Driving home, I'd been half afraid that Joanna would immediately want to go testing my strength of will with requests for more snuggling. Thankfully, this turned out not to be the case; when she said she didn't want to be alone, that was apparently literal. When I let her in, she immediately flopped down on my couch with a relieved sigh. "Thanks. I really didn't want to go home to an empty apartment today."

"Sure. But just to be clear, you're not staying the night."

"Of course, of course. Just... gimme a few hours to get my head on straight?"

"Yeah, I can do that."

She looked over at the console connected to my FV set. "Got any good games?"

"Just a few. Main one's Chanaq'era Street; my roommates and I would get up to some truly epic matches."

She shook her head, laughing. "Oh no. You do not want to play a fighter against me! It kinda... brings out the demon within, and for me that's really not a metaphor." Seeing my raised eyebrow, she explained, "I don't act like myself. I get hyper-competitive, trash-talk to the point of sometimes saying actually hurtful things, and so on."

"Ever actually try to... you know? Jump someone while playing?" She shook her head. "Good; that's really the only inner demon I'm worried about."

I tossed her a controller and loaded up the game, and we proceeded to spend the better part of an hour virtually beating the crap out of each other's avatars. She turned out to be surprisingly good at it, even if she did occasionally start wildly button-mashing and swearing like a sailor when I pulled off an unexpected move.

"Get back here, you misbegotten son of a feeble-minded prairie vole!" she growled when I dodged what would otherwise have been a spectacular combo. "I'll rip your tail off and tie it around your—"

"You know I'm human, right? No tail?"

"Huh?"

She looked up at me, blinking for a moment. Taking her eyes off the game. Big mistake. One combo later she was arching her head back, screaming, almost roaring in frustration... which quickly dissolved into a fit of giggles. She took a bit to compose herself, then smiled over at me. "...thanks. That was surprisingly therapeutic."

"Sure! And I gotta say, I'm surprised at how good you are at this."

"Because I'm a girl?"

I rolled my eyes at her. "Because you live alone and have inherent difficulty getting together to practice with other gamers."

"Why does that matter? I can still play online!"

"Seriously? How do you deal with lag?"

She shrugged. "Good connection at my place."

"I suppose... still doesn't beat the real deal in my opinion."

"Yeah, well opinions are like opera," she retorted. "You could listen to them, but... why would you?"

"What?" I scoffed. "Where did you even hear a line like that?"

A shrug. "Don't remember; I just picked it up somewhere. It was funny so it always stuck with me."

"Well hey, what matters is, you're feeling better now, right?"

She bit her lip. "...a bit. I'm still kinda scared."

"Because of the Choosing? It really shouldn't change much, should it? Last Emperor was a Preservationist, so is this one. Yay for the status quo, right?"

"Because of the fighting. It looks like the Transformationists are deliberately trying to spark open violence, and... you know it wasn't that long ago that people were lynching 'demon-spawn' in the Empire."

"Not that long ago? It's been illegal for 70 years, and the last known case of it happening outside the law was... dunno the exact date, but I think a couple decades before either of us were born."

She sighed. "I know. I know. Rationally, I know it's dumb to even worry about, but... fears and emotions aren't always rational."

"Fair enough."

"Thing is, even if those days were before my time, they weren't before my grandma's. I was kind of raised on scary stories of not-so-distant-past days."

"Your grandma. Is she the one who..."

"Yeah."

"She still around?"

"No. Passed on about six years back. It was rough but... so was her life, so she's doing better now."

"I can't even imagine," I said softly.

"I kind of can. What happened to her, against her will... I've got a bit of that inside me. I know how it feels, how overwhelming it can be. And how terrible you can end up feeling afterwards."

I held up my hands towards her. "Hey, hey, no confessing past sins. I'm not your boyfriend, or your Esott."

"Well that's good!"

"Huh?"

She giggled as she realized how that must have sounded. "The Esott part I mean. That would be a bit weird seeing as how I'm not even Meþasite!"

"Fair enough. But yeah, demon bloodline or no, everyone has stupid crap in their past that they regret."

"You ever get a reputation for it?"

