⸂Emilia?⸃

Emilia groaned and tried to roll over. The beds here were soft, at the very least. That had been the worst thing about leaving the Risen Guard compound: losing the bed. She had no idea how long they’d been sticking around in this place, but if they could keep sleeping in these beds, Emilia might never leave. Screw winning this thing or removing the blood curse. Sleep was more important.

“⸂What are you doing?⸃” she mumbled, trying to pull the leg V had grabbed away from him. “⸂I’m all for sleepy sex, but it’s too early.⸃” It felt like they’d only just fallen asleep.

⸂Astra is outside,⸃ V whispered into her, hands dragging her underwear back up her body. The fabric was wet against her—or she was still wet. It was unclear, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant, and Emilia wrinkled her nose as V pulled her up and manhandled her back into her sweater.

“⸂The room smells like sex,⸃” she said, moving to push herself up. The girl might actually be a teenager, but it still wasn’t appropriate for her to join them in their sex-stained bed, clothed or not.

The other visitor didn’t disagree with her as he pulled on more of his clothing.

“⸂Did you answer the door like that?⸃” she asked, realizing he had been wearing his underwear before working to get her dressed.

V shot her a look that seemed to say, ⸂There was someone at the door. I had to answer it.⸃ That was fair, but also…

“⸂Astra,⸃” Emilia sighed, voice cutting off into a yawn as she blinked down at the little girl. ⸂What’s up, sweetheart?⸃

The only good thing about Astra having arrived at such a terrible hour was that Emilia’s mind was still largely offline. There wasn’t a lot happening up there, so not too much to leak out. Some still leaked out: complaints about her feet being cold, wondering how Astra had found them, wondering if V was coming with them.

⸂Yes,⸃ he replied, hand dragging lazily over her waist before he smiled down at Astra. ⸂Do you want me or Emilia to carry you, little one?⸃

Someone should probably tell the man that Astra was actually a visitor, probably not now—not where people could hear. Visions of speaking to V, of telling him the truth shifted through Emilia’s head, vague and wordless.

…

It was strange, thinking in pictures and feelings as V hauled Astra into her arms—apparently Astra had judged Emilia to be too tired to carry her safely. That was fair. Everything was a blur as V grabbed her hand and dragged her through the hall and up the stairs, her legs sluggish with the remnants of sleep.

Autopilot—it felt like she was running on autopilot. She’d seen her mother do that, when she was younger. The woman would float through the world after a particularly bad night, nightmares tugging at her children’s screams and keeping her awake half the night. Drinks and breakfast would be made, regardless. Buttons safely pressed, children safely delivered to school, despite her brain obviously being elsewhere—in dream land, most likely.

This felt like that: like moving through a dream that wasn’t a dream.

⸂You’re quiet,⸃ V whispered, his hand a grounding force around her own. If he let go, she'd probably float away.

Her mind filled with the image of it: her feet floating upwards as V held her hand, his grip slipping as she shot upwards, floating up a thousand stairs. Where did the stairs end? Was it like the world above, where the Stringer’s estate seemed to exist above the clouds of spicy and hateful heat? Did people live atop these buildings as well, staring into the abyss of the ceiling—of the light eating mechanisms?

Emilia blinked, and they were in front of a door. It was probably their door—hers and the kids. Astra had fallen asleep against V’s neck, and she couldn’t help but reach out her free hand to smooth the girl’s hair down. Her eyes met V’s, and she wondered what he looked like in real life. He didn’t have those double dimples, that she was sure of, her sleepy mind naturally slotting V and another, much younger face together. No wonder she’d always found that dimple so terrible: it didn’t belong.

She shook off visions of that boy’s soft, nervous smile. There was a promise to uphold, one to not search through her memories for answers. It was a promise to herself, granted, but a promise she needed to keep, nonetheless. Her brain still tried, another child overlaying Astra, like it had any right to do such things.

Too fast.

Too soon.

“⸂I’m pretty sure the platform or the maintainer is fucking with me,⸃” she said instead, leaning forward to rest her head against the man’s chest, her eyes fluttering shut.

A hand, rough with calluses, ran through her hair, catching on knots. Had she even combed her hair since she’d arrived? She’d combed Astra and Caro’s and the nameless boy that she would never see again.

[Emilia: what happened to that boy?]

Emilia hadn’t met to send that message—hadn’t meant to bother Boundary with her sleep-deprived nonsense. How was she sleep-deprived? Maybe another result of the Risen Guard’s sleep manipulation; perhaps they’d all actually been getting far too little sleep. That would track. People naturally tired when the lights went out, but only to an extent. Better to shorten both the days and the nights.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

[Boundary: He will be taken care of. Do not worry.]

Nothing followed. Maybe he was sleeping as well, roused because her words had pressed into his mind with too much sleep drunken power.

⸂Emilia?⸃ V called. It didn’t sound like it was for the first time.

She hummed into his chest in acknowledgement. The sound came out too loud, both through the aether and real world, and Emilia cringed, hoping Astra wouldn’t stir. She didn’t.

