Volcatia woke up.

She'd decided to sleep after a considerable amount of very loud, fun, energetic fucking in Sylmare's nearby tent.

Maybe she'd missed him a little more than she realized?

Maybe.

They'd talked a little during some of the slower times.

It was fine.

Didn't need to make it seem more important than it was.

The important thing was that she'd gotten her hands on those fucking amazing legs of his again.

The green-haired elf was cuddled against her naked chest under a blanket of furs, his fingers softly playing down across her stomach. "That went…better than I'd imagined," he said softly.

She stroked her bare toes against his calf and shuddered.

His legs were almost too fucking good.

His pale skin felt like the softest fabric she'd ever touched.

His muscles were soft but also hard.

When he tensed it like that…

She'd just woken up, and she was already feeling this excited!

What a great start to a day.

She would have gotten some coffee normally, but she was already feeling human enough.

Sylmare leaned his head against her shoulder with a contented sigh.

It was an oddity among the elves that their men behaved more like women.

Some women, anyway.

Volcatia tried to imagine, briefly, the giant Salonina behaving like this, and the absurdity of it almost made her laugh. She drew circles on the elf's back with her finger, and he snuggled in closer.

She could maybe imagine herself getting used to this.

Maybe.

She had once.

More than once, if she thought about everyone she'd ever woken up next to.

It was fun sometimes.

As much as she hated being alone, she needed time to herself too though.

A frown appeared on her face.

She hated being alone?

Since when?

She'd reluctantly admitted to herself that maybe Aquila might possibly have been sort of right, and she'd been a tiny bit lonely, but that wasn't the same as hating being alone.

Or was it?

Nah, those were all depressing thoughts.

Volcatia didn't feel like being depressed now.

What did she feel like doing?

Talking more with Sylmare now risked things getting weird. He was already a little weird after killing and burying his sister the night before, and Volcatia knew herself well enough to realize that she'd only say something stupid and upset him if she stayed for too much longer.

She…sort of wanted to stay though.

There was something she felt when she was with Sylmare that she didn't feel with most others she'd been with.

Nah, that wasn't right.

Couldn't be.

They enjoyed spending time together, yeah, and they enjoyed fucking together, but that was it.

She wasn't going to be confined.

Sylmare shifted a little on top of her and kissed her neck.

Fine.

She'd stay a while longer.

But she wasn't being confined.

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"Catia, you're amazing," Sylmare panted, now laying on his back.

Volcatia brushed her fingertips against the top of his thigh and bit her lip.

How were his legs so fucking great?

It shouldn't have been possible.

She'd forgotten how great they were.

"Thanks," she said.

It was something she tried to say more often now.

Even when it didn't seem like it mattered.

"As amazing as you are," he said, pausing to arch his back for a moment, "will it trouble you if I ask for some…time to myself?"

Her hips rocked slowly. "No?"

She was reaching a point where she might have agreed to almost anything.

"Thank you," Sylmare said. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Volcatia leaned forward to kiss him, and they both began to moan.

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"That was fucking great," Volcatia said as she sat up.

She blew out a breath and brushed her hair up and out of her eyes.

She'd really needed this.

It had been a long fucking time since she'd felt this fucking human.

"I didn't realize how much I'd missed this," Sylmare said weakly. He lay on his back next to her with his arms stretched out to either side and his eyes closed. "I'm tired, but it's a good tired. I…feel happy to still be alive."

"You better not fucking kill yourself when I leave," Volcatia said.

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It was the way most elves died now.

It was the way Sylmare had died once, though that wasn't something that had really happened.

It was the same thing she'd said to him the last time she'd left.

His fingers brushed against her hip. "You've inspired me," he said after a short while. "I'll be here when you come back, no matter how long it takes you."

And he would, at least in the near future.

She'd watched him for a whole month just to make sure.

After she'd cleaned up some pests nearby.

It had been a good way to spend time, she felt.

She hadn't lost even a little of her humanity.

Volcatia put her legs under herself and hopped up onto her feet.

Today was going to be a great day.

She could tell.

She didn't know what she was going to do yet, but it was going to be really fucking fun and interesting.

She crackled a little.

Maybe more than a little.

Sylmare always liked to spectate when she did it.

"I never thought a human could be so beautiful," Sylmare murmured.

Volcatia grinned.

Her body returned to its natural state, saving her the trouble of bathing.

She didn't really have a body anymore though.

Fuck, she had to stop thinking about things like this.

Today wasn't a day for being depressed.

Her clothes were strewn around nearby, but they were easy enough to retrieve and put back on.

Normal, human clothes for a normal, human body.

The exact same body she'd had for the past few years, without even the tiniest change.

Fuck!

She needed a distraction.

She also felt like she was…

Right.

"Inventory," Volcatia called out.

She retrieved the boots she'd bought however long ago for Sylmare and set them down at the side of the tent. "Brought you a gift," she said, looking over at him to see how he'd react.

