The Comfort Of The Knife

[MxOberon]

AN: Just a forewarning, this chapter is truncated technically. If you want to read the full uncensored version of it you can go to the Patreon where for all free and paid members, you can read 32 in its complete form. However, if you don't want to read the full uncensored chapter (no judgement from me), I do have a spoilered summary on what happens in it so you can read 33 perfectly fine. Anyways, happy reading!

---

Nemesis Khapoor—one of the five who ruined my life—had through presence alone stolen the breath of everyone in the room. There on that stage she shimmied and swayed through the song's relatively few verses. Belted with abandon its chorus out to a crowd that sang with her. Returning ten-fold every iota of energy she tossed out as crumbs to the cult of adoration that had revealed its face. She may have only been a regional Lodgemaster, but here in this moment she was a queen, their saint, the idol of which all Lodgemembers sought to emulate.

It took all my effort to look away. An effort that was rewarded by getting to glimpse the despair and loathing that stewed in Amber's face. Every muscle tensed in anticipation of Nemesis deciding to strike just then. A possibility that Amber no doubt saw as a surety.

"Amber," I said, squeezing her wrist so she'd look at me and not her. "What's wrong?"

Her eyes drifted downward, hesitant to look away from the monster in our midst.

"I can't be here."

"Why?" I asked. "Help me understand."

"She—we—fuck." She wrenched her arm free from my hold. "Just trust me, Temple. I'm doing this for you. Always for you."

I was a summoner, an adult in the eyes of society, but I wasn't so old as to resist the urge to physically express my displeasure—my rejection of this. My hand whipped across her face.

"You don't get to say that," I said. "I do trust you. I've stayed trusting you, but you can't tell me why you have to run? Why you look so afraid? Trust me, Amber, trust me for once with the weight of you."

I steadied myself by clinging to her face. My heart was treading water as I sought to rediscover the connection that had been between us only moments before Nemesis killed it. Amber closed her eyes rather than look at me.

I pleaded, "I can carry it."

"We have history, her and I." She said, "And my feelings are…they'll give me away."

"Then be here with me. We had a plan, but maybe we make a new one. We stand together, support each other, and—"

"And what, Temple?" she asked. "And what?"

I whispered, "We—"

"Kill her? Temple, that's impossible. It…"

I stopped listening. Why listen to a traitor? A liar. Instead, I shoved her. She looked surprised, and so wasn't ready when I threw her jacket at her nor when I grabbed an unattended drink from the bar to launch as a projectile. The glass shattered against her upraised arm. Shards falling off into darkness.

It was a blessing that Nemesis proved so arresting that no one spared a glance at my argument with Amber. Not even to witness the way my hand rose, shaking with an Atomic Glory pointed at her face. She knew how dangerous my spell was, but even at this point blank range her eyes could only flick back to watch Nemesis fucking Khapoor.

"Run then," I said. "Better I know you won't stand with me now than when it'll actually matter."

Amber said, "There's no point standing now if it doesn't matter. That's just throwing away your life. You can come with me. We could—"

"No," I said. "I refuse to be a coward even if it's with you. Everything about what we've done was to get me in the room with her. Well here I am and here she is. In the same room."

I shook the spell from my hand. Despite her abandoning me, there underneath the Suppression of my higher reason and the cloying muck of Indulgence pulling me toward impulse was the line I refused to cross. The oath I'd sworn to her and to Melissa. Even if they betrayed me, I couldn't and wouldn't harm them.

Though even with this commitment, if I'd counted emotional harm then in that moment I'd already proven that the oath was something ephemeral rather than ironclad. The slow nod of acknowledgment Amber gave me—something that belonged on the face of a soldier speaking to a superior, rather than one lover to another—was the only action that could restrain the pain which would otherwise overwhelm her words. Then she left. Disappearing as she always did.

Abandoned and reeling, I looked towards my home—Melissa—only to discover Ina had reclaimed her. The two were peeling off toward the club's exit. Ina no doubt her mind on whatever reward was waiting for her, and Melissa not even sparing a glance in search of me or Amber. She was free, and ultimately unburdened by the weight of purpose that I carried.

It was a weight that I realized I'd forgotten. Beneath the exam, the party, and the stirring of my heart I had stopped hearing the wailing moan for justice that spoke in the voice of Dad and Mom. I could hear their condemnation of the world for abandoning them. The sorrow and hurt at my betrayal of them. Yet there was a path to forgiveness if I was strong enough to take it. First, I had to find a piece of glass.

I dropped to my knees, hands roaming the ground, as my eyes adjusted to the bloody shadow beneath the bar. As I turned my head I saw it—a crimson glint—and grasped it. The shard refused to budge. Pinned by something immovable.

"What's a cute puppy like you doing on your knees?" a voice asked. The same voice that had stopped singing at some point earlier.

My eyes finished adjusting. The glass was pinned beneath the toebox of Nemesis's heels. I tilted my head. Tracing a path along her ankle, her leg, across her finely sculpted abs, to her rather modest bust hidden within well developed pectoral muscles. Until I arrived at her bemused handsome expression that she balanced atop a single finger attached to an arm corded in noticeable muscle.

"Picking up some broken glass," I said. Attempting to remove all malice from the statement.

She beamed, "How responsible."

Then lifted her foot allowing me to claim the shard—its point was sharp and its edge malicious. I rose slowly under her gaze until she was forced to look up at me. This close I realized how small she was. Well below me and Secretary, and only a step or so above Melissa.

We stood there silently for a moment. The shard of glass becoming slick in my palm. I looked away from her to see the rest of the club having returned to its hedonistic business from earlier. Though it was obvious everyone was conspicuously going through the motions in a way that still allowed them to spy on us.

"You're making a scene," I said.

"I always do," she chuckled. "It's rare for one of my dogs to be shy. Normally your sort beam when praised. I mean, it's not every examinee that I give my attention to."

"I'm sure you tell everyone that."

"Oh, they wish I did, but I find a hungry hound works so much harder."

I looked away from her. "I'm not hungry for anything. Just trying to pass."

"Yet here you are, having achieved so much in such a short time with no backing," she said. "If that's you without hunger then I can't wait to see what you'd do when you have it."

She took a step toward me. Then another. The crowd leaned in without moving from their position. My own heart beat in time to her footsteps. Everything hung on the second by second motions of this woman. The passage of which drove the vengeance—the Bloodlust—to a mad froth. My thoughts screamed in unison, take one more step! In one more step I could swipe out, Bisect the Sun, and make a slit hose of her throat so I might dance, joyous as a child in her raining blood.

Nemesis took a half-step. My heart briefly syncopated as my thoughts came skidding to a halt. This wasn't close enough, but if I really tried then maybe I'd make it? No, it wasn't worth it, not unless it was guaranteed. Yet what was guaranteed in this life? Those five took a chance to kill a god and their tender, so why couldn't I take a chance to kill one Lodgemaster?

"Look at me," she ordered.

My eyes moved and my head followed in an elegant glide down to her fingers held out for my chin to perch upon. The Bacchanalian Ballast prevented me from realizing how instinctually I'd obeyed. An instinct that should've had me do anything else but put my head in her hand. Though the idea of resisting repulsed something in me that I couldn't pin down.

"Listen closely," she said. "It's annoying when a dog of mine is too humble. Makes people question my taste in hounds. So when I tell you you're special, I promise I don't say it lightly. Especially a hound with such pretty eyes, that remind me of mine."

