The "Best" RPG Ever-96

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Once everyone was inside, they stopped for a moment in the living room. "So uh..is...what happened to Rose, exactly?" Lynn asked. "I mean, is she gonna be okay?"

"Hopefully?" Katherine said, her ears drooping slightly.

"The ink magic stuff forces a person to think about things they'd rather not," Rayna said. "I guess there was something she really needed to stay buried."
"That's not too reassuring," said Lynn, crossing her arms.
"Well—Mira's..." The psion paused for a second, uncertain how to explain it without going into information she'd read from the witch's mind which she might prefer remained private. "She's told me before that she has experience helping people through things they don't want to talk about," she settled on. "At least, I think it's best to leave it to her for tonight, and hope we see one or both of them not too far into tomorrow."

"All right. Well...good night, then," she nodded, heading for the stairwell. Everyone else responded in kind, most following her up—it was fairly late by now, after all.

Nora stopped just for a second to make eye contact with Katherine. If you want to ask him..I don't mind, she thought. Just let me know if you don't. I'll be in my room.

Uh..okay. The psion mostly succeeded at suppressing a blush.

Noticing that the catgirl was looking at him, Zack didn't go up, remaining in the living room with her while nodding to Lupa to head on up and go to sleep. Once they were alone, he said, "What?"

"Just uh..are you sure you're okay?" she said with a concerned expression. "I'm...not happy about it, but I couldn't help seeing what you were thinking about. It seems rough, is all."

"It's nothing that I haven't dealt with before," he said.
"I just..you know, if you wanna talk about it..."
"Then at least you already know?" he shrugged. "Fine. Let me get this armor off first."

He pulled the pieces off one at a time, letting them fall onto the floor, until he was just in the shorts and tank top he usually wore underneath, and then half-collapsed onto the couch. Katherine hesitantly sat down next to him, on the opposite side. He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "You know. I usually deal with my problems by not thinking about them, and talking means thinking. I guess I am still thinking about it, deep down."
"I'd say that's all pretty normal."
"Sure." He turned toward her. "It's just...I let people treat me like I'm some kind of hero...sometimes I almost believe it myself, because it's so much easier. I don't really think it's true, though. I'm not brave at all; I'm just more terrified at the thought of someone else getting hurt than I am of getting hurt myself. Especially people I like. In the end, it's just another kind of selfishness." He turned, slowly, forward again and upward, until he was leaning back against the cushion and staring up at the ceiling.

"You know, I don't know if there is any such thing as a totally selfless person," Katherine said. "Not if you keep digging in hopes of finding the 'real motivation'. I don't think it matters, really. In the grand scheme of things, I think what you actually do is more important than why."

"Maybe. But then, what I do is usually put myself in danger and worry everyone, or get angry at someone who didn't even do anything wrong, just made a mistake or something...

"When I think about how I felt—if it was even real—when I saw the rest of my order die to that witch, or how I would feel if any of you got killed by something, it's...I feel like a failure. Like it's supposed to be my job and mine alone to protect everyone, and if I don't do that—especially if I can't do that—then I'm worthless, and I might as well be dead. So, it's better if I die instead." Turning toward her again: "Isn't that stupid?"

"I can't argue with that. At least you know it, though," she said. "I mean, if that was what you really believed then you wouldn't be fighting it. You're more than rational enough to keep that in check, or—I mean, at least the 'you' that's entirely from here wouldn't still be alive after that first 'failure'. Right?"
"I guess so. I still don't get how that's supposed to work. I mean—why pick a 'backstory' for me that could make me suicidal anyway?"

"For all we know, the logic is that it's fine since it didn't."

They were both quiet for a moment, Zack slowly turning his head back up to the ceiling. Then: "Yooouuu want...petting, don't you."

"H-hey!" Katherine's face flushed: The accusation-slash-offer had come completely out of nowhere, realized in his mind at about the same pace as he said it. "Maybe. I-I mean, no. Yes. Whatever!"
"I can do it if you want to, but I don't really care." Zack swatted the air in front of him mindlessly. "I mean, with what my body's like, I can't fault you for what yours wants." In fact—and he probably knew this—she could read that he at least wanted someone to pet him too, and she was quite high on the list of who.
"Yeah, fine." The catgirl pulled her feet up onto the couch in front of her. "It's just really weird to hear you suddenly come out with it like that." She pulled herself around until she was on all fours, facing him, and slowly stalked toward him. "Here I've been trying to figure out how to even broach the subject, or if it was even appropriate to say anything about it tonight or if I should just wait until you're feeling better, a-and you just let it out right away like it's nothing!" Finally she pulled herself on top of him, wrapping her arms around the curvy wolf-girl and leaning her head in until their cheeks met.

