“Not now, Wes!” she snapped, still trying to twist and punch her way out of the covers. “We’re right in the middle of a—oh,” she said, finally noticing that there was no one else in the room. Her shoulders slumped as the panic left her voice. “We’re not under attack right now, are we?”
“No,” I sighed, wondering if this was how Breena felt whenever she tried to explain why I couldn’t do something and found out she was telling me too late. “Not as far as I know.”
“Well, then why did your dragon growl at me?” she said in a cross tone, as if she was suddenly remembering that it was still morning and she was still tired. “It can’t possibly be time to get up yet.”
Fuck it, I thought, deciding to be blunt, and wondering if maybe, just maybe, she was using such phrasing on purpose.
“Breena, it is actually time to get up, and my dragon growled at you because you were grinding against me while close to human size.”
“Grinding?” the petite woman said in an outraged tone. “Why the herb would I grind against you, Wes? You’re not a mortar, and I’m not an apothecary!” She finally worked her way up to her feet, and threw down the blanket in an angry huff. “What’s so crazy about a girl trying to make sure she’s all warm and cozy and—ohhhhhhhhsssshhroom.” Her eyes widened even further as her voice finally finished its long journey from anger to comprehension. “I did it again, didn’t I?” she said anxiously, as if she finally noticed her current size. “That thing I promised I’d work on, before Stell maybe sort of changed her mind about the rules.”
“Yeah,” I grimaced, “you did.”
“Well, knit and darn it!” she wailed. “I’m not trying to do this on purpose! You were just really warm and comfy!”
I wasn’t sure if that was entirely accurate. I had pieced together just enough by now that fairies grew larger primarily to deal with a potential mate. I raised a disbelieving eyebrow and regarded her silently.
“I mean...” she said, holding her hands up, then lowering them down and deflating with a sigh. “Oh, all right. I… have feelings for you, too,” she blurted, as if she had just forced her way through a block. “Ha!” she said, sounding pleased with herself. “Not a problem anymore! Booyah!”
“Okay,” I said, considering her words, “so you would be comfortable with us moving things forward?”
“Yes!” she said triumphantly. “We can totally figure this out now! Whatever this looks like!”
“Okay,” I said, as Teeth began to chatter excitedly in the back of my skull, “so the next time we sleep together in the same bed, you’re okay with me acting on my attraction towards you?”
Because damn it, I really did feel attracted to her.
Breena didn’t have Merada’s long legs, or Via’s curvy hips, or Guineve’s full assets. But, when human-sized, her form had the kind of slender beauty that became something magical when paired with her cheerful energy. I couldn’t really describe it, but her figure just… fit her, and she wore it in a way that was attractive as hell.
But I couldn’t dwell on that any further, because I needed to hear the answer to my question.
“Well, sure!” she decided cheerfully, after taking a moment to think about it.
YES! Teeth screamed triumphantly in the back of my mind. FUCK! YES!
“I’d totally be down for that!” she said with a warm smile. “We could cuddle, or hug, or just talk, and then go to sleep!”
NO! Teeth screamed again, no longer sounding triumphant. FUCK! NO! FUCK!
“Breena, that wasn’t what I meant at all,” I sighed, shifting my position on the bed so that I could lean forward and clasp my hands together. The act surprisingly made me feel a little more patient.
“Really?” Breena asked in a perplexed tone as she tilted her head at me. “But what else could a couple do right before bed… oh.”
Her mouth snapped shut, and her eyes widened for the third time this morning.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhssshrooom. That. Guineve told me about that.”
“She did,” I acknowledged with a nod, remembering the sound of Breena’s distressed shouts from almost a mile away, “and I thought it was also what we were talking about last night, before we went to bed.”
“We were?” she asked, blinking. “I guess we were. Gosh, it sure feels different now that it’s no longer just hypothetical.”
Hypothetical! Teeth sputtered in my mind. Mother fu—
“But I thought we were leaning away from, um, going that far yet,” Breena said uncomfortably as she held out her palms. “And I thought we decided to wait on talking to my main body first, before we did any of that stuff?”
“I originally thought so, too,” I replied, firmly believing that I was being the most patient and saintly person on the planet at the current moment, “but then part of you started pressing against part of me while we were sleeping last night. That sort of thing provokes a kind of response that’s much more intimate than just cuddling.”
“But that wasn’t my intention!” Breena protested. “I mean, not yet, at least! There are a couple of things we need to work out first—”
Ugh, I heard Teeth groan. Fucking abstinence fucking sucks…
“But you see how I couldn’t know that at the time, right?” I persisted, leaning forward a little more. “I had no idea what kind of message you were trying to send at that moment. How would you have felt if I had jumped to the conclusion my body was telling me to? And what do you think I would have felt when you rejected my intentions in a surprised and probably fearful state?”
