasn’t so clean. She scooped up the wooden heart, soul crystal still inside, and ran again.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the two flaming Cuttings, still tied to one another, thrashing away in an angry ball of limbs and fire, trying to make their way to her.

Otter had two firm philosophies in situations like this. The first was, the only good enemy was a dead enemy. The second was that fire solved all problems.

Part of her wanted nothing more than to go after them and finish the job. But in this case, a distraction trumped the deaths of their enemies. And a pair of burning idiots potentially setting fire to anything they touched was more important than finishing off something that was already dead without knowing it.

So Otter led them into the forest, keeping away from water and mud where she could, trying to find areas more densely packed with trees and fallen leaves. It wasn’t ideal. Or so she thought. Otter moved ahead, staying out of reach, which wasn’t too hard considering how uncoordinated they were. The wood around them didn’t catch fire easily, just as she feared.

What she hadn’t taken into account was the moss that she’d happily harvested for Rua so many times. Every time even so much as a flicker of a spark came near the stuff, it would curl and smoke and burn. Not ferociously, in great flames, but in red embers that promised fury to come. And as it began to, more wooden shrieks voiced their fury throughout the swamp.

And as she ran from her foes, she didn’t realize the bigger problem she’d inadvertently caused by leading the burning Cuttings into the drier parts of the swamp.

Later, upon reflection, she would recall science classes and a trip to a conservation site that explained peat. How it covered the soil of swamps, lived in it, and as it reached further into the earth, gradually turned to coal. And that peat by itself was highly flammable, but when a fire was left unattended in a swamp, it didn’t matter if the area was a wetlands or not. It could quickly become a raging inferno that would burn far longer than anyone could guess.

But that was a future Otter thought. For now, she did what present day Otter always did. She acted, in the most blindingly stupid way possible.

So she began to lead the burning Cuttings into areas with large clumps of dead leaves, to moss covered rocks and logs. She began to throw potential fuel sources into the path of her enemies. And when another Cutting showed up in pursuit, she happily triggered another thread and lashed it to the chaotic tumbling force chasing her.

Smoke burned at her lungs, but she didn’t care. More Cuttings shrieked at the flames in their swamp, distant enough to not be a problem yet, but clearly converging on her. And as long as they were chasing her, they were staying off Rua and Sunny.

What she was doing was noble. She was a Big Damn Hero. She deserved a medal for all this work and self-sacrifice.

So of course, it was at that moment that Rua, Sunny riding on her shoulders, showed up with an exasperated expression.

“What in the blighted fables are you doing?” she hissed.

Otter looked to the burning Cuttings to Rua. “I was securing your getaway. You were supposed to be going that way.”

She gestured to where she thought west was.

“Wrong way,” Rua said, and pointed somewhere completely different. “We were that way. How do you get around in life without being able to tell directions?”

“GPS. I had this handled. I bet all the Cuttings in this stupid swamp are headed here now.”

“Yes, which is a problem, because only a fraction were here before. We need to get gone, now.”

“Okay, fine, but what I did was very manly. Bow before my womanly manliness.”

“No bowing, only moving.” Rua’s growled pronouncement was ruined a little by Sunny trying to bow while riding her shoulders, and almost falling off because of it.

“Truly, I am the patriarch of patriarchs. It’s why I was blessed with a giant…” Otter stumbled, looking at Sunny, and then realizing maybe she shouldn’t finish that sentence. Even if she wasn’t actually a child, it still felt weird.

“No talking,” Rua hissed. “The Cuttings can hear.”

“They can probably hear that,” she said, pointing at the now crawling bundle of burning Cuttings that had been tied together. One of them let out a weak yelling noise. Man, their hearts really weren’t in it now that they were mostly burned up. “Can we stop and put them out so I can harvest their soul crystals?”

Rua hesitated, looking at them, and then Sunny began coughing from all the smoke. “No. We need to go.”

Rua didn’t say anything, but Otter could hear it in her voice. The hint of sadness. The loss of her cabin. Her home, her sanctuary. Otter wanted to apologize, but something told her that trying would just rub the wound a little worse.

She’d make it up to Rua in another way, in making sure she got off this damned island.

Chapter Text

They began a brisk pace away from the fires, picking their path towards denser wetlands. Just when Otter was getting used to walking on ground that didn’t immediately give way and sink two or three inches into mud.

“First no credit for my daring plan, and now no loot? Aw man, arson sucks in this game.”

“I’ll credit you that your plan was very dumb.”

“That’s what they all say. No one recognizes my genius.”

“Probably for good reason. First thing, I’m calling Sami and asking her how she put up with you for so long.”

“No, there will be no collaboration between my ex and my current girlfriend, that’s just disgustingly unfair.”

“Uh huh.”

One of Rua’s hands moved in front of her face in a suspicious manner. As if she were accessing her menu. Otter’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“You’re calling her right now, aren’t you?”

“Hey, Sami, yeah. I need some advice. How do I shut up your ex?”

Otter couldn’t see the conversation window. Only Rua would be able to. But still, she could all but see the smug smile on Sami’s face in her imagination. Finally, she shut her mouth and walked in silence, trying to ignore the quiet conversation going on. She busied herself with the Cuttings’ heart she acquired, trying to pull it apart with her hands while juggling the woodcutter’s axe.

She tossed away the remains and swallowed the crystal, and chose to boost more strength. Will just kept refusing to show up, which was what she wanted to gear towards. But also… how much Will did a mindless creature have? Would she end up with no boosted stat if she picked that? It was supposed to be 10% of what the enemy killed had. Ten percent of zero was zero.

Strength: 16 (17)

Agility: 11 (12)

Tenacity: 14 (15)

Allure: 10 (11)

Will: 15 (15.5)

Fortune: 11 (13)

Awareness: 10 (11)

How had her stats gotten so skewed? She was supposed to be a caster. She always played a caster. And now she was all beefy. Her highest stat was Strength. Her third-highest was Tenacity, a tanking stat. The hell was this hybrid build?

All-rounders rarely worked in games. You needed to pick a path and keep to it, optimize and min-max towards an end goal. But the problem was, she had no idea what that was. Rua had mentioned that Pacts evolved with time. But there was no telling how they’d evolve.

Right now, Otter was a mid-range caster/fighter hybrid. Not something she was really accustomed to. She’d been drilled enough by Sami to know how to actually fight with weapons, but not on how to use whips. I mean, really, who fought with whips? So impractical.

What’s worse was, these were magic whips, responding more to what she thought than how she swung her arms. That was more her alley, but at the same time, not. It was like spending all your days writing poetry, and then being asked to write an essay using a citation system you’d never seen before.

She was doing okay. It didn’t hurt that she had an instinctual knowledge on how to use her Pact. But it wasn’t the same as experience. It was like she’d seen instructional videos on how to ride a bike, but never done it herself before. She was staying alive so far, but what she needed was practice. A lot of it.

She needed Sami.

There was no one more capable of kicking her ass into shape, no one who knew how to cut through her bullshit and make her get to work. No one who understood discipline and how to apply it to the mess that was Otter. No, the mess that was Mayumi.

But she really didn’t want to.

To say nothing of the fact that she didn’t want to retread old ground and go back to Sami, even for something like this, was awkward. Sure, she’d been playing along with teaming with Sami and Everett, but if Otter was being perfectly honest with herself, she’d only been playing. She hadn’t meant to actually entangle herself into that world again. This place, Fell Champions, was supposed to be a second chance. A whole new life that’d last a literal lifetime, courtesy of the time dilation portion of the game’s equipment.

Her mind fuzzed a little, thinking about it.

Man, it was a good thing the chair they’d put her in was comfortable. At least Ashes² had that going for them as a developer. Comfy chairs to go along with murder games.

Yeah. Just focus on the memory of the comfy chair. And try to ignore the feel of mud, the general unpleasant cold of their surroundings, and definitely the low hum of conversation between Rua and Sami.

This was punishment, Otter knew. She’d probably scared Rua, heading off into battle while sending her to safety. And also all the flagrant arson. And the fact that she had set Rua’s home on fire. Okay. Yeah. She deserved a little punishment.

Why was she like this? Always acting, without thinking. It’s not that she was stupid. Quite the opposite. She was smart. She just… didn’t always use it.

How often had acting without thinking hurt the others around her? Too many times to count. Sami was probably telling Rua that now. Which, fair. Rua had every right to know what she was getting into, where a relationship with Otter was concerned.

Sunny looked back from her spot on Rua’s shoulders, and gave a small smile. Otter smiled back, but her heart just wasn’t in it.

It wasn’t too long before they stopped for camp. The trek had been arduous, with Rua breaking off and handing Sunny to Otter to check to make sure they weren’t followed numerous times, but so far it’d been uneventful. When they did stop, Rua got to the business of preparing food for them. No campfire was to be lit, no signal to Ashborne of their location.

“It’ll only be a matter of time before he finds us,” Rua said. “The fire has him preoccupied. Most of his attention will be on stopping that.”

“So, I did good?” Otter asked.

“No, but we can use it.” Rua carefully measured out small helpings of nuts and dried fruit between three tin cups, before handing them out. “We can rest for an hour, but then we have to be moving again.”

“Can I have a story?” Sunny asked. “I want to hear about the Dark Raider again.”

“That’s not his name,” Otter said. “But sure. We can go over the parts with just him.”

“Doesn’t she know everything you know?” Rua asked. “Why does she need one of your histories?”

“I don’t know everything, mama. Just… pieces. Small pieces. Like, I know how to ride a soo-meng, but not how to call one. But I know that part is important. Or how to mod a game in Steam, but not what Steam is.”

Rua grunted, and settled down on a rock to snack down on her nuts, making an effort to both not look at them, and glare at Sunny at the same time.

“Okay, my Sunny girl,” Otter said, “This is the story of how the Dark Raider stormed the rebels’ snowy fortress.”

Otter gave an exaggerated account of the movie, playing up the villain’s portions far more than they’d ever been depicted. Sunny listened with rapt attention, flinching backwards as Otter described the Raider’s sword made of red light and how he struck down the poor defenseless rebels, basking in the sound effects of his laboured breathing through the mask he was forced to wear.

“Can I have a cape like Raider’s?” Sunny asked.

“We’ll discuss it when we get to the mainland. And when you stop growing. You are going to stop growing soon, right?”

“Probably!”

Sunny voraciously went through her supply of nuts, and looked forlornly at Otter’s cup, which was still half-full. Otter gladly handed it over. She doubted it’d put a dent in the kid’s stomach. She was probably using more calories than she was consuming at her rate of growth. Unless Pact Magic was ignoring the need for that.

Otter was just getting to the part where the Dark Raider hired the fiercest bounty hunters the galaxy had ever seen to chase down the surviving rebels, describing each in detail, when Rua made a noise.

“Do all your histories sound so… fanciful?”

“Well, no. It’s just a movie.”

“What’s a ‘movie’?”

“You know, like a story we make up, and show with captured pictures on a device called a…” Otter trailed off as she saw Rua’s expression change from general annoyance to a slow dawn of horror.

“You haven’t.”

“Haven’t what?” Otter asked.

“You’ve… you’ve been telling her a story?” She said the word with obvious distaste. Which made sense, given she always used words like ‘tales’ and ‘fables’ as if they were swear words.

Wait. Why did she do that?

“Uh oh,” Sunny said. “You’re in trouble.”

“We need to get off this island now,” Rua said. “Bad enough Ashborne is after us, but you’ve been crafting tales?”