"Mmnh. I'm too tired for subtlety. Anyone hear us down here?" One of Zack's fingers teased the tip of her ear.
As her entire vocal system was busy purring, the psion replied telepathically: No. Rayna and Lupa both fell into bed and went to sleep instantly; Aria's not using animal ears. I mean as long as we're not loud or something. She returned the favor, rubbing his ears from base to tip and letting her tail curl forward to start wrapping itself around the long, thick ball of fluff coming from Zack's back.

Usually not. "Rrf." Right? Both of them twisted around until his back was on the couch, his head on the armrest, and their tails entwined together running down the front. We can't stay here all night, though.

Go up in a few minutes, then. Katherine mewed softly, retaining a harsh blush on her cheeks and well aware Zack found the noises she was making very cute. Well, he wasn't much better, she thought.

Holding and petting Katherine was a very different experience from any of Nora's forms. She seemed very flexible and limber, and moved with a kind of sly confidence that the elf didn't have even when in her own 'feline' form. Plus she was just so...small and soft; with their heads and chests together her feet barely reached his ankles, and her breasts were bigger and squishier than the elf's, too. It was a little strange to know she was fully aware of the thoughts going through his head, but it was difficult not to have them when his entire focus was on her body and the deep purrs mixed with adorable, high-pitched mewing she was constantly making.

Eventually they did peel apart, silently agreeing to head upstairs and change clothes before continuing rather than risk the deep relaxtion putting them to sleep in such a...compromising position. They did want to admit this was happening, but that wouldn't exactly be the best way for everyone else to find out.

Zack picked up his armor before going upstairs, heading into his room. Lupa was more on top of her bed than in it, still wearing the entire outfit she'd had on all day and lying half-curled-up with a fully-made bed, covers and all, underneath her. He sighed, shaking his head; she was sleeping peacefully enough that he didn't want to wake her, but...it'd be a good idea to explain how getting into bed was supposed to work tomorrow. For now, Zack went into the bathroom and got out a spare comforter, carefully unfolding it and laying it over her so her head just poked over the top of it. Lupa yipped softly once or twice and wriggled in place a bit, but didn't wake up. Good.

After that, he changed clothes and then opened the door for Katherine when she telepathically announced her arrival. Zack wondered why just changing had taken her as long as he had to do all of that, but when she came in he had his answer. She had taken everything else off to put on full-body pajamas: a fairly tight, long-sleeved top and long pants both in pitch black with a pattern of pink pawprints all over them. "...Do you wear that every night?" he asked after taking it all in.
"Not the same one," she said, annoyed. After a second or so of further staring, she crossed her arms. "Look, I just wear what I find comfortable, same as you."
"It's cute." He sat down on the bed slowly, his face and most of the rest of him calm but his tail whipping back and forth wildly.

"You really just have no filter when you're tired, huh?" Katherine sat next to him, giving a sour look at the slight grin on his face. "Well, fine. The nothing-but-a-shirt look is cute too, you know."

"..That's fair," he shrugged, and then reached an arm up to rub the base of her ears again. The catgirl purred and let herself be pulled around onto him, winding their tails together once more.

This time she ended up under him by the time they were lying down, but she didn't particularly mind; at least it meant she got the pillow. After she psionially pulled the sheets and cover up over them, she let one of her hands wander down and along his arm, feeling the solid muscle hidden by its slender appearance, then past that and on down his side, tracing the curves of the wolf-girl's generous hourglass figure through the loose-fitting shirt. It finally went around behind those amazing hips to gently stroke Zack's tail from the base to as far back as she could reachd, drawing a much higher-pitched yip than usual from her mouth, followed by a soft, deep, relaxed "Mmm~mh."

You like that?
Feels..really weird, but yeah, he admitted, still churring contentedly.

Katherine giggled aloud, in between her own purrs. It's like a big, warm, fluffy pillow. I should hug it sometime.

Whatever. Then: Hey..can I...go to Aria's dream thing tonight?

Sure; anytime you want.

I usually prefer having normal dreams, but...at least that way I can't get nightmares, right?

Guaranteed! Katherine punctuated this with a confident "Mrr~row."

---

If it wasn't enough that she had a decent head-start, it turned out that Rose could also fly really fast when she put her mind to it. Even going at full tilt once she was in the air, Mira lost sight of the distant dragon-girl pretty quickly. It didn't really matter; she knew pretty well where the forest was, and that was the only logical destination. It didn't take long for the trees to come into view, so the witch slowed down as she approached in hopes of identifying just where Rose had landed.

This was not a difficult task, it turned out, as a certain portion of the forest looked very different from usual.