“…oh,” Breena said in a quiet, guilty tone. “I didn’t think of that at all. I just thought everything would be okay as long as we were both super careful. But I didn’t mean to put you in that position, Wes.”
She stared down at the floor.
“I guess being super careful isn’t going to be as easy as I thought it was going to be.”
“No,” I agreed, “it’s going to be a lot harder, now that our bodies are getting ready faster than our minds are.”
“Not completely,” Breena said uncomfortably. She looked back up at me. “Wes, I really didn’t want to talk about this yet, but spritefolk have to complete a certain transition before they’re one hundred percent ready to, um, make love. And I might be, um, mostly there, but I don’t think I’m completely there yet. So there can be some bad consequences for me if we, you know, start moving things further?”
“Yeah, I hear you,” I sighed. Teeth let out an agonized cry in the back of my skull, and he told me to just fuck off when I asked him to calm down.
Breena inhaled, as if she had just come up with a plan.
“So I guess the next time, we’ll go ahead and be super, super careful, and then maybe things will—”
No, the dragon in my mind said flatly. No more co-sleeping. Not until she’s ready to do more than sleep.
“Hold up,” I said to my bonded familiar as she tilted her head at me. I grimaced slightly, then turned my attention to the idiot in my skull. What do you mean, ‘no’?
I mean, this is fucking painful, he said to me. It’s like we’re turning our insides into a boiling bomb, just so that she can feel comfortable sleeping next to us. We’re not doing it anymore.
I was about to argue with him, but he was telling the truth.
Come to think of it, lying next to any part of Stell these days was starting to really make some frustrated urges build up inside of us, to the point where they really did hurt.
You’ve been going on and on about how we need to make the woman we love feel safe, Teeth continued. And I get that. I’m willing to do that, because I want Stell just as much as you do. But what does it mean when she can use us to meet some of her desires, while inflaming desires we can’t act on at the same time?
I don’t think she means to do that, I pointed out.
It doesn't matter what she means to do, Teeth rebutted, it matters that it hurts us. We’re not her brother. We’re not her dad, or platonic friend, or
whatever. Not anymore. We’re her lover, or at least we’re courting her, so we have different desires, different needs. Accidentally or not, we shouldn’t let her trample on those needs, just so that she can have a living blanket at night.
“Um, is everything okay?” the pink-haired woman asked me.
“One second,” I replied, “still talking to Teeth.”
Come on, think about it, my inner dragon persisted. Do you want to feel frustrated with her every time we lie down together? Do you want to have that kind of history when any of her bodies are finally ready for the real thing? What’s that going to do to us? FNG went on. What problems will that cause with our long-term relationship? Just face this fact, okay? he pleaded. We’re a dragon, like it or not. Though, I’m starting to realize that human males aren’t that different from dragon males. We like treasure. We want to care for it, protect it, help it be whatever it’s meant to be. But lying down next to treasure we want, but can’t take yet, is not going to be good for us. And it’s not going to be good for the treasure either, until she’s ready to be ours, and to make us hers. No more sleepovers until she’s ready to have sex. Not with any of her bodies. I’ll make an exception for life-and-death scenarios like freezing on top of an iceberg or hiding in a wartime trench, but otherwise, fuck no. If we’re putting up boundaries to protect her, then we’re putting boundaries to protect us, too.
Silence fell as I processed his words. Breena continued to wait anxiously and uncomfortably while her sort-of boyfriend finished talking to the voice in his head.
“Breena,” I said with a sigh, “my dragon side is right. If it’s still dangerous for you to have sex, then there’s no safe way for us to sleep in the same bed right now. I know we’re used to it, I know it wasn’t a big problem before, and I know we’ve gone back and forth over trying to figure out whether or not it was a problem very recently. But if we’re going to take our new relationship seriously, including the boundaries that we need in order to make it work, then we need to not put ourselves in frustrating situations that will either endanger us or make us resent each other in the future. Do you understand what I’m explaining?”
“I—” she started to say, looking guilty, frustrated, and ready to argue. But then she caught herself and held up a finger.
“One second,” she said firmly, as something flashed in her eyes. “I’m going to do something I should have done a long time ago. I’m going to use our magical bond to figure out exactly what you’re dealing with.”
“Go for it,” I said with a shrug, privately feeling very stupid for not considering that option as a way to make things clear.
Breena closed her eyes and became very still.
After a moment, her stillness vanished.
“HOLY BURNING BALLS OF FIZZY LAVA, YOU WERE DEALING WITH THAT?” she screamed, throwing up her hands and staggering backwards. “ALL OF THAT? WHAT THE HERB WERE WE THINKING? OF COURSE WE CAN’T SLEEP TOGETHER ANYMORE!”
“Breena!” I hissed in surprise. “Calm down! Everyone can hear you!”