She hadn't watched this far, and his reaction, whatever it had been when it would happen, hadn't caught her attention.

Sylmare smiled broadly, but he'd closed his eyes once more and didn't open them. "Thank you, Catia."

"You're not gonna look?"

"I'll look when you're gone to remind me that you were truly here," he said while reaching for one of his fur blankets.

Okay, fine, she'd come back soon.

Volcatia leaned down to give him a quick parting kiss.

She stopped herself from making any attempt to touch his legs though.

She was proud of herself for it.

Fine, she'd also watched a couple times while she behaved in a very human-like way and worshiped every part of his legs with her whole body.

Sylmare knew how much she liked his legs.

That he didn't mind was one of the reasons she'd become fond of him.

"I'll come back sooner next time," she said.

"I'll be waiting," said Sylmare.

Volcatia moved outside the tent.

She thought about it for a moment.

What did Sylmare really do when she wasn't around?

Nah, that was really fucking depressing to think about.

She wanted to do something about that, but she didn't really know what she could do.

Yeah, she could kill all the other humans.

There wouldn't be anyone left to hunt him then, and he could maybe join up with all the other elves.

That seemed like not the right way to help though.

Also she was human, obviously, so killing all the other humans would be a weird thing for her, a fellow human, to do.

She wasn't really sure what else she could do.

At one time she'd thought about moving all the remaining free elves to another land across an ocean, but there weren't any good places to take them.

Elves liked to live in forests, she knew.

There were some places like that.

Most of them had giant creatures all over.

Was killing so many other creatures to give the elves a new place to live really what she should do?

And even if she did, there were other issues, since the dirt wouldn't grow plants that could be eaten in some of those lands, and in others there were vast, poisonous swamps, and then there were others where the forests were only on top of mountains so tall there was no air to breathe, and then there were humans too close to the rest.

She might not be smart, but she'd still spent time thinking about it.

Maybe someday she'd figure it out.

For now, she decided to be faster.

Much faster.

An instant passed, and she'd scoured the country-sized forest, killing eighty two humans.

It was the same as killing bugs to her.

She didn't like to, but if they got annoying, it didn't bother her.

She moved again, this time without purpose.

She was back at the same old farmhouse.

She'd just needed to get out of that forest.

Something about it was too fucking depressing.

She'd felt her hard-earned humanity draining away.

This place was really depressing too, but not in the same way.

This was a familiar type of depressing.

A reminder of who she'd been.

Enough of that though.

She needed to figure out what the fuck she was going to do today.

That race was finally happening tomorrow.

Could be fun.

Could also be boring.

But today…

She frowned.

She didn't want to keep depending on Carl to have fun, but he was just so much fun!

Even when he was boring he ended up being at least a little fun.

And then yesterday?

Did they really do that?

It was so weird but also so, so much fucking fun!

She'd just thought up a random idea and they'd done it!

Volcatia sighed.

Having friends was harder than she remembered.

It was like she couldn't think of anything fun to do unless Carl was around now.

Fine.

She moved to the roof of the workshop while she…

What the fuck was all this shit doing here?

There was a blue car, all kinds of tires, other parts of cars, some other shit…

A little interesting.

She wondered briefly at how it all came to be up here on top of the roof, hidden in the spot she'd cleared off for her chair.

When she was done, she moved down to the main floor of the workshop.

Carl wasn't there.

She once again searched thoroughly in case he was playing a joke on her.

One of these times she was sure he would.

That was something friends did.

He wasn't anywhere she could see.

The only person she could see was the automaton fornicatiēns.

Was it a person?

She didn't really care.

It said it was an automaton fornicatiēns, but it had just been sitting there against the wall for the past few days.

Maybe she'd misunderstood it?

Eh.

She didn't care.

Carl had left his chair here, which meant he was still in the city.

Probably.

He really liked his chairs.

She liked the one he'd given her too.

He wasn't hiding in the room with the shower and toilet. She checked inside the toilet, she checked the shower, and she peered into the cracks in the wall just in case.

He wasn't on the stairs.

The only person upstairs was Mina, and she was asleep.

Carl wasn't hiding in any of the crates.

He also wasn't anywhere on the ceiling.

"Where the fuck is he?" she grumbled when she returned to the main floor.

Was he in the dungeon?

"Carl lèft a mêssage for you," said Ignis.

Volcatia scowled.

These dungeon cores could be so annoying!

"Well why the fuck didn't you say that earlier when I was looking everywhere for him?" she demanded.

"You seemed passionate in your search," said Ignis.

Maybe she should have named them all subodiosa.

"Just tell me where he is."

"He has gone fishing at the lake in—"

She moved to a rooftop in D-one.

So annoying.

Were they bugs?

She wasn't totally sure if that was the right use of Carl's sense of the word.

Actually…

Actually.

While she was here, she could do something she was sure Carl had forgotten about.

She'd had so much fun yesterday so she'd do this to pay him back.

Seemed fair.