The normally bright greens were dark, the rainbow of flowers missing entirely; many of the plants were covered by thorns or replaced entirely by some sharp-looking, abnormally tall and thick briars. Toward the center of that dark patch, the trees themselves were twisted into bent, spiraling shapes, and in the center was a bunch of briar and long, thick thorny vines all looking uncomfortable twisted together into a rough, dome-like shape. Well...one's magic was supposed to be empowered and affected by especially strong emotions, so...this probably wasn't a great sign, Mira thought, pulling up to just above the dome and off to one side a bit. If she was in there, she hadn't noticed the witch quite yet.

"Rose?" she called, just loudly enough to be heard at that distance.

"Go away!" her voice cried back; some of the vines picked themselves up off of the central mass to whip around at the general area the witch's voice had come from. They weren't particularly fast, likely not even intended to actually hit her—just drive her off—so Mira easily dodged around to another side.

"Not until you come out here and talk to me," she said insistently. It was unusual for her to talk to someone who didn't have the option of instantly disappearing on her, but her instincts said this was what was needed: Someone to talk to, whether she wanted it or not.

"RrrRRRgh!" The dragon-girl roared in frustration, sending the vines up and out everywhere around. Mira moved higher up to avoid them, and with all the vines busy elsewhere she could see Rose through the dome of briar left behind, suspended half-upright in the middle of the twisting thorns.

"Please, just...tell me what's wrong," she said in kind, calm voice.
"You know what's wrong!" One of the still-thrashing vines threw itself back inward at the dome on the emphasized word, staying there after it landed. "Just leave me alone," she said in a less angry—more sad—tone. "I'm not worth being nice to."
"Humor me? Maybe I don't know as much as you think I do," Mira said.

"Fine! I'm a freak! I'm a loser! And I'm a liar and a fake!" Each of the louder words came with a few more of the vines crashing inward onto the dome, some with enough force to smash or tear into the briar. "I don't deserve anyone's kindness, or friendship, or...anything." The mass of briar shuddered from this last impact, starting to fall apart. "I'm just some stupid pervert who doesn't know how to talk to real people!" Finally, it collapsed in on itself, dropping Rose herself roughly out onto the ground on her back. The vines went limp and fell down afterward, landing on the ground around her yet jerking themselves away at the last second when they would've otherwise hit her. She ended this speech by curling up into a tight fetal position and loudly sobbing, practically wailing her lungs out. This allowed Mira a slightly better look at her: While she didn't appear to be hurt, the clothes she'd had on before had been torn mostly to shreds by all the sharp plants.

Mira pulled herself down and landed a short ways off, carefully placing her feet between the patches of briar. "Well, I just don't see how any of that's true," she said, poking some plants gently out of the way with her broom while stepping slowly toward her friend. "If you are some kinda imposter, then you're really good at it."

Rose gasped loudly, as if she was taking in her first breath since she'd started shouting. "No, noo, you don't geeet it," she sniffed. "None of this is real or like...me. It's just something someone else handed me. An' I dunno why or, or how, but...it's just not..." This was interrupted by an awful choking sound, and then more tears and incomprehensible blubbering. By now the witch was almost to her, and considering how best to climb past the gigantic throny vines covering the rest of the way.

"You aren't the first person to have that complaint," the witch pointed out, taking her first careful step at a vine. To her surprise, it actually wriggled out of her way before she could plant her foot on it, leaving her with a clear patch of grass to step into instead. "What you have and how you got it, isn't nearly as important as how you use it. And you've always wanted to help people. Right?" More of the vines in front of her slid around to give another clear patch, so she stepped up into it, and continued on in this way.

"O-only 'cause it's the only way I know how to make friends." Rose sniffed loudly again, and raised one hand outward, waving it around. "Show everyone how...impressive and, and useful I am now, and...then they'll like me." Some of the vines in front of the waving hand picked themselves up, waving back and forth with the thorns blooming into bright, colorful flowers briefly before the entire vines suddenly withered into dust and fell apart as she dropped her hand and pulled it back in to herself again. "They don't really like me though, just...what I can do for them."

Finally reaching her, Mira slid down onto her knees next to the dragon-girl, keeping her arms to the sides for the moment. "I'm sure there are lots of people like that," she said quietly, "but...do you really think that's how everyone sees you? How I do?"

"No..." Rose uncurled just slightly, still sitting on the ground with her knees pulled up to her face and her arms around them, but not pulled quite so tightly together. "I just don't think anyone would like who I was b-before any of this happened. A-and that's still me, no matter how hard anyone tries to hide it."

"Why don't you tell me who you think 'you' are first?" Mira suggested. "You've already got me liking you now, so we don't have to worry about meeting 'before', right?"

