The act of witnessing Nala’s strange catharsis is oddly comforting to me. It feels like I gave her that in some way or another. I suppose I did enable it, by gifting her those particular glasses. I also realize that anyone who doesn’t have aura sight up, or those glasses on, might not even be able to see the ghost-Nala. I didn’t look deeply enough into the runes, nor comprehend well enough, to possibly guess something like that. It could look incredibly unfortunate for Nala to be talking to, and comforting thin air. I doubt though that anyone would ever tease her for it, or likely even witness it.
I wince and gasp in pain as I turn too sharply, tugging my pectoral and core muscles around my bruised ribs. My recovery was sped up by leaps and bounds, by spreading out the severity of the injuries across almost two dozen people, possibly more, if there were others who got up and walked away before I noticed. I try to remind myself that even just the effect itself must have taken time to enact, and there’s plenty of lingering pain, as well as injury to still recover from.
I’m grateful that, by tomorrow, these muscles will be stiff and sore, rather than balanced on constantly re-fracturing ribs. By the day of the offensive, as long as I don’t take another large hit to the torso, I should be operating pretty close to my normal efficiency. Thankfully, there shouldn’t be anything strenuous tomorrow, as I’ll be setting up the psychic networks from morning til evening.
I grimace as I recall the fact that I’ll be having to lay my hands about the bare flesh of many attractive individuals for eight minutes at a time, repeatedly throughout the day. Worse, a woman that I asked to marry me in a fit of stupidity will have my hands upon her for several hours in total over the course of the day. I know she said it wasn’t stupid, but Kinzul is too kind, too supportive.
I have to fight the smile that tries to spread across my face while thinking about how great Kinzul has treated me, and how it makes me all that much more—. Even the barest hint of joy that I feel at the idea that Kinzul would acknowledge or even remotely consider my proposal of marriage feels so wrong on so many levels. Yet experience that joy I do. I still haven’t even categorized or found words for the love I feel for our Lady. Of course, of course I have to be traveling down these lines of thought with Lil nearby enough to ride my telepathic wavelengths, ugh.
Before I can apologize, Lil telepathically gasps and demands in shocked tones, “You want to marry my mom!?”
And still, before I can even respond, I notice Lu and Te coaching Lil in our shared thinkspace. He eyes them dubiously, but eventually relents as they all share a fit of the giggles. As my telepathic avatar joins the four of them, Lucky’s avatar immediately bounds over to mine to bowl it over. I have to fight my chuckle I’d normally have at being lunged at by Lucky, because I’m uncertain if it’s okay to show humor or joy at the moment. I don’t know how Lil’s feeling.
Lil offers up, “Shucks pal, it was just surprising is all. Maybe a little gross, but she’s my mom. I’d feel that way about anybody. If it had to be somebody, I’m glad it’s you.”
I facepalm, blushing to high heavens. Fighting my nearly-paralyzed mortified expression on my face to speak, I respond, “Lil, it’s not going to happen. Probably. I offered it on the off chance that her soul would be considered a Shellcracker soul, and that she could use the equipment that’s bound to us, especially the equipment that was bound to me. Ugh, I’m so friggin’ embarrassed that my brain keeps bringing it up. I just wanted to save her from a trap, and my brain, well, you know how friggin’ weird my brain is when coming up with solutions to problems.”
Beginning to giggle, Lil affirms, “Yeah, hehe, yeah I do, but really pal? Marriage? That was the first mega awesome weirdo plan, mega mega mega awesome weirdo plan your super-brain could think up? Hehe.”
Flustered and blushing, I nod. I’m glad he’s at least finding it humorous, and not on my case about it. I’d hate to upset him. I want him to be happy, and I’m willing to go to extreme lengths, to guarantee it. I spent time affirming my love for him earlier though, and I think we’re at an okay place. I didn’t mean to accidentally punish him by shutting down the shared psychic network, so I should probably ask for forgiveness about that.