Before, I'd thought her eyes were a trick of the light. It was so red in here that it'd drowned out every color in the room. At a distance you'd struggle to make out the true hue of anything. However, at this distance—my head in her hand—I knew that what I was seeing was true. Nemesis's eyes were red. So red that the lights of the room seemed like a poor attempt at rendering the color whose origin could be found in her gaze.

Locked like this, I felt myself fall into the black void of her pupil while surrounded by waterfalls of sanguine carmine that fell and fell in a never ending flow from some distant eternal battlefield. If the bloody flows pooled anywhere, I couldn't tell. There was a bottomlessness that I saw in her which would never be filled and she wasn't bothered by it in the slightest. In fact, the sense I had was that she was elated. Who the fuck could be happy at that?

Then her hand fell away from my chin. My wits returned to me, I stumbled backward. There was no moving forward. Not toward that thing in its blood dress which chuckled at my newly discovered fear. Everything about Nemesis—even her teeth, bright and shark-like—was all in service of an existence that saw poetry in slaughter.

She took a step toward me. Then another. Another. Each one increasing an undetectable weight on my spirit and my body. Oh, she was in range but—I dropped the shard of glass. It tinked demurely as it disappeared off into darkness again. My body wanted to crumple. My blood wanted to flow backward. Here before me was a power that ran deeper than the charisma and social clout she'd wielded on stage. It was the source of Amber's fear. The originator of my own. Standing in front of Nemesis Khapoor I had a better idea of what could kill a god; right now, so close to me that she tranced a cartoon heart against my chest, I felt like one tilt of her head could crumple my spirit that—compared to the cosmic density of hers—was but paper.

"You should drink more, Nadia," she said, "you were so close to making a very interesting decision. Everyone else here is too boring and respectful. Though a word of advice…"

She pointed down with her finger and I felt as if my legs were severed below the knee. So quick had I fallen. She loomed above me. The physical difference in our heights now in proper alignment to our ranks within the Chain. Then she whispered into my ear.

"We can be more creative than using a shard of glass. We're summoners after all."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.

"Good. Maybe I don't either," she said.

Whatever force she'd exerted on me—it was something stranger than a field-spell—was retracted back into herself. With a blink her eyes were no longer the origin of all red, but some unknown color masked by the chroma rich lighting of the club. In a moment she'd re-assumed her mask of being a person rather than a monster. She turned away from me—I was no longer worth her time—and took in the party. I had the sense she was searching for someone. Though not too hard, as she soon shrugged.

"Guess I was feeling nostalgic," she muttered.

When she walked away, I didn't get up. When her voice was a whisper in the distance, I didn't get up. I only rose when the lights shifted from red back to blues and purples—the sign that she'd left the building. As I pulled myself up, my body proved a bit too sluggish and weak for the rather minor action when it was also expected to balance atop the thin heels I wore. All of which combined to send me tumbling backward to the floor and away from the bartop that'd been the raft I'd intended to cling to in the aftermath of Nemesis's visit.

I fell in tottering steps backwards until only the edge of my heel caught the floor, slipped, and deposited me into the air. I'd expected to feel the unyielding ground crack against my skull. Instead, the small of my back landed into a hand. Wide, firm, and strong as it halted my momentum leaving me in a dip most dramatic. A face drifted into view—handsome and square with a scar some girls would call roguish as it cut through lips curled into a smirk. Eyes half-lidded made an examination of me, my body, and rose back to my face.

"Drop me or stand me back up," I said. "Either way, let me go."

"Why would I let you go when I just found you, Orchard?" he asked.

"Piggy?"

He tossed me into the air, corkscrewing up and then down to land in a bridal carry within his arms. From my new vantage, I could better appreciate the light playing across Piggy's face and dying his mane of hair that looked unwilling to be tamed. As well as sinking into the small crystal tusk earrings that swayed with every tilt of his head. There was a humor that sparkled in his eyes and reminded me of the irreverence that he carried the night we'd met.

"Unless you have a different butch who calls you Orchard," he said. "Though I think I'd prefer to tell you my actual name."

I scoffed, "What makes you think I want to know it?"

"It'd bring us closer," he said.

A growl erupted from within my chest as I flashed my fangs at him and the idea of becoming closer to anything. I had enough attachments that'd abandon me when I needed them, and attempt to seduce me from the purpose the dead crooned from within me. The offer of more of that was a poison pill I wanted no more of. Piggy flashed his own fangs in a grin.

"What's your angle?" I asked.

He shrugged, his earrings dancing, "To not be strangers anymore?"

"Sure, and then what? We become friends, allies in the exam, and over time we start to grow attached to one another. Only to realize our bond is something so much deeper than we gave it credit. Then, unable to deny it any longer, we admit our love to each other and have sex."

Piggy said, "If that's the way you see it going then I'm willing to follow."

"Then let's skip to the end and get to the bit where you fuck me," I said.

He rapidly blinked as my statement sunk in. Then furrowed his brow.

"Is this a test?" he asked.

"Only yes or no," I said. "Which is it?"

He nodded and smiled that same lazy lopsided grin. "Yes, if that's how it'll go. I never was that patient. We can head back to my place, and—"

"We'll do it in the bathroom," I said.

I didn't want to know his actual name, or see how he kept his room. Anything that would've made him into more of a person—another vector to compromise my commitment—was to be steered away from. If it took giving him some meaningless sex to have him leave me alone then so be it. Those were my terms. They were unyielding, and I could tell Piggy wanted to argue. Push and prod to see where they were weak. Unfortunately, his 'Orchard,' wasn't weak and he'd get nothing from me.

---

AN: Yo folks, so this chapter is kind of truncated because I'm not really familiar with how explicit I can be on SV when it comes to things like sex. However, the sex scene that makes up the second half of this chapter is actually really important to the story and what'll be going on when 33 comes out this Saturday. As such, I'd like to point out two key options here I'll be doing for you all when it comes to this generally censored content.

Option 1: Go to the Patreon (click the banner below) and read 32 there. I've made it available for all patrons (free and paid), so you can read it really easily.
Option 2: Check out this spoiler that will give you the cliffnotes needed to understand what's missing on the most general level, so you can go into 33 not being completely lost.

Spoiler: Brief Summary of What Happens to Nadia

During the hookup, Nadia finds herself incredibly conflicted as she is actually enjoying the entire experiencing and is feeling immense guilt for enjoying this. Especially because she failed to strike at Nemesis when she was so close. A self-loathing judgement on Nadia's part that doesn't care about how unlikely that plan's success chance ever actually was. This basically crescendos with Nadia performing an act of Di****** targeting herself in a bathroom mirror to split the "two Nadias" as it were (the her holding onto the immediate pain of her parents' death vs the her that is learning to enjoy life beyond that). The result of this impromptu magic destroys the mirror and causes her to black out.

 

[MxOberon]

It was to the dull thud of a glass meeting a table that I'd woken up. The world was upside down as I watched dancers slide and grind atop the ceiling. I lifted my head up—righting the world—to find in front of me a tall glass of something clear and devoid of bubbles. Then my eyes rose in search of its source to find in front of me on the opposite side of the club's circular cubbies was Piggy. One of his arms thrown over the back of the seat as he watched the dancers below.

"What is this?" I asked.

He turned to me, smiled, and gestured at the glass. "I think we call it water, Orchard. Figured you could use some in case you were dehydrated."

"Right," I said. "A good sentiment, but I'm pretty sure I told you to leave me alone after we were done."

Piggy's head bobbed like a buoy in moderate agreement. "You did, but…"

"But what?" I asked.