“Well, retelling, sure. Poorly. Some nerds would really be mad at me if they heard how bad of a job I was doing.”

Rua threw her tin cup back into her backpack, and snatched the other two from Sunny. “Strangers. Wayfarers from another world. Someone save me… all of you don’t know, do you? It must be different where you’re from.”

“What do you mean?” Otter asked.

“You don’t have Dreamers. Of course. That’s it. You don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” Otter asked, feeling more annoyed than anything.

“You’ve been telling stories in a Dreamer’s domain! You’ve given her something to dream about! An idea, not something real.”

“And that’s…. Bad?”

“How do you think something like Ashborne is made? He was once a tale, told by some idiot to another idiot who didn’t shut them up! You just made another Ashborne, but worse, you made this unstoppable evil killing machine Dark Raider thing that likes to cut down innocents with a mythic sword of light!”

“Oh.” Yeah. Okay. That sounded bad. “Oops?”

Rua made a frustrated noise, and hauled them to their feet. “New plan. We get out of here, now, and hope Ashborne and this Dark Raider kill each other.”

“Well, I mean, Raider is smart, really smart, but I guess–”

“No, no more talking about him. Anything you add to his story that you genuinely believe will only make the problem worse. It will make him more real, more dangerous. Just stop.”

Otter wanted to say something. To protest her innocence, her ignorance. Instead, she said, “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t know. I’m mad, but mostly at myself.” Rua leaned forward, and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “First you scare me by doing something stupid when you should’ve known better, and now you scare me by doing something catastrophically stupid that I should’ve known better to warn you about.”

Otter gave Rua a grateful look, then bent down to pick up Sunny. They started through the swamp once more, a new scourge driving them forward.

Chapter Text

It didn’t take long for trouble to find them.

Rua had pointed out a direction, showing both Otter and Sunny where they were going, and how to follow a straight line without the sun for guidance. Apparently the trick was to orient yourself onto one landmark – usually a tree – get to that landmark, and then orient yourself onto a new landmark directly ahead of that one. It wasn’t perfect. But they didn’t need it to be. All they had to do was to keep from going in circles, and eventually they’d reach the coast.

So it was after two hours of walking later that they finally encountered their doom. They’d been so focused on Cuttings and the potential threat of the ‘Dark Raider’ that none of them had anticipated a rampaging Vexurian coming.

Well, they did. It wasn’t exactly stealthy, as it charged directly at them like a rhino, smashing whatever was in its way in a cacophonous thunder. But it was still very shocking.

“Of course,” Rua said in a deadpan tone. “That makes perfect sense.”

Otter dropped Sunny from her shoulders and clutched the girl to her chest, awkwardly juggling the girl and her woodcutter’s axe. Sunny looked as if about to scream, her eyes wild and tear-filled, but no sound escaped from her. No sound except the ragged breaths she began to drag in, as if there wasn’t enough air in the world to fill her lungs.

“Run!”

Otter wasn’t sure if she or Rua said it, and it didn’t really matter. Her feet found their will, speeding as quickly as they could through the mud.

“How far until the shore?” Otter shouted.

“An hour!”

They weren’t going to make it. That thing wouldn’t tire, and the only thing that would slow it was the same thing that was slowing them, the mud. But maybe it might slow it more than it would them.

It was heavy. Very heavy. And when they’d first encountered it, it’d been buried, sunk into the swamp and gone into hibernation. It might only be chasing them because of Sunny, content to sleep and wait for reinforcements from Criobani that would never come otherwise. Why else would it wait ten years sleeping, only to wake now?

Sunny was its power source. Without her, it would die. It might even be on its last legs, running on only one or two bars until it conked out for good.

They just needed to outlast it. They weren’t going to make it to the shore. But they could exercise it a bit. Make it expend energy it couldn’t afford.

“How much power do you think that thing has left?” Otter shouted.

“How would I know? I’ve never even heard of a Vexurian without a battery!”

Well, that was helpful.

“Here, catch!” she threw her woodcutter’s axe to Rua, who caught it. “It’s going to come after us! Don’t do anything stupid!”

“So you can do something stupid?”

“I’m Spider-Man!”

Otter didn’t elaborate, just triggering a Thread of the Scourge in her free hand and lashing it upwards at a tree branch ahead of them. It caught, entangling as she willed, and tried to jump into the air to swing.

It didn’t really work out like she intended. Which was probably why Spider-Man jumped off rooftops most of the time before he did any webslinging. She got maybe a foot of airtime, mostly from her increased strength propelling her upwards. It was enough to get a swing started, throwing her forward in a wide arc, but with both her arms occupied, one with the initial swing, the other with holding Sunny, she couldn’t follow through.

She disengaged her thread from its hold on the branch and hit the ground, losing all her momentum, but with no damage incurred because of the soft mud.

Right. Thinking ahead. She had promised to start doing that.

“Sunny, I’m going to need you to hold tight,”

Otter shifted Sunny around so that she was now clutching at her like a human backpack. Sunny didn’t say much, but the way she squeezed made Otter’s ribs hurt. A lot. But she didn’t have the courage to tell her to loosen up.

And then she tried again, jumping as high as she could, lashing herself to a tree branch, and then summoning a second Thread of the Scourge with her second hand, catching a branch further ahead, and swinging.

It wasn’t as smooth or as easy as some spandex-clad individuals made it look. She wasn’t as coordinated or as agile as Spider-Man – she made sure to make a mental note to start increasing Awareness and Agility in the future – and she had a few near-misses, but she did better than George of the Jungle in similar circumstances. She didn’t crash into a single tree. She was kind of proud of that.

At some point, Sunny stopped making choked crying sounds at the sight of the Vexurian, and started making whoops of enjoyment. Gone was the fear of reality, replaced by the sheer joy of being young and doing something very stupid and dangerous.

Everything was going well. About as well as it could anyway. Otter managed not to kill herself half-dozen times, she kept pace ahead of the berserking golem armor, swinging circles around it. She was even having fun.

Right up until the crackling sound of Cuttings screaming slashed through the air.

Otter did her best to try to ignore what that signified, keeping her mobility going, right up until Sunny cried, “Mama!”

That brought Otter up short. She angled herself, deliberately swinging into the trunk of a tree that she was lashed to, and kicked off it just before hitting. It wasn’t great for her knees, hitting the tree a little too fast for her liking, but it arrested her momentum and while she bounced off the trunk, she came to rest against it after hitting it a few more times with her hips and shoulders.

Otter climbed her thread, getting on top of a thick branch, and paused a moment to rest.

“Sunny,” she said. “I need you to stay here.”

Those small hands clenching around her gripped even tighter.

“I need you safe,” Otter said. “And I need to save your mama. If you won’t let go, I can’t save Rua.”

Slowly, the pressure on Otter’s ribs eased off, and Sunny made a sound. “It’s not fair.”

Otter shifted on the branch, turning to face Sunny. “I know it’s not. If this happened in a few days, I’m sure you’d be all grown, and have enough combat memories or whatever I’d be comfortable bringing you. But the world’s not fair. So we’ve gotta do what we can. Hold on tight to the branch, and whatever you do, don’t come down. I need you to promise me.”

Sunny looked away, but nodded her head. It would have to be good enough.

Otter lashed another tree branch, and swung down, hitting the ground running. That Vexurian was a good distance off, and she needed it to see her and not Sunny. She let her two glowing threads trail behind her as she ran, the light marking out her location as she ran for all she was worth towards where she had left Rua.

Everything in the swamp looked the same, but it didn’t matter. Otter dove into the link she shared with Rua, letting it guide her way. She could feel absolute concentration through it, as if Rua were laser-focused on a task. It meant she was okay, but probably fighting. But more importantly, Otter could feel a pull, a general sense of direction as to where Rua was.

She dialed in. She might be a spastic basket case most days, but when she was gaming, she could wipe away the noise. All other concerns disappeared. There was just her and the objective.

She came into a clearing where Rua was surrounded by seven Cuttings. Pieces had been hacked off most, limbs destroyed, trunks hacked at, but the Cuttings didn’t care.

Rua was beautiful in motion. She didn’t have the same precise movement she had against Sami, the surety of knowing what your opponent was going to do as if the attack patterns were her own. It was a bad matchup. Cuttings had no minds. They did not feint, did not try to get around defenses and deceive. They were brutally straightforward in their attacks, always taking the shortest distance from Point A to Point B. It was probably their greatest weakness, but one Rua couldn’t take advantage of to her fullest. She was specifically designed to fight the opposite of this kind of foe. It was just a bad matchup.

Which didn’t matter in the least to Otter. She came in from behind, lashing both her threads around the midsection of the nearest Cutting, entangling it as thoroughly as she could, pulling it closer as she did. It turned to face her, its trunk opening wide into a maw as if to bite her. But her threads pulled tighter, digging into the bark of her enemy and sawing into the opening its mouth provided.

Even as her threads wrapped harder around the Cutting, pulling tighter as she yanked it cover to her and closing the distance, she empowered it with a point of her Will, strengthening the burning and cutting effect of her weapon.

Wood splintered, and as that mouth opened ever wider, she cut the thing clean in half.

There was no glow of victory. She disengaged both her threads just as another Cutting charged at her, not caring that one of its own had just been felled like wheat. It hit Otter in an awkward tackle, only clipping her, but driving her to the side and off balance.

Somewhere in the corner of her eye, she noted her Tenacity had taken a sizeable hit from that. But it didn’t matter. She knew how to fight these things. If you couldn’t outright kill them, you weaponized them against each other.

Another dove at her, and this one she managed to lash with a thread and sidestep, then used its momentum to carry her away from the attacks of a third. That second one recovered, turning to charge at her again, and using her thread and a pivot of her hips, sent it into one of its companions, before releasing that golden cord and commanding it to entangle the two together.

“Otter!” Rua called, and suddenly there was Rua’s spare hatchet flying in her direction. She reacted by instinct, catching it by the handle with her remaining thread, and then swinging it in an arc around herself in short, controlled swings.

Rua dove into the offensive, hacking away with her two-handed woodcutter’s axe, driving it into what passed for a face on a nearby Cutting. She didn’t hit its heart on the first swing, but she recovered, striking a second time and ending its threat permanently.

In seconds, two Cuttings were dead with two others technically disabled. But the remaining three were already hammering down on them both, two flanking Rua and pressing her with wild swings, while the remaining walked directly into Otter’s swinging hatchet-whip. The weapon connected solidly with its trunk, but the blade wasn’t large or strong enough to penetrate deeply. It ignored the damage and grabbed for her thread, using it to pull her in closer.

Otter dismissed the thread, but it was too late. She’d already been pulled forward, out-contested in strength and now off balance. And then it was on her.

It was inelegant, just a series of ferocious swings from three different limbs. She tried to duck, weave, and bob around the attacks, but it was just too fast, and she didn’t have sure enough footing on the muddy ground. Even through her Tenacity, she felt the hit across her temple, setting stars in her vision as her head rocked to the side.

The Cutting pounced, throwing its weight on her and hammering down blows. She did her best to block, her arms coming up in a boxer’s defense, but she’d been in enough fights to know a losing one when she was in it.

Her Tenacity bottomed out, the bar empty. Faint echoes of pain turned into the real thing.

She tried to muster her Will to summon up something, anything, but another blow to the head rocked her. She couldn’t distract the thing with taunts, couldn’t get it to talk, couldn’t reason with it. She was out of options.

Which meant she was dead.

