Teuila’s terror is still plain on her psychic avatar’s face as she asks, “Air! What, what happened!? I saw, I swear I saw, just, just everything was hurt. I heard you thinking about things, and heard about your eye basically exploding. Reggie? Reggie what’s going on?”
My avatar brushes back the hair from Teuila’s avatar’s face as I smile into her eyes. I answer as honestly as I can, “I found out something is hiding things from me, from us. Violently, powerfully hiding things. I’ll stop pressing my luck for now. I paused time to fix stuff up as best I can. It took a few months, and all I got was our local little area done. There’s a whole world beyond the edges of what you can see that still looks like what you saw. I’ll be working on that for a long time. It’s okay Te. It’s okay. I’m okay, we’re okay. We’ve got this. Always have, always will.”
Teuila’s avatar’s eyes brim with tears that she fights back. I can sense that she’s unsure how to feel at the moment as a myriad of emotions bubble up to the surface within her. I’d face off against every force in every universe to prevent those tears if I could. To keep a smile upon Te’s face. I know she’d do the same for me. She’s tried to do the same for me already, time after time.
Tiktik’s right about one thing. Even if it was a joke, when she said I’m lucky, rather than unlucky, she was right. No one, no one else gets to be beside this amazing, powerful, loyal, loving woman, during such harrowing events, across literal lifetimes. Let’s try to live up to the person we feel like we should be to deserve that love, eh Reggie? Yeah. Tim wants big-damn heroes? Let’s give him just that. We’ll try to bolster ourselves, and tackle the future at our best.
Trying to maintain my best, my positivity, I joke, “Te, do you know what Siempre means?”
She cocks her head and raises an eyebrow, so I continue, “It means forever. All these crazy events recently have happened laterally south of Lake Siempre geographically. Which, sure, doesn’t sound like much of anything, but for some reason, ‘Just South Of Forever’ sounds pretty hilarious to me. Maybe it could be an album name for a prog rock band on Fakeworld, Earth? Heh. Err, anyway, point being, I doubt we’ll ever come back to Lake Siempre after we evacuate the Aasimovians. I doubt anyone will, with the Fel forces marching on the land. In essence, it’s the end of forever. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
Te’s avatar pokes mine in the ribs, as she literally and figuratively jabs, “Are you going somewhere with this ya dink?”
I smile, chuckling, while shaking my head. While laughing, I add, “Not really, I just found it amusing. But if this really is the end of forever, in one regard or another, let’s make a new forever. Let’s make sure that everyone gets a million bright tomorrows. Let’s make an endless, peaceful, safe, happy forever, on both worlds. Together.”
Teuila pouts for some reason before responding, “That’s not fair Air. Of course I want that too. I. I want all the tomorrows, forever, with you, and Lu, and Lin, and Lil, and, and just yeah. Ya meanie, making it all sound so nice, putting it in such smooth words. Also, making it sound so easy, ugh.”
I roll my eyes slightly as I try not to laugh, “Pft, of course I know it isn’t going to be easy Te. But, well, look at us. Look at everything that happened, and keeps happening. We’re always going to try our best, even with weird forces and powers acting against us that we don’t even understand. I guess I’m just trying to say I’m glad I’m at your side, and that you’re at mine.”
My-Wings shoulder bashes me playfully before leaning against me. Te murmurs in pleasure while nuzzling my cheek. I quite happily return both forms of affection. We stand amidst my semi-patched mindscape, just enjoying each other’s presence, for who knows how long. In meat space, Teuila finishes up with everything and hops up into the carriage’s driver’s seat with me and Tiktik. Te shivers momentarily as she strips to wring out and change her clothes.
Apparently, Te had been doing some inventory manipulation while I was out of it. She’d utilized the hyperdimensional haversack to store some changes of Valkyrie clothing and armor. I could definitely use a new suit of armor at this point. It’s almost virtually indestructible, I think it even heals itself over time when it changes shape, or something weird. But still, despite that, my underarmor padding, and the armor itself, are in shambles after the constant lightning, fire, and obsidian spikes running me through.
Teuila comments, “I saw that the dagger buckle from your belt was missing, so I pulled another spare one out of my inventory. What happened to it Air?”
I try not to snort a laugh in embarrassment. Shaking my head at myself, I admit, “I uh, I had to let my steely body spell eat it, to survive a couple of big hits, and stupid things that I did. Like, you saw how big those portalspawn things were, I got freakin’ clobbered by one early on, and was about to become paste if I didn’t use the spell. Then later I flew up into the clouds, err, no, I can’t fly Te, I had the wind elemental take me up, and we nearly died with how strong the acid is up there. Steely body saved me from that, the hundreds of lightning bolts I absorbed, aaaand from my stupid divebomb from that position.”
Teuila playfully punches my mental avatar's shoulder before admonishing me, “You big dork! Ugh. Be more careful, okay? Seriously Air. My Airhead. No dying, okay? You’ve got enough of that on your plate already. But, but seriously. I’m glad you got that spell learned in time. I don’t even want to imagine, glp. Yeah, you get it.”
I nod in response to Teuila. I do get it. I don’t want to imagine Teuila suffering hits like the ones I took, especially without the protection of the spell. Regardless, she’s smiling at me in pride it seems, beaming as it were. I wear a crooked smile as I stare lovingly into her beautiful emerald eyes. We nuzzle noses with each other as we sink into a contented silence.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I know, I know there’s a ton of tragedy to grieve, a ton of horrid events swirling about us, but, well, we have to be our best selves. We’re closest to our best when we’re happy and rested. It might seem crass to be trying to bottle up and move on from things so quickly, but we have limited time. Maybe some day, far in the future, I’ll have the time to truly grieve. Glancing at Teuila, sensing her thoughts as best I can, I realize she’s struggling with much the same. That makes sense. Teuila has an enormous heart. I can tell how guilty she feels about various things, and I wish I could absolve her of that guilt. It’s not like I have that power for either of us though. We both feel responsible for certain things, and it’s going to take time to process that properly someday. For now, we rest and recover while magic moves us towards our destination.
