I woke up early, despite my desire to stay in bed for as long as I could. It wasn't the close quarters that weighed on me, it was the proximity of people that I didn't know well and knew they had some kind of collective effect that if I was around it long enough, I wouldn't even realize I was suffering the effects and I wouldn't want to leave. Of course, since I was close by them, I had the urge to show off.
I knew that wasn't a very good way to endear myself to them; but, I also didn't want them to think that my group and I weren't enjoying being out and away from civilization. The best way to do that was to show off my cooking skills. Kara had experienced them for almost four years, so there wasn't really any way to impress her. The rest of the emissaries were another matter, however.
I held in my smile as I carefully climbed out of the bedroll that Afyne and Maylia were still in. They started to stir when my body heat had disappeared, so I leaned in and whispered that I was making breakfast and gave each of them a quick kiss. I couldn't hide my smile after seeing their contented and sleepy faces. I quickly tied my messy hair up and left the tent to start on breakfast. I successfully ignored Kara's intense stare as I went over to the large table and chairs that were still set up and hung my uniform coat on the back of the closest chair. I used part of the table to prepare the food, and since I actually had to cook this time and not just reheat, it took a little longer than it should have to make enough food for so many people.
By the time I was done, everyone was up and had gathered around the table. I tried not to laugh at everyone's dishevelled states, mainly because I was in a similar state and we all would stay that way until we reached the next town. Afyne helped me portion out the eggs, toast, and dried meat from some of our modified ration packs. I had given it a quick sear on each side to give it a nice cooked taste to add to the flavor. That wasn't strictly necessary, since god had given his blessing for the food already to make it delicious; but, even delicious food can still have some improvements to bring out the flavor.
Jessica, Steven and Josh were the only ones to understand the significance of the breakfast I had made, that it was something they would have only experienced back on Earth, until now. I saw the realization on their faces that they could have different food than what had been prepared by the locals.
Jessica gave me a warm smile as I put the plate in front of her. “Thank you.”
“You're really going to thank me when you taste it.” I said with a smile just as warm as hers.
“Ha.” Josh barked a laugh. “It's just eggs.”
I shrugged and Afyne and I finished serving everyone, even the driver, who hadn't balked this time at getting to sit at the same table with the adventurers. When Afyne and I took our custom seat at the head of the table, everyone started to eat. The ones from my team kept eating while everyone else took one bite and either gasped or covered their mouths when they tasted it.
“I told you.” I said to Jessica and kept eating.
After a few moments, she started to eat again and the others did, too. Once again, it was a quiet meal while everyone ate and didn't speak. The time didn't stretch on like the night before, though. The meal ended fairly quickly and Afyne and I gathered everything up before anyone could offer to help. When the table was cleared, I took out the map of cracks that Jessica had given me and unrolled it.
“Okay, these two are gone.” I said and put a little x over the two spots. “The placements seem to be random; but, I'm thinking there's a significance to them.”
“Would knowing where the others are help?” Jessica asked.
“It might.” I said, and Jessica took out the list the queen had given her the first time, then compared it to the map and the places and descriptions. It took her a few minutes to mark off the right spots where the other cracks had been. While she did that, I added in the ones my group had encountered and closed, and then put little markings by the ones that matched the new list the queen had given me. Surprisingly enough, there were only two that were nowhere near the cracks.
“This is as close as I can guess they were.” Jessica said and we all stared at the pattern of dots on the map. “I don't see anything, except for the stuff that I'm making up in my head.”
I chuckled. “Go ahead and show us.”
“It's stupid, though.” Jessica said.
“I promise not to laugh... for too long.” I said with a grin, and she laughed.
“All right.” Jessica said and pointed. “This looks like a hopping rabbit.” She traced her finger over the general shape. “The ears, big feet, and puff tail.”
I turned my head to try and see it from her perspective and couldn't. “Show me again.” I said and walked around the side of the table to stand very close beside her. She traced it again with a slightly shaky hand and I saw it. “It kind of does look like a rabbit.”
Jessica glanced at me with a slightly stern expression for a moment, probably because she thought I was humoring her, then she let her face become a smile as she saw me start to copy the pattern.
“What else do you see?” I asked as I continued to mark down just the dots she had pointed out to make a rabbit shape.
“You're really interested in that?” Kara asked, surprised.
“Anything could help us figure out what's going on.” I said. “Looking for patterns in what should be random dots, can't hurt.”
Kara looked around and saw several shrugs.
“Jessica, what else?” I asked.
“I think that's a snake.” Jessica said and moved her hand over and traced out a cluster of them and then followed the pattern down in a twisting path to end on a single point. I copied them down and it did look like a snake. What surprised me was a spot near the head of the snake was the crack where we had found the giant snake.
“Does anyone else see anything?” I asked, and I got a few different animals and copied their patterns onto a separate piece of paper. After half an hour of looking the map over, it was time to decide how to divide the cracks up.
“We are all fairly speedy now, so I think this would benefit us.” I said and used a finger to trace a line along one side of the map to cover a good portion of the dots and then crossed over to the other side and stopped at a marked city. “If my estimation is right, that should take about a week, allowing for overnight stops and some investigations if a town is nearby.” I said and used my other hand as I pointed to two towns close to the path I had traced.
