"Nnnnngh..." Aria's dream was not much fun. It didn't feel
particularly fair, the way her dreams seemed to work in the first
place, and even less so that her brain was working enough to give her
a dream at all when she was probably unconscious from some kind of
serious concussion. The worst of it was that she could think
perfectly fine, but her head was in so much pain she couldn't move.
There were some unusual noises around her. The blood pumping was
interrupted by loud bursts of audio noise, and what sounded like
occasional voices. Like a TV or radio tuned to a station that just
barely out of range. It was more maddening than anything had been
before, and being unable to move or open her eyes, she tried to grasp
at some thought to distract her from it.
Maybe that wasn't a good idea either. Had she really just
almost killed someone? After all that talk of being a hero and all
the effort she put into trying to control the demon instead of the
other way around? It wasn't just anyone, either, it was Clera,
who she really liked and generally found to be an objectively better
person than most people, including herself. The even more
worrying thought was: Had she spared Clera becuase she recognized who
it was, and not because it was another person? If it had been
some non-goblin person she just didn't know, could she have kept
herself from chopping them in half? Her answer to that question
before, posted hypothetically, would have been "Duh, of course,"
but after being in the middle of it, it didn't feel so obvious. The
demon was ravenous when any blood was in the room at all, and burying
the blade inside something was the only way to make it stop
sucking it out of her and go to sleep...or maybe it went to sleep
because the blood from doing that satisfied it.
The pain faded slightly. What was going on? Was she dying? Was this
what it felt like in demon dream world? The blips of speech and
static became slightly louder, the voices slightly clearer and more
frequent. When the pain faded again a second time, she concluded that
she probably wasn't dying. Someone...must be healing her in the real
world. Since her experience here more or less matched real-world
time, they'd started doing it not very long after she got konked out.
There was only one reasonable explanation for that—Clera had not,
in fact, died of being stabbed and partially drained of blood.
Aria breathed what she could of a sigh of relief. Part of her
insisted that obviously their most durable member woudn't die
from a single wound and a little blood loss, but the worry had still
been there. There was a strong instinct to regard this world like the
real one, where being the strongest, toughest person in in the world
didn't matter if a bullet got to your heart. If this was a
game, it wasn't a very fun one. The pain was too real. Everything
was too real. How were they supposed to be life-risking heroes if
they had to risk their actual lives to do it?
Gradually the pain lifted, until it was like a bad, but just
bearable, headache. Aria slowly opened her eyes, grateful to finally
be able to, and looked around. She had been lying prone on the
cliffside, with the big chasm and the pit with the gigantic
chained-up sleeping demon in the distance just like usual.
Only...that area was getting bursts of white noise occasionally, as
if it was somehow...less in focus. The voices and audible static was
actually coming from behind her, where dreaming alone usually gave
her an impassable static wall.
She started to push herself up to sit up, maybe turn around and look
at what was back there, and instantly regretted it. The headache
became blinding pain as soon as her head was no longer directly
attached to the ground. So...that wasn't going to work. Aria decided
to try and take advantage of this being a dream, and closed her eyes
tightly again, insisting that the world move around her since the
other way around wasn't working right now and trying to lucid-dream
believe that when she opened them again, she'd be facing the other
way, toward all the static and voice sounds. On opening
them...surprisingly, it had worked!
The cliff seemed to continue naturally, unlike the sudden, jarring
shift of another person's dream. Not far in from where the static
wall was still occasionally flashing itself was some kind of shrine,
which most notably included at its center a pedestal with her sword
stuck deep into it. It was white marble, open-air, and there was a
white-haired man talking to someone else who looked...somehow much
blurrier, a few feet away from the shrine.
Between bursts of static, she could make out some of the
conversation. "It's ki—...—our people, our animals.
De—...—crops. Its reach grows every day. This curse is too
much—...—r people to bear." The white-haired one.
"What do you pr—....—o, then?" The other
one...dark-haired, she thought, maybe. He sounded upset. "Sacrifice
to it, like—...—efore?"
He shook his head. "No. That isn't a per—...—ution. We have
only one option. Or, I sh—...—I have only one option."
The other one took a step back, astonished. "Ar—...—at are
you planning!?"
He crossed his arms. "Listen, L—...—eed you to prepare a
teleport spell. Strongest one you've ev—...—ds to send the target
to the Frontier."
He shook his head. "—an't be serious. There must be some other
way! Or, or—...—else who can—"
"No, it has to be me. You said it yourself, I'm th—...—ubborn
person in all of Aze—...—I can't resist its will, nobody else
can. Anyway, I'm not mu—...—use here, am I?"