Lil shrugs in response to my line of thought, waving it off. His concern is more about the concept that his mom could get married. I’d say he needn’t be concerned, but I can’t shake that tiny spark of joy I got at how the proposal was treated as a possibility. It does make me feel incredibly naive, foolish, and puerile though, like an actual human child asking to marry their favorite adult. Kinzul is ancient, almost undoubtedly the eldest being on the planet. Even if I wasn’t in a body that has only existed for only four months on Rayileklia, my linear life experience would make me less than an infant by comparison to her.
Honestly, I should probably be more surprised or concerned that she considered it a possible avenue worth pursuing to accept my proposal. Kinzul would have had to truly concede to it in some official capacity that the system of my world recognized, to be able to join the Shellcracker clan. Or, I—. Wait.
Ugh, I just realized. I could have asked to adopt her instead of asking her to marry me. I facepalm as my three friends burst into a fit of giggles that swiftly evolves into uncontrolled laughter. Lil’s laughter is hesitant at first, concerned with the implications, but he can’t help laughing all the same.
Ah, and there’s laughter on another telepathic wavelength, Kinzul somehow able to perceive my thoughts even in our personal private thinkspace. Kinzul comments, “Only yours for some reason Schism. When any of you are in such a space, I only ever hear yours.”
She then teases, “Perhaps it means in some way our minds and souls are compatible on levels that your so-called system of your world accepts.”
I gulp, trying not to read into the teasing tones that hint at implications beyond what compatibility might mean at face value. Can I please just faint of embarrassment? Please? No? Argh. Maybe I should try to overwrite this whole line of thought in my head, with a plan to aid Kinzul in having access to our equipment by asking Kinzul to become my daughter instead. And that line of thought earns me more delightful, full laughter across that particular private wavelength.
Nala taps me with the end of her old spectacles, bringing my attention back to meatspace as she declares, “If you get any redder I fear you’ll go turquoise from lack of oxygen. Or some other odd color. What in heavens are you contemplating that is so vexingly embarrassing?”
Unable to stop myself, I blurt out my answer, “Marrying or adopting Lady Kinzul.”
Friggin’ hell Reggie. Nala looks aghast. Wait, was that a laugh? Nala’s laughter starts hesitantly, until it becomes raucous, while she confirms, “I take it, hahaha, that you, haha, are contemplating this, hahaha, for valid reasons. Reasons to do with the workings of everything going on down here. Yes?”
She manages to collect herself for a long enough moment to finish her question before resuming her frequent, halting bouts of laughter. I sigh while trying not to shake my head with the dubious incredulity I feel at my own mouth for betraying me so thoroughly to Nala. I have to step a bit carefully around Nala, because she’s such an introvert, with a personality quirk that she knows pushes people away, and naturally distances herself from them.
Still, Nala seems thoroughly amused as she continues, “I take it that my Lady actually weighed these options. She’s unlikely to instantly turn down options arbitrarily at an immediate glance that may provide some advantage in the coming battles. Still, I take it that she rebuffed you, and thus your red state?”
Unable to help myself, even though I’ve squeezed my cheeks as tightly as I can in an attempt to silence myself, I mumble, “Worse, she thinks they’re valid possibilities.”
Nala balks, taken aback as she utters, “Oh.” She reconsiders, “Oh.” She further realizes, “Ohhhh,” and begins to discolor beneath her lovely copper scales, a red hue making itself evident.
Ugh, I hate the fact that I’m upset with how I worded that. It sounds like I’m upset that Kinzul considered the possibilities, when it’s the opposite, I’m delighted beyond measure. It’s also circular in that I don’t want to find the idea delighting, because it’s juvenile, puerile, which makes me upset at myself, and on and on in annoyingly contrived illogical circles.
The two of us avoid eye contact, paused here in the entrance to my personal vault, far closer to each other than Nala and I would normally have intended to stand when I got caught up in telepathic conversations. It makes for quite the sight when Lady Kinzul drops in on us, as it appears for all the world that we’d just been caught red handed having been making out in a broom closet, having some sort of tawdry affair. I blush all the further for the infuriatingly ridiculous line of thought. Lady Kinzul blesses me with benevolent grace enough to not air aloud my mental monologue, though that doesn’t stop her telepathic wavelength from having undertones of delighted humor.
