B 2 C 11: FIRE BIOME BEGINNINGS

Teuila notices my embarrassment and drops her form, plopping me onto my feet in front of her. She scratches the back of her head while she blushes, looking away. Te mutters, “Sorry, kinda just like being the strong one I guess, maybe. Sorry bubbaloo.” I lean down and crane my neck upwards until I can meet Teuila’s gaze. Though I’m shaking slightly, I poke her in the nose.

“Boop.”

Te, completely caught off guard, manages to respond, “W, wh, what? Hahaha, what was that? If you’re gonna flick me, flick me like you mean it.”

I respond, “As you wish.” Though as I do, my brain seems to shut off for the briefest of seconds, another momentary BSOD. Continuing my train of thought, I grab Teuila by the waist and rush away from the cliff face, so that any goofing off we do doesn’t end in disaster. Teuila begins jokingly jabbing me in the stomach with her fingertips, but manages to just slightly catch the edge of a rib. I pitifully articulate, “Ow, ow, ow, ribs still sore, ribs still sore, you win, you win! Hahaha.”

Te responds mercilessly though, “Oh no buster, you asked for it, if I have to avoid your ribs, I’ll just getcha elsewhere.” Teuila starts playfully poking and prodding me all over with light jabs, occasionally hitting a ticklish spot. I can barely manage to retaliate once in a rare while. Mostly just landing the shortest possible tickling jab to an elbow or armpit. Each time I do earns me one of her gleeful “Heeee” sounds.

Lil and Lu finally catch up as we’re in the middle of rolling around on the stone. For once, I end up on top, with Teuila pinned. I wave to Lil and Lu as they arrive, and Teuila takes advantage of the momentary distraction to once again flip us so that she has me pinned. We both can’t help but laugh. I think the fact that her love is rough, unrefined, playful, somehow manages to help against the fear of the cruel, cunning, deceitful moments of The Event. I know they weren’t her, I know it, but I can’t help it. I break down slightly. My vision narrows, my breathing becomes staccato hiccups, my pulse pounds in my ears. I weep momentarily.

I return from my panicked state to find myself embraced by Lil, Lu, and Te. Lu whispers to Lil, “Told you they’d be goofing off til we showed up, my turn to pick the topic, nyeh.” Lil laughs, but then whispers back, acquiescing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say my friends were betting on whether I’d panic before or after they arrived.

Lil and Lu flash each other a look after riding my mental wavelength, hearing my last thought. They jumble startled responses together, making it hard to discern who’s saying what, “Nope, nuh uh, we would never, oh okay yeah, yeah, sorry, we did.” The comical charade has me laughing, I’m not even mad.

“Okay buddy, uh buddies! Uh, and, my gal pal! This is the first time I ever get to show you around my homeland!” Lil excitedly starts to flit about, though I’m curious if they have the same trouble that Teuila and I do, figuring out what our relationship is. I don’t think romantic relationships even exist in our world, our reality. Plus, I think we’re in some sort of quadruple relationship. Lil and Lu, Lil and Te, Te and me, me and Lu, me and Lil. I believe Lu and Te think of one another as sisters.

Leaning over to Teuila, I whisper, “Since they bet on me, how about I bet you something that Lil’s tour is filled with a bunch of excited ‘and here is where I ate this other guy!’?”

Te whispers back, “No bet, that’s a fools bet, a trick. Wait for it.” Teuila points as Lil begins to call out something.

Lil excitedly exclaims, “Here’s where I ate my first rhinoceros beetle!” Teuila smirks at me, but we both knew it was coming. I chuckle at our buddy’s enthusiasm for eating, but I can’t say a tour by me would be much different. Here’s where I cried, here is also where I cried, and I cried over there too. Oh, over there I ate fish.

Teuila bursts into laughter after hearing my thoughts. She states, “Look, cry all you want, you’re still glorious, your magic, and your plans have kept this family moving forward to the future. I’ll stand by you as you cry until the end of time.” She then slugs me hard in the shoulder for emphasis. I wince slightly in pain, I don’t think she’s used to her enhanced strength yet.

When Teuila realizes she actually might have left a bruise, her bravado and ego deflate. She looks utterly mortified as her eyes well with tears. “I, I. I wouldn’t. I’d never. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please don’t let me make things worse. I’m sorry, please don’t lose sight of us. Please don’t lose progress. Don’t go away again, please. Please don’t leave again. I didn’t mean to be mean, or an idiot, I would never hurt you. I’ll never hurt you again. I’m so sorry.”

Between the topic at hand, and literally feeling Teuila’s remorse with our bond, tears stream unbidden down my cheeks. I slowly double over, clutching at my chest. I let out a single wail of anguish, quite possibly the loudest sound I’ve ever made. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!” The reason for the anguish? Disappointment in myself. My fear is causing Teuila to doubt me so much. My fear caused us to lose months of our lives that could have been lived together. My fear is what hurt her. I drop to my knees and pound the ground slightly as I start to laugh. It’s a weak, nervous laugh, not quite hysterical.

