"...and then KB (Medical) grabbed me! I thought we were going to crash into everything!"

Lady Razoralia took a sip from her teacup, looking at Brock thoughtfully above the rim.

"H'you are too meek," she finally said in a stern tone. "If h'you did not want KB to carry you to work, h'you should have informed it so. You need to stand up for h'yourself more."

Brock scoffed, dipping his mug into the still-steaming bucket for another serving of objectively delicious tea. The crackling ionic clouds hovering above it had given him pause at first, but after realizing they offered a comfortable tingling not unlike a vigorous massage, he was on his fifth refill. Amazingly, the tea didn't seem to make him feel full at all.

"And how am I supposed to do that?"

"First, stop asking so many questions. It makes h'you appear weak and h'uncertain. A lamb surrounded by wolves is h'inevitably lunch."

"That's what I am? A lamb? Also, what's the deal with all the 'chh's in front of random words?"

"H'Your constant bleatings and trembling knees declare the truth of your nature, along with your commoner tongue."

Brock bristled, but Lady Razoralia trampled over his objection, gesturing with her teacup forcefully.

"H'you might argue, but a lamb you are. The constant of your tales so far is h'one of acceptance and submission, bereft of agency." She turned her nose upward. "H'I might have a soft spot for those striving against fate, but only those h'who fight. If you plan to stay h'here, I expect better than a beggar's tale of woe."

"Look," Brock began, aggrieved, but a tiny finger in his chest like a gunshot interrupted whatever he was going to say. Coughing, he looked down into blurring wings behind an expression so icy it was approaching incandescent fury the wrong way around.

"My kin didn't shed blood and lives for eighty-seven generations to have our land serve as sanctuary for some moist-eyed lackwit. I," her eyes tightened, then she darted forward again and slammed another hammer-blow finger poke into Brock's chest, pressing him back against one of the storage room's rusted metal cabinets, "didn't personally hold the line during the Mad God's Carnival to provide an indiscriminate teat for milksop babes."

Lady Razoralia hovered in front of Brock's nose, so close he nearly had to go cross-eyed to focus on her, arms folded in front of her chest.

"The Unloved Emperor may have vouchsafed your aberrantly empathic behavior, but all h'I've witnessed so far is a sniveling worm wallowing in self-pity. These are my lands, and h'if you wish to remain, h'you will develop the spine required to do so or I shall see you gone, treaties bedamned!"

The pixie flitted back to her previous position in a blurring dash, teacup once again held genteelly in front of her face with both hands, stare once again measuring Brock against some unknown weight.

"The next time we meet for tea, h'I expect some measure of progress. H'is this understood?"

"...whut?"

Brock never saw the teacup being thrown, but he certainly felt it. His head whipped back like he'd been struck by a bowling ball, heels flipping up over his ears, and he tumbled backwards through the maintenance closet door with a resounding crash. The next few seconds were spent rolling dizzily across the foyer floor until he finally sprawled to a stop, knees next to his cheeks, eyes spinning across the firefly-galaxy ceiling overhead. A familiar face topped with chestnut curls leaned down into his vision, one eyebrow raised.

"Hey, Brock."

Brock levered himself over onto his side, then into a sitting position.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"...uhhh, hey, Aphrodite. Uhhh, I mean 'Rin,' uhhh, I mean, uhhh, 'Councilor... Softheart?'"

Aphrodite crossed her arms in front of her sheer white blouse in eerie mimicry of Lady Razoralia's earlier gesture. She was dressed slightly more conservatively than the other night, raggedy-holed blue jeans tapering down into stylish low-cut black boots, but Brock still found himself taken aback by her obvious beauty.

That's because it's a skill, idiot. Messing with your mind is her base state of being.

Oblivious to his inner thoughts, Aphrodite spoke in clipped tones.

"You can call me 'Aphrodite' when you know we're around people cleared for it. Otherwise, 'Rin' is fine. First time meeting Lady Razoralia?"

"Uhhh, yeah. We were having tea."

Aphrodite let out a low whistle as she extended a hand and helped him to his feet.