And then the Cutting exploded.

Where its trunk had once been, was a small hand, glowing red. Sunny stared down at Otter, her lips drawn into a grim line, and her eyes misting with tears.

Otter felt she should’ve had a quip. Should’ve had something to say in that moment. Maybe a word of reassurance, if not necessarily a witticism. Maybe a thank you, even if she was confused as to what had just happened.

And then there was the Vexurian. The suit of armor was not stealthy. Sunny surely knew it had been there. But one fist grabbed her up, pulling her from her feet and away.

Otter reached out, tried to summon up her Will, but her head was spinning from one of the earlier hits. She called for her power and nothing came.

And then Rua was there, bleeding from her scalp, a few cuts about her person, swinging that woodcutter’s axe at the arm of the Vexurian with an angry howl.

She drove a dent into the joint. If there’d been an arm inside, blood would have flown. There would have been screams of pain. But with the Vexurian, there was nothing. It moved forward, ignoring Rua’s attack.

“You can’t have her!” Rua growled.

She swung again, going for a knee joint. At the same time, the remaining Cutting that hadn’t been killed or bound leaped, landing on the back of the Vexurian. That probably saved Rua from the Vexurian’s counterattack.

It reached to its side, its arm articulating in a way that a human arm wouldn’t be able to bend and going the wrong way at the elbow, its wrist turning around so its hand was now facing its back, and grabbed the Cutting. And then it squeezed.

The Cutting burst into pieces, shards of wood exploding out from between metal fingers, and then it discarded the broken thing like so much garbage. The Cutting twitched weakly, but was unable to move beyond that.

Otter stumbled to her feet, fell over, and then tried to get back up. But her head was so dizzy. Nothing was moving right. She put her hands to the ground, trying to use them as leverage, and when she tried to force herself up, she violently vomited, and the whole world shook.

Someone was yelling, and the sound hurt. Otter cast her gaze every which way, and saw Rua, pinned to the ground, the two Cuttings that had been tied together now on top of her. The Vexurian was retreating, its heavy footfalls taking it into the distance.

One more, Otter mustered her will, and it was like a bell tolling in her head, echoing agony through her brain. But she grit her teeth and pulled herself together, fighting through what she knew was a concussion and managed to summon up a Thread of the Scourge.

She threw it, the cast loose. Rua reached out a hand, but the wire fell short by a few feet.

And then, the two Cuttings, gripping onto Rua, began to sink into the mud.

Otter wasn’t sure what she was seeing at first, uncertain if it was just some information being processed incorrectly in her bruised brain. But no, they were being pulled into the mud, and not slowly either. It was as if it were giving way before them, welcoming them into its cold embrace.

And the Cuttings, gripping onto Rua, were pulling her into the mud with them.

Otter pulled her thread back, and cast it out again. Once more it fell short, but Otter pulled it back and tossed a third time. This time Rua managed to catch it, making a strangled noise of panic.

“I am not…” she choked, but she was slowly being pulled into the mud, wooden arms gripping around her as she was pulled under.

Otter yanked backwards, trying to get something resembling strength into her arms, and as she pulled, she fell backwards. She scrambled back up, even hit by another wave of dizziness, to see Rua up to her neck in mud, staring at Otter, with fear in her eyes, wooden, twig-like fingers gripping her chin.

She didn’t say anything, just taking in a sharp inhalation before she was pulled under in one jerk, disappearing into the mud.

Chapter Text

Rua had let go.

It was the only thought echoing through Otter’s mind, after seeing her disappear into the mud. She’d been holding onto the wire, pulling with all her might to get Rua out, and then had fallen backwards. The only reason that would’ve happened was if Rua had let go.

Belatedly she realized she was wasting time, thinking about what had already happened, and not acting. Her brain chugged along like an old engine revving to life, and she stumbled forward on hands and knees to the spot Rua had sunk into. She forced a hand into the mud as deeply as it would go, but it was thick, and not as yielding as she expected.

Rua had sunk into it as if it were only a little thicker than water, but this was far more solid. Otter hammered her fists into the mud, making strangled noises, and while they sunk a few inches, there wasn’t enough give to reach down and grab onto Rua.

Who knew how deep she was. Just inches lower? Feet?

She was probably suffocating, the mud filling her nostrils, her mouth, blocking off all air.

Otter grabbed clods of wet earth and threw it to the side, trying to dig. When that wasn’t fast enough, she got on her feet and began to scrape with both hands, throwing mud behind her like a dog would.

She didn’t realize she was screaming – in pain, in frustration, in terror – until she was out of breath, drawing in ragged gasps just so she could scream again. Tears were in her eyes, blurring her vision even more.

She managed to dig maybe two feet deep before she collapsed. The mud was constantly sliding back into place, and her mind couldn’t put together a better plan, not with a concussion blocking every attempt to gather her thoughts into something coherent.

Somewhere in the distance, she heard Sunny scream.

Panic hit Otter. Should she go to Sunny? Leave her for now? The armour wouldn’t hurt her, would it? Just… put her back inside. Something Sunny clearly feared, but something she could survive.

But what if Rua was already dead? What if…

Otter didn’t know she’d fallen unconscious until she woke up.

It was dark. Not the kind of dark caused by the shadows of the tree canopy. The kind of dark that only truly came when the sun had fully retreated, and even the moon and stars were blotted out.

Otter braced herself for wooziness, and realized it was gone. Her head was clear. She steadied herself, putting her hands on the ground to brace herself and rise… and found no mud. Only smooth, polished black stone flooring.

“Oh fuck.”

Otter looked up, and saw an endless expanse of black, broken only by a single silhouette in front of her, a woman sitting in a chair. But this time, it was not the form of Sami, it was Rua, a perfection ruined only by a pair of yellow eyes.

“Hello, dear,” the Dreamer said.

The Dreamer looked as Rua normally did, in casual clothes, in a self-assured, almost cocky, pose. Not quite smiling, but a sense of being pleased radiating off her.

Otter flicked herself across the nose. “Snap back to reality.”

“This is reality.”

“Ope, there goes gravity.”

“Ah, a song. Similar to a story, but without the meat.”

That brought Otter up short. Would a Dreamer be able to do their heinous fuckery with the lyrics of a song? She didn’t know, and she was too afraid to ask.

“Is there something you want, Supertramp?”

The figure of Rua crossed her legs, gently bouncing one of them up and down. Otter watched it, and had to remind herself that this wasn’t actually Rua. But godamn her girlfriend was hot.

“Only to help, of course,” the Dreamer said, sounding entirely too pleased.

“I’ve seen what your help is like. Send me back. Wait, can you just pull me here whenever you feel like?”

“If only it were that easy. Sometimes I can touch upon your realm. And sometimes, you can touch upon mine. This would be the latter.”

“What, me being unconscious brought me here?”

“Not quite. You being brain damaged brought you here.”

“Me being what.”

“Brain damaged. Yes, I know. Who can hardly tell the difference with you. You took a very nasty hit. You’re positively bleeding out of the ears right now. Honestly, if not for my intervention, I suspect you won’t wake up from this.”

Otter tried to stand. She didn’t want to hear this. Hear how this monster had saved her. Because she knew where it was leading. There was only one reason why monsters saved people.

But no matter how she shifted her weight, how she tried to move, she always found herself seated on the ground. It wasn’t as if she fell. It was just as if every movement were a road that led to the same destination. In defiance, Otter turned herself around, sitting away from the Dreamer, but frustratingly, that thing was rooted on her chair no matter which direction she looked.

“Finished yet?” it asked, arching an eyebrow in a way that definitely wasn’t sexy at all.

Why was she thinking like that? Otter had always had a healthy libido, and since joining the game and becoming a stupid pelanoa – even if that had its perks – it’d been amped up to 11, but this was just getting ridiculous. It was like she was a hormonal teenager again for the first time. Focus. She had to focus.

“Yes, you can say whatever it is you want to say, and then I can go back to drooling in the mud or whatever it was I was doing. I have a girlfriend and a kid to save.”

“Ah yes, young love.”

“What? I’m not… who said anything about love? Labels are dumb. I barely know her.”

The Dreamer made a little titter, which sounded odd coming from Rua. She covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Really, it’s your best trait. To love so freely and easily, to be willing to fight for a person you met… how long has it been? A week? Your concepts of time are so silly. First, you have to perceive it as linear, and then you break it into pieces? How does one keep track?”

“You’re asking the person with a concussion to explain how time works?”

“Listening to you attempt to explain temporal phenomena to me would be the same if you asked a raccoon for culinary tips. While I am certain you’d have fascinating insights, they’d all just end up being stewed garbage.”

“Can we just get whatever this is out of the way already so I can leave? I’m still angry over our last encounter.”

The Dreamer waved a hand dismissively. “You don’t even remember what I did to your mind. I literally excised the event. If anything, you should be grateful. I introduced the idea of you to your lover before you met, ensuring your relationship would come to pass, while simultaneously giving you the power you would need to escape the island you both find yourself trapped on.”

“Yes, because you’re not getting anything out of the arrangement at all.”

“Oh, I most definitely am. Your… Dark Raider is fascinating. I look forward to seeing where his story goes.”

“You’re not bound by linear time. Shouldn’t you already know?”

“Of course I do. But I also do not. My temporal existence is very similar to that of your kind’s Schrodinger’s cat. I both exist at all points in time and do not. As such, this is the both the first time I’ve had this conversation with you, while also being an event I am currently replaying in my mind for the infinitieth time. So, yes, I already know where the Raider’s story is going. And yours. But I am also surprised at the first time it happens, even if there never truly was a first time.”

“I’m confused.”

“Stewed garbage. Don’t worry. I wasn’t really expecting you to keep up.”

She looked smug at that. Otter tried not to scowl, but didn’t have a lot of success. “Just tell me what you want already.”

“I’ve already gotten it. Or will get it, from your point of view. The terms were set when we made the Pact.”

Terms? That was the first time Otter had heard that. She knew there was an agreement, something she would do for the Dreamer one day, but that no one ever had knowledge of what it was.

“I don’t remember an agreement.”

“I excised it, snip snip.” The Dreamer made a motion with both hands, as if they were both a pair of scissors, and then mashed them together in a lewd display and tittered again. “Perhaps not the correct anatomical display, given you are one of mine.All I am doing now is facilitating you keeping up your end of things.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that while you’re here, I’m holding together what passes for a mind in your head together while your Tenacity does the work of repairing the fracture to your skull and the concussion you resulted by trying to stop an Ashborne Cutting’s fist with the side of your head.”

“What?”

“The damage would have been permanent, if not for my intervention. Your kind always underestimate concussions. I believe you said something about drooling in the mud, which shows a remarkable amount of self-awareness you normally do not possess.”

The Dreamer sounded entirely too pleased with herself. And that kind of pissed Otter off.

“My girlfriend is currently drowning in the mud. If…” She drew in a breath, steadying herself. “if I can’t get her out… I will burn everything you hold dear down. I will find out what you love, and I will tear it to pieces.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Ashborne has her. She’s not in the mud, so to speak. Not anymore. She was pulled through the swamp from one place to another. The Cuttings had no interest in drowning her, only taking her.”

“Why?”

“Because I implied to Ashborne that I wanted it to happen. I told him there was a threat on his silly little island, and he assumed I meant Rua because I took her form. Now he doesn’t know whether to present her to me dead or alive as tribute.”

Otter ground her teeth. “Why?”