"It didn't feel right leaving you in all that mess. So I—"

I cut him off, "Ignored my clear request to instead clean me up and drag me to one of these fuck cubbies. You were good Piggy, but I don't think I'm up for a second round."

A blush dyed his pale face at the compliment and intimation of lascivious intent.

"No! No," he said, "I just needed a place to put you and it was easier to bring you here than try to balance you on a barstool."

I watched him squirm to explain himself. It wasn't like I thought he actually had nefarious intentions, but there was a pleasure I felt at seeing him so otherwise calm and collected be on the back foot for once. To be honest, Piggy rebuked and backed away from my points in the fashion of a good person that couldn't imagine themselves doing anything selfish. My eyes lowered to the water—my throat was dry—then rose back to Piggy. Holding his gaze beneath my attention as I slid my hand slowly to grasp the glass. Raised it to my lips and tilted it back. Throwing aside any sense of 'cuteness' as I gulped it down in three big drags.

"Unless you secretly drugged this," I said, "then it seems you really are a good person, Piggy."

"I'm fine," he said. "As a Lodge examinee, I question if any of us are actually 'good' or what that ultimately means."

"Alls below, take the compliment," I said.

He nodded in agreement, but the hand that laid atop the table was drumming a quiet nervous beat. His eyes had turned back to the dancers yet flicked to me at moments.

"Just ask," I said.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked.

I rolled my shoulders letting myself lean forward against the table. Flashed a fangy smile.

"I feel great," I said, and for the first time it wasn't a lie. The feelings that had wiggled throughout my mind since my parents' death were silent. That curse of caring, shame, and guilt was gone. Even when I rolled my shoulders I didn't feel the tension or weight of my purpose. I felt alive. Though, in some part of myself, I knew that what had been removed from me was the final ghost of the Nadia that Melissa loved.

My smile died as I comprehended the depths of what I'd done—finalizing the murder of the girl who lived in this body and wore this face before me. Her demise didn't make me feel happy as much as I felt the dread of what would come to pass when my people realized she was gone. In fact I felt a scowl form when I realized that there might not be anyone who'd feel joy at the 'house cleaning' I'd done of my ego.

"Are you sure?" Piggy asked.

I said, "Yes, I'm sure."

The caring bastard leveled those patient eyes at me. He actually looked like he cared. In truth, he might have been the only person to care for this Nadia without reservation. He'd met me at one of the steps in my growth, and, despite first meeting me drenched in blood howling in pleasure, had considered me someone worth growing closer to.

"Orchard, you destroyed the entire mirror in the bathroom. That's not normal."

"Neither is the way you fucked me." I said, "So let's call it even and just say you gave me one hell of an orgasm. I'm sure it's not the first time you've destroyed a room with a girl."

Piggy was silent, but the crimson embarrassment on his face was loud enough for him.

"Was I your first?" I asked.

He coughed. "Um, not completely. Just to that extent."

I couldn't help but lick my lips at how delicious this was. His embarrassment, the fact that I was his first, and that despite all my prickliness he sat with me until I'd woken up and drank that glass of water. It tasted different than the success of taking a life. The feelings weren't salty in their bittersweetness like Melissa's tears of her own divisive feeling about me. There wasn't the hungry heat of Amber who would've devoured me—and I her—in some ouroboran loop. Nor the subtle hints that lurked behind every word and step of my dance with Secretary. At best this tasted like Sphinx's feelings for me albeit with more trepidation. Love, perhaps if nurtured, the stuttery blushing steps of love was what this was.

"Interesting," I said, smirking. "What happens next?"

Piggy answered, "I don't know. Besides waiting to make sure you'd be okay, I had an invitation to an afterparty a circle is throwing."

"A circle?" I asked.

"They're one of the sub-groups within the Lodge. Some of them are more like informal interest clubs like the Lodge choir, and others are like the four major research orgs—big enough to be basically their own thing but formally connected to the Lodge's larger structure and benefits."

"Which one is this circle?"

He said, "It's more informal with the goal of eventually being formal."

I stretched my arms out like a cat with a low groan. Then slid from the cubby only to turn back when I noticed Piggy hadn't gotten up yet.

"Let's go," I said.

"You're coming with?" he asked.

I said, "I don't like turning down invitations—or at least I think I don't—though I suppose it matters if you were inviting me. You were inviting me, right?"

"What happened to having me 'fuck off'?"

"I'm often of two minds about things. You'll have to be adaptable if you're going to keep up."

He shook his head in slight disbelief, but the smile he wore washed away any notion of displeasure. Rather, when he looked at me, I could tell that he could only imagine the fun we'd have—thinking back, I wish we could've had more than we got. Piggy slipped from the cubby and followed after me, the big lug, and we slipped out from the venue into the slightly chilly streets of a summer night in Brightgate.

We'd fallen into the kind of polite quiet of two people who'd skipped past the normal progression of talking, getting to know each other, and opening up before sex. We were doing this all backwards, but there was still something of a peace between us that prevented it from being more awkward than it was.

"So," I started, "don't you think you might need a jacket or do you just like showing off what you have up top?"

Piggy chuckled in that low chest-heavy way of his. "It's not that cold," he said. "Compared to back home this is still pretty warm. What about yourself?"

"The outfit, I imagine. Lets the air in so it's breathable and I'm not too sweaty, but doesn't let me get cold. Which, probably for the best. I mean, imagine if I had to walk through this night crotch out to the cold summer wind."

I stopped and spread my legs so I could better examine the seamless repair on my skinsuit's crotch area. Not a single hint that a half-hour ago it'd been torn apart by someone's teeth. I glanced up and saw Piggy blushing again then realized I was all but showing off my crotch to him. Which caused me to blush in turn and quickly close my legs and get back to walking.

The silence fell between us again though this time more awkward courtesy of myself. I quickly realized how little I'd actually navigated the infinite mundanities of being a person. That other Nadia had memories and practice and knew the right feelings to have, generally, and I used those. Me, this me, had been in charge when we—I?—needed to kill a lot of people. A task that had very little overlap with polite conversation involving someone who maybe had a crush on you.

"So, you're a Baron," I said. "What was your graduation trial like?"

Piggy rubbed the back of his head. "You refused to learn my name, but now you're asking about my trial? That's pretty personal, Orchard."

"With how much you came inside of me, I think I'm allowed some personal questions at this point," I said, then got slightly distracted by that fact. "Oh, I should probably go see a doctor about that shouldn't I?"

Piggy froze mid-step then quickly pivoted to face me. "Please, let me scribe the tokens for you to cover things. It's my fault and I should've—"

"Hey," I said, "it's fine. We had a good time, and besides I'm sure the medical community wouldn't mind any data that'd come from getting me checked out to make sure nothing took."

He raised a brow. "You let them have your information?"

"Why not," I said, "it beats writing out the tokens for covering my treatment. After the first test things were pretty touch and go for me. Apparently, they needed like three Viscounts just to keep me going."

"Wow," he said, "that'd for sure be a lot of tokens. Didn't realize you were so high maintenance."

He chuckled as he continued on and I chased after him.

"I'm a delicate instrument," I said. "They should be honored to get a chance to see what I have going on."

"I'm sure they were," he said, "and I am too. I mean, from the noises you made, you really are a 'delicate instrument.'"

My elbow collided into his side—Piggy was solid as a wall—and he entertained my blow by groaning dramatically before popping back up. I giggled, and then stilled at the novelty of the action. The first and only time I'd 'giggled' at something not violence related. Piggy grinned with all the smugness he felt was well-deserved from excavating such feelings from me.

