We reached Lin-Vyme in the early evening that day. The settlement consisted of a stone monastery located on top of a hill and a small town at the foothills. As we were both tired, our first destination was an inn called “Under the Fierce Darhun”, though I think the sign painter made the lizard look, at most, “somewhat angry”. It was also absolutely adorable.

Ren initially suggested that given our allegiances we could try getting a place to sleep at the monastery, it was dedicated to the Old Gods after all, but I shot it down. Going there without Lilyth… felt wrong. I wanted it to be our special moment to share, so “Under the Fierce Darhun,” it was.

As it was slowly getting late the inn wasn’t quite full, but most of the tables were taken.

‘I hope there are rooms still available,’ I whispered to Rennie.

‘I think most of those people are locals, so we should be good?’ she responded, a bit unsure.

As it turned out two of the three rooms available were indeed vacant, so a few minutes later we were putting our things down in one of them. The innkeeper, a dark-haired young man named Malth, looked at Chirpy with suspicion but we assured him that the nesumi was well-behaved. The little beastie nodded along solemnly as we covered his furry ass, which only increased the proprietor’s suspicion. But, eventually, he relented.

‘Just so you know,’ he warned us,’ I will bill you for everything he destroys, you have to clean up after him and if he is loud in the night I will throw you out.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I told him. ‘He won’t be an issue, right, Chirpy?’

I threw the nesumi a warning look, and he eagerly confirmed what I said with a vigorous series of nods.

Someone doesn’t like being under the [Sleep] spell, eh?

‘That’s a weird-ass cat you’ve got there,’ Malth shrugged. ‘It’s almost like it understands what we are talking about.’

Chirpy looked offended by being compared to your run-of-the-mill housecat, but Ren, who was holding him in her hands, squeezed him tightly, which made him assume a neutral expression.

‘It’s just an illusion, don’t worry about it,’ Ren said with a diplomatic smile.

Once we were done unpacking we went down to get ourselves something warm to eat and to try to find out some information. Our first priority was figuring out the cemetery problem. We would figure out the former soldier thing later. Unfortunately, it indeed likely wasn’t a massive problem, as none of the conversations we tried to eavesdrop on while eating the slightly overcooked terilla stew even remotely touched upon it. So with heavy hearts, we had to take a more direct approach. As we were giving back our bowls to Malth, Ren asked:

‘We heard there were some disturbances in the local graveyard. Could you tell us more about them?’

‘You girls, Seekers?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Eh, none of my business, I guess. It’s probably nothing. Over the past few weeks, some folks have been seeing a figure wandering around the cemetery at night. Town militia tried to find them, but they came up empty-handed. There were some animal carcasses found in the forest too, but they had parts of them carved out by knife, so the theory is that likely some vagrant has settled down around here somewhere.’

‘So all the travel here for nothing,’ Ren said with disappointment in her voice.

‘Who knows? Maybe you girls will get lucky and find them. It would definitely put some minds at ease.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘We might as well try. ‘

We thanked him and turned in for the night. To his credit, Chirpy did behave himself, it also meant that once Ren woke up and her naked form rolled off me in the morning, he glomped her and demanded attention.

‘So much for a romantic lie-in,’ I laughed.

‘I guess we have a cuddle partner,’ she chuckled while petting the little critter.

We managed to steal an extra half an hour for ourselves and then it was time to get moving.

As Ren ordered us breakfast I wondered, not for the first time, how would Lilyth and Aki react to us deciding to get together. My mind was definitely a weird place these days. And I did notice that with my wives around I could control myself around Ren. Alone…

Is it because they make me a better person or am I just hiding my true self? Or is it the other way around? Am I the real me while with them?

This led me to another question:

What IS the real me?

I spent most of my life in a place where having a real you was asking for trouble. Then just as I started getting a sense of self I ended up with memories of another me in my head. One that was starting to have this figured out.

Who am I? What am I?

‘What you are, my child,’ I heard Akh'ret's voice, ‘is a, mostly, blank slate. Ask yourself not what you are. Ask yourself who you want to be.’

I don’t know.

‘And that’s a start. You have an objective then, Caeileera.’

Stolen story; please report.

And what do I do about my… romantic issues?

‘Not really my department. Try Nyx. Though from my perspective you are doing fine. Neither of your significant others seems to mind the current arrangements. All of them understand your… unique predicament, and you loving one of them more than the others… is normal in such relationships.’

I felt immense relief when I heard that sentiment from Akh'ret.

That’s… something I needed to hear, I think.’

‘Always here for you, my child. Now go. Ren is giving you strange looks.’

I returned my attention to reality and saw that indeed she was back at our table with some bread and cheese and was staring at me with concern.

‘Sorry, Rennie,’ I quickly said. ‘I got lost in a bit of an… internal dialogue.’

