77 – Strong bonds

Ishrin was holding his side, hands stained with thick freezing blood while the magic in his system was running wild from the disrupting properties of the null-magic crystal he had been stabbed with. A few paces away, stuck in a retreating position by the advance of the ice, was Sir Westys. His head was free of the ice, but the rest of the body was encased in it. He was holding the long and crooked knife, the tip of the crystal chipped and about to shatter from the force it had been subjected to when it had penetrated Ishrin’s layers of armour.

Armor which had failed to protect him from the anti-magic weapon. The outer layer, the one made of pure magic, was flickering like a broken holo projection from Mekano’s world. It sported a ragged hole with uneven contours, and the colour of the magic was dull and weak, its power spent in a futile attempt to defend its user from a tool made to counter its magic. The tip of the knife had gone deeper, penetrating the physical armour as well and hitting Ishrin’s new meridians, disrupting the flow of mana in his body and causing terrible backlash from his ritual.

Ishrin fell to his knee. Melina gasped, but she couldn’t rush to him, surrounded as he was by icy magic. Lisette didn’t care about the ice, and ran to him, struggling as the last white ring of the ritual spent itself against her armor.

“Ishrin!” She was yelling, her voice colored by more emotion than anyone had ever heard from her before.

“Ow.” He cried, reaching to his wound with a hand. He pulled something out from the wound: it was the missing tip of the knife, still embedded in his flesh. He slammed it on the ground so hard it shattered. “Fuck, it hurts.”

Lisette stared at the wound, for a moment unable to think or move. She was holding him, but her mind was racing with garbled thoughts. She felt, somewhat distant, that Melina was here too, and she was massaging her back for some reason. Her back did hurt, actually. But why wasn’t Melina worried?

She looked again. There was no blood now. But she was sure that there had been blood before, and yet it now felt like she had dreamt it all up, and that there had never been any blood in the wound, or pieces Ishrin had to dig up at all. His magic felt fine, if one ignored the frazzled edges of his protective spell and only considered his internal mana. In fact, now that she looked at it, the knife Sir Westys was still holding onto looked battered and damaged, so much so that she thought he had tried to slam it into a solid rock wall and not into some leather armor that should have parted before the sharp blade without much resistance.

Then Ishrin was digging around his armor where the wound should have been, but wasn’t.

A blue light shone from the hole in the leather. Then a cube came out of there.

It was Liù. The little indestructible cube that held her consciousness flew out of the hole and circled around Ishrin’s head like a little moon orbiting her planet.

Lisette was confused. She felt herself mutter things under her breath, trying and failing to understand what was going on. She vaguely remembered that Liù was able to create illusions, holograms—as they called them—and wondered…

“Thank you sweetie,” Ishrin was saying to his pixie, a soothing tone to his voice. The ritual had mostly gone out of control, and he had suffered backlash, and his shielding magic was broken all around him, struggling to reform while still fighting the null-magic effects, and yet his voice showed none of the worry that one would assume would come with it. He regarded his pixie, and showered her in compliments and affection.

No problem! I protect you!

“Was it all planned?” Lisette heard herself ask, and her mouth was wide open yet in disbelief.

“It was a contingency,” Ishrin stated, groaning as he stretched and shattered some ice that was clinging to his feet, having crawled inwards when the ritual had lost cohesion. “It hurt like hell, but it worked.”

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

Melina’s voice came from beside her, making her wonder just when the fox-girl had gotten this close to her. “The cube is truly indestructible, then!” She stared in disbelief, “not even that crystal can damage it.”

“I was a bit worried there for a while,” Ishrin admitted, but then he could speak no more as two people crashed into him like moving carriages. The girls were clinging to him, holding him tight. Melina was even sobbing lightly, little hiccups she struggled to keep down. Lisette’s face was unreadable, but there was a soft undertone to her eyes, which instead hardened with hatred whenever she shot glances at the still figure of Sir Westys, still a statue of ice save for his head.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said, voice breaking, “this… this really means a lot to me, you know? That you care about me so much? That you were worried about me?”