“If we take a reciprocal route...” Kara said and traced her finger over the map to encompass the cracks my finger had missed. “...we'll meet up physically right here.” Her finger touched mine beside the marked city a quarter of the kingdom away. “If we contact each other every night to update the map and our positions on it, we can adjust our schedules to arrive at almost the same time.”
“You're worried we'll have a lot of trouble at the city.” I said.
“Aren't you?” Kara asked, and I nodded. “Why aren't you going there first, then?”
“It would take us twice as long to go all the way there and then come back this way to close the other cracks.” I said. “It might be the wrong decision to work up to it; but, we have no reason to suspect that these things are going to change anytime soon.”
“I agree. Some have been here for days and others for years.” Kara tapped the city. “Plus, you know I would rather have us all here at once and not have to wait for someone to show up.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“It should make searching for whatever it is a lot easier with so many eyes.” I said. “Assuming it's something we can find by normal means.”
“What do you mean?” Jessica asked, and I told her about the succubi we had found at a town where the crack had been inside a building's basement. “Oh. Yes, that would be bad.” She said and glanced at Josh, who held Evangeline's hand tightly.
“Especially if it affects women, or both men and women.” I said. “We honestly won't know what we're going to encounter until we do.” I looked at the map again. “Instead of just contacting every day, we should contact after every encounter as well, just like we do with the queen.”
“Isn't that too much?” Kara asked. “You're wasting a lot of her time doing that.”
I chuckled. “I'd rather waste her time to keep her informed that nothing happened, then have something happen and her never finding out.”
Kara opened her mouth to say that they had told the queen when they saw her in person, then she sighed. “You're doing this on purpose.”
“Don't flatter yourself.” I smiled. “I told you before we were doing it before we knew that you weren't.”
“You're not reiterating it to rub it in our faces?” Kara asked.
“I wasn't.” I said and the Presence didn't waver, then I smirked. “It's just a happy side effect.”
Kara shook her head slightly. “You don't have to keep making verbal jabs at us, you know.”
“I know.” I said. “They aren't supposed to be jabs. That they can be, is telling in and of itself.”
“We're all trying hard here.” Josh said. “We can't all be perfect adventurers right from the start.”
“You're preaching to the choir.” Imiryl motioned to Allirynn and herself. “Prime examples of arrogant thinking and ignorant bliss are right here in front of you.” She said. “Look what happened to us.”
Steven held in his sigh; but, we all saw his shoulders slump.
“On that fantastic mood killer, we should all pack up and prep for our journeys.” I said and a few of them smiled. “This isn't going to be a leisurely stroll across the countryside, people. We need to be prepared for the unexpected.”
“If you expect the unexpected, it's no longer unexpected.” Josh said with a smile.
“Only if you knew what it was that's coming.” I countered. “The thing itself is unexpected, not it's arrival.” I looked around and met their gazes. “We all know something is coming. Something big. We just have to figure out what it is.”
They all nodded and everyone except Jessica and myself left the table to pack everything up.
“I need to copy that.” Jessica said and unrolled her copy of the map and put all the same notations and things on it. While she worked, she occasionally glanced at me. I could see hope, and embarrassment, and a few other things mixed in that I couldn't make out.
“Do you want me to take off my blast shield?” I whispered to her.
Jessica didn't hesitate at all before she whispered back. “Yes.”
I absorbed the solid Presence around the blast shield and slipped the black metal off of my face, and she caught her breath as she stared into my eyes. I watched her eyes dart from my left eye to my right, and I had to assume she was seeing the same thing Maylia and Afyne had commented on. My eye color changed with the angle of light that hit them. They were sapphire blue most of the time and looked like my mother's eyes, then at certain angles they shifted to green to look like my father's eyes. Even though they had seen it several dozen times by now, both Maylia and Afyne would get caught in it and just stare like Jessica was doing now.
I grinned at her and finished writing on her map. I marked my route with a dotted line and her route with a straight line, then did the opposite to mine. We would follow the straight line and the other team would follow the dotted line.
“There's something I need to tell you.” Jessica said and glanced around to make sure that no one was looking at them, and she took out a piece of paper and gave it to me as she leaned in very close. “This is a mind block spell.”
My eyes widened at the press of her breasts against my arm. I was only wearing my long sleeved t-shirt and she only wore a thin top under her robes... and no bra. I could both see and feel that she really liked that I didn't try to pull away. I used my free hand to tuck the spell into my bag of holding before anyone saw it. I then stared into her eyes for a moment before she spoke.
“Yes, I'm using it.” Jessica said. “It hurt like hell the first time, and maintaining it costs mana, even during my morning chant.”
“Morning chant?” I asked, and she explained that the spell could be continued endlessly as long as it was refreshed every morning when she chanted for her free spells. Then she told me all about how she learned about them.
“Right. I need to buy children's books.” I said and she chuckled.
“You're not bothered by it being kid's book at all.”
I shook my head. “Knowledge is knowledge. Even when I was a kid back on The Order's home planet, I still learned everything they taught me. Having the basics gave me a much better understanding of how things worked.”