“Why not? I am praised as an unknowable entity. Perhaps I did it to motivate you to become stronger. Perhaps I did it to motivate Rua to become stronger. Perhaps this is just another domino that has to fall in the series of events I have set up for you. Perhaps I did it to send the two of you even closer together. Or perhaps…” She leaned forward in her chair, a twisted smile coming over her face, the features morphing and shifting until it was no longer Rua’s, but Sami’s staring at her. “I did it because I’m a bit of a cunt.”

Otter lunged forward, and while she didn’t quite get off her ass in her seated position, she did raise maybe half an inch. Her body actually listened to her, actually understood what it was to stand for a second, before failing and going back to sitting.

The Dreamer’s smile widened even further.

“How long do I have to be here?” Otter growled.

“Your Tenacity, low as it is, will require two Midnights to fully heal.”

“Why midnight?”

“Soul power is tied into the world of Fell. Every part of it influences your power, from its rotations to its tides, to the stars that stare down at it at night, to the shifting of fault lines. Soul power does not belong to you. It belongs to Fell. You are just its keeper, for a time.”

“What, it goes back to the planet when I die? Is this some kind of circle of reincarnation thing?”

The Dreamer took on a distant look, as if seeing something far on the horizon. “No.”

There was an awkward pause. The Dreamer seemed to have no interest in continuing her banter or showing Otter how much smarter or more powerful she was. Otter tried to fidget, tried to stand, tried to do anything, but apparently the Dreamer wasn’t interested in letting her move. Or do anything.

So Otter meditated.

She sucked at it. Her attention span wasn’t great. But Sami had drilled it into her, and Everett, and Il-Su. Less out of a desire to teach them spiritualism or inner peace, and more self-discipline. One of many things Otter had enjoyed about Sami at first, until she began to resent it, resent the chains and the expectations and the demands.

Resent what Sami had ultimately done to her.

Oh, how she wanted to throw that into Sami’s face, especially whenever she wanted the ‘truth’ of why Otter left. But she’d never been a petty person. Not in that way, at least.

Otter let the anger flow through her, and let it flow out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Anger in. Anger out. Her hands remained still the entire time.

It felt good. Letting it take over her, and then wash away. She probably should’ve done this sooner. But she hadn’t been ready before. How much of a mess had she been when Holt had gotten a hold of her? How many empty bottles had decorated her apartment, how many half-smoked joints stubbed out on things she’d once cared about?

Otter could almost feel that wretch again, that person she’d been for a few months.

In, and out. Peace. Nothingness. She let it all go.

“Your story grows,” the Dreamer said.

There was a hint of respect in the words. Weird, how that sounded. Almost nice, like a distant parent finally acknowledging you after years of abuse and neglect.

So of course the Dreamer immediately ruined it.

A crushing force, like the hand of Buddha gently pushing down, came down on Otter’s shoulders and head. She resisted, trying to push upwards, keep her back straight, but quickly found her face pressed to the polished black floor.

“Ow.”

It didn’t threaten to push her any further, but apparently she was no longer being afforded the ability to sit up.

“Are you having fun?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“Always.”

“Care to let me up?”

“No. Do it yourself.”

Otter sighed. Of course. She struggled, flexing her muscles and trying to rise, but it was just like earlier. Her body refused to do what she wanted.

“Well,” the Dreamer said with a sigh. “It looks like it will be a long two nights.”

Chapter Text

Otter struggled against her invisible bonds to no avail. It affected her mind just as much as her body, and no matter how she moved, she couldn’t get herself to rise. After trying for what felt like an hour, but in actuality was probably closer to maybe ten minutes, Otter abandoned all attempts to stand and instead defaulted to what she did best.

Being annoying.

She started to sing. As off key as she could. She picked the most irritating songs she could think of, the kind that somehow made the charts yet no one actually enjoyed. She looked for keys in all the wrong places.

The Dreamer, to her credit, endured it with an amused smile, right up until Otter busted out the disco. Apparently that was a step too far.

She found her mouth unable to work. It just kind of hung slack, and her jaw wouldn’t obey any commands her brain sent it. That was fine. She could hum with her mouth open.

After maybe a minute of that, her vocal chords stopped working.

Which meant she had no other recourse than to actually try to overcome whatever the Dreamer had done to her, unless she wanted to sit here drooling like an idiot both in this mental hellscape and in the real world simultaneously.

Just trying to move her muscles wasn’t working. This wasn’t a question of overpowering something that was holding her. It was a mental block. Which meant it had a mental solution.

She’d overcome it briefly before. It wasn’t a lot. She’d made it maybe a few inches before the Dreamer’s control reasserted itself. But a few inches was better than nothing.

So she thought of Sami. Thought of days and nights alone, memories of being in an angry and self-pitying stupor, trying to abuse herself as much as she could because it was the only thing she could feel.

She remembered, between the moments of despair, of wanting to return to Sami. Some days, to rekindle what they’d had. Others, more violent ideas intruded.

But it didn’t work. These thoughts weren’t the way to go. She’d made peace with this. She’d let her anger go, for the most part. Some resentment still remained, but the old rage just wasn’t there anymore. It’d died out, a fire that had consumed all its fuel and now was just ashes.

The Dreamer seemed to realize it. Her features changed once again, dropping from the form of Sami to a new one, one Otter wasn’t familiar with. She was a pale woman, her skin and hair as white as snow, her eyes the colour of blue crystal.

She was taller than Sami. Maybe even taller than Otter. Curvier, too. The loose clothes that she’d been wearing were now filled out, stretched to capacity under the weight of thicker thighs and fuller breasts.

She was attractive. More than that. Beautiful. But there was a cruelty to her. A smile that was not quite a smile, sharpened with a mocking edge.

But just as the form was there, it began to blur and become indistinct. It was as if there was a person there, but not. Otter’s brain couldn’t process what she was seeing.

“Sorry,” the Dreamer said. “Spoilers. You haven’t met that one yet. She wasn’t quite right for this regardless. I know what you need.”

And the Dreamer changed once more, and in front of Otter now sat herself. Not as GrandTheftOtter, with her pink hair and eyes full of life, not even as Pandemona, the playful persona that could be a jester one moment, and a witch queen the next.

No. It was Mayumi. As she really was. Too thin to be considered healthy looking, hair unkempt and brittle. Bags under her eyes from too little sleep. Not many would recognize this version of her. No one from her old life certainly.

The Dreamer held out one hand, palm down, and it shook violently.

And then she smirked.

Anger hit Otter like a truck. Hard enough that adrenaline pumped, hard enough that the edges of her vision turned red.

Her body wanted to struggle, but that wasn’t the key. Her mind needed to. And she could feel it, deep inside herself, as her blood pumped. A presence inside her body. A foreign invader, something that didn’t belong. A force, a will.

No, not a will. Will. The same energy that flowed through Otter when she activated her own skills. She tried bringing her own to bear, to muster her own Will to combat against it, but it wouldn’t come.

Her mind was too filled with rage. It let her unleash, let her feel what was wrong with her, but it wasn’t focused. Trying to muster her power was like grabbing at water with her fists. It spilled uselessly back into herself.

The realization didn’t help. She thrashed uselessly against the Dreamer’s Will, impotent to do anything.

The Dreamer, wearing her stolen face, breathed in. And then out. In, and then out. Controlled breaths, measured. Just like Otter had done earlier, entering a meditative state.

Okay. That was the game.

Otter couldn’t let go of the anger. Not so easily. But she could hone it. Give it an edge, instead of using it like a club. So she focused, pulling her Will in, circulating it through her as if it were blood in her veins, and felt it press against the Dreamer’s.

The Dreamer was like a smothering gale, and Otter’s Will was an ember. She could barely keep the flame burning, but still it glowed. Everything the Dreamer was doing was denying her existence. All she had to do was say ‘no’ in the face of that. Deny an otherworldly monster, unfathomably old and powerful, that could crush Otter before she was even born should she become a threat.

But none of that mattered. All she had to do was not give up, even if every part of her wanted to. It hurt. Her own Will burned her, scalding her veins. But the pressure lessened.

“Good,” the Dreamer said.

“Go fuck yourself,” she snapped, and then realized she could talk again. She blinked. Had it really been that easy?

“No,” the Dreamer said, as if she’d read her thoughts. “You understand the basic principle. Your mind isn’t quite ready to challenge mine. Not even fully ready to challenge another Willcaster’s, really. But you understand how.”

“So… what? I’m going to need to know this?” Otter said between ragged breaths. That short clash of minds had left her winded, her head pounding. Or was she just feeling the actual physical condition of her body?

“Oh, most definitely.”

“And why teach it to me?”

“Perhaps to be a cunt to someone other than yourself.”

“Why anger, though? Why does that work so well?”

The Dreamer shrugged. “All great things are built upon anger.”

“Really?”

“Any desire for change is anger at the world that exists as it is. Without anger, you do not have passion. Without passion, the world is just apathy. And apathy neither builds nor destroys, it simply rots.”

Otter grunted. She wasn’t sure how much she believed that, but it made a kind of sense. “So, what are we going to do with the remaining time?”

“What remaining time? It’s been two Midnights. It’s time for you to leave.”

That couldn’t be right. It felt like it’d been minutes, no more than twenty. Maybe half an hour.

She stood, muscles stretching as if they’d been locked in place for hours, and everything around her blurred. The Dreamer’s smiling face and yellow eyes were the last thing to fade before Otter was back in the swamp again.

Ugh, her head hurt. She jabbed a finger in her ear, gave it a quick wipe, and checked. Sure enough. Blood on her finger. So, guess the Dreamer wasn't lying about that. But then, why would she need to lie about anything?

Otter gave a quick check on her link. There was a small stinging sensation, but not nearly as bad as it'd been the last couple of days. Whatever her bond with Sunny was doing, it wasn't hurting as much anymore. Sunny was probably nearly done 'cooking.' Was she going to be an adult? Otter really hoped that she got to skip the awkward teen years.

But both Rua and Sunny seemed to be alive, according to the bond. That was good. Otter could even get a general sense of direction as to where they were. She turned, trying to focus on where Rua was and ended up staring directly at a black armoured man.

The design wasn’t quite right. He didn’t have the Sci Fi samurai look that he rocked in the source material. But the light-up panel was there on his chest. The cape was appropriately swishy and dramatic. And, of course, he had the fucking lightsaber.

“Oh, hey, Lord Raider. Was just thinking about you.”

His mask was more of a helmet with a visor. Probably whatever the Dreamer, or maybe Sunny or Rua had envisioned.

Laboured breathing through a respirator was his only response. She’d never really realized how intimidating that sound could be. It’d always just been an iconic thing about him. Kind of cool, but also a sign of weakness. But for some reason, with the proverbial Dark Lord standing right in front of her, it was terrifying.

“So, you’re probably wondering why I called this meeting.”

He rasped again, but made no movement. He looked almost... fake. His stance was too stiff. Aside from his cape, he didn't move. Even the little lighting on him didn't reflect quite right. It was like he wasn't quite real, which was kind of accurate. He'd been brought into this world through a story.

But what was he doing? The real deal would’ve telekinetically choked her out by now if he’d suspected she was an enemy. So, did that mean he wasn’t sure about her? Then why none of the intimidatingly voiced dialogue? Why no demands for her to join him?

Wait. Had she gotten to that part of the story yet?

No. This ‘Lord Raider’ was a half-baked version of the original. He was still missing the important bits of him. He wasn’t done cooking.