Lady Kinzul approaches us, and Nala, as socially ungraceful as she is, can’t help her facial expressions as she eyes the two of us up and down, seemingly measuring our compatibility, or lack thereof. She seems to have thoroughly embarrassed herself by whatever mental comparison she had drawn however. Perhaps it’s my current five and a half foot tall form, standing beside a woman roughly eight to ten feet tall. Perhaps it’s that I appear to be a pixie-like human with features that are ever so slightly cherubic, while she is a dragon with a perfectly sculpted human form. Or perhaps she had imagined us consummating a marriage, an act which would be physically impossible as I lack any sort of reproductive biology.
Now I’m flustered again, having brought up consummating marriage mentally, with Kinzul, and Lil nearby enough to listen in across telepathic wavelengths. I am beyond lucky that our Lady treats my thoughts as the intrusive musings that they are. One of her many graces. One of the many ways that she is endeared to me. Now of course my mind is circling back around. Ugh. I need to get to work on my plans. Maybe I can turn my brain off for a bit.
As I begin to drown out my own thoughts with increasingly esoteric nonsense, Lady Kinzul offers me a sad frown, knowing that I’ll soon likely be on autopilot, no longer truly absorbing what goes on around me. It’s not a full backslide into the spiral of self-doubt and resentment, but it is a sidestep in the wrong direction, emotionally speaking.
I’m pretty certain that Kinzul spends time addressing how she had treated Nala on the day we met, but I’m focusing on keeping my brain basically drowned out from analyzing any of my senses. I work with everyone available taking turns at the shop, and I’m at the point where I don’t quite know what I’m missing to finish setting everything up. Several of the others are pouty that I’m barely a couple of steps away from braindeadness as I try to ignore everything, to focus on the task at hand.
A large fraction of the reason that I’m drowning out my brain with static and white-noise is because I really don’t want them to pick apart the fact that I came up with a comparison for my and Nala’s location with a tawdry episode in a broom closet. Another large fraction is I don’t want them to latch onto the fact that my brain started to roam around the idea of consummation of marriage. Eugh. Not that Kinzul isn’t basically perfection incarnate, but I’m a non-biological entity, and happy to remain that way. It really has nothing to do with the idea of consummating with her, so much as, well, yeah. I’m losing my grip on the static that was keeping my brain empty of these stupidly embarrassing cycles.
Despite trying not to, I manage to overhear enough of what’s going on around me to catch two words, “…get Errissa?”
Rolling my eyes, I groan, “I only heard the end of it, but if that question was should we get Errissa, in order to pull me out of autopilot, don’t you dare. If that plan has anything to do with me, I’m going to be annoyed.”
There’s nervous chuckling along our psychic wavelength, as the culprits realize I’ve heard enough and am not in the mood to have my vulnerabilities exploited, or my feelings used against me at the moment. I can tell that they go from feeling abashed, to feeling downright ashamed, sad, upset at themselves, when they realize how I described the effort internally. They hadn’t thought about it as capitalizing on my vulnerabilities, or using my feelings against me, and normally I wouldn’t have considered it that either, but we’re on a rocky slope at the moment. They feel genuinely horrible that what they were going to do could be considered how I described it.
Sighing, I come back to reality to find my inner circle all looking rather bummed in our shared thinkspace. My telepathic avatar opens wide its arms and is immediately crushed by the onslaught of bodies thrown at it. I’m still not entirely all here, or really wanting to hear the apologies that are being offered my way.
I mumble, “I love you guys, today has just been all sorts of messed up. Okay? I really do adore you guys forever, through everything, and you can tease me, and laugh and stuff, and everything is mostly okay, but we don’t have our old accelerated thinkspace. It has only been a few hours for me to try to get over things. There’s whiplash from coming back from such a deep spiral. We used to be able to take weeks, or months to handle stuff like this when my emotions went whacky, in thinkspace. I can’t find remotely adequate words or phrasing tell you guys how much I appreciated all that time together.”
The faces in my mindscape clarify as I allow myself to sense more and more of reality, letting go of the droning I’d been putting myself through to drown out my senses. Teuila and Luni are fighting sadness, but nodding understandingly of my needs. Poor Lil is getting the short end of the stick, because he never really jumped on the Fakeworld embarrassment bandwagon, but I still keep leaving him at arms length with the gals.
