I purposely blink, but when I open my eyes, Errissa remains. I gulp, and my stomach ties itself in knots after a pit drops in it. I should turn around. I shouldn’t put this on her. Hell, I shouldn’t interact with her at all, because I’ve got some stupid obsessive enchantment on me, that I should probably realistically be pissed off at Teuila about. The idea of being pissed off at Teuila hits me like being slugged in the guts, and I begin to cry openly, standing stupidly in the middle of the hallway. Lucky nudges me from slightly behind and to the side, in the direction of Errissa.

Dangit Lucky, no. This—. She meets my gaze with her startlingly beautiful silver eyes, and my breath catches for a moment before my pulse begins to race. The lovely, smooth, slate-gray scaled expression of her soft reptilian lips on her angelic face is etched with worry, concern? I—.

I accept the delicate, fair hand that she offers me, and she whisks me around several corners to a dark, private room. It’s spartan, but there’s a bed to sit on, so I sit on it, and place my elbows on my knees, and drop my face into my hands to weep. My chest heaves occasionally as my stomach twitches and rolls, feeling sick about the festering emotions that I don’t know how to deal with.

After a while, I notice that Spymaster has disappeared, so I sigh, and figure that at least it didn’t devolve into stupidity as badly as it could have. I continue crying for some time yet, while Lucky seems to guard the door to the room. I don’t know how to get my feelings in order. Days when I have a panic attack, my emotions are more tumultuous, and I’m more vulnerable. I’m more paranoid and cynical.

I begin to leave the room, when I realize that Errissa is sitting patiently next to Lucky, just around the corner of the entryway to the room. I’m more than a little stunned. She stands, and offers me a tentative smile with a curiously raised eyebrow, checking if I’m alright now. My jaw wags a bit uselessly for a moment before I shake my head no. I’m not quite there yet.

Errissa wears a thoughtful expression, asking herself if there’s anything she can do, and implying the question to me. I’m afraid anything she does is going to endear her to me more, and I’ll start thinking stupid obsessive thoughts about her, so I’m tempted to run away. She’s not leaving whenever I blink though, and she’s being incredibly supportive, without knowing anything about what’s going on. Errissa starts to spread her arms towards me, but as this begins to part her cloak, I hold up a hand.

I quickly ask, “Can we, maybe just talk for a bit? I mean, can I talk to you? I understand that, yeah. Sorry, I felt stupid as soon as I asked. No, no it was definitely stupid, and it’s okay to call me that, because this whole morning has been leaving me to stew in my own stupid. Ow, hey. Heh, okay. I’ll try to cut back a bit.”

Errissa’s expressive faces morphs along the journey of my statement, and she bops me in the noggin’ pretty hard after I self deprecate too many times. When I agree to try to be better about it, she offers me a warm smile. I’m really, really, really falling for this woman, and that’s not what I need right now. I sit against the wall so that I can’t look at her. It means I’m essentially talking to the air, because I won’t be able to delight in her marvelously expressive features. I stare between my own legs as I bring my knees about halfway towards my chin, while I bring my heels halfway towards my butt where I sit slouched against the wall.

Errissa pats my left knee, and waits patiently for me to start. So, start I do, “I’ve been stewing, after I had a panic episode somewhat revolving around my best buddy Lil. They’re, um, my mind relives trauma, and it screws up my emotional state really badly. I don’t know how much you know about my inner circle, but I love them to death, and beyond. Literally, already been there, done that. We’re all affectionate, we’ve got in jokes, we get each other on levels that no one else could ever come close to comprehending. I think that’s part of why I’m so hurt right now.”

I chance a glance at Errissa, and she flashes me a supportive, sympathetic quarter smile, the faintest draw of her lips slightly rearward and upward. Returning as much smile as I can, I continue, “It’s probably going to sound blown way out of proportion, because I’m pretty sure it is. I want to work backwards from where I am, describe the end product, then I’ll go back to the beginning. So the end product is I want to blow up at two of the people most beloved to me in all the worlds. I want to chew them out and be mean to them and tell them to kindly screw off, and I feel rotten for wanting that. Yeah, I’ll get around to how I got there.”

Gulping, I raise an eyebrow as I find myself staring into Errissa’s shimmering quicksilver eyes, unable to pull my gaze away again. Upset with myself, I struggle to get my brain back on track to explain, “So, and, you’re probably going to laugh, and I wouldn’t blame you, but right now, it would really, really hurt. We have a psychic connection, you already know about that. Lady Kinzul was being incredibly supportive of me, helping me through that panic, and its aftermath. Mentally, I was trying to categorize the love I have for her, because every time I think she couldn’t possibly do more for me, she finds more ways to invest in me, to support me, to help me, to empathize with me, or guide me, or to outright express her love for me.”