There was a long silence, with the two regarding each other.
Eventually, the dark-haired one said, "Alright. Are you going to
at least—....—bye to everyone first?"
"I can't do that. They'll try—....—not to go through with it. Maybe they'll succeed. Someone might even—...—to actually stop me. Lock me up or something. You know how the elders are."
"I can't do that. They'll try—....—not to go through with it. Maybe they'll succeed. Someone might even—...—to actually stop me. Lock me up or something. You know how the elders are."
He sighed. "I...I guess you're right. Look, that spell will take
a while to—........—tomorrow, at dusk. I want you to actually
think about what you're doing, and decide for sure that you
want to go through with it. I...—"
"—'s not going to change my mind. I'll save our people, and
then I'll go—...—a hero out there. Or die, and that demon will be
stuck out there with nobody to curse."
The scene started to fade to static again, as if it was losing the
signal. It seemed like time was rushing forward, both of them leaving
the cliffside for something resembling a village down below. In the
sky, the sun set and rose and set again, and then they were both
there again. "Ar—....—ose wards will make you forget
everything. But may—....—ot forever," the dark-haired one
said, putting his hands on the white-haired one's shoulders. "—ou
remember me, use this." He pulled out a small, blue crystal, and
placed it in his friend's hand. "It will lead me to you."
The white-haired one nodded, and stepped toward the the sword on the
pedestal. The black-haired one stepped back, beginning to glow and
chant. With each step the white-haired man took toward the sword, his
hands raised to grasp its hilt, the signal grew weaker and weaker,
until he touched the hilt and it gave out entirely, that side of the
dream world resuming the state of pure white noise.
Rotating her vision around out of curiousity, Aria found the view of
the demon and the chasm crystal clear again, same as it always had
been before. Something about the scenes she'd just witnessed felt
familiar...and before long, it clicked. Lynn and Rayna had been
having dreams about their backstory, which became increasingly
real...right? So this was hers. The white-haired guy was supposed to
be 'her', and she was supposed to have gotten the demon sword from
that place. But if that friend had supposedly given her a blue
crystal to find him by...where was it?
At least it had distracted her from the headache for the moment. And
honestly, the noise of a steady pumping of blood was a far less
frustrating sound than "the radio that never tunes". But
she knew it would get boring, and then miserable, before long. No
psionic catgirl was going to help this dream be less maddening and
dull. She would just have to stew in the recent near-murder of a
friend, which followed on from other mistakes that were entirely her
own fault...and couldn't even sit up to meditate like usual.
In a way, this level of misery was not entirely unfamiliar. She'd
tried some rather harsh negative self-reinforcement while learning
some particularly tough games. It wasn't a good time in his life, and
eventually he learned positive reinforcement was generally much
better and, of course, healthier than periodally almost-starving
himself or other horrific forms of self-punishment. But, well, at
least this felt a little appropriate. Failing at a game wasn't
worth literally beating himself up over, but if anything deserved
lying in boring demon world with a continual splitting a headache, it
was coming very close to not sparing a human life. Or...bird-person
life, whatever. Near-murder was the issue here, not the semantics. If
she ever came close to doing that again, she would remind herself of
this time, and think of it as what happened when she almost killed
people, to say nothing of what she would do if someone actually died
to her being careless or weak. The message would be crystal clear
from now on: Never again.
The wolf had curled itself up next to the couch and gone to sleep
halfway into their conversation earlier. Nora had given Zack a book
with a basic overview of the world's dieties before returning to her
own, more detailed reading, and then couldn't help but notice him
trying and failing to avoid briefly dozing off with the book in his
hands several times. A moment ago he had finally just fallen asleep,
hunched over with the book in his lap.
She glanced over at him. The temptation to see what his ears felt
like was even stronger after they'd been freshly groomed at the
hairdresser's, but she respected him too much to do that. Mira would
just walk in and embarrass her again as soon as she got up the
courage to do it anyway. She returned her attention to her book.
Zack seemed slightly uncomfortable, and shifted around a bit. The
sound of it distracted her slightly again, and she looked over to see
him leaning against the back of the couch, head turned upward. It was
hard not to see him as a girl, especially asleep like this. The soft
expression just made her seem adorable on top of being gorgeous, and
part of Nora wasn't sure it was fair for someone that pretty to
insist on calling themselves male. She shook her head slightly,
knowing that thought was well out of place.