I apologize as best I can to my best buddy, “Sorry about that Lil. I don’t mean to keep any of you at a distance really, at all, but I’m reeling from the whiplash like I said. Where are we at? How are we feeling?”
Lil chirps, “It’s all good pal, I’m glad you’re feeling sorta better. Sorry emotional stuff happened, and sorry you got hurt too. My ribs are still sore.”
Teuila, Luni, and Lucky nod about their ribs being sore as well, or perhaps the entirety of Lil’s comment. I find myself yawning, even though it’s only early evening at the latest. I fight my smile and stifle a chuckle when the yawn catches on and passes around my group as if it were contagious.
Teuila snarks, “You butt. Hhhyaaawwwnn. Now I can’t stop!”
Luni purposely continues the yawning cycle, to keep Teuila yawning, which leads to me yawning again, and chuckling. I really hope that, come tomorrow, I can just move past all the crap that has gone through my mind today. I miss our accelerated thinkspace so very much. Should I just pause time, and try to sit in quiet contemplation, alone, to try to get over things? I don’t do very well at keeping myself from backsliding or spiraling out of control on my lonesome. Withdrawing into myself, in a way that literally leaves me almost limitless time completely on my own is probably a bad idea right now.
In meatspace, I ask, “Alright, how are the lumber warrens and other resource node locations coming along? I see we’ve gotten more and more volunteers, it’s almost like a bucket brigade at this point. Let’s treat everyone to some stew, and check things out. Lil, Lu, Lucky, you guys mind getting bowls and silverware? Teuila, you mind snagging the cauldron?”
My inner circle smiles and nods affirmatively almost in unison. While they’re busying themselves with that, I pull out a cloak that I’d rolled up the other day, and toss it about my shoulders in a single motion. It doesn’t seem to be spilling illusory sand right now, apparently it had been messed up with the transfer from Can’Z’aas inventory to Rayileklia. It’ll still spill the sand while I’m using its spells though, which is more than a bit weird. What’s the point of it? It’s a loot drop from Can’Z’aas, so it’s not like it was personally crafted by someone that enjoys looking sandy.
I roll my eyes at myself as I sigh. At least these inane thoughts aren’t as bad as the ones from earlier. I hope I instructed Nala to do something useful, or well, asked her nicely to do something useful while I was on autopilot. I feel like a dick for just abandoning her like that. I’d better check on her. Casting my senses about, based on thermal scans, I’m pretty certain I know where Nala is, unless someone else matches her build over near the miniature library we’d set up.
As I approach, I call out, “Nala, hi, I’m sorry. I was so flustered with certain implications back there that I shut— oh you still look flustered. I’m sorry. If you’d like to take—. I’m just going to shut up.”
Nala furrows her brow at me and adjusts her new, magical, owlish spectacles in a way that manages to make her look perturbed. Yet she flashes me a warm smile while shaking her head, chuckling. Nala comments, “Friend Reggie, Schism, I’m quite aware of how astute you are, and how likely you guessed as to the wanderings of my own mind. I would wish to offer you an equal if not greater apology. Shall we persevere onwards, complicit compatriots in mental misdoings, and put the thoughts behind us?”
Phew. I sigh with relief as I nod and confirm, “Yes, please. I’d like that very much. I am glad to have you as a friend Nala, Curator. Have you found any spellbooks in the random literature from Can’Z’aas? I apologize, I should ask you, when I shut my brain off, did I make any requests?”
Nala blinks several times before responding, “You had—. You don’t recall making the request? I dare say I would be offended if I hadn’t just agreed to move past the event. Although, I suppose I can sympathize with feeling out of touch with the rest of the world for a period. No, no spellbooks as of yet, at least as far as I’m aware. Several codexes in script even I don’t fathom, but they don’t appear like the runes in the books you’d left in the primary library.”
As I motion for Nala to show me the peculiar codexes, she brings one out, and it takes my linguistic enchantment spell a moment to translate what I’m looking at. It seems like some sort of operations manual. It might even be for something like a shield of lacrimosa trifecta. Well wouldn’t that just beat all. Working to protect our ongoing build project of just such a shield, and some mite-hulk or something in the attacking hordes, drops an instruction manual for the very thing we’re building. Maybe. It’s a fair deal confusing. I’m definitely going to want to read through this, to make sure Teddy and Spice got everything right, before we get back to Can’Z’aas.