“Lord Raider,” Otter said, bowing her head in respect. “The Emperor himself has sent me here to give you intelligence on a known rebel sympathizer.”

Chapter Text

The Girl in the Suit of Armour hung suspended in the dark, curled into a ball. She hovered, not touching anything, but feeling everything. The churning of the mud beneath the Vexurian’s feet, the way it hobbled as it walked, wounded from the axe Mama had hit it with. She could even feel the subtle vibration of the creaking noises the Cuttings made as they shrieked their defiance outside.

They were still being hunted. She didn’t know why. Had no information to rely on. She only had darkness, and an echo of a memory.

She couldn’t explain it. When Otter and Mama had freed her from the Vexurian, her mind had been severed. Nothing of who she had once been had been spared. It’d been cut cleanly away. She could no more tell her old name from a stranger’s in a crowd, explain what home was like, what she had done as a child. Who her actual parents were.

But somewhere in the dark, there was an impression. A footprint, left by something long gone. And seeing the Vexurian again had caused something to come flooding back.

She couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t describe it. But she was afraid. She was in the dark, the one place she feared most, and no one was coming to save her.

She knew the minds of Mama and Otter. Had felt reassured by them. Even now, she could touch on the link they shared and knew they were okay. And their safety was enough to bring her joy.

But she was under no illusion. Neither of them really cared for her. Otter was flighty and prone to taking a liking to shiny and new things. The Girl was a novelty to her, here for current amusement, but soon to be forgotten as the next shiny thing came along.

And Mama? She didn’t even need to check the link to know the resentment and anger that Mama felt towards her and all Criobani. To Mama, the Girl in the Armor was just another reminder of her own trauma.

The memories the Girl had that were Mama’s were fragmented, lacking context. She remembered Leilynn, but couldn’t remember why Leilynn’s eyes would never meet hers. She remembered Juala and her casual cruelty, but couldn’t remember why she was the way she was. And she remembered Kirhaela, and her annoyingly beautiful perfection, but what she was perfect at was fuzzy and incomplete. She knew Mama was important. Knew people paid respect to her and her family name. But also knew that many spat on the ground she had walked on. Remembered how their very smiles would be enough to trigger Mama’s Pact magic, blossoming into pinprick headaches.

She knew Mama blamed her father for it, but most of all she blamed the Criobani, one and all.

It didn’t matter if the Girl in the Armor was Criobani in name only, with no connection or memory of a land that had apparently enslaved her and turned her into a living weapon. She was a symbol. Something tangible for Mama to hate.

She sniffled in the darkness, having long since been cried out. This was her home now. Maybe forever.

The armor shifted and moved. She couldn’t see in the darkness, and dared not touch the metal, keeping to her balled up stance. She didn’t know if touching the Vexurian more than she had would make it swallow her, rob her of her identity once more. But there was no point in finding out. Every part of her whimpered at the idea.

She had no fight in her. She shook and sobbed softly, knowing no one was coming to save her. At best, the armor would get worn down and taken by waves of Cuttings. And then, then she would be pulled from the casing and torn apart.

She hoped for that. Anything but the idea of going to sleep again, going to sleep and waking up a new person, if ever at all.

Something slammed against the side of the armor, and the whole thing rocked to the side. The Girl reacted. She braced herself, holding out her hands defensively as she was slammed into the armor’s interior. And as her palms touched the metal, everything lit up.

Rune etchings all over the inside of the armour flared to life. The surface hummed, the metal vibrating with energy. And the Girl could feel the pull on her Will.

There was a noise, something like a yawn, a sensation of something coming awake.

“Dammit, 003, couldn’t let me sleep a little longer, could you?”

The voice came from inside the armor. It was female, with a lilting accent, and sounded decidedly annoyed.

The Girl whipped her head around. Though the suit was large, large enough for her to fit into the torso without touching anything or needing to put either her arms or legs in their respective areas, there wasn’t enough room for a second person. There was no one inside with her.

“Who’s there?” the Girl asked.

“The pilot,” came the Voice, as if she’d just been asked a particularly stupid question. “Who in the name of the bloody-handed Dreamer are you?”

The Girl panicked. She didn’t know how to answer that. So, she said, “Sunny.”

The name didn’t feel right. Had never felt right, from the moment Otter had given it to her. She’d agreed, in part because her mind was still a child’s, still unsure of who or what she was.

“003, why is there a ‘Sunny’ inside the suit with… wait. Why can’t I see you?”

“Why can’t I see you?” the Girl countered, turning her head every which way.

“003, run diagnostic, punch it right into my info feed. I… Wait. I didn’t do that.”

“Do what?” the Girl asked, turning her body about, still floating in air, and peering into a leg hole.

“Bloody that. 003, I have no control over my movement, run diagnostic now.” There was a pause. “003? Oh, you sodding pile of dung, the least my jailer can do is respond to me.”

Whatever response the Voice was expecting, the string of swear words that she began yelling indicated it either didn’t come, or wasn’t the one she was expecting. The curses were descriptive, vulgar, and very inventive.

The Girl shrank in on herself again. Not out of any fear of the Voice, but more out of comfort. Whatever was happening with the Voice, it couldn’t do anything more to her than had already been done.

The pilot barked more commands out, presumably at the Vexurian, and when those went unanswered, she went back to cursing. When something else hit the armour from outside, the cursing only grew in intensity.

“You, Sunny! Weird voice! What in the name of the Dreamer’s sainted cock have you done to my Vexurian!”

“I didn’t do anything. It kidnapped me and put me inside.”

“That’s not possible, you bloody twit, it already has… oh sainted plains, you’re bloody me, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m Sunny,” the Girl said, smiling as impishly as she could.

“Don’t be obtuse. Someone actually fecking did it, didn’t they? I need to see. Turn your head up and… oh feck, the control bands are all cut. Someone figured it out, but they buggered the job as much as they could without killing me, because my meat got pulled out but I’m still in this fecking thing.”

This time the cursing degenerated into incomprehensible shrieking. The Vexurian shifted and turned, the arms raising upwards, and then came crashing down. The entire weight of the armour shifted as one leg kicked out, and something outside smashed in a deafening roar.

She wasn’t finished. Both arms of the suit thrust forward, and the Voice made a groan of effort, and it felt like everything was suddenly under a great weight. The suit spun, sending the Girl’s stomach to clench uncomfortably. The suit staggered forward, and it was as if that great weight leapt from the suit, released outwards in a mighty throw. In the distance, something thudded, followed by the great cacophony of wood splintering and trees falling over.

“This isn’t actually as cathartic as I’d hoped,” the Voice said.

“What are you even hitting?”

“Dunno. Something’s moving around out there. Don’t have access to the ocular systems… wait, there they are. Lemme see. Yeah. Fecking Mythwalkers. Oh right, we did get sent here to kill that biggun, before it all went to shite.”

“What went to… shite?”

“Oh, you know, orders from above, collars got activated, I can barely remember beyond a big feckin’ tree and losing 087 and 103. Had to retreat, power down and wait for rescue, standard protocol. Would either die, or get pulled out. Us Vexurians are way too valuable to just leave lying on some island in the middle of nowhere.”

“But you… we… were asleep. For ten years.”

There was a pause. “Fecking fables, really?”

“How’d we live that long? Ten years, asleep. Did the armor do that?”

“Feck no. We’re a bloody Fleshcrafter is what we are.”

“What?”

“Our Pact, lass.” The Voice made an exasperated sound. “Don’t tell me you haven’t even figured out our Pact yet? Did I get all the brains on top of the mind, too?”

“That’s not our Pact. I’m a Lifecrafter.”

There was a long pause. The light inside the armor dimmed for a moment, as if considering. The Girl hoped that maybe the Voice would finally stop talking.

Instead, the Voice spoke once more, “Say something again.”

The Girl wasn’t sure if she should answer, but… she was lonely. And this might be the only person she’d ever get to speak to again. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, you little feck. Who pulled you out of the armor?”

“Otter. She saved me. And Mama.”

“Who the feck is ‘Mama’? My… our… mom’s dead, burned and sent to the sky years ago.”

“Her name’s Rua, and… why am I even talking to you?”

She couldn’t be that lonely. It didn’t matter what her mind said. She knew Otter and Mama would come. They had to. The Voice wasn’t something she could trust. If anything, whoever this woman she used to be was just as likely as responsible for her being in the armor as anyone else.

“Because I’m charming. You sound young. Oh feck, don’t tell me I de-aged again. How young’d I get this time?”

“I dunno. I was a little girl a few days ago. Now I think…” She looked down, pulling the collar of her smock forward. Yep. Those were definitely breasts. “Early teenager?”

“Well, try to get all that annoying growing over and done with before I take the reins back.”

The Girl went cold. “What do you mean, ‘take the reins back’?”

There was a noise that sounded like a snort. Odd, considering the voice had no body, no nose, to make that sound with. “It’s my body. I’m the mind. You’re just, what? A week’s worth of memories? I mean, come now, lass. I’m you.”

Could this woman even do it? Take the step to move from the armor back to her body?

It didn’t matter. This was the Girl’s now. She wasn’t going to be replaced, not by this rude woman who threw tantrums and smashed whatever was in her way, without even knowing what it was. What kind of terror would she be, out in the world, without the armor to restrain her?

But how would she react if she learned that the Girl had no intention of surrendering her body back? Mama and Otter were still out there somewhere. They were alive, she knew, and still close. The Vexurian was an engine of destruction. It could do so much damage to anything it encountered…

An idea came to the Girl.

“Okay. I’ll let you come back to our body,” she said. “If you help me with something first.”

“I’m listening.”

Chapter Text

Rua had a lot of problems. Captured by the Mythwalker, Ashborne. Hung suspended from a tree branch in a cage fashioned from the very wood of the tree that carried her that barely gave her room to move, only really letting her dangle her legs out the side. Separated from her girlfriend. Saddled with a girl that claimed to be the daughter she never asked for. Stuck in a death game from another world that was run by a narcissist. Cursed with a Pact that was barely useful most days, and a downright detriment all the others.

But right now, her main problem was that she was kind of thirsty.

Sure, she had a canteen helpfully supplied by said narcissist gamerunner, but given that she’d been stuck in a wooden cage for a day and a half, she had to ration it. And Ashborne showed no sign of wanting to refill her supply.

Ashborne didn’t seem to want anything. He – it? – was content to just sit and be a tree. Rua kind of wondered what that was like. To just be, your limbs spread out under the sky, waiting for the next rain, and not worrying about anything.

Even during her self-imposed exile, she’d worried. Would her crops actually take? Would she be able to find a steady source of food outside of tree moss and whatever was dumb enough to wander into her bucket? Would one of the glyph stones in her newly acquired cabin break down? Would a Dreamer-spawned nightmare monster break into her house and try to kill her?

Most of those had ended up in the worst case scenario. Because that was how Rua’s life usually went. But she’d long since learned how to work around that. Adapt and overcome, survive to the next day.

“Hey, tree, I need water to live.”

Ashborne, as he had for a day and a half, ignored her. But that was the point. She wanted him used to the idea of ignoring her voice, either consciously or unconsciously. She’d been talking to him on and off for a day. At first, just demands to let her go. Then, demands as to why she’d been taken. When she would be let go. If she’d be released. What had she done to earn his ire.

Of course he didn’t explain himself. His kind never did. They just acted in ways that their stories dictated. They had no real will of their own. They were just a whimsy, a dream, following rules that only they knew.