"For that sound, I'll tell you." He said, "I had to confront what I wanted from my Court."

I nodded in the lack of my understanding. Allowed the quiet of the night to take its place between us. The streets were relatively empty with the party and afterparties corralling the Lodge's members, examinees, and even those who'd already failed but wanted to enjoy the sendoff. It made the night feel like it belonged to Piggy and myself.

"Is that what the trial's about?" I asked.

Piggy wobbled his hand in the air. "Every Court's exact trial is different—"

"Of course."

"But there are themes that connect them. My grandpa put it like this, 'the journey up the Chain is a bit like a physical one. As a soldier, you're all about expectation and preconceived ideas about the Court and your time with it. You get what you think you deserve or expect."

That was a lot like what Sphinx had said. I'd wanted a gatekeeper, expected one perhaps, and so I got her. A smile formed as I thought about her curled up within my spirit—the other of a small number who loved me, this me.

"And Barons," I prodded.

"Barons," Piggy said, "are the part of the journey where you're starting to reflect on your experience so far and consider your direction. What's been your defining relationship with your Court in your life? Do you want to keep going in that direction? However a Court does it, that's the general vibe of the trial. Then at Viscount you do it again, but this time it's a bit of a broader question about the relationship between your Court and others. Still rather subjective, but those are the big beats really."

"What happens after?" I asked.

Piggy shrugged and tilted his head up toward the yawning dark of the night and moon glittering with its palaces. It made me a bit wistful on behalf of Ferilala Nu-zo, stuck as she was in her room unable to experience the moon beyond memory and conjuration.

"Grandpa didn't tell me," he said. "He only told me about Viscount after I hit Baron. Doesn't want me to get ahead of myself. I don't think he wants me to get ahead at all if it'd mean getting away from him."

"Your grandpa can get bent," I said. "Once we pass the exam we'll have nearly full access to all the Lodge's information. No drip-feeding necessary."

Piggy wrapped an arm around me pulling me in close. I squeaked in surprise.

"I didn't hurt you did I?" he asked.

"No, I'm way more durable than that," I said. "Just, caught me off guard. It's fine though."

To accentuate my point I lean into him. Piggy slowly settled his arm back around my shoulder. We walked like that the both of us neither looking at the other's face to see the secret smile we held for how this simple touch made us feel warmer than the night air.

"Are you planning on taking the trial soon?" Piggy asked.

"What happened to that being a personal question?" I asked back.

He waved it away. "I think a wise woman said something about sex and it meaning we could ask each other something personal."

"Hmm, she does sound pretty wise," I said, smirking. "I'm not planning on taking the trial soon. Maybe after the exam. I want to be able to pass with Sphinx before she changes."

"That's fair," he said. "The longer her ego can develop the less personality drift when she graduates gaining whatever personality belongs to her upChain form's gestalt ego."

"Another piece of grandpa's advice?" I asked.

"Nah, got that from a grimoire I read when I was younger that got me into this life."

I joked, "Why ask if I'm going to take the trial, scoping out if you'll be able to take me?"

"Oh, hardly, a wild girl like you who can fight up a link is too unpredictable," he said.

"Interesting," I said. "Most people would say the person who has the link advantage would always win."

Piggy scoffed, "If both people are idiots maybe. Fights between summoners should never be a fair fight in the first place. I learned that by hand and my grandpa hammered it in even further. Would say that with the right planning you could beat anyone."

"Do you think you could beat me?" I asked.

Piggy grew quiet. Thought for a moment. Then with absolute seriousness said, "No, I don't think I could. You're craftier than me. Than I'm willing to be, beyond what's necessary of course."

"You say that like you have a limit," I said.

Piggy sighed, "Maybe I do. There's an honesty I crave that isn't really possible in this life. Better to just face someone head on and see how it all plays out."

"Even if you lose?" I asked.

He winked, "If I did—especially to someone like you—I think it'd be a good way to go out."

There wasn't any hesitation as he said it. No quiver of the lip, his eyes stayed trained on me with a solid determination, and his smile didn't falter. Piggy was tired of something, but when he spoke about his own end he'd found a beauty in it.

"I really lucked out meeting you," I said.

Piggy asked, "How so?"

"You're good and gallant. A very, 'I'll go down with the ship,' kind of person," I said.

I didn't tell him that on some level I don't think I deserved him. A butch like him was a gift better shared with the world than held in my clutches. Though I wasn't going to let go of him now. Piggy was mine and I didn't want to share this gallant maybe-lover of mine with anyone.

"This is the place," Piggy said.

We'd arrived at what looked like a small pub. Two big curtains hung in front of the entrance, but did nothing to stop the fragrant smell of charcoal and grilling meat from wafting out into the street. Piggy, the gallant woman he was, parted the curtain directing me inside first. I paid him in a nod as I entered with him not too far behind me.

The interior of the pub was filled with about six tables that could fit six people each. At the center of the tables was a metal mesh for the express purpose of grilling meat, vegetables, and the other curious items that I saw waiters rush about the pub delivering in large wicker baskets placed at the table's end. While other waitstaff changed out empty pitchers of beer and water with filled ones.

"Yooo!" the waiters yelled in unison when they heard Piggy and I enter. In fact, you could hear the distant, "yo," of the chefs in the back of the house preparing items to be brought out. The patrons brought up a refrain of the pub's greeting when they noticed it was Piggy who'd arrived.

"I saved you a seat," a woman said.

She had shot up from her seat quick to flag Piggy down. Her outfit was simple, a capelet over a jacket atop a skirt and stockings leading into dark-black boots. While her hair was shaved down at the sides beneath the asymmetrical bob of shockingly white hair. All in all, she was cute, but looked less cute when she noticed Piggy had brought a plus-one to the event.

Piggy led us over to the table she'd stood at, but stopped once he noticed there was only one seat still open—saved and guarded fiercely by her, no doubt. He mulled it over to himself for a few moments before clapping a hand on her shoulder in apology.

"Sorry Apogee," he said, "but it'd be rude of me if I just left Orchard by herself."

"I'm sure she can handle it," Apogee said.

I have no idea how I ended up being Piggy's first when this woman seemed desperate just to have him near her. Unfortunately, I wasn't born to mercy, so I gently pouted and shifted where I stood my gaze sliding down to the floor.

"Oh, Piggy, it's okay I just invited myself. I'm sure you have other people here you'd love to spend time with."

"Orchard, I see a lot of these guys constantly, it'll be okay if I'm not with them for one night," he said. "Apogee, this is on me for not messaging ahead. I'd gotten into some stuff and lost track of things."

I did my best not to laugh at the way Apogee's fantasy of the night had fallen apart. Piggy turned around in search of some other spot in the pub. As he walked off I couldn't resist twisting the knife just a little bit, so I sidled up to Apogee and gave her a nudge.

"Want to know a secret about what happened with him?" I asked.

She gnawed on her lip, briefly at war with even talking to me and her own fixation on Piggy, before it all gave one as she nodded.

"What?" she asked.

I leaned in and whispered, "I'm stuff."

"What?" she asked, her voice soft and fragile. She stared into my face hoping to find comedy, but if there was any it was saved for myself as I saw her dawning realization of my answer.

"Orchard, there's two spots over here," Piggy called from the other side of the pub.

I yelled back, "Great, I'm feeling Voracious right now."