Sighing, I try not to think the phrase, “if we ever do,” and fail. As my gaze becomes downcast, and my muscles sag droopily, Nala appears concerned for my wellbeing. I mumble, “It’s um, instructions. Instructions that I think might apply to something we were building back home on Can’Z’aas. Everything is riding on that construction, and maybe this might confirm that we got things right, but it also might clue me in that we failed, by missing a critical piece. I couldn’t bear the heartache, wondering if I’ll ever get home, and that if I do somehow get home, if it will be in time to correct a mistake, or add a missing piece.”
Curator wears a sympathetic half-frown and nods my way. I offer, “I’d like to help you finish the main library’s sorting, or, well, at least this period of relevancy scores, sometimes in the next week. I’d be very grateful if you spent any time here at all, with any of either the library, or the vaults, or that crafting room over there. There should be tools and machinery that can help you produce gears and clockwork. I’d be honored if you’d avail yourself of any of our resources, and I trust you to take care in touching or sorting magical artifacts that may become soulbound at a touch.”
Nala’s stern features are grimly neutral, but she nods her assent. As I walk away, she calls, “I’ll hold you to it Schism, so do come back from battle in one piece. I implore you that much, friend Reggie.”
I gulp the sudden frog caught in my throat as I offer a polite wave behind me, over my shoulder, so that I don’t have to look Nala in the eyes after such a kind statement. It’s too bad for me that she’s touch averse, or a request like that would have me returning from the battlefield to seek her out and embrace her warmly as proof of my safety.
Is that the Dormir? I’m glad they’re cycling in through the shop, but I’m not sure if I can deal with Iylynila’s teasing right now. They’re standing around the cauldron with Teuila, wondering what to do with it, so that’s my cue. Thankfully Te thought to create a relatively appropriately sized fire pit for it.
Approaching on a telekinetic surfboard, I billow the sandy-illusion out of the cloak by casting one of its spells. I conjure enough water to fill the massive cauldron in a single short splash. I’m tempted to cheekily use the cloak’s other spell to conjure a small lightning cloud overhead to strike the wood in the fire pit, but we’ve got several fire dragons at hand, who all take the appearance of water as a cue to light the pit. Plus, the lightning cloud might actually have rain, which could put out the fire.
A bit worriedly, the cauldron seems larger than I remember it. If it’s changing shape or size, that could make things a bit awkward. As is, Teuila’s going to have to find a stepladder to stir it. Or just stand on people’s heads weightlessly like she is, the goof. She flashes me her derpy closed-eyed mile-wide smile, happy that I’m thinking semi positive, teasing thoughts about her. We take this brief moment to share our smiles, reveling in being in love with each other. I have to look away as my eyes begin to wet with tears, though that might be the smoke from the fire.
We don’t exactly have anywhere to vent smoke, and I don’t want any sort of path to the surface. I don’t want there to be any possible way that an enemy with some sort of slippery form, or movement through sight or cracks ability might be able to stumble down here. Hell, I bet if most dragons thought about doing it, they could stretch themselves far longer and thinner than they do in their human forms, quite possibly making it through very narrow crevices. This train of thought leads to me thinking of Xayla. They are someone who looks a bit stretched out, even ganglier than Nala, and Nala’s a bit of a string bean.
I kind of want to go up and smack the back of Illy’s head, for various teasing thought trains she’d created. Thought trains that now lead to me comparing how slender individuals are, and what that does to my mind’s appraisal of their aesthetics. She went and had to try to define a type for me, gray and slender, when she was teasing me in the feasting hall. I won’t jokingly slap her though, it definitely isn’t worth it, especially if I couldn’t convince her why I had done it now was her fault. Which, honestly, it wouldn’t be. It would be me being juvenile and petty, lashing out for any tease that I remember from the last few days.