After sniffling again, she pulled her head up just enough to turn and face the witch. Her face was a mess of tears and snot, but her expression was at least not totally despondent. "Alright." Just kind of..dead. Numb. It was still an improvement over sobbing and screaming. " M'name's Rob. Or..was. 'm..boring. I, uh. J-just keep to myself all the time 'cause I don't know how to meet people. Sometimes I go outside and walk around, and...I just avoid anyone who looks like they might talk to me. I'm scared they won't like me, or even worse, that they will until they find ou-ut..." Her voice cracked and cut out at this point, and she turned away again, burying her face into her knees hard enough to pierce a hole in them with her horns—if her skin wasn't far tougher than it looked.

"Find out what? It can't be that bad," Mira said. "What, are you a serial killer? D'you eat children for breakfast?"
"Wha? Noo..." It took a second for the incredulity to turn into laughter, and Rose started giggling too hard to talk after that, slowly pulling her face back out into view. "I..don't hurt anyone. Never, would, unless like I had to," she said finally. "I just...like to look at pictures of pretty cartoon girls. You know..have pretend relationships with them, through a screen...that sorta thing.

"It's...weird...right?"

"I don't think it's that strange. People have gotten really good at drawing attractive figures," Mira said. "You know what? Any game I can pick who to play as, I'll almost always choose the cutest girl so I have something nice to look at. Or, really what games I even choose to play in the first place is hugely influenced by, let's say, an 'attractive' art style. I'm a sucker for that stuff."

"Heheh..really?"

"Yeah. I mean, I was a guy and picked witch for my class anyway, more or less expecting this kinda result. I thought it'd be interesting. And it is, honestly. Before I was sure how real this was, and even now, if it turns out we have to go back to our old lives once this is all over, the wildly different perspective is interesting and valuable. People look at you and talk to you differently if they see you as a girl. Even more so a demonic witch or a scary dragon. Right?"

"I-I guess so."

After a moment, Rose turned her head forward and down, and making a weird choking noise halfway between a sob and a laugh. "I guess I look pretty stupid, throwing a huge tantrum over this. After eight other people admitted to who they really were no problem." She took in another huge sniff. "Not too mature for like a million-years old dragon, huh?"
"Sometimes a girl just needs to scream and cry," the witch said patiently. "Better than keeping it bottled up forever."

"You knew all about it already, anyway, too. I-I mean I blurt everything out anyway, an'..you could barely be more direct about f-figuring out I wasn't really, from here..."
"Actually, Aria was the one who worked that out," Mira said. "Kath can't read your mind, but she noticed you not being confused about some expressions from Earth that they don't have here."

"Hmmh."

"Um, I..." The dragon-girl hesitated for a long moment. "...T-tried to uh, make some of my plants hurt me. W-when I first got here," she said. "I don't...know why. Can't explain, what I was thinking at all."
"Are you hurt?" Mira asked, concerned. "You look okay..."
"I'm fine." She sniffed. "They wouldn't do it. Vines and stuff wouldn't pull tight, nothing dangerous I made would let me near it. The most I could do was mess up my clothes. Like, out of spite or somethin'..."
"Your plants don't have a mind of their own, you know," the witch said. "It's your magic animating them. Just you. I don't think you really wanted to hurt yourself."

"Maybe not. I was j-just..angry and sad and..." Rose shook her head. "...Embarrassed. I felt like I let everyone down, a-after how cool Aria and Zack were. I'm supposed to be strong, but I was so...helpless."

"You didn't get all of the mental chatter...Zack was only able to get up with her help," Mira said. "She wanted to do the same thing for you, but Kath still couldn't reach you. None of us can do it all alone."

"Mmh."

"...You fixed it for me, right?" Rose said. "Thanks. I'm sorry I just..ran away like that. I couldn't..." Her voice faltered, like she was going to start crying again.

"Hey, it's okay." Mira risked putting out a hand and slowly placing it on her shoulder. "I came after you because I care about you. I'm sure everyone else was worried too. Nobody blames you for getting hurt. It's far from the first time someone's taken a hit."

"Thanks..." She placed a scaly hand over Mira's, and turned slightly toward her again. "Um. C-could you..stay with me..a while? I, I want to tell everyone else about..myself...even if they already know, but I'm not...ready."

"I'll stay as long as you want," Mira nodded. "We can talk, or sleep, or just stare at the stars. I don't mind."
"...Okay."

While the dragon-girl quietly looked upward at the sky, Mira took a moment to examine their surroundings again. The thorny vines seemed to have disappeared entirely, leaving a patch of bright grass around where the dome had been, and the surrounding briar had turned into rose bushes—no less thorny, but dotted with bright flowers that shone faintly in the moonlight.