"Apogee, you should eat more meat. You're looking so pale," I said, before leaving her.

When I settled next to Piggy, he handed me a menu. Though when I grabbed it he didn't immediately let go instead using it as leverage to lean in toward me.

"You didn't have to tease her," he said.

I grinned, "It was only possible because you keep giving her hope to hang herself with."

"Apogee has expectations of things," he said. "She's been with me since Grandpa took me in for teaching."

"Childhood crush kind of thing?" I asked.

"More like a childish fantasy," he said. "I'm my grandpa's successor—if he'd ever step down, which is doubtful. So she—"

"Thinks it'll be you and her, the happy couple, taking up his research or something?"

"Or something," Piggy said. "It'd be different if she liked me for me."

I snatched the menu from his hand.

"I'm happy it's not different then," I said.

He rested his head in his hand smiling. "So me waiting around with the glass of water wasn't that bad of an idea after all?"

"It was okay," I said. "Now, what are we getting?"

I leaned against him as he helped me pick. The place's owner was bonded to Cultivation apparently, and had enjoyed growing a number of interesting new trees. It was only when he'd met his husband—a food-goods merchant bonded to Collection—that they decided to open up this place. Those special trees became the cornerstone of the restaurant as each one became one of their signature charcoals whose smoke gave unique flavors to the food items the husband had traded for in his travels. It was a sweet story even if I imagined the true ups and downs of the narrative would otherwise struggle to be contained within the simple paragraph that filled out the back of the menu.

Piggy, who'd been here before, I quickly gathered, selected a number of unique charcoals and rather fatty cuts of beef as well as simple skewers of chicken heart and alligator strips. I let him handle things, enjoying the performance of his hands and tongs at work making sure each piece of meat was properly scored from the grill and suffused in smoky deliciousness. After which he gave me the first of anything finished though not without stealing a bite first.

"I take it back," I said. "You're hardly the gallant gentlebutch I thought you were."

"I promise I am," he said, "but consider it my final taste before I deem it good enough for you."

We chuckled at our performance to one another. The pub—and Apogee, who I imagined was stewing at our display of flirtatious affection—had fallen away. There was just the two of us shoulder to shoulder getting drenched in the flavorful smoke. Some of it was citrussy, others slightly bitter like chocolate, and the one that was my favorite was so spicy it had made Piggy's nose run. A reaction that led to Piggy revealing that he wasn't that good with spice. As the night ticked on and the skewers stacked on our plate, it proved time for the main event behind the afterparty to be revealed.

Apogee rose from her table and crossed to the middle of her side of the room. Clapped her hands once casting all sound down below her voice as if it was underwater. All eyes, mine included, turned toward her in explanation.

"Apologies for the spell, but the night's winding on and I'd rather get this out of the way so we can return to celebrating all of you who passed the first test," she explained. "Tomorrow they'll officially announce the test, but for all of you lucky chosen you'll get to learn it ahead of time. The test will be on Execution and Capture."

Even if it wasn't for Apogee's spell, the chatter would've still died to nothing right then. No one was a stranger to knowing that the Lodge frequently went after dangerous summoners too powerful to be held accountable by any individual community. Capturing them when possible, but otherwise simply removing them from the table entirely.

"You'll be given official targets for the test with the option to either execute them or capture them. With more points bestowed for extra examinees you take care of," she said. "It's that last bit which is where you all come in. Across the district, circles are giving the same deal to all you examinees: go after a few special targets of ours and in return you'll be given guaranteed admission to our circle and all the benefits that entails."

She pulled out her sorc-deck, made a few swipes, and immediately every deck in the room belonging to an examinee let out the unique alarm of a notification—including Piggy's.

"How'd you do that?" someone asked.

Apogee said, "When you accepted the invitation it added your address to our internal records."

As one body, everyone exhaled fitful sighs post Apogee's explanation. The thought that her, and by extension the circle she spoke for, could hack everyone's sorc-deck had seen them briefly abnegate reason and embrace terror. From there everyone turned their eyes to their decks as Apogee continued. Piggy held his between the two of us so I could see the list.

"As you'll see," Apogee said, "the list is filled with the names and faces of notable examinees connected to a number of influential collectives, families, and noteworthy industries. None of them are necessarily bad people, but this circle of ours sees the risk inherent in them entering the Lodge and becoming beholden to Lodgemaster Khapoor."

She continued, "The Lodge was founded on the principles of curbing power becoming too centralized and hoarded. A bulwark against individual summoners being able to run rampant. Now, whether you see the Lodgemaster as a villain or not, it is our belief that we'd be best off preventing that possibility from occurring. So please, familiarize yourself with the list and happy hunting tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll be seeing all of you at the next gathering of the circle."

Apogee sat back down and withdrew her spell. Sound returned to clarity as chatter rose between examinees comparing entries on the list. Piggy returned his attention back to cooking, giving me his sorc-deck so I could swipe through. It was a pretty bland list all things considered. Plenty of divas and prodigies—a fact that made me wish Ina had passed so I'd have an excuse to jump her again—as well as the children of famous researchers and traders that made Brightgate their home if not a notable stop in their work.

I wasn't that convinced of the pitch, to be honest, but I hated Nemesis in every fiber of my spirit. She was something that should've never gained access to the power of a Lodgemaster. So anything that disrupted her potential plans was good enough for me…until I scrolled far enough to see Melissa's name on the list.

My smile fell and all thoughts of putting the screws to Nemesis' potential desires were put aside. Why was she on the list? The Knitcrofts weren't that big of a name—at least I didn't think they were. Sure, they traded raw goods North and South as well as more finished fabrics, but the family was kind. A cornerstone of the town without being domineering. The whole affair was really a co-op of multiple founding families that was perfectly fine giving true access to anyone that decided to join and help build it up. They made sure everyone had clothes to wear whether it involved just providing the materials, or sitting down with someone like my Mom so someone like me could have the perfect garment to enjoy a festival.

I shot up and blurted my question, "Do we have to kill them?"

Everyone looked from me back to Apogee—I was the first who'd asked the question in so blunt of terms. She smiled without allowing light into her eyes as she half-stood from her table.

"No," she said. "This test usually has some means by which it manages the lethality of summoners fighting one another. If you think you're that good, you can even capture them. All we need is for the people on that list to fail. However, after last test, I'm sure we're all aware that sometimes accidents happen and some summoners are more stubborn than others."

Piggy looked up at me in concern whispering, "Are you okay?"

I didn't hear him. Instead, I committed to memory every face in the room. Whatever the contents of their hearts, they were all potential killers who I refused to let get near Melissa. Before Apogee could sit back down, I asked another question.

"Is this the entire circle?"

Apogee rose again—I was straining her patience, but I didn't care.

"No," she said, "you all are going to be working in more discrete cells for this one. A bit of a consequence of this venue not having space for the entire circle. Why do you ask?"

Eyes flicked back to me. Hungry to discern the meaning behind my question. I could smell the echo of tomorrow's Bloodlust filter into the room—though maybe it was just the smell of blood searing on the grill and merging with all the smoke that lingered in the air alongside the impatience of my own answer. In the face of that room, I dug into my mind for some excuse or clever way out, but I—this Nadia—was hardly that socially adept. I was a killer and it was to that realization, somehow forgotten amidst the flirting and the food of the night, that I found the mental weight of my mask lingering in the dark part of my mind. In facing all of those would-be killers, I let myself assume the persona of a hungry dog and flashed my bright fangs to them all.