A few minutes later, the wolf-girl shifted again, and this time her
head landed on Nora's shoulder. She started to yelp in surprise at
the sudden weight there, but it muted into a quiet "Eep" on
the way out as she realized what, or rather who, it was. She didn't
really want to wake him, knowing full well how little decent sleep
he'd gotten the night before. But now his fluffy ears were barely an
inch from the side of her face, and occasionally one of them even
ticked her cheek slightly. Eventually she carefully lay her book
aside, looked around briefly to find no incoming witch, and reached
up a hand just to see what it felt like.
The wolf-girl's ear was as soft as it looked, and even though it
obviously should be, the fact that it was warm came as a slight
surprise. Zack let out a quiet "Mrf" at the touch, and
moved slightly closer, leaning his head up toward Nora's before
nuzzling her cheek slightly with his nose. Nora flushed instantly and
withdrew her hand, the two warring thoughts of wanting to get away
before anyone saw and not wanting to wake him up, especially now,
briefly paralyzing her. Then Zack whined softly, suddenly wrapping
his arms around her and pulling her closer to him, making the plan of
getting away far more difficult.
Nora cautiously reached her hand up, and rubbed Zack's ear again
gently. The sleeping wolf-girl gave a low, pleased "Mmnh"
and nuzzled her cheek again, scooting a bit closer and clearly
becoming increasingly comfortable with this position. Her tail
swished slowly back and forth on the couch behind her as it wagged.
She sniffed the elf a few times and then let out a quiet,
high-pitched "Rrf" while pulling her arms tighter around
her waist.
By now Nora's face was burning, the feeling of Zack's considerable
chest pressed against her side along with the way he was acting while
asleep all a bit much to take. He was way too strong for her to break
loose of the hold, and now the hug was too tight to just slip out of!
She continued gently rubbing his ears, alternating from one to the
other, constantly cursing herself for not just getting out from under
him earlier, like maybe giving him the whole couch when he'd started
to lean on her shoulder.
When he woke up, he was going to be mad about this and she wouldn't
have any good explanation; no way he'd believe he acted like this
in his sleep! And besides, even if he did, even she knew this
was partly her own fault for not getting away or waking him up right
at the beginning. It was going to feel like a betrayal—she was the
only one who didn't call him a girl behind his back, and respected
him and didn't tease him like the others did, but now—this.
Her mind raced after some kind of solution to this that didn't end
with Zack knowing about it.
The sleeping wolf-girl was working on an entirely different plan,
unfortunately. She slowly leaned more and more of her weight on Nora,
scooting and pushing herself forward, until the poor elf girl found
herself falling over onto her side, her head landing on the armrest
and Zack's following right along. And then, somehow or other she
maneuvered her prey onto her back, so their faces were toward each
other. Then Zack's sleeping body just resumed nuzzling the weaker
girl's brightly blushing cheek just the same as before, her tail
waving back and forth in the air above her.
Nora tried to ignore the feeling of the other girl's breasts squished
against hers, and pulled back her left hand, getting it back to her
side and ceasing to pet Zack's ears with it. When the wolf-girl gave
a distressed, animal whine, she brought her right hand, the one on
the front end of the couch now, up to pat the ears just slightly, and
she let out another soft "Rrf", seemingly mollified. Her
arms were still partway around the elf, but didn't go under her back,
which seemed like it might be enough to slip out. And..indeed, with
some awkward, careful, slow wiggling, Nora managed to get herself
partway out from under Zack's sleeping body. And then, with a final
pull on the cushion under her with her right hand, she slipped out,
down to the floor, and let the wolf-girl fall face-down onto the
couch.
Her face still brightly burning, Nora quickly picked herself up and
took several steps back, away from the couch. Miraculously, Zack was
still asleep. He spread his arms out until he had grabbed the entire
cushion under him, and hugged it just like he had Nora a moment ago.
The wolf-girl's tail slowly stopped wagging as she seemed to realize
on some level that there wasn't a person under her to wag at anymore,
but she made a soft "Mrrnn" sound and after pulling her
knees up a little closer and turning her head to one side, seemed to
go back to a less active sleep.
The elf allowed herself a silent sigh of relief. The book she'd been
reading had wound up on the floor next to the couch, and she was not
going to risk getting that close to the animal-girl at this point.
She'd just have to read something else for a little while, from the
table between the couch she was near and what was currently Zack's
couch. From a quick look around, it didn't seem like anyone was
watching, or had been watching during the whole escapade, so this was
her secret to keep. Never again, she thought to herself,
looking at the sleeping wolf-girl's soft fur. Unless he
specifically asks me to. While awake.