“CALM?” Breena screeched, slipping on the blanket and falling down on her bottom. “HOW CAN I BE CALM? HOW WERE YOU EVER CALM ALL THIS TIME? GREAT ANGRY BLUE ICONS, WES! NEXT TIME, SPEAK UP SOONER!”
I groaned and covered my face with my hands.
“Okay, okay,” my fairy stammered. I looked up to see that she had grown back her wings and shrunken to a much smaller form—which was what she usually did when she yelled at me, come to think of it. She flew out of the blankets that she had somehow tumbled back into and began gesticulating in front of my face. “But seriously, Wes! You were under that much pressure? Over this? How is that even possible? Is that even normal?”
“I wouldn’t know if it’s normal, Breena,” I groaned. “It’s not like I can see inside other guys’ bodies. And it’s not like other Earthborn have to deal with a multi-bodied girlfriend—or whatever our term for each other should be.”
“Terms?” Breena asked shrilly. “Who the herb cares about terms right now? Wes, I just saw the energy you have pent up inside of you! It’s like you’re filled with a possessed siege engine made entirely of active volcanoes, and you have to wrestle it into submission every morning! Or possibly even more often!”
Six seconds, Teeth grumbled, every goddamned six seconds. I know. I timed us. On several occasions.
“I can’t believe I haven’t caught this until now!” Breena rambled. “I mean, here I’ve been worried about whether someone put a bomb in your brain, but all this time I’ve been looking in the wrong place! And for all I know, my other bodies and I have been taunting and pecking at it all this time! How were we so oblivious to this?”
“Breena,” I tried again, “I’m glad you’re now aware of what I’m going through, but I’m super uncomfortable with the scene you’re making, and I’d like you to try and get a hold of yourself. Please.”
“Get a hold of—right,” the little fairy stammered, finally mastering herself. “Yes… yes… you’re fine right now. I just need to not poke the bear. Until every part of me is, like, super ready for this. Not just Merada. Who probably isn’t nearly as ready as she thinks she is—sorry! Sorry!” the little fairy squeaked when I groaned again. “Really! You’re right! I’ll respect your boundaries! Thank you for being so patient about this!”
“You’re welcome,” I said, with every remaining ounce of willpower I had. “That’s all I’m really asking.”
“Well, then,” the tiny fairy said as she cleared her throat, “shall we get ready to go?”
“By all means,” I said with relief. “You should go do that.”
“I should, right! Right! Bye-bye!”
The tiny woman flew out of the room, and I began to change clothes.
CHAPTER 8: COUNCIL OF KNIVES
Our group breakfast was probably the most awkward shared meal I had ever experienced, and somehow, the use of the mindlink made it even worse.
I wound up using the mental communication device without consciously meaning to, and discovered that all the other men in the group were doing so as well, for the exact same reason: to make sure that we were all not speaking about Breena’s little revelation in regards to my sex drive.
There was an intentional blanket of silence, with nothing more than the faint impression that they couldn’t all wait to tease me about it later.
Even the guys that weren’t normally bastards, like Breyn and Gabin.
From the women, I felt a deliberate, collective effort to block out any output from them or input from me.
Which meant that they were all having a girl talk in front of us.
But I was a man about it. I didn’t bitch, tell them to give it a rest, or try to control what they were saying to each other with their minds.
Well, my eyebrow twitched occasionally, whenever one of them let out a teenage girl gasp and said “really?” right before the rest of them hurriedly hushed the speaker.
But other than that, I followed Breyn’s earlier advice and didn’t try to reach for things beyond my control.
I just ate my breakfast in peace and focused on all the things we had to do today.
The first order of business was to head to the Pathway site and meet up with the team arriving from Avalon in the next hour or so. It proved to be a quick trip back, since we weren’t worried about hiding our presence anymore. It was too late to hide the fact that we were here, and everything local that had a problem with our presence was already dead.
The streets of Nedjena were quiet because of that fact, even more quiet than they had been under Malus occupation. People were probably hopeful that the Challenger had finally come and had quickly slain all the local tyrants, but they had to be worried over the retaliation that Warren’s goons had in store for them.
Because if killing a bunch of bathrobe-wearing middle managers was all it took, this world would have never fallen in the first place.
It was my job to make sure this city wouldn’t suffer a second time, I reflec
ted as I finally reached the dilapidated building containing the Pathway back to Avalon.
Hopefully, the plan we’d set in motion would save lives, instead of doom them.
No, a corner of my mind spoke up, one influenced by the Well’s mending, I’m not trying to keep things from being doomed. This world has already fallen.
I’m trying to take lives and cities away from Doom itself.
Somehow, that line of thought made my anxiety retreat, and I stepped inside the ruined structure just in time to see the Pathway activate.
A set of guards was already on duty, a team that had come over immediately after I had contacted Avalon in the middle of the night. Two tattooed Woadfolk in green chain mail hailed me and my people as we walked in, along with a blue-colored fairy who squeaked her greeting excitedly.
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