"Oh, you know," I said, "I don't want to get in trouble for killing the wrong people just because they're not in the room with us right now."

Apogee furrowed her brow while her top lip rose in disgust at my blatant bloodthirst.

"Ugh, no one within the circle will hold it against you, but—"

I cut her off, "Accidents happen. Though I know we'll all do our best to minimize them."

Someone at a table yelled out, "Ah, sit down, stop acting higher than your link."

He was drunk and I was grateful for it as his outburst cut through the tension. Dressed up my questions and statement as a soldier's bravado. The room turned back to their meal, but Apogee kept her eyes on me, not ready to dismiss me as a potential concern. I kept mine on her long enough to memorize her face and the angle of her horrible bob. If necessary—as I didn't want to make Piggy's list of friends shorter than it had to be—I accepted that if I took her head it'd be best if I could bring her haircut to something with more symmetry.

I leaned down to Piggy, whispered in his ear, "I think it's time I went home."

It caught him off-guard—he'd just ordered more skewers for us—but my hunger for something material like meat was more than sated. Instead, I had begun the process of making room for more lives I'd need to take, and that was never easy when you were sitting at the same table as those who'd have to die.

When I pushed past the curtain to the street outside, I wasn't surprised when Piggy had rushed out after me. His legs being longer than mine it didn't take him long to catch up to me. He caught my wrist, preventing me from continuing on my way.

"Orchard, what's wrong?" he asked. "Was it someone on the list?"

I turned back to regard him, my eyes peeking up at his concerned expression. He was my gallant Piggy for sure, but I'd forgotten that while he'd met me drenched in blood I'd met him wearing a mask of his own. He was a killer as much as anyone in that room. As much as me.

"And if it was?" I asked.

"Then, we ask them to drop out of this year's exam."

I considered my agreement with Melissa—she'd give us a chance at seeing if she could love me, but only to the end of the exam. Her dropping out now was a non-starter. Let alone for the fact that she had plans for what to do with her membership were she to pass. I couldn't make her drop out and I doubt she would.

"Not possible," I said.

He offered, "Then I talk with the circle. We'll have their entry removed."

"Now that's just wishful thinking," I said. "You've already put the word out across however many cells. The odds that everyone will check a second memo that contradicts tonight's information is low. Just takes one person with a bad memory."

"I'm sorry," he said. His voice was quiet enough that the breeze could've silenced it.

"You did nothing wrong," I said. "Not like you knew the girl of your dreams had a friend on your hit list. Besides, something tells me this whole plan isn't your style. Grandpa?"

Piggy nodded sullenly. He was so large, but when despondent looked like such a child.

"Then it's him I blame," I said. "If you want, after the exam, I'll help you kill him."

A wry smile crossed his face. "I'd prefer you say that you'd let me take you on a date after all this. The circle isn't worth losing the…girl of my dreams. Not even a bit."

I pressed close to him, and rose onto my tiptoes so our faces were closer than they'd ever been.

"I don't go on dates with pigs. Fuck, yes, but no dates. So tell me, what's your name?"

Piggy whispered his name into my mouth as we pressed in for our first and last kiss.

"Sinaya," he answered.

After the kiss—brief and rather chaste for someone who'd been deep in my guts that very night—we parted ways, and with every step my thoughts turned tomorrow, to protecting Melissa, and to hoping I wouldn't see Sinaya again until the exam's end so we could have that date free from the shadows of our respective burdens.

---

AN:
This chapter is, in so many ways, an ode to my love of kbbq. It's great I tell you, just so great! And if you want to help a girl out to get more kkbq in her life, then hit the banner below and check out the patreon! In return for feeding my addiction to grilled meats, you'll get extra chapters, extra updates, be able to submit questions for the lore series, nsfw interludes, and more!

Alongside that, do check out the DISCORD where you can shoot the shit with other Comfort fans, enjoy our community nights, and get access to little goodies like the official chart with every Court.

 

[MxOberon]

The night, which had felt perfectly crafted for Sinaya and myself, had become intolerable. It was still quiet, the streets were devoid of others, and the moon glittered in its lofty place in the sky all the same. Nothing had changed. Everything had changed. I couldn't place what.

"You're lonely," Sphinx said.

I dropped my gaze down to where she'd fallen into step beside me having smoothly exited my spirit. Her face flush and gait wobbly like a table with a leg just a hair's breadth too short. I let my hand—which before I'd been rubbing with the other, perhaps to combat the 'loneliness' Sphinx had called attention to—drift to a familiar place atop her head. Fingers dipping into the black flow of her hair to scratch her scalp.

"Why would I be lonely?" I asked. "I have you."

"Yes," she said, drawing out the sibilant. "Though the bite of absence is all the harsher when the memory of presence is fresh."

"Gross," I said.

"Existence, in its fullness, often is. You'll not find the clarity of a glaive's edge when your heart's drumming is introduced to the pace of others as opposed to the tyranny of adrenaline that you're more acquainted with."

We arrived at a square where a fountain stood in stony silence. In the daytime, water passed from its successive bowls in lazy waterfalls, but by night each bowl was a world in isolation. I sat on the fountain's edge—the lowest and largest bowl—and offered a smile to Sphinx. Who returned my expression with a tilt of her head.

"Hmm, you really are a fast learner, Nadia," she said. "To taste a new feeling—this time untainted—and incorporate it so adeptly. This speed will do you well if hiding is your aim."

My smile dimmed at her phrasing. I wasn't trying to 'hide' anything. The framing that I was made it seem as if I knew this was wrong or something when it wasn't. I wasn't wrong. I was free from that dreadful specter of feeling which tore me in two…but again there lurked the anxiety that it'd be only myself who saw it that way.

"I'm sorry," I muttered.

"What for?" Sphinx asked.

"For trying to mask the fact that I'm not the summoner you fell in love with anymore," I said. "That divided Nadia is gone. It just wasn't tenable even if it was more desirable to everyone."

Sphinx snuffed the distance between us. Climbed atop the wide lip of the fountain and laid her head in my lap. She rolled over to catch my downcast gaze with her knowing smile.

"Are you happy?" she asked.

I nodded, wordless.

"Then that is the end of the matter." She said, "My love for you is not contingent upon one presentation of your nature. While I see them as glittering facets they are just that. Facets upon the gem that is my summoner."

She wrapped her paws around my neck and used them to pull our faces close into a kiss. It was light, a greeting for the new me—the free me. There was no worry or shame that marred the taste of Sphinx's love. When we parted her face was firm and eyes steady.

"You need not mask yourself to me, Nadia," she said, "nor to anyone else. Especially when your eyes are no longer clouded by inherited shadows, and your smile is so bright. My words weren't meant to wound you. Rather, I only sought to compliment because I presumed to understand your intention when you met me as you did. A consequence of the night's drinking I say."

I pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. "I'm the one who drank."

"Conceptual drinks, Nadia, hit the spirit not the gut."

"I know," I said.

Sphinx hiccuped, releasing a pink bubble from her mouth.

"And ours are entwined. What coats the strands of your spirit drips down into my own. While your intoxication passes on," she said. "I begin to inherit."

Sphinx was drunk. I couldn't help but snicker at the realization of it. Her flush face and stumbling gait made all the more sense. Of course, I felt minor hints of responsibility—not so heavy as to be guilt—and decided to pepper her brow with kisses to chip away at her intoxication. Then I leaned back up to watch the slow flight of bubbles through the air. The way they rusted over before falling fast as marbles and shattering against the ground to melt into nothing—too weak to uphold reality's rules.