Errissa looks curious as to how that would be humorous, but I shake my head, indicating it’s coming up after a quick breath. I swallow so I can go on, “So I was trying to categorize Kinzul, find out how to describe how I feel about someone like that, and my two beloveds, Luni and Teuila, they heard me thinking about that, yeah, psychic connection, and they started waggling their eyebrows at me suggestively from behind Lady Kinzul, and purposely started directing my gaze down her body, and doing the hourglass motion. I mean, you’ve seen her body. Lady Kinzul has sculpted an amazing form over the many years of her life, and that form happens to be one that’s incredibly visually appealing.”

I wet my lips, and I’m surprised that Errissa hasn’t laughed, but maybe I haven’t clarified it properly, so I try to do so, “So they guided my eyes, and my brain, to thinking about Lady Kinzul on an inappropriate level, when I was already thinking about her quite particularly, then they had a giggle fit when my mind went to the obvious locations.”

Errissa had maintained a neutral, supportive expression, and now she’s motioning to her own chest. I confirm her suspicion, “Yes, that region.”

Errissa, Spymaster, deadly assassin, Draconiac, somehow manages to appear to playfully pout while pointing to herself, and her own mostly flat chest with a raised eyebrow. I can’t help myself as I try to defend my infatuation with her appearance, “Hm? Oh, actually I find you remarkably attractive, you don’t have to have, grk.”

At this point, Errissa looses a single mirthful silent titter, then claps her hands over her face, looking apologetically at me with worry in her eyes. I don’t know if it’s the remorse, or my being under the effects of the whammy, but I find myself all the more drawn to her. I gulp and rattle my skull, simultaneously trying to dissuade Errissa from feeling badly, and convince myself to stop my line of thought.

Coughing, I return to the tale, “So, yes, they purposely got me thinking of her lovely assets, different than yours, but yours are still fan—, I apologize. Anyway, skipping forward, I was hurt, because I was vulnerable, and they knew I would be, but they couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tease me. It wasn’t too big of a deal, it’s a little embarrassing that Lady Kinzul can hear me thinking about her chest, and it is probably pretty funny, but at that moment, I was hurt. I shut off my psychic connection, which disrupted all of our bonds. Which, I know, probably sounds heavy-handed, but I couldn’t handle them listening to my brain as it was stewing.”

Errissa puts a hand comfortingly on my shoulder, and it takes all the effort I can muster not to gaze along that hand and up her arm towards the torso it’s connected to. Gulping, nodding along with nothing, I try to finish, “So, I felt bad for hurting them by walking out. I felt bad for hurting them by shutting down the psychic bond. But the first thing I felt bad about? The first thing that I knew would hurt them? The fact that I felt hurt by something so benign, yet that they would beat themselves up over the fact that they hurt me, even if I shouldn’t have really felt all that hurt about it. It made me feel like it’s unhealthy, that I can’t call them out on something, because it’ll be announcing that they hurt me, and they’ll feel bad, when I don’t want them to feel bad, because I’ll feel bad that I made them feel bad. Then I resented the fact that it made me feel like I couldn’t call them out, so I started to resent them! Then I started to get more pissed off with myself for resenting them, and—“

Errissa puts a finger to her lips, then interrupts me by putting it to mine. She shakes her head, and takes my left hand to hold it with both of hers. She scooches incredibly close, wrapping her legs around my waist from the side, and pulls my hand to her chest. I nearly choke, and nearly faint, but she shakes her head, and emphasizes breathing, feeling the rise and fall of her chest in a slow, steady rhythm.

I begin to fall into the rhythm of a deep breath and a slow exhalation. I try to ignore the excitement I feel in sensing her expressive, whip-like tail flicking about, occasionally curling around my waist or one of my biceps. I realize my jaw has been virtually locked in position with how tense it is, and I struggle to loosen it and stretch it. My wrists ache, as do several other tender locations on my body, and Errissa places one hand on my chest, directing me to keep breathing, as her other hand delivers firm, yet gentle ministrations near those tender points, as if she instinctively knew where I was hurting.

In all likelihood, she probably does know, because there are likely minute cues, tics, twitches, and subtle shaping of the muscle that someone as observant as a Spymaster is trained to recognize. I continue breathing at the rhythm of the rise and fall of her chest beneath the supple leathers where my hand resides. Her delicate, adept, deft hands work their way about the spots that they can reach from her current position, and work their way up my left arm, back towards her own chest, and the tender care becomes more— sensual. I squirm, and blush, and she stops.

Errissa leans close, kisses the side of my forehead through my wild mane of crimson hair, and pats my shoulder twice before disentangling herself from me.

I gulp as I turn to her, to admit, “I, I appreciate what you did, so much. And, and I sort of hate myself for this, but it makes me like you all the more. Then, then feeling you, so close like that, I, glp, ache for more. Thank you for stopping. I’m still not in the right headspace. I don’t want to project, or, or obsess, or, or anything. I’m enamored of you, substantively, beyond just what the whammy did to my physical attraction to you. I don’t want to put that presh—“

Errissa brings her finger to her lips in the shush motion again, and then holds it tantalizingly near my face, before brushing my lips softly, gingerly with her dainty, delicate digit. I inhale sharply as I finally let myself turn my gaze fully upon her. I virtually vibrate in anticipation of pleasures we could share as I drink her in with my eyes. Thankfully, she offers me a sad, forlorn, almost longing smile, and shakes her head. She pulls her hood up, and her cloak close after offering me a gentle shoulder to shoulder bump in lieu of a hug. I allow myself to blink, and Errissa vanishes, leaving me alone with Lucky.