For a few hours after that, she’d tried to engage him in conversation. Asking him about his day. What it was like being a tree. What was up with the giant burn along one side of his trunk. Why were there pieces of two broken Vexurians at his roots. You know. Normal stuff.

She stared out into the swamp the entire time she did it, hoping for some sign of rescue. She checked on the link often. Both Otter and Sunny were alive. It was odd that she was so glad for both of them to be okay. Otter, sure. They were stuck together, happily so. But Sunny? She was an annoyance at best. Odd that Rua found herself relieved she was fine.

No point in dwelling on the future lake-dweller. Time to start ‘making calls,’ as Otter had once put it.

Rua opened her menu, and sent a message request to Sami. A window opened with some strange symbol in the centre, a rod with two thickened ends jutting in the same direction while an odd tone sounded. After about ten seconds, the screen flashed, and Sami’s profile came into view.

She looked more haggard than before. Dirtier, her hair in increasingly more disarray, but for all that, she was still very attractive. If anything, it made Rua want to sit her down and take care of her, wash away the caked on grime, and run her fingers–

“Morning,” Sami said in way of greeting, shattering where that particular thought had been going.

Rua was about to protest that it was still night, maybe even apologize for sending a message at this time, but… that was daylight on Sami’s end lighting her. How did that work?

“Sorry to… call you like this,” Rua said. “I’m in the middle of an emergency, and I need some advice.”

“Is it a Mayumi problem? Oh, who am I kidding. It’s always a Mayumi problem. What did she do this time?”

“Nothing.”

Sami gave her a look.

“Nothing yet. I am… in a situation. And she is about to be heroic and make it worse, I think.”

“Is the trouble your desperate need for a bath?”

Rua grunted. She definitely looked worse than Sami in those terms. Being dragged into the mud until she was fully submerged and then magically transported to Ashborne’s root system hadn’t exactly done her favours.She’d scraped off what she could, but it hadn’t helped much.

“No. We were attacked by a Mythwalker.” She went over the details as best she could, even explaining what a Mythwalker was, as well as details to not tell stories while in the ‘game’ world.

“Really? No stories at all? No fiction? What do you people even do for fun?”

“What do you mean what do we do for fun? We make music. We dance. We paint, and draw, and carve, and sculpt.”

“But those are all skilled hobbies. Surely…” she got a faraway look. “No. I guess it makes sense. If you’re not sitting around, indulging in the stories of others, you find ways to make your own, even if they aren’t stories in the traditional sense.”

“We also have games. And… I mean, how do you have fun with stories?”

“If you ever saw The Princess Bride or The Neverending Story, you wouldn’t dare ask that question.”

A never ending story? Rua shuddered at the thought. “I don’t… think I’d care to… see those.”

“Inconceivable.”

“Listen, I need… I need you to tell me how to tell Otter to not come rescue me. In a way that she’ll actually listen.”

Sami’s face took on a grim look, her lips forming a resolute line. “No. I don’t think I’ll do that.”

“If she comes for me, she’s going to get herself killed.”

“Mayumi’s a big girl. She can make her own decisions. I tried controlling her in the past. It didn’t work well for anyone. If anything… her leaving might’ve been the best choice, for both of us. I just wish she hadn’t done it in such a shitty way.”

“What happened between you two?”

“I don’t know. I… thought I was a supportive girlfriend. Mayumi’s always been chaotic and self-destructive. I tried to fix that. I could’ve done a better job of it. I was controlling, manipulative. It wasn’t my best look, but I thought I was doing her a favour. Kept her to a regime, At first, it was all in-game. She was good, a natural talent you rarely see, and never made the same mistake in a fight twice. Learned quick. She just needed focus, I thought. So I gave her a list of goals, and…” Sami looked away from the screen. She genuinely looked ashamed. “I used sex as a weapon. At first, as a reward. And then… I’m not proud. I wasn’t then, and I’m less so now. I thought it was the only way to get through to her.”

“But it didn’t stop there, did it?”

“No. No, it didn’t. It excited me. The control. I’ve never said this out loud, to anyone. We were young. Both of us were stupid. I was just so convinced she was the dumber one of the two of us, and I guess I was wrong about that.

“I tried to control her outside the game. I thought she partied too much. Did too many drugs. Not that she ever got into the hard stuff. Just weed, shrooms at the worst. But I came from a strict family. The thought of even drinking alcohol was abhorrent to me. So, I tried to get her to cut down, focus more on eating healthy, going to the gym, getting better at Gallant Stand. Helpful, sure, but I didn’t do it the right way.

“And then one day, she was just gone. Didn’t tell me, Everett, or Il-Su she was leaving. We went to a convention overseas. We were gone for a week, while she was at home, trying out a new training method or something. And when we came back, all her stuff was cleaned out.

“No explanation. No note. Blocked us on everything. Just came home one day, and all her stuff was gone. I guess I deserved it.”

Rua didn’t know what to make of the story. Her lie detection ability didn’t seem to work through these message windows. It seemed to require being in the person’s actual presence. But even so, she’d had enough experience of feeling physical pain whenever someone lied to recognize the signs when someone did.

The tale had run true. From the account of events, to the self-recrimination and guilt. Right up until the last line.

“Lie,” she said, more out of habit than anything else.

Sami’s face twisted into anger. “Of course it’s a lie. I didn’t deserve that. I deserved for her to yell at me. To tell me I was wrong. For her to break up with me. I didn’t deserve to be fucking ghosted. Three years. Three fucking years of my life, and that’s all I meant to her? Her just leaving

“I hope you survive this Mythwalker. I can’t do anything to help. But I can’t control Mayumi either. No one can. But don’t expect her to be stupid about what she does next. She comes off frighteningly dumb sometimes. I caught her microwaving a bowl of peanut butter to eat because she was too lazy to go shopping for groceries. Just nuked it until it was a liquid and dipped crackers in it. ‘Peanut soup,’ she called it.

“I got so angry with her. I couldn’t believe it, that she’d rather do that than just… go to a store. Or even have groceries delivered. And then, she got me to try it. I still have her ‘peanut soup,’ sometimes. Where no one else can see. I…”

She frowned, staring at something above and behind Rua, who turned to look. There was nothing there, just the branch that attached to the wooden cage she was trapped in.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re not as trapped as you think you are,” Sami said. “I’ve been dumping points into Awareness. A lot. Your fighting style kind of… inspired me. And bandits keep managing to find me in this stupid Waste, so I’ve been getting a steady supply of soul crystals. The wood’s weak. Rotting. The tree’s infected with something. I don’t know what, but I think if you rock your cage back and forth, the branch it’s grown from might just snap from the repeated stress.”

Rua inspected the branch. Her own Awareness wasn’t bad, and now that the weakness had been pointed out to her… yes. She could see it.

But there was also a lot of open air between her and the ground. The cage might take some of the force, but she’d be left with the rest. Still, it had to be, what? Twenty-five feet? Her Tenacity would take a hit, but she’d survive.

She just needed a distraction.

And then, in the distance, as if in answer to her thoughts, came a mighty cry.

“LEEROY JENKINS!”

“Oh my fucking god,” Sami said. “You need to get out of that cage now. Mayumi is about to do something stupid. I thought she’d at least come up with a plan.”

Rua didn’t even let Sami finish before she began to throw herself at the side of the cage, sending it moving to one side. She ran to the other side as it rocked, timing it so that it was on the backswing so when she hit it on the opposite end. She continued her pattern, rocking the cage further and further in its swing. The entire time, she could feel Ashborne coming awake.

She didn’t spare the tree a glance. She kept at it, kept moving, kept throwing herself at the walls of her cage. And then the branch began to move. Not from anything Rua had done, but as the tree itself came alive. It moved itself closer to the trunk of Ashborne, but in that movement, provided just enough of a jostle for what Rua needed.

She braced herself as best she could, but the pit of her stomach felt like it fell out as something snapped, and the cage tumbled to the ground.

Chapter Text

Rua survived.

Ashborne tried to catch the cage as the rotted branch gave way, a tree limb lumberingly reaching out. The cage bounced off his clumsy attempts, rocking Rua about in her enclosure and sending her spinning to the ground.

The branches that made up the bars of the cage snapped and tore on impact, and Rua bounced about as she covered her face as best she could with her arms. The noise was thunderous, and shards of wood speared in every direction, deflecting off Rua’s Tenacity shield.

Her body was moving before she fully recovered. Years of training forced her into action, her brain a step behind in catching up. She was on her feet and out of the cage, in seconds, her feet carrying her away from Ashborne’s wrath. The tree smashed down with two limbs thicker than her entire body, furious that his captive had escaped.

“To your left!” Sami called, and Rua belatedly realized the message window was still open, although minimized, a quarter of its normal size and in the corner of her vision.

Rua weaved, avoiding a Cutting that ripped itself free from the mud. It was slow and bogged down, covered in heavy muck that it had not yet shaken off. She had no weapon to fight it off with. She’d dropped her woodcutter’s axe when she’d been taken.

The Cutting ran at her, and her fist slammed into it hard enough to send cracks through the wood. It still wasn’t enough. The Cutting shrugged off damage that would’ve stopped anything else its size cold.

It grabbed her arm, vines growing from its body. This close to Ashborne, it was probably still connected to his root system, and was pulling mass from the host body. Those vines tried to latch onto her, but she countered the sloppy hold, moving her body and shifting her weight to free herself before she could become entangled. She gave a forceful kick to the Cutting’s leg, snapping it in two and sending it to the ground.

“Reinforcement incoming, I think,” Sami said.

And then several tons of metal slammed into the Cutting at astonishing speed, sending it into Ashborne’s trunk and shattering it on impact.

The mud-streaked form was taller than any two men standing atop one another, and thicker than any three combined.

The Vexurian turned to face Rua, and Sunny’s voice, distorted and menacing, said, “Can we go get chicken after? I don’t have chicken. It’s important. For the memes.”

None of that made any sense. That frustrating girl was taking more and more after Otter, and honestly, Rua could only handle that kind of nonsense from so many people.

“Get us out of here first, then we’ll talk about… whatever chicken is.”

“Oh right. We don’t have that here. Aw man.”

There was no point in sticking to fight. All they had to do was get out. Get out, and stay out of Ashborne’s grasp long enough to catch a soo-meng off the island. Something that big couldn’t possibly move very fast. He’d have to rely on his Cuttings to pursue them. All they had to do was outsmart those, create some distance… Rua had been through worse. She could do this, just so long as they could run.

Apparently Sunny agreed. The Vexurian bent and picked Rua up, and began to turn to run. And then, with a thunderous crash that sent mud flying in all directions, Ashborne landed directly in front of them, the branches of lesser trees torn clean from his path and falling all around him.

The entire island seemed to shake under the impact. Rua’s heart felt as if it had taken residence in her throat.

The great tree had uprooted himself and leapt over them to block their escape. The sounds of panicked birds crying out and flying away echoed Ashborne’s landing.

“I don’t think we can fight that,” Sunny said.

“I don’t think he’s going to give us a choice.”

“You don’t have a weapon, do you?”

“Next Cutting you grab, tear it into manageable pieces. A club isn’t exactly the best weapon, but I guess it’s better than nothing.”

She hopped down from the Vexurian’s grasp. Finding footing in the mud was difficult, but not impossible. At least it stayed still. She hated ship-to-ship fighting. Give her mud and squishy ground any day over that.

“Do you have a plan?” Sami asked through the window.