‘Ah,’ she nodded in understanding.

While Lilyth was unconscious we all agreed to limit the number of people knowing about our relationships with the Old Gods to a minimum. Baial agreed to keep quiet, he didn’t want to piss off Ere, and so did Ireela who apparently wanted to forget that the visit from Nyx ever happened. There was also the question of Aldvil, but any talk about the events in Mer-Cas would also involve him likely having to answer some VERY difficult questions.

‘Did you figure anything out, Caei?’

‘Yeah. It answered some questions on... well… me and you and the girls.’

‘Afraid of their reaction to us?’

‘That too… but I was mostly concerned about my feelings being… unequal if that makes sense.’

‘It does, don’t worry. But Lilyth’s and Aki’s feelings are also unequal. So are mine, I guess. From my end, I am fine with sharing you with them.’

That made me laugh, despite myself.

‘’Sorry…’ I quickly waved her hurt expression away. ‘This whole mess started when I agreed with Aki to share Lilyth with her, as we didn’t want any drama. Now I am the one being shared.’

That made Ren laugh too.

‘I can see the irony.’

Just as we were finishing the meal, the door to the inn opened and a figure I never expected to see here entered. It was a tall and broad-shouldered brown-haired man wearing dark blue scale armour and a green tabard with a silver star on it.

A temple dragoon. What was the fucks name? Arca… something.

I looked at Ren who was staring at the soldier in horror.

‘Act naturally,’ I whispered to my girlfriend.

Easier said than done.

The man looked around and noticed us almost immediately. His eyes narrowed and he started approaching us.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

The question was… did he recognize me for what I was or was it Rennie he was after.

I readied myself to summon my glaive when he raised his hands in a placating gesture.

‘Please, don’t be afraid,’ he said quietly. ‘In fact… I want to warn you. There will be an Inquisitor coming here soon. He might not look kindly upon someone of your kind, miss.’

‘My kind?’ I asked carefully.

‘You are one of the Sanguine, aren’t you, miss? I can tell that even if you are missing your wings and mask.’

‘Maybe,’ I said weakly.

‘At any rate, I don’t know what your story is, from my perspective, you are a woman enjoying her breakfast with her friend. The Inquisitor… may see it differently, so I would suggest you make yourself scarce for a while. Go on a long walk and come back in a few hours. We are stopping here for breakfast and then we will be moving south to Denyr.’

‘Thank you. We’ll take you up on that, Ser…’

‘Arcarius. Nice to meet you, miss…’

‘Caeileera,’ I said quickly. ‘Thank you again.’

‘My pleasure. Now… if you’ll excuse me, I need to order some food.’

This guy really isn’t all that bad. If he wasn't involved in the death of Aki’s adoptive dad… fuck. He just likely saved my life, so in my books that evens it out.

‘Go grab our stuff,’ I whispered to Rennie. ‘I’ll go out and wait for you below our window and help you get down.

Our window overlooked a back alley, so I assumed we should be fine.

She nodded, and I hurried outside.

It was just in time because down the street I saw a Darhun-drawn carriage surrounded by two more Temple Dragoons and some soldiers in purple livery I didn't quite recognize. Luckily for me, only two of the unknowns were looking in my direction, the rest were focused on some house, and that pair either didn’t know I was a Sanguine or just couldn't see me well enough to tell.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

After a few heart-pounding moments when I expected to hear the sounds of heavy boots running towards me, I found myself under our window. I summoned a [Floating Disk] and raised myself to be able to look inside. I saw Ren still gathering our things, so I knocked on the window.

That made her jump with a yelp.

‘By the gods, Caei!’ Ren scolded me when she gathered her wits. ‘You almost gave me a heart attack!’

‘Hurry!’ I responded. ‘There is an armed party on the main street.’

‘Fuck!’ she spat, opened the window and gave me what she had already gathered.

She quickly scooped up the rest and climbed through the opening. Only then did she notice she was standing on a glowing disk.

‘Damn,’ she said in mild awe. ‘I really wish Leera knew magic. That stuff is so useful.’

‘Yup,’ I smiled and quickly lowered us to the ground.

‘Where now?’ Rennie asked as we hurried to put on our packs.

‘Wait… where’s Chirpy?’ I ignored her question for a moment.

‘With Nyx.’

That was a relief. As annoying as the critter could be, he was growing on me.

‘Let’s go to the cemetery,’ I said. ‘We can probably hide there, and try to figure out the problem.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to leave this to the Inquisitor?’

‘No!’ I spat with more vitriol than I intended. ‘It’s not just any Inquisitor, you see. It’s THAT Inquisitor.’

‘What d…’ Ren trailed off, as her confusion gave way to understanding. ‘Oh.’

‘Yes. If we don't deal with this quietly, who knows how many innocent people could die.’