⸂Why do you think something is messing with your head?⸃

Emilia shook her head, nodded, trying to make the words and thoughts come out as something coherent. The irony that she spent so long trying to silence her internal voice, and now, when she needed it, it was nowhere to be found. ⸂Moments,⸃ she managed to think, her voice sliding through the aether. It may have found its way only into V. Unfortunately, there was no one around to confirm that theory, and if V knew, he didn’t share the fact that sleepy her could control her aethervoice so well—so terribly.

It was probably still terrible, even if she was now mostly silent, the space of her thoughts filling up the quiet of the night.

⸂So many moments. Connections, too, and dreams. Have your dreams been weird?⸃

V tensed under her. That was strange—all of this was strange. Hadn’t that been what she had been trying to say? That something about this world was strange, and she couldn’t place the why of it, except to say it must be for the same reason real-world raids disliked her: they knew her. She had designed the system that lay under all of the magic around them, and it knew that—knew she was the terrible, neglectful mother who had abandoned it to the hands of greed.

It felt like the maintainer was fucking with her, dropping obnoxiously into their raid challenges just to be a jerk. If she ever found out who was behind this raid—and Emilia sure as the stars could, if she really wanted to—she would have a few strong words and punches for them. It was one thing to mess with visitors—heroes—but the locals, too? The kids? There was no need to subject them to the treatment of a rude host, making fun of them.

The maintainer was being an ass, but it hadn’t felt targeted at her—more a game designer pushing at their players for the sake of it.

The friendship thing, though? That felt personal in a way the host didn’t—that felt targeted at her. Of course, she had no way to prove that. Sure, she could ask V if he had experienced anything similar while they were apart, but if didn’t feel like he had, his connections to Fran and Phlostra polite, but distant.

Rather, it felt like the moment they had met, their relationship had formed into something so solid it had become an overwhelming worse within her.

Should she be worried about that? Worried about how much being inside a raid could fuck with people’s minds? She’d already known it could, of course, but not like this. Another mark in her tally of reasons this didn’t feel normal—why it felt targeted. Sil was observant, if he had ever experienced something like this, he would have noticed, and as much as she might not keep up with some of her war buddies, she knew a handful of them played virtual raids a lot.

There was no way they wouldn’t have noticed, just as clearly as she had. No way they wouldn’t have put out a warning to everyone in their group chat: something is wrong with the raids.

Her eyes turned up at V, his head tilted to gaze down at her. Blips and blobs of her thoughts were leaking out, mysterious and unintelligible. That was probably for the best, he didn’t need to hear her mull over why he hadn’t noticed any strangely strong relationships forming. He didn’t need to hear her come to the conclusion that his connection to her was a normal one, grounded in what had existed between them in the real-world, decades prior. Whatever extra now existed between them… had that extra been awoken after years apart? Shifted with the ease of two friends reuniting under different circumstances? A natural progression? Or had it always been there, and she’d just never noticed?

Emilia wasn’t sure what it was—what the reason behind V’s attachment was. It wasn’t the platform. Maybe none of it was. Maybe it was just her being lonely and traumatized and attaching herself onto any friendly face, attracting them to her like she had when she was younger.

⸂Never mind,⸃ she mumbled, nose nudging at V’s neck.

He wiggled, his neck being the sensitive thing it was. She should have sucked another mark onto it, the one she’d left that first night long faded or healed by the system.

There was something silly and sacrilegious about sucking a hickey—a mark of blood and connection—into him in this world that feared blood and delayed romantic connection until it was too late to regret your choice of spouse.

⸂Emilia,⸃ the man hissed, nails dragging over her scalp as she latched on, sucking a beautiful mark across him.

⸂Take that Fran. Proof that this one is mine.⸃

Apparently that one came out as words, V gently whispering a ⸂Yes⸃ into her that made her wish they weren’t about to go tuck themselves into a bed with a bunch of kids. When she got around to seeing her parents again, she really needed to apologize for spending so many nights in their bed. Nothing like kids to kill your sex life.

⸂We should…⸃ she began to say, her eyes already fluttering shut again as words escaped her.

Her hair shifted with a puff of air, amused—at least V was amused by her pathetic sleepiness. They say you can only sleep this well with people you love and trust, from the bottom of your heart. There were so many people Emilia could count that filled that requirement.

Elijah wasn’t one, and the pain of that was sharp against her heart. Expected, but painful all the same. She’s thought their relationship fun, if not long-lasting. When had it become dragging?

⸂Yes, you should,⸃ V said as he slid open the door and manoeuvred them inside.

Emilia wasn’t even sure what she’d said—what he was agreeing with. Maybe Astra had said something to him, or Gale had yelled for them to get their asses inside, to stop disturbing the peace with her splatterings of thoughts, striking out across the world without a need to be heard or understood.

When V shifted her into the bed after Astra, however, the two of them rolling and shifting until Astra was curled between Gale’s back and Emilia’s chest, Caro tucked close against Gale’s front, Emilia found the teenager fast asleep. If she had noticed Astra leave, she hadn’t stayed away to make sure she came back. Emilia wouldn’t have faulted her if she had fallen back asleep—stars knew she had passed out more than a few times through her life, when staying awake was the smarter, less traumatizing thing to do.

Sometimes, it didn’t matter how hard you fought, sleep would come. There, tucked between the warmth of children she loved—children she would shatter when she was parted from them—and the safety of V—of the boy he was and the man he became—Emilia wouldn’t have been able to fight sleep if her life depended on it.