Rua checked her link, noting the location of Otter. She was close, and getting closer. Tale-telling woman even felt excited. “No. But I’m good at improvisation.”

“You are not the Lifecrafter,” Ashborne said, his voice a deep rumble, his trunk splitting to form a mouth. “Mother promised a cure.”

Slight pain. A faint impression. A half-truth. Ashborne wasn’t mindless, like his Cuttings. Good. Her abilities would actually work on him.

But what was ‘Mother?’ Oh. The Dreamer, of course. She was taking an active hand? That wasn’t good. But Rua could use that.

“Did she?” Rua asked. “Or did she imply something to you, and you made a jump to a conclusion? Are you beginning to doubt your Dreamer?”

“Mother implied you were the Lifecrafter, but I smell no life in your Pact.”

“Just lies, I’m afraid,” Rua said, triggering her Truthshield.

A black dome went around her and Sunny. While inside, you couldn’t see outside, but the same worked in reverse, but on a much deeper level. You didn’t see a black dome. You saw nothing at all. The mind just refused to accept any interpretation of what it saw in that space, leaving only indifference, maybe a sense you had forgotten something, like if you’d left a glyph stone on at home.

It was a good ability for stealth. It was so-so in a combat situation, especially if your opponent already knew you were there. The mental fog would only last a couple of seconds. But it was a couple seconds to act that they hadn’t had before.

Maybe Sunny’s meddling with Rua’s memories had prepared her for just this scenario. Or maybe she’d sensed what Rua was up to through the link. Or maybe she just had good battle intuition. She burst into movement as soon as the shield appeared, throwing herself forward at a breakneck speed you wouldn’t expect from such a large suit of armor.

Rua darted to the left, circling around. A second later, Ashborne’s fist came down like the fury of a lightning bolt. Mud and debris were sent hurtling everywhere.

All Rua could do was run. She had no weapons. No Pact that could deal damage. Hope she was enough of a distraction that Sunny could tear into Ashborne. Her model, covered in mud as it was, was hard to identify, but it looked older. It likely wouldn’t be able to dish out the kind of damage that some of the ones Rua had seen in the past.

Sunny grabbed onto Ashborne’s arm, and the armor tensed, the body of it shrinking in on itself as the joints retracting in sections of plating. And then, beneath the mud, glyphs began to glow. There was a cracking sound as wood began to splinter, and for a moment, Rua felt hope.

And then Ashborne lifted his arm, taking the Vexurian with it, and slammed it back down. The Vexurian took the brunt of the blow. Still she hung on, her legs now also hooking in, and more wood cracked and splintered. Ashborne made a roar, and lifted his arm once more before bringing it crashing down again.

There was a sound of crushing metal, but over it, the sound of shattering wood deafened how bad it was. The end of Ashborne’s arm exploded, sending wooden shards in every direction.

Ashborne screamed the sound of a wounded god.

Rua was already moving. Not on the attack, but to Sunny’s side. The Vexurian was laid out, limbs splayed in all directions, the armor mangled. Pieces of it had been rent, sections crushed, with jagged edges forming from tears. The glyphs along its sides faded, slowly winking out.

There was a strangled, inhuman sound, and it took a moment for Rua to realize it was coming from her. Another moment for her to realized she’d rushed to the fallen Vexurian’s bent and twisted form, another to process that she was pulling Sunny’s broken body from the armor.

Another to realize just how broken Sunny was.

She was covered in blood, parts of her body smashed beyond recognition. Her face a bloody mess. Her legs twisted in ways they weren’t supposed to be.

Rua reached out with her link tentatively. There was pain. So much sweet, beautiful pain. Beautiful, because it meant Sunny was still alive, her mind still capable of registering the ruin she had become.

It was something. Terrible, but hopeful. But she could feel it. Sunny was like a candle, guttering in the wind.

Sunny let out a breath, blood spitting out from her lips as she did, and then inhaled. A horrible, wheezing sound.

The edges of Rua’s vision went red. Something inside her shook. And then, in the middle of her field of vision, a message window appeared.

Rua didn’t take the time to process it. Didn’t think of how it would work. She just poured her Will into the skill, focusing on Ashborne. There was a brief flicker, as if a shroud of darkness covered him, before fading away.

Ashborne did not seem to notice. He was cradling his ruined limb. He made a sharp gesture with two twigs that were positioned much like fingers on one of his many arms, and Cuttings emerged from the mud.

And then promptly attacked him.

Some part of Rua noted that she had a chance. That she could escape. Get out.

She didn’t care. It was time for the Mythwalker to die.

Chapter Text

The Cuttings were small in comparison to the mighty Ashborne. There was maybe fifteen of them, but they were like toddlers attacking a raging Mikovian berserker. Ashborne wasn’t just a tree. He was the tree, the tree of the Islands, a spirit made manifest meant to give the bounty of his fruit to the people. He was meant to be selfless and giving.

That had been before the war.

No one knew what the Criobani had done, only that they’d sent several ships to Ashborne’s island. No one lived there, so there had been no witnesses save some fishing boats in the area. Three ships came, and one left. The other two had been swarmed over by enraged Cuttings two days later.

Afterwards, no one had been able to set foot on Ashborne’s island and be able to return. Rua had found it the perfect place to hide, taking over a seasonal cabin that had once belonged to her sister.

A cabin that had been given to her, because it was the best way to get rid of her. For all that, Rua had been grateful.

After some time, she’d come to hate the island. It had been a way to fester in her self-loathing, reinforcing unhealthy behaviours and thoughts. Nothing had worked quite the way it was supposed to, and despite the lack of headaches and subtle if not outright hatred for her blood, she’d found herself missing people.

And then Otter had stumbled into her life, falling out of the sky and landing face-first in the mud like the clumsy little disaster she was. And finally, things had been looking up. So of course, another disaster had to intrude on her life, the little Criobani, and threaten to ruin it all.

Rua hated Sunny.

There was no avoiding it. She’d been raised to hate the Criobani. Raised to hate their living weapons. Raised to hate herself for being mixed blood. Sunny had no chance of escaping that hatred, no matter how cute she tried to be.

But dammit, her cooking was okay, and her smiles were infectious, and most of all, her presence seemed to make Otter happy.

It wasn’t enough to explain the rage coursing through Rua as she put Sunny’s broken body down on the ground as gently as she could.

Keep it cold. That had always been her way. You could be as angry as you wanted, but you had to keep it cold. Think before acting. And then act with decisiveness.

She marched over to the broken Vexurian. Some glyphs on it still glowed weakly, and parts of it twitched, as if trying to come alive. Even ruined like this, Rua had heard stories of Vexurians fully capable of tearing apart women limb from limb.

She didn’t need it for its killing power. At least, not the killing power found in the strength of its metal body.

Rua ducked down and reached inside, her fingers questing about. During the war, the Silayans had been at a massive disadvantage technology-wise. The Vexurians had been too strong, too far outside their form of warfare once they made it to land. But like all smaller forces faced with larger and more powerful ones, the Silayans had been given two options. Adapt, or perish.

She found what she was looking for, tracing fingers along the edges of a section of metal on the back portion of the interior breastplate. Once located, she pried at the edge. Normal human strength would never be able to pull it free, not without a tool, but with enough soul power, you could solve a lot of problems with brute force.

The entire time, Rua kept an eye on the Cuttings and Ashborne. They were quicker than him, but paid no heed to their own safety. And while he had a lot of crushing force in his attacks, the Cuttings recovered from being swatted around fairly well. A few had been shattered after crashing against other trees or large rocks, but even those were still crawling towards Ashborne, trying to attack their former master.

Rua instinctively knew how her new ability worked. There was a very short range on it, a very long cooldown between uses, and a duration of only two minutes. Most fights ended in less than two minutes.

This one wouldn’t.

The Cuttings had no way of inflicting damage on Ashborne on any significant level, and he could freely smash them about with little free of reprisal. But all they had to do was draw his attention.

The glyph stone came loose with a click, and there was a surge of light from the Vexurian. A momentary flare up, and then death, a final guttering before it was snuffed out for good.

Some part of Rua felt a grim satisfaction at that.

“Oy!”

Rua startled, and glanced about, looking for the source of the voice.

“Feckin’ ask a lady before you grab her by her intimates. You don’t see me runnin’ around stickin’ my fingers in your twat.”

It was a Criobani accent. A crude one. But there was no one around Rua. Unless…

She looked down at the glyph stone. “Are you talking?”

“Oh, good, you can hear me. Means I can plead my case before you fecking try turning me into a fecking bomb.”

This had to be the mind of the Vexurian’s original pilot. Who Sunny was before she was Sunny. And she knew what Rua had been planning, to damage the glyph stone. Scratch the rune in the right way, and it created a feedback loop. From there, she was going to throw it at Ashborne’s base, and blow what passed for feet for him right to the Dreamers. Then all she’d need to do was pull out her flint and tinder, and start burning this part of the swamp down.

“What do you mean, ‘plead your case?’” Rua asked.

“I want my old body back. After I get that, you can feckin’ do whatever you want–”

“Wrong answer.”

She grabbed a nearby stone, and began to press it into the carved rune, scraping away.

“I can bloody well fix her!” the pilot yelled in her head.

Rua paused. “Go on.”

“I know how to work her Pact. She doesn’t seem to have any fecking clue how to work it, because someone turned her into a bloody empty-headed idiot.”

“Your time’s running out, and right now you’re kind of annoying me.”

“She’s a bloody Fleshcrafter, you fecking moron.”

That sent a chill through Rua.

“Those are a myth.”

“They bloody fecking sodding well aren’t. They’re just, you know, rare.”

“No. She works with wood. I saw it myself.”

“Eh, the Pact evolved while I was in hibernation. Old abilities should still be there, just some new ones tacked on. Won’t know how to use those, but I can knit flesh and bone like my old nana knit wool into socks.”

“And you want back in your old body?”

“Yes, you daft tit. Just alter whatever you did to get her out of the armor so I can get back in.”

“And what happens to Sunny?”

“We integrate. She becomes me, I become her. Honestly, not lookin’ forward to that bit. The way she whinges about her mama, as if the real cunt that spat us out weren’t dead years past.”

“Rua,” Sami said from the message window. “Pay attention to the tree.”

Ashborne was still busy swatting down Cuttings, but was edging closer to her. He seemed to have finally realized what had caused them to turn on him.

She toss another Truthshield up. She was running low on Will, but it might delay him for a moment.

Rua risked a look at the glyph stone, but there was no way to discern anything from a rock. She had no idea if the voice was lying or not. Her Pact didn’t seem to work on a disembodied voice either. There was no telltale pain, but it didn’t feel right either. Like there was an absence of a conversation, the same as there was when she used those conversation windows of Holt’s.

“I can’t do it,” Rua said. “I wasn’t the one who freed Sunny. Otter did. So, either you save your body now and tell her how to fix herself, or you lose your body for good. After, we talk about putting you back in your body.”

“Oh fecking–”

“Sunny’s bleeding out, which means you’re bleeding out. You think you have one over me, but I have all the power here. If you don’t fix her, it means I use you as a bomb. Even if I don’t, it means you don’t get your body back. Your don’t have anything to bargain with, and I have everything.”

“Oh, you bloody fecking–”

Rua began to scratch at the glyph with her rock again.

“Fine!” the woman’s voice said, panic in her words. “Give me to her, I’ll get her to fix herself up. But you’ll need to keep the tree distracted.”

“I won’t need to,” Rua said.