"She invited you for tea on your first meeting? She must like you."

Brock prodded at his forehead, feeling for a dent, but naturally everything was fine, the pain already faded into that strange liminal state that accompanied all of his injuries.

"...she threw a teacup at me."

"Well, you probably said something dumb. She doesn't have much patience. Come on, let's go get some coffee and we can talk about how your day went."

"It went crappy," Brock grumbled, following Aphrodite back out onto the streets of the Sekkie District. He absentmindedly ducked a nut from Seymour as they passed the spreading tree. "What's her deal, anyways? She's a pixie, right? Are they all like her?"

Aphrodite chuckled.

"Lady Razoralia's fairly unique, even by pix standards. The rest of them are a lot more... 'unrefined' would be the best word, I guess. She's basically the only version of nobility they have."

"So, she's like a queen or something?"

"It's tough to explain," Aphrodite said, guiding him into a small side street. Various storefronts lined each side, gaudy and colorful in their attention-drawing schemes, and Brock felt like he'd somehow stepped into the middle of a fair. Aphrodite ignored the neon splendor and stopped a third of the way down with a mild oath of disgust, derailing the conversation.

"Ben, you idiot."

Brock looked around, trying to figure out what she was talking about. They were standing in front of a small, quaint patio entrance backed by a large plate glass door that displayed ornate white calligraphy: "Ben's Beans: The Best Brew In Town." A smaller sign underneath it glowed ominously red, and Brock squinted to read the lettering.

"...'temporarily closed due to parole violation?'"

"It means that dumbass didn't listen to me and decided to keep selling illegal love potions and finally got busted for it," Aphrodite snarled. "Fucking great. Tomorrow's Council meeting is going to be so much fun."

"So, now what?" Brock asked, glancing around. To the left of Ben's Beans was a broad mural of primary colors ending at another entrance, "Dragon Day Care" poking out from above it in chunky woodblock letters. To the right was a set of dingy windows framing a battered steel security door, all of it tagged so heavily the words "Assorted Explosions" were barely visible, along with an array of truly impressive firework displays. Brock felt his attention darting back and forth between the two.

Is that a day care for dragons? Or is it run by dragons? And why on earth would it be that close to things that explode? Don't dragons breathe flame?

"Now," Aphrodite sighed, "we go to Chad's for my coffee, and I fucking hate going to Chad's for my coffee."

"But," Brock waved his hands aimlessly at the rickety, extremely flammable-looking buildings in front of them, one of which he felt certain contained more than its legal share of gunpowder, "what about the dragons and the explosives right next to each other? I feel like that's something that might end badly!"

Aphrodite gave him an uncomprehending stare.

"The system wouldn't have approved the building permits unless they were deemed compatible with surrounding enterprises. Is that what you're worrying about?"

Brock left his arms in the air for another second, then dropped them with an audible groan.

"...uhhh, yeah, I guess. Stupid me. Not knowing that 'the system' would keep them safe, instead of 'compliance codes.' My mistake."

"Loosen up, tightass," Aphrodite giggled. "Everyone knows systems are incorruptible. That's like, rule number one of isekais." She frowned briefly. "Except for the ones that turn out to be fucking with everyone." A sudden pressure engulfed Brock's hands. "Are you sensing that this system might be fucking with us?!"

"Uhhh..."

She laughed in his face, pulling her hands away.

"Brock, whatever system got implemented here, nothing we've been able to do has corrupted it. Ever."

"That's right, Brock!" Bindy agreed energetically, swooping up out of his coat to the disapproval of surrounding passerby. "The system is flawless! Especially when it comes to form 23-C! Let's do some more paperwork! Turn right here!"

"Fuck off, Bindy!" Aphrodite and Brock chorused at the same time, eyes flashing. Somewhat mercifully, Bindy did just that, returning to Brock's pocket in a zipping rainbow of light .

"Seriously," Aphrodite asked after they turned the corner from Ben's Beans into a zig-zagging alley, "how have you not changed your personal assistant settings yet?"

"...I don't want to talk about it."