"What do I do about Melissa and Amber?" I asked.

Sphinx yawned, "Why do anything for the maiden or mummer? Their happiness is their happiness and their displeasure is their displeasure. If they love you as I do, they'll embrace the broadness of your smile."

"Is my smile really that different?"

She closed one eye and widened the other to examine me. "Oh, Nadia, this you has been a lonely sort whose company had been but corpses. So you claimed the moniker of monster, but a monster is only such because they're allowed to have little else. Perhaps it was to keep you sharp and cruel—the last will of an elder self that needed such for a world it found cold."

"You're saying I was what, deprived?" I asked.

She reflected my question with another, "You tell me, are you hungry?"

My breath came out as a heavy hiss. The word echoed in the unadorned chambers of my spirit becoming a choir of agreement. That other Nadia—what was me perhaps—had greeded fiendishly for every scrap of feeling that had come our way to repair something broken. She stole our first kiss with Amber, pulled us out when the living had to be ushered into death, and denied us even the chance at worry when Melissa was struck low. I'd lost my first time with Sinaya to something that was dead within me yet continued to eat never sated.

"For now," I said, "but not forever."

"Then you'll find it'll be more than your smile that changes. Every experience a color, every feeling a shade, and memories the tints by which you'll paint the diptych that is you."

"If Sinaya's grandpa is right, I'll be painting both of us," I said. "Choosing the relationship between me and Revelation. Do you have a preference?"

Sphinx shook her head tossing ebon waves this way and that.

"I'm not allowed to advise on such decisions," she said. "Nor should you feel so pressured as to make a decision at this moment unless you wish to take the trial."

"I don't," I said. "But right now that seems like an easier conversation than going back to the residence and dealing with Amber."

Sphinx said, "The cost of being is the taste of sour moments."

"I might as well learn to enjoy the flavor."

"That you should," Sphinx said.

She rolled toward me—into me—flowing down into my spirit to settle in that space I'd seen when being fitted by the Nightlord. I raised the hand which had swam within her hair to my face savoring Sphinx's aroma. It was bright as a cold star with floral notes of lotus. Then I rose from my seat and continued my trek through the night, though this time I smiled when loneliness set in as it was only the reminder of what I had even if it wasn't present.

* * *​

The lights were off when I made it back to our residence, but it wasn't quiet. I could vaguely make out the short rapid breaths that accompanied the heavy flow of tears. In a quick glance, I noted that Melissa's door was shut—she was probably with Ina, which meant I'd have more time to figure out how to break the news to her that she'd be hunted tomorrow. Amber's door was also shut. Mine, however, was ajar.

With careful steps I picked my way across the common room of our suite. Pressed myself against the door. Then surreptitiously leaned just enough that I could spy into my own room. My mouth fell open as I discovered that there in my bed was Amber, the source of the crying.

Illuminated by a shaft of moonlight cutting through the window, she was wearing nothing but a large t-shirt. Her legs and arms were wrapped around my pillow as her tears caused her makeup to bleed into the pillowcase. Clustered near the bed was a small mob of empty liquor bottles—maybe ten in number—which oversaw this complete breakdown in her normally cool exterior. Though from how we'd parted, I could trace an easy line between her exit and the display before me.

If I'd seen this before killing that old Nadia, I probably would've felt guilt, or maybe some vindictive pleasure at this collapse. Thinking something like, that's what you get you traitor, or some other venomous line. Now, it just felt uncomfortable. I—this me—couldn't marshall up the heat in my chest to take joy in any of this. The feelings of betrayal that I had felt when we parted were like words on a page to me now rather than something I lived. At the same time, per Sphinx, Amber's feelings were her own to manage, so any sense of guilt on my part failed to form. Yet despite it all, she was crying in my room, and if there was any continuity between this me, my prior muddled self, and the Nadia before it all it was that I hated to see my people cry.

I pushed the door open with my foot, and entered without announcing myself beyond the soft tik, tik, tik of my heels against the floor. Amber's sobs died. She lifted her head from the pillow, eyes widening at the sight of me, and following my every step with complete attention. Up close, she was reminiscent of some prey animal; weak and fixed on me like I'd pounce on her the instant she blinked. It was the recognition of the power she saw in me that aroused my hunger. Intriguing it with the idea of taking this vulnerable Baron and pushing her even further beneath me. Letting my fangs tease her skin as I gave her some new reason to sob.

The intensity of this sudden train of thought took me by surprise, and it was with the entirety of my will that I forced myself into the chair opposite the bed. Unable to trust myself to not try and angle things into a more carnal light—despite it being without a doubt a tastier one—I kept silent. Allowing the quiet to stretch between Amber and myself.

"I'll clean up the bottles, Temple," Amber said. "You can also have my pillow. It's clean."

"Mhmm," I hummed in agreement.

"What happened after I left?" she asked.

The memory of that void in Nemesis and the ever flowing falls of blood from an indeterminable amount of corpses came to mind. My memories before my affair with Sinaya were distant—"words on a page"—but the sight of what lurked within Nemesis was a jagged knife to my psyche. An indelible mark that would haunt me forever.

"I saw Nemesis up close," I said.

"Temple," Amber said, "please tell me you didn't do anything stupid."

"I tried," I said, "but I couldn't move. Even if I could, she already knew somehow."

"Of course she did, Nemesis is bonded to Bloodlust. The scent of even the smallest murderous impulse can't go beyond her notice in a space that small," she said. "It's why I had to leave, Temple, not because I was scared of her, but because there's a small number of people in this world who want to kill her more than I do."

"If you do, then why say it was impossible?" I asked.

Amber's hands balled the pillowcase up into her fists in an act of rage without outlet.

"The stage isn't set properly," Amber said. "Against Nemesis, we can't miss. I didn't want you to act prematurely, and I didn't want my presence to put her on notice."

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. Amber's eyes flicked up in concern that she'd done something worth my derision, but I shook my head in an attempt to assuage her worry.

"From how we talked, I don't think she'd ever be concerned about losing her life. In fact she told me to 'be more creative.'"

"Temple, did you say you and Nemesis talked?"

I nodded.

Amber's breath quickened as she crawled to the edge of the bed.

"What did you talk about?" she asked.

"Nothing really," I said. "She complimented me on my performance over the exam. Said I had eyes like hers—"

I didn't finish my statement before Amber had flowed from the bed to straddling my lap in the span of a single blink. Her face was distorted in manic desperation as she searched my eyes.

"No, no, no," she ranted. "Fuck!"

She rose from my lap. Kicked the bottles off into the common room where they shattered. I leaned back in the chair as if that would let me avoid Amber's erratic wrath.

"Temple," she said, her head whipping back to me, "you tell me right now when this happened."

"When what happened?" I asked.

"Your eyes," she hissed. "They're flecked with carmine. Her color."

I thumbed through my memories—I'd been very busy today. "After my shower when I got back from the hospital. I noticed the red and I'd grown fangs."

"Shit!"

Amber paced back and forth muttering vengeful curses.

"I had Sphinx check me out," I said. "She didn't see anything. You didn't when we danced."

"Well something changed," she said. "Nemesis, despite everything about her, isn't a stranger to subtlety. That's how she infects you. It slips into your spirit slowly staining you in her own madness and Bloodlust. Twists your spiritual musculature to take on fitting mutations until they take such deep root that they manifest on your physical body. All while you fall deeper into murderous depravity without any self-control."

She charged over toward me, finger aloft like a sword before leveling it at my heart.