I choke back a sob so I can clear my throat, before Teuila can get upset about the laughter. I try to explain, “Teuila, my Te. You’re the kindest, sweetest, most powerful being that I know, in all of existence. I can’t make you any promises on my stupid emotional state. I hate it. I’m sorry that I can’t promise anything. I’m so utterly sorry. I can absolve you of this bit of guilt at least though. You’re okay. I like it when you roughhouse with me. Just maybe practice a bit to test out your new strength? Heh.”

She stammers for a second, “You, you, you, ugh I hate this! You twerpleberrypuck! It’s not your fault!”

Teuila’s about to continue, but I interrupt her, “It’s not yours either.” Te’s jaw goes a bit slack, and she holds up one finger as if to point, puts it down, brings it back up again near her lips, recoils it against her thumb, vaguely in a pinching motion, her mouth looks like it’s about to form a word but she stops.

Despite looking stunned and speechless, she somehow reminds me of a captain. Maybe it’s her confidence. Teuila seems to recover from being stunned, as she starts jabbing me again before saying, “You, you big jerk, I was going somewhere with that! But, I guess, maybe something doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault, and a thing can just suck. Can’t it? It’s not fair. It’s not fair to you that you suffer. I hate seeing you suffer, I’d give up everything, if only for your good. I mean, for you to be able to be good and feel good. But I’d also see you suffer for an eternity as long as it meant I got to be by your side. Isn’t that messed up?”

I can’t help but chuckle, and also can’t help but to agree with Te’s sentiment, “That last part is a little bit messed up, the way you worded it, heh. I understood what you meant though. I feel the same. I’m sorry that we hurt for each other. I’m sorry that it mostly stems from the suffering I have to deal with. I guess it’s just part of the package. I don’t know if that will ever change, but I hope you can see that I’m trying to face it, to make it better.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Te cups my cheek as she whispers, “I do, I do see it. I can’t tell you how proud and grateful I truly am. I mean it, seriously, I can’t. You know me, I can’t do the word things. But, I do, y’know, those words.” I almost start to laugh when Teuila says ‘I mean it, seriously’ but I’m glad I didn’t. The last bit fills my heart with joy. I gaze into Teuila’s eyes. My heart skips several beats from fear, several beats from love as well. Tears of both fear and happiness cascade from my eyes.

I gulp, and I’m about to do something, when Lu shouts, “See, told you they needed a private minute!” I sigh as my heart resets. Taking a few ragged, sob-laden breaths, I manage to laugh at Luni’s timing. I check the progress on my maximum energy capacity, and the prognosis is pretty grim. I’m definitely still gaining maximum energy, not as slowly as I feared, but nowhere near as much as I was originally capable of. As I feared, so long ago now, struggling back into the thousands is going to take a lot more than passively dinking around in my inventory all the time.

Lu calls out, “Come on my little birdies, Lil says we’ve gotta head all the way to the volcano.” Teuila and I glance at each other. We both know our conversation wasn’t finished, but also wasn’t going anywhere productive. Each of us will always feel guilty for our own feelings. Teuila returns to her Valkyrie form and picks me up.

Te calls out, “Race ya there!”

Lil lets out a nearly bloodcurdling scream of, “No!” I’ve never heard them so adamant about something. Te looks shaken even in her Valkyrie form. I’m feeling quite panicked as I wait for this to pan out.

Lil huffs, “It’s dangerous. Lava plumes if you don’t have a red soul. I mean jets, geysers, big shooting lava out of the ground! If I leave a soul trail, the ground will see red long enough, so it won’t burn you. Please let me do this, I don’t want to see you hurt.” Teuila gulps guiltily.

Te acknowledges Lil’s concern for our safety, “Hey, hey Dragbutt, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. We, I just. There was a thing, and we were, but. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Are we okay?”

Lil flits on over to us and nuzzles Teuila. Luni drops down from Lil’s back. There’s tension in the air, but also love. Lil absolves Te, “Of course we’re okay boogerbrain. We’ll never not be okay unless you go dying on us. So just, don’t die, okay? Reggie and I care about you a lot. You’re real fun, and super awesome. Also you were carrying Reggie, so you woulda both got killed. We’d have been so sad, mega sad, mega mega mega sad.”

My breath catches in my throat as my lips quiver. Lu tugs at my wrist to pull me away from Teuila and Lil for a moment, apparently giving them privacy. I see Teuila smooching Lil’s forehead out of the corner of my eye. Their closeness warms my heart. I’m glad they continued to grow closer when I was on autopilot.

Lu hems and haws as she rocks back and forth on her heels. Finally she states, “So uh, in about five minutes, I’d have to break off from the group to make it in time, but they’re going to be a bit. So I’ve gotta go save all your lives now, k? Bye, love you, take care of them!” Luni leans in and plants a smooch on my cheek before jogging away. She somehow covers ground ridiculously fast. Oh, right, she has some sort of travel music power. Some sort of seven leagues song or something.