Plus, let’s be honest, if my brain is fixating on slender and beautiful, immediately after Teuila, and Errissa, Illy and Kinzul would be the first—. Dangit brain. Just, friggin’, just interact, okay? Interact with the world around you, and shut up Reggie. Uh. Okay, yes, a bit of an oxymoronic command. I roll my eyes at myself as I swoop lower telekinetically surfing towards the Dormir, where Teuila stands atop Illy’s shoulders.
Illy tries to tease Teuila by pretending that she’s going to look up her skirt, but Teuila laughs at the concept. Te is wearing padded under-armor clothing beneath her dress, and even if she weren’t, there’s nothing in that region, just bare digital flesh.
Teuila turns the tables on Illy by teasing, “So, you do want to get a good look at my nethers huh? Maybe you should stop by our chambers later tonight then.”
The turnabout of course is Illy, flustered though she is, stating, “I might just do that then, ya never know.”
I feel bad that I can tell it sets Teuila’s heart fluttering, imagining Illy showing up in her bedroom, with salacious things on her mind. Even if any of those ideas beyond kissing were possible, I know that Illy wouldn’t attempt them. She’s still stringing Teuila along about the possibility of sharing kisses at most. Still, Illy’s attempted turnabout failed, as Teuila is now simply making eyes at her and grinning derpily.
I’m not even certain that the cauldron needs heat, because I’m pretty sure just stirring the water turns it into stew. Still, hot stew is better than cold, so we might as well let it go a bit, stirring it, and setting out bowls for people as they take turns. While I’m surprised at the amount of dishes and silverware there was in my inventory, there still won’t be enough for everyone here. But at least we’ve got the soap stone to clean dishes instantly, and we could always use stoneshaping magic to just make more bowls and crude spoons.
I could fill the cauldron seven more times just with spells from this cloak alone. I’ll roll it back up and put it in my hyperdimensional haversack through the dimensional pouch for now though until the cauldron is empty at least. I think I left my haversack where we slept up against Lucky, or hidden under the shop stall. Yeah, that’s where it was, I stuffed it under the shop stall this morning when I was getting everyone situated to begin buying things.
Trying to find Luni, I call out telepathically, “Hey Lu? Since you were dealing with the shops so much back in Can’Z’aas, did you get any sense of what might determine if someone’s goods were high quality? Yours and Kinzul’s are flawless, but you know that my produce looks like crap by comparison.”
After a moment of pondering, Lu responds, “I don’t really get a sense that there’s any rhyme or reason to it honestly. I mean, sure, we all expected Kinzul’s goods to be perfect, and they were, but none of us knows why that is. Hehe, sorry, thinking about perfect goods, Kinzul’s specifically. Sorry sweety, please forgive me.”
I snort half a laugh and roll my eyes at Luni having derailed her own thought train. It’s fine, at least she didn’t throw me under that bus to try to get me to picture them while I’m still recovering emotionally. I’ll do it plenty myself now that I’m thinking about them. Ah, yes, there’s the wavelength of mirth beneath Kinzul’s telepathic bond that indicates she knows exactly what the two of us are currently accidentally fixated on. I’m incredibly glad for her graciousness about the matter. My mind is trying to remind me that graciousness rhymes with curvaceousness. Why brain, why?
Sighing, I roll my eyes at myself. Finding much more important matters to address, I need to figure out how we can distribute the food to far more people at once, so that I can refill the cauldron, and do it again, several times quickly. We could haul the cauldron to the feasting hall, and maybe divert the spring into it, so that I don’t even have to be the one filling it, but I’m leary of leaving such a priceless artifact up in the area that has direct access to the outside of Mount Solace.
I suppose I don’t need to create an assembly-line of a food delivery system, since most of these people subsist on eating rocks and metals, with the occasional supplement of meat.
Ack, what the heck Illy? While I’m standing nearby, trying to brainstorm ways to make things more effective, Iylynila throws one arm around my shoulders and brings me in for a headlock, arranging me in prime noogying position. Thankfully she doesn’t have her other hand free, because she’s apparently done the same thing to Teuila.