Jessica nodded. “I couldn't believe how much I had missed by not having information that babies had!”
I chuckled. “I've been there.” I said. “The Order only taught me what they thought I needed to live and not everything I would need to know if I ever left the planet.” I held in my sigh. “It was a pretty big shock when I escaped and found out just how much I didn't know.”
“That must have been scary.” Jessica said and put a hand on mine and my arm slid between her breasts.
“You have no idea.” I said and did my best to ignore how nice that felt. “My first space flight was quite the learning experience.”
Jessica shivered. “I can't imagine going up into space in little more than a tin can.” She said. “No suit, no protection against radiation...”
“...and no knowledge about safety procedures if anything went wrong.” I said and she caught her breath. “Yeah, I was pretty much restricted to the center of the ship until I learned about the dangers and knew how to deal with emergencies.”
“That doesn't sound fun.” Jessica said.
“Actually, it was.” I said and she raised her eyebrows at me. “I don't mean the imminent death part.”
“Oh.” Jessica said, and I laughed.
“I'd tell you more about it; but, we both need to get to work.” I said, and she sighed. “Hey, don't sound so disappointed. We'll see each other in a week, assuming nothing disastrous happens and we need to rush to meet before that.” I said, and she nodded. “You need to prep your daily spells, too.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” Jessica asked, her face a little red.
I turned towards her and she kept hold of my hand, and my arm turned between her breasts and rubbed them. I saw the look on her face and I knew that she hadn't done that by accident. She knew what she was doing and I nodded mentally.
“You know, I'm going to regret that my arm is going to be really cold when you let it go.” I said, and her face flushed completely red. “Before you say anything to deny it, I know you did it on purpose.”
“Hunter, I...”
“It's still going to take time.” I said. “There really is no rush.”
“But...” Jessica glanced over at Maylia and Afyne, and then at Kara.
“I'll stop that thought right there.” I said. “Kara and I have slept in the same bed for years, and even took showers together.”
“You did?!?” Jessica's face was a deep red now.
“Yes, and I'm being completely honest when I say that absolutely nothing happened.” I said. “She's got a great body; but, the personality did absolutely nothing for me.”
“But... what about...”
“Yes, I've scrubbed her from head to foot, and she's done the same for me... and still nothing happened.” I said, and Jessica stared at my face. “I learned a long time ago that I can't get excited just because a woman reveals herself when bathing.”
Jessica glanced down at my arm nestled between her breasts. “I guess I...” She stopped and sighed.
“This is different.” I said and she looked back at my face. “Declaring intent is a lot different.”
Jessica took a breath, which squeezed her breasts around my arm, and she breathed out. “You're not angry that I'm doing this?”
“Yes, I always get angry when a pretty girl is interested in me.” I chuckled. “It's such a horrible experience.”
Jessica couldn't help but laugh at that. “It's the worst, isn't it?” She asked and let my hand go. I very slowly turned my arm back and gathered a small amount of Presence in my arm, then rubbed my elbow across the tip of one of her breasts and pushed my Presence into her. She caught her breath at the sensation and her whole body shivered in a good way and I saw her mana react.
“Absolutely terrible.” I said in a slightly deeper voice. “Perhaps some day I might gather the courage to tell them to stop.” I took her hands and bent over them as if she was royalty. “Or not.”
Jessica stared at me as I let her hands go and put my blast shield back onto my face. I stored my altered map and walked over to where Maylia and Afyne had just finished attaching the tents and bedrolls back onto the horses.
“You laid it on thick at the end there.” Maylia whispered and tightened the last strap.
“Maybe a little.” I said with a smile. “I was trying to tell her that she doesn't have to try so hard to get my attention.”
Afyne huffed and when I looked at her, she turned her head away. I knew what was wrong and knelt on one knee beside her, then I put my arms around her.
“You already have my attention.” I whispered into her ear. “I watched you the whole time.”
“You did?” Afyne asked and turned to look at me with an expression of disbelief.
“You attached the tent to Evus' horse first, then made sure Allirynn had his bedroll balanced...” I started to say everything she had done. As I did, her face changed from disbelief, to blank, to a big smile.
“You really watched me.” Afyne said, her voice barely above a whisper, and her head ducked a little.
“Of course I did.” I said. “I never want you out of my sight.”
“Me, either.” Afyne said. “When you were swallowed by... I was so scared!”
“So was I.” I said. “But, thanks to all of our friends, here I am.” I smiled. “I wasn't even hurt this time.”
Afyne nodded and put her arms around my neck and hugged me tightly.
*
Kara had watched Hunter's interaction with Jessica and hadn't commented on it, because she knew if she wasn't able to bring Hunter over to lead their group, Jessica was the second best chance they had. When she saw Hunter with the girl, it didn't dash her hopes at all. She knew, thanks to the Goddess, that Hunter had loved two others and had lost them. She knew there was room in his heart to love more than one person, and that gave her hope. They were members of a long-lived race and they would meet and fall in love with lots of people.
Kara smiled. She knew from the bottom of her heart that one day, he would love her, too. All she had to do was wait.