They had fought the energies of the ritual when they had ran amok, putting themselves in danger just so they could reach him. Now they were clinging onto him like he was their lifeline.

Melina gave him a warm smile, and it alone could have melted all the ice. “Of course we are, dummy!”

“I did indeed worry about you. Twice, today, in fact.” Lisette said. She too was hugging Ishrin, but one arm was also wrapped around Melina. “I worry about the both of you. You are my… friends.”

The way she said the last word was strange, as if she didn’t like the flavour of it.

Tears welled up in Melina’s eyes, and Ishrin saw that her tail couldn’t stop moving around.

“Next time don’t walk into an ice ring.” Melina lightly punched the other girl. “You made me worry!”

“I was worried myself.” Lisette said. “I did not care about the ice ring.”

“But I did! I do care about you! Okay?” Melina said, lightly punching Lisette again.

Lisette stared blankly. “You… do?”

“Of course I do! Dummy you, and dummy you too, Ishrin! Why are you two both so hopeless?”

Lisette shrugged. “I am learning. I think that Ishrin is a bigger… dummy than me.”

They laughed. And it was nice, it felt nice. When they were done laughing, Melina pressed her forehead against Ishrin’s, leaving room for Lisette to join as well. She did, even though it took her a while to muster the courage. Her skin was cold, and wet, but none of the three cared about that particular issue. She felt the warmth from their bodies spread to hers, and she realized that she was shivering despite being a Tier 6 cultivator, but the heat from the other two soothed her and soon enough she was feeling warm and bubbly, like she had excess energy she needed to shed.

“Promise me you won’t put yourself in danger again,” Melina said, locking eyes with Ishrin first and then with Lisette, so that neither of the two could be sure she was talking to one of them in particular.

“I won’t, but only if you promise as well.” Ishrin said.

Lisette hummed. “That. What he said.”

There was a playful smile on her face, making Melina’s eyes widen. Then her own face turned mischievous. “Oh yeah?” She asked, and her voice was honey, sweet and thick. “I want a kiss for that.”

Lisette was stunned.

“No? No takers? Then—”

Ishrin scoffed, “I know what you want. Things have changed from last time we tried this, haven’t they?” He pulled her to him. He pecked her on the lips, soft and shy, their skin touching for but a moment.

“There, happy?”

Melina put a finger on her lips and hummed. “Something’s missing,” and she motioned at Lisette with her fingers.

Lisette shyly, almost mechanically copied what Ishrin had done.

Then Melina beamed. “Better! Now you two!”

Ishrin and Lisette stared at one another for a long time. He knew what Melina was doing. He had seen Lisette try to take her first baby steps into the world of emotions and feelings, but he was unsure if this was wise. He worried that Melina was pushing her too much. Lisette had her eyes closed, waiting.

He shook his head. He couldn’t do it. He was about to pull away when he felt a rush of heat, then the heat vanished in a flash of wind, displaced air from a movement too fast to see. Except that Lisette was blushing furiously, and his worry melted into a smile.

“We got a triangular promise, then.”

“Yes,” it was Lisette who picked up on the bad pun, surprisingly, “fortunately all vertices connect. I would have been quite uncomfortable if they had not.”

Melina squeezed her eyes at the woman. “Does this mean that you don’t see us as just… friends, anymore?” She said, spelling the word ‘friends’ the same way Lisette had before, when the word had tasted bad to her mouth.

“I do not think so, no.” Lisette said.

Then they hugged again, but they were suddenly very mindful of their surroundings, like teenagers just now realizing they did something they should have kept hidden.

“What do we do with them?” Ishrin asked, pointing at the four statues of ice. The sight of Sir Westys struggling to break free and failing was quite amusing, and the trio shared a laugh that melted all tension before letting go of the hug and returning to a more professional behavior. There would be time to explore these new bonds that had been forged today, together.