Illy chastises Indy, while managing to string Teuila along by stating, “Look Indy, if, and I’m saying a big if, if I wanted that, these two shnookums right here would be the top of my list. I just shot down Veril yesterday, what makes you think you had a shot today? Don’t answer, I don’t want to know if you and Farzee are on the outs again. You want reasons why these two are at the top of the list? Fine. Schism’s got the charisma, and presence to call me on my mischief, without denying the possibility or playfulness, and Tenith is just plain rambunctiously sexy.”
Wait, is she talking about when I called her out in the infirmary, by daring her to kiss me again? That endeared me to her? Teuila answers my mental questions telepathically, “Yeah, apparently she’s been thinking an awful lot about it. Not sure if she’s more sorry, or more regretful. We were talking a little while ago while I was getting the cauldron set up. That’s what got this whole fight started with Indy. She didn’t go into specifics, but, well, yeah.”
Aloud, Teuila grumbles, “I’m not sure that’s an adjective that works for sexy.”
Illy teases, “Maybe not, but for you it does.”
Teuila can’t help beaming happily at Illy, despite knowing she’s being teased. I’m glad she enjoys herself. Teuila easily slips free of the headlock, and I’m afraid she’s going to punch Indy for a second before I realize what she’s doing. She used her weird illusion-step technique to slip free of Illy’s grasp, and jokingly cast the illusion of her running up to punch Indy, but she’s staying right here beside Illy.
As the illusion rushes directly up to Induul, he flinches, because who wouldn’t once you get to know Teuila? This ends with a conspiratorial grin between the two women. I’m personally trying not to join the smile, because I don’t want to deal with any more hostility from Induul than I already have, or have to.
I turn about-face in my headlocked position so that I face Illy’s brightly smiling head. She floats a wink my way, and I squint my eyes at her. She tilts her head enough to kiss me on the cheek, and I’m very tempted to follow through on my earlier threat. I can tell she knows it, as she loosens her grip about my neck and kisses my forehead in apology.
Illy mutters, “Sorry, again, Schism. Tomorrow’s going to be a hell of an interesting day, huh?”
For some reason, I’m tempted to say, “Sister, you don’t know the half of it,” but that doesn’t make sense at all. Instead, I shrug and offer a polite half-smile. I’m really torn here, because Illy keeps pushing boundaries, and I’m not exactly averse to where those boundaries lead, but she’s not explicitly giving consent for me to react. She rather implies the opposite. Then, when she realizes I call her out on the boundary testing, leaving the possibility open, she’s apologetic, but is she sorry for having pushed the boundaries, or sorry that she’s not ready to consent to a reaction on my end?
Telepathically Teuila once again confirms, “Yeah, Illy was kinda basically hinting at that, like I said. She wasn’t sure more if she was sorry, or regretful, or both. I’m kinda worried that I may have accidentally whammied her to you at some point. I swear I haven’t whammied anyone else since you! I’m just worried, because it sounds like it’s eating her up enough that she’s obsessing over it. Kinda like how she worried about when she was talking to us.”
I wear a half frown, because now I feel obligated to stay away from Illy, someone that I actually greatly enjoy the company of. Casting a glance at her from where I’ve walked away to, she wears an abashed expression when she catches me noticing her with a less than happy look on my face. I want to smile at her, I want to wink back at the winks, and play along, but it’s really the wrong time for me, to have other people pushing these buttons.
I’m pretty sure that there’s just been a lot of drama, and shake up recently, what with new faces, and new friends and all, and Illy’s likely a bit more shook up than she lets on. She might be on a bit of an overload, or some kind of rush or high, from the sudden influx of new potential romantic webs, and could be acting out, based on those curiosities of hers, unintentionally putting herself in the middle of one or more of those webs as more than just an observer.
All that will probably calm down in a week or two, but until then, she’s probably going to accidentally build something up in her mind with anticipation. I just hope she doesn’t break her own heart, by doing something she’ll end up regretting. I’m fine with the idea of her inserting herself among our inner circle, testing the waters between me and Teuila, and all. Hell, I like the idea, a lot. But I don’t want her to get herself hurt, by thinking she wants something, and acting on it, from possibly being a little too excited by something else, then regretting having acted.
Lady Kinzul comments, “I shall keep all that in mind about my daughter, as your observations are quite often astute, Schism. I too would not like to see her hurt.”