She’d been paying attention to her link the entire time, ever since the fight had started. She’d known this moment was coming. She’d just needed to delay things until someone finally showed up.

“LEEROY JENKINS!”

“Oh for fuck sakes,” Sami said.

Rua turned and ran back to Sunny’s side. As soon as she left the Truthshield, the battlefield came back into view. Otter had finally shown up, the woodcutter’s axe in one hand, one of her threads in the other. And at her side, striding from the darkness of the swamp, his cape billowing in the wind, blazing red sword in hand…

Was that the Dark Raider? Had her mad idiot of a girlfriend recruited a Mythwalker to fight a Mythwalker? How? Why? How?

“Rua!” Otter called. “Catch!”

She gave a toss, throwing the axe, and Rua caught it by the haft.

“Keep Ashborne distracted! I need to take care of Sunny!”

“Sure, but afterwards, we need chicken.”

“Tell her she’s an idiot,” Sami said.

“Sami says you’re an idiot!”

“And she wonders why I broke up with her.”

“I think you’re an idiot, too!”

“Then you’re lucky you’re hot enough that I don’t want to kick you to the curb yet!”

Sami grunted. “Did that bitch just imply I’m not hot enough for her fat ass?”

“Focus,” Rua said. “I need you to spot out weaknesses in Ashborne. Where the rot’s taken hold. You can see it better than me.”

“Yes, but you’re not fighting him right now. You’re… I don’t know what you’re doing. You were talking to someone, but I–”

“Long story, I’ll fill you in later. I need you to call Otter and advise her.” Rua sucked in a breath, and then yelled, “Otter, your ex is on call with me, she’s about to call you, don’t be weird about it and just answer it!”

“Fine!”

Sami gave an annoyed look through the message window, and then it blinked out. Rua would have to apologize to her later. She really needed to figure out what happened between the two of them, but every time she tested through the link, she could feel the pain on Otter’s end, and regret. More had happened than what Sami suggested, and either she didn’t know what had happened, or she was omitting key facts.

A problem for later. For now, she had to take care of Sunny. She held the glyph stone to Sunny’s chest. The girl was still breathing, but it had taken on an ugly, wet rattle.

“You better not fuck us, Criobani,” Rua said. “Or, Fleshcrafter or not, I’ll find a way to fucking kill you.”

“Don’t get your feckin’ panties in a bind. I just need to talk to her for a…” she trailed off, and went blissfully silent. There was only the sounds of fighting now. That, and the strained breathing of Sunny.

“There, done,” the voice said. “It’s on her now to fix herself.”

“She’d better, or you’re turning into my next weapon.”

“Wouldn’t be the feckin’ first time someone made that threat to me.”

“Then you know how good people are at following through on it.”

“Feck.”

Chapter Text

Well, this was awkward.

Not the fighting a giant tree god monster alongside a child’s imagined version of Darth fucking Vader while said child potentially bled out on the ground. No, that was just terrifying and stressful.

Having Sami, her ex-girlfriend, hovering over her shoulder? Damn near intolerable.

“Rua said not to be weird about this,” Sami said. “You’re being weird.”

“I am not. I just… why do I need to have you on a call while I do this.”

A Cutting charged at her, and Otter lashed with a thread at its leg. The thread entangled, tying tight, and she yanked, knocking it on what passed for its ass.

“Because,” Sami said, in that infuriatingly smug and superior tone she loved to adopt, “I invested points into Awareness, and knowing you, you have not.”

“I’m a DPS mage build! Maybe! Why would I want to put points in Awareness?”

She slammed her hatchet down onto the Cutting’s torso, nailing three strikes in quick succession until it went still.

“Hardly. You’re some kind of hybrid midrange caster who is a mix between fighting and crowd control. Regardless, if you had points in Awareness, you’d know this tree thing you’re fighting is rotted.”

“Well, that’s what I have you for.”

“That is clearly my point.”

“Don’t tell me what your point is, we all know the only pointy thing about you is that edge you call an ass.”

Sami smirked at her. “So, you have still been checking it out.”

“Hard not to when my girlfriend had you bent over her lap.” She blew an errant bit of pink hair out of her face, and went looking for her next target.

“On your left,” Sami supplied. “Don’t tell me the so-called Poly Queen is jealous that her girlfriend is showing interest in someone other than you?”

Otter spotted the Cutting Sami had indicated, and tossed a thread at a tree branch tied as a noose. All the Cutting would have to do was run in a straight line ran at her and be ensnared. Any normal enemy would just sidestep the trap, but for all the advantages Cuttings had, they were dumber than a Flat Earther at a globe convention.

“Jealous, pfftt, what makes you say that?”

“I mean, she did finger me right in front of you.”

“At my urging!”

“You got caught up in the moment, and now you regret it.”

“I do not. It’s just… messy.”

“I’m not saying we should get back together. It’s probably a bad idea.”

Otter felt something in her chest clench. “A very bad idea.”

“I’m just saying, for someone who claims to be poly, you sure seem to be opposed to sharing.”

“You don’t even like tiny, fit women with heterochromia!”

“You think I only like poly Polynesian girls with big asses?”

“Heh, poly Polynesian, I’m stealing that.”

Sami genuinely smiled at that. Those smiles were rare. How often had Otter made it a daily mission to try to get one of those?

“Do you have a plan for the big tree?”

“Ashborne? No fucking idea. There’s no way my threads can hold him. Or trip him. Or do any significant damage. This guy looks like a raid boss and I’m still in the starter area.”

“Don’t you have Darth Vader over there to help?”

Otter glanced over at the armoured figure of the Dark Raider. He cleanly cut a Cutting in two, striding slowly and deliberately towards Ashborne.

“Yeah, he’s like… half of Darth Vader. I didn’t finish his story with Sunny and Rua. So, I kind of gave him the abridged edition. I skipped out most of the really bad stuff. Don’t want him running around with a Death Star or anything.”

Sami blinked. “That’s a possibility?”

“I have no fucking idea. I don’t know how any of this works. But would you want to gamble with that?”

“Point. So, how’d you get him to follow you around?”

“Well, first, I tried implying I was an Imperial agent and had intel for him. And that kind of worked, but not as well as I wanted. He didn’t believe I had authorization to, you know, give him orders. So I might’ve kind’ve skipped some scenes and implied I was his kid.”

“You what?”

“I know, you always try to be my dommy mommy, but now I have a leather daddy!”

Sami pinched the bridge of her nose, looking as if one of her world-famous migraines were coming on. Come to think of it, had she had those headaches before Otter?

“How long can you make those threads?”

“Like, ten feet, max. I think if my Pact evolves, I’ll be able to make them longer, but for now, that’s it.”

“I was going to recommend maybe tying him to a tree.”

“I don’t think these threads are indestructible. I haven’t tested that out yet.”

“What have you been doing with all your free time?”

“Trying to survive these things. And physical training with Rua.”

Sami arched an eyebrow at her.

“Not that kind. Well, some of that kind. But I mean, actual exercise. Rua thought I needed it.”

“You did. You have no discipline.”

“Not all of us have– oh shit.”

Ashborne charged forward, evidently assessing the thread and finally deciding on the Dark Raider as the bigger threat. The black-clad Mythwalker raised his blazing sword as one of Ashborne’s arms came crashing down. There was a sound of energy hitting wood, and a piece of Ashborne was sheared clean off.

The tree hardly seemed to notice, twisting and another arm sweeping in from the side. Raider raised a hand, and the arm stopped midswing, all that fury frozen. Ashborne struggled against that invisible hold as the universe itself bent to Raider’s will, but as he did, Raider clenched his fist, and there was the sound of splintering wood.

“Don’t just stand there, atack!” Sami yelled. “Go for the left leg, right where the ankle would be on a person.”

Otter didn’t think. She’d been drilled to immediately do what that voice said, that tone said, without question. How many hundreds of hours of practice, of running scrimmage, of doing raids and PVP events, always following that voice without question?

Too bad it’d also translated into their relationship.

But that was a thought for another day. For now, there was Otter and Ashborne and the voice, and that was it. Everything else got pushed back. No drama. No Sunny being wounded. No death game.

Otter got in close and lashed a thread around Ashborne’s leg. She willed it to tie itself tight, and then yanked, empowering the thread with more Will. There was a smouldering smell as energy poured into the golden wire, burning into the wood of Ashborne. But she could no more budge the tree than she could a mountain.

“Circle behind him!” came Sami’s order, and Otter complied.

She pulled for all she was worth, her arms straining, her legs sinking into the mud as she dug into the ground and shifted her weight.

And then the Dark Raider, using his telekinetic grip, yanked Ashborne forward.

Ashborne tried to shift his weight, tried to resist, but between the mud and Otter’s futile pulling, he slipped.

There was a mighty crash, and the world itself seemed to shake and rumble as Ashborne went down. One of his arms tried to catch his fall, but under the sheer weight of his bulk, it snapped, crushed under his own body, too heavy to be stopped by even himself.

“Tie his legs together, now!”

Otter did, throwing the thread and willing it to tie Ashborne’s legs together. The wire leapt from her hands as if alive, circling and looping around Ashborne’s legs, tying themselves tight.

Raider was on Ashborne in an instant, moving from his implacable yet slow gait to a sprint in a moment, his cape flying behind him like a dark banner. Ashborne raised one hand defensively, and the Raider cut through it cleanly and without pause, continuing his movement forward, not content with a mere wound, and going for the kill.

“Enough!”

The word came from Ashborne himself, his trunk splitting to form a mouth. The word reverberated through the air, his Will crashing down on Otter and the Dark Raider. Even Sami, safe behind a window screen, seemed affected, flinching at that command.

Everything in Otter’s body went slack, and she fell to the mud. It was like her muscles forgot how to work, how to hold herself steady, betraying her in an instant.

She panicked, as even her lungs seemed to forget how to breathe.

Ashborne stood. Slowly. With great care. He didn’t even throw any strength into what he did next. The thread binding his legs just snapped, simply by resisting against his movement. It was like trying to bind an elephant with cobwebs.

The Dark Raider struggled to rise, getting to his knees. It didn’t help him. Ashborne’s fists, three at once, came down, smashing him into the earth. There was a wet sound accompanied by the squealing of metal as both the flesh and steel of the Raider’s body was smashed like an insect.

And then Ashborne turned to face Otter.

Chapter Text

Otter had learned how to fight this from the Dreamer. She knew how to break something’s will once it was influencing her own. But something in her brain just couldn’t quite remember, couldn’t quite place it. Her whole brain seemed to fog over.

There was something important going on. Something she had to do. But she couldn’t remember. Some part of her mind shuddered, like bars rattling at the zoo, an animal desperate to get out.

But that couldn’t be her, could it? It was so peaceful here. Just lying on the ground, doing nothing. It wasn’t even happiness. It was just contentment, the ease of letting go of a difficult burden.

She just wanted to close her eyes. For just a moment. Maybe more.

The ground shook. Something thudded. And again. Ever closer.

The sound didn’t matter. Nothing did. She just had to sleep. Just for a moment.

“Get your stupid skank ass up!”

A brief flicker. Otter’s eyes snapped open, looking to the source of the sound. Sami, her face pained, was looking down at her through a screen.

“If you don’t get up, that stupid tree is going to kill you,” Sami said. “And if that happens I swear I will find your corpse and piss on your remains. I will never forgive you.”

Sami? Never forgive her? Wasn’t Otter already in that position? But the words, the thought, got her mind churning, got it resisting.