I’m not sure if these watery, flipper-ed versions of the ghostly steeds are able to locomote nearly as fast as the normal horses that the spell is supposed to conjure. It seems like it might be a day or two to cross the lake at this rate. That should still put us far ahead of the refugees fleeing Autumn Brook and the plains. We might cross paths with messengers being sent along the north side of Lake Siempre to Aasimovia’s other towns, warning them to evacuate, but the timing is unlikely.
I find myself drifting to sleep, waking some number of hours later, and repeating the process a fair number of times. I refresh the steed spell once, but I don’t know how long it was between castings. Still, best to refresh it whether I needed to or not. Tiktik is unconscious basically the entire time, every time I awaken. Teuila is sometimes curled up against us, other times when I awaken, my silent sonar senses the ripples indicating that she’s swimming nearby. Bud remains unresponsive, and I can only hope that he’s alive, recovering his strength. Maybe if we swing around back towards the Hidden Heart at some point, he’ll be rejuvenated. Hopefully.
Tim seems to be recovering, with Teuila’s help. She fishes to provide food for him, which makes sense. She’s quite used to fishing beneath the waves of a river, lake, or pond. I don’t think I’ve eaten much of anything since we left The Brook. I wonder if we have any digital fish from Can’Z’aas left, or any of the supplies we picked up in The Heart. I’m fairly certain that Teuila raided the sweets shop on the way out of Autumn Brook, because I’ve caught her guiltily snacking on chocolates and baked goods. Heh, not that I begrudge her her sweet tooth.
I give Tiktik a gentle squeeze, confirming that she’s still breathing. Thankfully she is, she’s just resting off some intense pain, fractured or shattered bones and the like. I’m doing much the same, but my recovery speed is many times faster, due to being Can’Z’aasian digital critterkin adjacent. Even with the quicker recovery speed, I’m still almost entirely out of commission. I’m fairly certain my body is deciding whether or not to try to regenerate the cored-out nerve tissue. Hm, could I make a more efficient nervous-system? One that can handle my increased reaction speed and electrokinesis? That sounds like a long-term project worth pursuing. For now though? For now, get some sleep. There might be dragons in The Gap. I can feel sleep taking me once again.
She calls back, “Come on you goober, we can’t miss this! Free admission and free ice cream all day for the first hundred peeps!”
I try not to laugh, the park doesn’t even open for another six hours or so, it’s basically still the dead of night. Either there are people already camping out, or we’re going to be first in line by a long shot. It doesn’t matter to me though, as long as I get to see that precious smile. Her cheeks have filled in a bit since we started reintegrating into society, and her smile is just all that much more bright with that bit of pudge. I’d be afraid to tell her about it though, I don’t want her thinking poorly of her appearance. My bestie is stunning, breath-taking. I don’t want to be anything other than supportive.
I mean, I’d be afraid she’d develop a complex about her appearance if I commented on that, since she’s already worried about her hips and toosh being a bit bigger. She complains about feeling lopsided due to it. I don’t quite get it, but I think she’s making a joke about her bust size compared to her rear size. Maybe? I’m not sure. I try not to stare at anything other than her smile. It’s emblazoned into my eyes and onto my heart. Ever since that day at the river.
Ever since then, I’ve been determined. I’ll do everything I can to protect it, and earn it. Absolutely everything, and anything. Well, it’s not like there’s much I can do other than try to share joyful things with her. We don’t have to defend our hideout from wolves any more, or fend off other animals from what little food we could scrounge.
She’s far too sweet for her own good, to call me her hero for such a simple thing as scaring off animals that tried to steal our food. Well, she gives me other reasons too, but it doesn’t matter. I’m no hero, but if that’s what my bestie wants to call me, that’s fine. After all, she’s always smiling when she says it.
We do have to cut across a highway to get to the fairgrounds, and I’m almost positive there’s a really big chain fence between us and the fairgrounds. I’m not even sure how to get around it without walking a bunch of miles along the highway. Yep, there it is, a massive chain-link fence at the top of this hill. Hm, I don’t see any warnings or signs of electricity or anything. Good, it’s not an electric fence. That would have been a hassle. I guess we lucked out, again. My bestie is like her own good luck charm.
She’s frowning at the fence though, and trying to hide that she's winded from climbing the hill. I don’t even have to ask why. I just lean down and pat my back. She giddily claps her hands and accepts my help. I feel her arms wrap carefully around my neck so she can hug my shoulders, and she wraps her legs around my waist from behind. Hoof, I’m a scrawny person, but thankfully we’re both pretty fit from living in the wilds. Scaling the fence isn’t too difficult like this. Rolling over the top and dropping to the other side is going to be a challenge though. My arms are already tired by the top of the fence.
I’m about to ask her to dismount, but she beats me to the punch, and carefully straddles the fence’s top, while I roll up over it to the other side, and begin descending. Phew, my arms are shaking now. I’m about to signal, but she’s already sailing down from the top of the fence to flatten me. I shift positions so that I can gently catch her and swing her low so that neither of us get hurt. Catching her earns me cheerful laughter and a bright smile.
She brightly, cheerfully claims, as she often does, “My hero! Always have been, always will be.”
Despite how many times and how much I’ve protested against being called a hero, I can’t help smiling in response. She resumes standing on her own feet, but remains with her arms wrapped around me in a tight hug.
It’s almost as if I simply close my eyes and our journey across the lake has ended. We’re already across Lake Siempre.