"I'm serious, no past sins. Yeah, you'd probably win at 'who's done the worst stupid crap?' but that's not a game I like to play."

"All right."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"So who do you follow then?" I asked, mostly to change the subject. "Or do you?"

"Promise you won't laugh?" I gave her a solemn nod, and she answered, "Daheþ."

"Not gonna laugh, but I am a bit surprised by that. Your... gaming aggression notwithstanding, you don't really come across as the berserker type."

She rolled her eyes. "You know that's only one piece of his portfolio."

Then it clicked for me. "You follow him as the Father of Struggles, not the Raging Warrior. Because your life, your nature, is a constant struggle?"

"Exactly. The whole core of Daheþi doctrine centers around self-mastery, and the precept that the ability to overcome the world around us stems directly from our ability to overcome the flaws in our own selves." She gave me a wistful little smile. "I know you Builders believe in fixing the flaws, but that doesn't really work for me."

"And Daheþ does. I hear ya."

"Good," she said, smiling at me. "I'm glad that's not, like, weird to you or anything."

I snickered at that. "Come on, Joanna. Everything about you is kinda weird; why single out your faith?"

She groaned and rolled her eyes. "You're so mean to me!" she said, laughing.

"The cruelest!" I replied, nodding agreement and trying my hardest to keep a completely straight face, which only made her laugh more. It wasn't really that funny, but... I guess the humor feels bigger when you don't have too many people you can do this with?

She picked up her controller again. "Let's try some online play, 2v2. See if we're any good as a team."

"I'm telling you, online play is awful."

She shrugged. "Let's try it anyway!"

So we did, and it was surprisingly smooth. "How is this... like... bearable?" I asked after the first few rounds. "Every time I tried in college, there were very noticeable frame-drops left and right."

"Maybe your connection just sucked there?"

"Maybe, but I never really noticed it for other stuff."

"Most browsing isn't as sensitive to latency, both upstream and downstream, as gaming."

"...good point. Never really considered that before, but you're probably right."

She smirked playfully. "Never doubt me. Ever."

"Neeee-veeerrr dooooubt..." I droned in a "under compulsion" voice, casting a minor illusion to make little spirals swirl in my eyes.

Joanna raised an eyebrow. "Oh! Has your will been overwhelmed by mine? Hmmm... walk around like a chicken."

I laughed, dropping the illusion. "Sorry, can't compel someone to do something that goes against their nature!"

"Spoilsport."

"Hey, there is one thing I wanted to ask you about."

"Trying to change the subject, are you?"

"When the current subject is the appropriate rules for a fake compulsion game? Why not!"

"Point. What's the question?"

"Remember those 20 dungeons you were talking about on Saturday?"

"Yeah?"

"Has anything weird happened at any of the other sites recently?"

"No idea. I told you it's not something I follow closely or anything like that."

"Still. You know more about it than I do."

She pulled out her phone. "OK... define recent?"

"Umm... I think since the Emperor died, so... the past week? Wow, has it really only been a week?"

"Gimme a sec." She spent a few minutes running searches, then shook her head. "Not seeing anything except a few minor notes about what happened with us, and even that's barely mentioned."

"So you're saying that the people who're always trying to make a big deal about these dungeons didn't even notice when something that was legitimately a big deal happened at one them?"

She nodded. "Hey, no one ever accused conspiracy nuts of being smart."

"Sure, but you'd think they'd at least be... I dunno. Focused?"

She let out a little chuckle. "I guess not."

Then a thought occurred to me. "Does Dyralight have branch offices near any of the other dungeons?"

"Lemme check." Poke poke tap tap. "Huh. Seven of them, including ours. Why are you asking?"

"Just a hunch. When the Big Guy heard that something had happened at this one, he immediately dropped everything to interview the two of us in person as quickly as possible. Almost as if he were somehow expecting or planning for it. It's not too much of a leap from that to the idea that he arranged a branch office here, with multiple sponsored delving teams from that office, specifically with the intent of monitoring this dungeon, and from there to the idea that he might do the same thing elsewhere."

She gave me an uncomfortable look. "I dunno, Brad... that's straying a bit close to conspiracy nut territory for comfort."