Lucky nudges my legs, leaning against them with most of his bodyweight, so I swap to a position where I can hug him tightly for a while. I have to chuckle at myself as I look back at the interaction while hugging Lucky. During most of that, I was still subconsciously practicing the runes for the detect thoughts spell. There were a few moments where I was completely incapable, for sure, but I’m almost positive I’m about to master the final rune any second now.

I allow the psychic network to re-establish, and the first thing I think across it is, “Don’t—! say anything please.”

I don’t have the heart just yet to confront them, as much as I love them, and as close as I can sense that they are, where they stand only two hallways away, just inside the edge of my silent sonar, around several corners. I detect the sadness across their faces, and that stirs up the same mixed emotions that had been stewing. Upsettedness, resentment, chastisement, self loathing. I’m in a bad way. I’m in a really bad way, and it’s going to come out of my two most beloved relationships, and there’s no one I feel that I can turn to.

I hate myself as I can’t stop myself before I mutter into the psychic connection, “Of all the people that I might have been able to talk to, the only one who even remotely qualified for the criteria of not being a part of the problem, or at the situation when it happened, and that I also trust, that I thought maybe wouldn’t take the cues about teasing and run with it, was the woman who I was *forced* to be attracted to. I almost wanted her to be her teasing, mirthful, jovial self, and tease me about it, just to make me resent her. You know what? Instead, she was understanding, and rolled with the punches, and respected my attempts to steer my brain away from focusing on that attraction. And when it was clear that, though she was helping, my brain was about to be locked going down that road? A road that I’m uncomfortable going down, at the best of times? A road that, with her, I have no choice but to go down? A road that stirs up the worst parts of my self loathing bits that are based specifically on insecurities developed from social norms in my broken, buggy, Fakeworld memories?”

I pause, letting the idea sink in, before continuing, “She removed herself from the equation for my benefit, even though it looked like she was prepared to enjoy going down that same road, even though she knows I definitely enjoy going down that road with her. That road was one that you two took me down, when I was vulnerable, with Lil’s mother for crying out loud. I don’t want you to be upset, but I am upset at you. Teuila, I don’t want you to think I’ve suddenly stopped forgiving you for using your Latent, but it does compound the issue that the only person I could turn to, I couldn’t turn to for long. I can’t handle the guilt from the fact that I’m probably going to cause you guys to be sad by admitting all this to you. It’s effed up!”

I sniffle, shedding more and more tears as I try to finish, “I would normally be blushing and laughing it off, because it’s cute, it’s funny, it’s almost an in-joke, almost a running-gag. Only it isn’t, because I’ve been more aware than ever today about my broken Fakeworld memories having some effect on my perceptions of social norms, and my social reactions, and emotional intelligences. Worse, I was in trauma headspace! Trying to categorize my love for someone important to all of us. I’m still stuck in trauma headspace, and now I’m bawling my eyes out, because I did what I didn’t want to do, and I’m yelling at you two.”

I’m incredibly tempted to shut off the psychic connection again, because there’s nowhere I can go, and no one I can turn to that isn’t involved, or that I trust enough to handle this. Except I can’t. I have to suck it up, and go rip into the mind of a prisoner, with a spell that’s too weak to do that, but I’m me, and I break magic all the effing time, so that’s what Kinzul’s going to be relying on me to do. I don’t know how to let Luni and Teuila off the hook, or what to tell them to do to make this right, because right now, it feels like any action is just going to lead to hurt and resentment.

I know the overly negative hurt and resentment is in part because I reached into Can’Z’aas, and drew on a boatload of Can’Z’aasian mana related abilities, and in another part, because I had a traumatic flashback today, that was accidentally compounded by Kinzul. The Can’Z’aasian thing screwed me on a lot of levels. It’s where most of my traumas are from, the mana residue sickness amplifies and heightens my negative emotional states, using mana messes with my changeling inner self, even when I’m filtering it, and several more layers.

I’ll probably feel stupid and guilty about this after some rest, or something, but right now, I can’t even see, speak to, or allow myself to hear from the two people most beloved to me in all the universes. I hope that if Kinzul isn’t within range to hear me, that they’re at least prescient enough to know that they should inform her that I’m marching towards the prisoner right now.

Sniffling, sobbing, weeping, almost hoping they can’t hear, so that they don’t respond, because I’m not capable of not stewing in the issue yet, I mutter into my telepathic bond, “I miss you both already.”

I don’t shut down my psychic bond, but I drown my own mind with a veritable cacophony of self loathing to shut out any other voices as I stalk towards the prisoner. Tairkul, you’ve got bad luck, because I’m very in the mood to experiment with ripping into brains.