I just have to trust her. Lil and Teuila need a minute to mend their bond, and I’m the only one that witnesses Luni stealing away, to supposedly save our lives. Well, I shouldn’t say supposedly. She said she’s saving our lives, so that’s what she’s doing.

I flop to the ground to sit lotus style, lost in my own thoughts. It’s not an unfamiliar place for me to be. Lu told me specifically to take care of them. Was that some sort of prophetic power of hers, or just general well wishes? If it was a prophecy, what am I going to do? I gave up most of my power to Lil and Te. My radiant attacks are somewhat useful, but Teuila could deliver a thousand blows worth any of my radiant attacks, without having to expend the energy. I’ve got it in me to do maybe a few dozen at this point.

Maybe I’ve been relying too much on my space skill? But what else do I have? There’s basically nothing good about me as an adventurer. I’m scrawny, I’m slow, I’m tiny, I’m frail, I succumb to panic and fear constantly. I regularly get distracted by my own thoughts. Oh, and worse, once in a while, I get cocky too. Okay, okay, enough with the self-recrimination. Think what Lu could possibly have meant, just in case I do need to answer the call of some prophecy.

I make plans, my plans generally don’t work, but my reactions to them failing tend to get us out of a bind. Is that it? Do I just need to plan out what to do, then watch my plan crumble to dust, failing as they always do? When it has gone awry, then I just react? Ugh, that was vaguely self-recriminatory. I also don’t think it’s what Lu meant. What if Lu actually meant I’d have to be there to take care of them at some specific moment, in the ways that I generally leap to do? My consistent overdramatic self-sacrifice. Just with a touch of moderation, and self-preservation.

That sounds more like it. I guess I just need to literally have their backs. Although, they’re both aerial combatants. How the hell am I going to do that? I’ve used Newton’s third law before. Too bad I can’t just ignore physics. Wait, when I slowed my fall before. I can summon things out of my inventory with upward velocity. I can do that right under my own feet. I’m such an idiot!

I mutter to no one in particular, “Lu, you’re a genius.”

Testing it out, I begin summoning thin slats of wood from my inventory, and sure enough, I can get vertical airtime. What’s more, I can get endless hangtime, as long as I’m summoning really small amounts of material. I can jump around in the air and not fall unless I do something stupid like get distracted, oh, oops.

I plummet for a bit, from the several hundred feet I’ve managed to ascend. Slowing my fall at this point is more like, how do I put this? If someone were to fall through like thirty awnings in a row. It’s a very jostling way to break one’s fall, or uh, to brake one’s fall. I think they both actually work verb wise. Braking is to slow to a stop, so, yeah. As I finally return to the ground, I of course land on my face. I am after all, not a graceful creature.

Teuila and Lil trot over, Te teases me, “So uh, dirt taste pretty good today tootsuit? How’d you end up down there?” The two of them must have really been emotionally bonding to not notice me sailing in the air just a short ways away.

Teuila hears my thoughts before I get a chance to express them, and she cries, “You were what? How? Wait, where’s Lu? Did she get kidnapped by a bird? Is that why you were in the air? Who do I kill?!”

I chuckle, as I stand, dusting myself off. I’m not sure how much to tell them, so I’ll try to succinctly summarize, “Lu basically hit me with some mystic prophetic words saying that she had to go to be able to save our lives. She asked me to take care of you two. I couldn’t figure out how I could possibly help, since you can both spend so much time in the air. Now I can too. I just use my space skill to throw stuff under my feet! I don’t know why I never thought of this, other than the fact that I’m an idiot, a complete maroon. I especially should have thought of this in the swamp, since we were already planning on suspending things in the air for Valkyrie to dance on and dropkick. I literally had you doing it, and never thought to try doing it myself, to maybe reduce the fall.”

As I ramble exceedingly quickly, Teuila walks up and slaps me. She calls me out, “You, you ignoramus! You could, you could, you could fly? And you still fell! You got so hurt! Ugh, you, you dirty rotten jerk. Stop getting hurt!” I want to correct Teuila that I can’t fly, but it’s semantics at this point. As long as I don’t get distracted, and have a supply of solid matter in my inventory, I can pretty much stay aloft as long as I need, and I don’t need to, oh hey, my maximum energy took a nice little jump. Not massive, but much better than the last day or so of passive putzing.

Teuila, still furious with me, rides our shared wavelength, and catches that I’m distracted by my own thoughts, so she chews me out some more, while simultaneously falling to her knees and hugging me tightly. Her insults eventually fade off to one last single, “Jerk.” Before she stands up and noogies me.

I don’t know what’s worse, my own feeling of guilt and stupidity for not having figured this out, and having gotten hurt. Or the fact that I got hurt, when I could have avoided it, which hurts Teuila, and leaves her disappointed in me. Sighing, I dust myself off and motion towards the volcano.

Lil leads us onwards, on foot, in their base form.