I lowered my voice. "I wish I could explain, but he put me under oath to not talk about it. But there's something very significant that happened there. Something that drew his interest, and that really seemed to freak him out."

She scrunched up her face. "Was there... another man?" I nodded slowly. "It's really hazy. It shouldn't be, should it? You somehow found someone, maybe the person those celestials were looking for? And I can barely remember him!" She looked at me. "And that man... he scares a great dragon?"

"Maybe."

"And you think this had to do with the Emperor's death somehow?"

"Rumors about him being murdered to steal the Fast Keys have been flying all week. And then we have Outsiders showing up in a dungeon connected to the past Age. It's hazy, but it all seems to fit together somehow."

"And whatever's going on, we're in the middle of it?"

"We were for one moment, at the very least. In the future? I have no idea."

"It kind of scares me that that wild theory actually makes sense." She gave me a very vulnerable look. "I mean it; I'm feeling afraid now."

I took a slow, deep breath. "Do you need another hug?"

"You say that like you're dreading it."

"Let's just say I'm not a fan of having my mind whammied, even if you're not doing it on purpose."

She looked away. "I understand."

I sighed and stood up, opening my arms a bit. "No, come here."

She had to understand what something like this cost me, because her eyes were moist with gratitude as she stood up and crossed the room towards me. "Thank you," she murmured, just barely loud enough for me to hear, as she put her arms around me. I held her and let her just rest her head on my shoulder. "It's just a hug," she whispered. "It really shouldn't feel this good! But no one's done this for me since..."

That was the same point she'd stopped talking last time. "Since?" Talking about stuff gave me something to focus on, to distract from the urges her aura was assaulting my mind with.

"Gods, Brad, I... I'd almost forgotten my dad. I loved him so~o much as a little girl, and he gave the best cuddles! But once puberty hit, my aura began to manifest, and..." she trailed off with a little sob half-catching in her throat.

Oh crap. "Please tell me he didn't—"

"No! No, of course not!" she said immediately. "But what he did do... it was almost as bad. Maybe worse. Brad..." she sniffled, then continued, "he left us! He left us so that he wouldn't do anything to me!"

"Jaws of Daheþ! I'm so sorry, Joanna..."

"Some kids," she whimpered, burying her face in my shoulder, tears starting to stream from her eyes, "they... they... their parents break up and they blame themselves, they think it was their fault, because when you're a kid everything obviously revolves around you. But my dad literally did leave because of me~e!" She was just full-on sobbing into my shoulder now.

I gave her a tight squeeze around her back with one arm, the other gently stroking her hair, trying to soothe her. "And you've been carrying all this baggage ever since?"

"Mmhmm!"

"Then you are one ridiculously tough girl, to be able to bear all of that," I whispered softly.

Sniffle. "Brad?"

"Hmm?"

"Maybe it would actually be nice, if you were my boyfriend?"

I would really love to do that. "You need to go," I said abruptly, disengaging from her and stepping back a few steps.

She gawked at me, eyes still red and soaking. "What the Abyss, Brad?"

"You can use the bathroom to compose yourself, but... go. Don't talk to me the rest of the week unless work requires it. At the end of the day on Friday, if you still feel the same way when you're clear-headed and have had time to think it over, then we'll talk."

She balled her hands into fists and her face contorted in a mask of anguish. "I hate you!" she whispered fiercely. Then she looked over at me, eyes going wide as she realized what she'd just said. "No, no, not you. I mean..."

I nodded. "The succubus."

"You actually get it?"

"I... think so?"

"If it wasn't for that... thing in me, if I could just be a normal tiefling girl or even human, life would be so incredibly much simpler, but she butts in and screws up everything!"

"Please," I reiterated, "you need to go. Turns out I'm like your dad with more than just giving good hugs."

She took one of those long, shuddery sighing breaths that comes after a heavy cry, then nodded, retreating to my bathroom, and was out the door a few minutes later, leaving me alone with some heavy emotional baggage, some intensely raging passions that weren't even beginning to cool yet, and tear stains soaking the upper left side of my shirt.