"Something changed in you," she said. "A shift in your spirit maybe, oh I don't know. If it's just flecks in the eyes and your teeth then maybe there's still time…"

Amber trailed off again into her mind. Pacing and pacing and muttering and muttering about things I could barely follow. I'd had enough, so I rose from my seat catching her by the wrist to stop her. She tried to pull away and I yanked her in the opposite direction with more force than I could account for while in heels. Together we tumbled into the bed. I scrambled on top of her. Pinned her arms above her head so she couldn't throw me off.

"Talk to me," I yelled. "Just talk to me, Amber, please. How do you know any of this?"

"Because she did it to me," she screamed back.

Softer this time, she said, "Nemesis did it to me and all my siblings. Twisted us up until every horrible thing we did felt like drinking the most perfect whiskey in the world. Temple, it's because of her that I know the taste of a human heart."

My grip slackened, and Amber threw me to the side. Rolled over to take her position between my legs. Above me, in the light, everything about Amber came into clarity.

"Your eyes," I said.

"No one just has rose colored eyes, Temple."

"Your hair?" I asked.

"Dyed in a number of massacres."

"But you're not…"

"Crazy?" she asked. "No, I found a way to twist what Nemesis had done to me. Shift the color from hers to what you see now. However, it's still in me. I could only sublimate it."

"To love the fight rather than killing," I said.

Amber smiled, "You're so smart, Temple. Exactly."

"Can you remove it from me?" I asked.

Tears welled in her eyes. "I don't know. I'll have to discern the vector—"

"The mask," I said. "When I went on the wild hunt, I was given a mask as one of…of her dogs."

The memory of Revelation Living came to mind. She'd called me a puppy, and the other Baron had said that they only say what's present. In retrospect, it was obvious what my collar was.

Amber slid back allowing me to get up. I fished the mask out from its place in my room next to the skinsuit I'd worn the night of the hunt. She was silent at the sight of it. I couldn't bear to look at it. When Amber tried to take it from me, I growled at her.

"Please, Temple, drop it," she said, "for me."

I took a long inhale, and on the exhale I forced myself to let go. Amber quickly placed the mask into her storage-spell. She then dropped onto the bed. I crawled in after, leaning against her for support.

"I'm sorry I called you a coward," I said.

Amber sighed, "No, I am. Maybe not to the idea of fighting Nemesis, but acknowledging everything that'd happened? Yeah, I'm pretty cowardly in that respect. I could've—"

I tilted her head down toward mine into a kiss before she could blame herself any further. It wasn't like any of our hungry kisses. There was no game to be had. We were just in need of more quiet. When we broke apart—a thin line of saliva connecting us—Amber brought her forehead against mine.

"Nemesis will die," she said.

"Not just for killing my parents, but for what she's done to you and your siblings."

In one voice we said, "We'll make her pay."

Our promise echoed in the quiet until only the shadows still heard it. We parted, and Amber rose from the bed making her way to the door.

"Wait," I said.

"Yes?" she asked.

I couldn't help but be a bit embarrassed by the question. "Could you help me take my clothes off? I'm really tired and don't actually know how."

Amber rotated her expressions through surprise, lust, and incredulity.

"You somehow received some of the fanciest clothes possible, but you don't know how to take them off?" she asked. "Temple, you're perfect."

She walked back to me, settled on her knees in front of my spot on the bed, and patted her lap.

"Shoes first," she said.

I raised my leg, settling the point of my heel into her thigh. With deft fingers, she undid the straps and placed the shoe beside her. We repeated the process with the next shoe. Once both had been removed she had me roll onto my stomach. Then she crawled onto the bed straddling me.

"Conceptual clothing is pretty simple," she explained. "Generally, you engage it like you would your own spirit. Feel for a point on the clothing where you'd like to begin taking it off."

"And if I want someone else to do it?" I asked.

She leaned over me, whispered in my ear, "Then you do the same, but imagine the person you want to undress you. It'll make it so only you and them can find that point."

I closed my eyes, and it took little work to imagine Amber there, in that big t-shirt, straddling my waist from behind. Her breath in my ear. Then I imagined a zipper—dainty, the color of starlight. It wasn't my imagination when I heard the thin zip of my cosmic catsuit coming undone.

Amber slid back as she helped me up, guided my arms free, and then peeled the suit from my chest. From there we rose to our feet, and I stood while Amber lowered herself to continue removing the garment from my body. Eventually, it was just a puddle of space and stars at my feet. I stepped out of it and turned to find Amber fixed on my body.

"We're not having sex," I said.

"Oh."

"I already did that tonight, and I'm still worn out."

"Oh," she repeated but lower this time.

"But if it's okay, I don't want to sleep alone tonight. I feel like I'm going to have nightmares of Nemesis or something," I said. "Can we sleep in your room?"

Amber chuckled and nodded. "C'mon Temple, I have a clean pillow in mine."

Then I let Amber guide me by the hand from my room to hers. We settled into bed, and I got to be the small spoon. As we curled up together on the edge of sleep, I couldn't help but ask one last question of Amber.

"How'd Nemesis get close enough to infect you? You're kind of paranoid about things."

"Paranoia comes after the betrayal, Temple. No one's ever paranoid when they need to be," she said. "I especially wasn't when I thought I'd found love."

"You and Nemesis dated?"

"She was my first."

"If you loved her, can you really kill her?"

"Temple, the easiest life you'll take is the one that belongs to someone you once loved."

---

AN:
Exes am I right? In all seriousness, sometimes you just need a cuddle from a person you know has it down for you real bad.

But what's really good, why the PATREON of course! Cmon down, subscribe, and get to read ahead! Next chapter begins our next arc which is currently completely finished on the patreon. Besides the joys of the patreon though, do check out DISCORD where you can talk Comfort, games, and vibe with other good folks (some of which are currently playing new big moba, Deadlock!). Either which way, join the community, make some friends, and help feed your lovely author with your joy so I can press on and light up the night.*

*Yes, this is ref to The Protomen, they fucking rip!

 

[MxOberon]

When I heard the soft coo of Amber's voice, I remembered where I was. Her bed, her room, but where was she? The arms that'd held me through the night weren't present nor was there the soft comfort of her chest against my back. My eyes fluttered open in search of her before screwing shut as the morning dawn jabbed its bright fingers into my retina. I let my eyes adjust. First to the darkness behind my eyelids, and then crack by crack allowing in more light until they were open and I found my absent bedmate.

Amber was at her desk, having swapped her billowy oversized sleep shirt for a compact bra and boxers. Backlit by the sun, she looked like a painter's dream subject—focused, beautiful, and unaware of anyone watching her. As it was all her attention was angled down at the object she labored over drawing and replacing all manner of tools from a rolled out belt that hung off the desk's edge.

It's ridiculous to say, but I felt a bit jealous of whatever inanimate thing had lured her away from me. Had gotten her to tie up her raspberry locs and use those long strong fingers to twist and pinch the tools needed for whatever purpose. I wished I was on that desk so strongly that I couldn't suppress the slight moan that'd escaped from me; betraying my conscious state.

"Temple, you're up?" Amber asked.

I threw the blanket off myself and made a show of stretching and yawning.

"Only just," I said. "I'm not much of a morning person."

"Most wouldn't be after the partying you did last night."

I laughed, "Sure, but you're up early. I drank conceptual cocktails you had Real booze. Shouldn't this be the other way around?"

"Hmm," she hummed, "it would be if I wasn't as experienced as I am. Besides, I have an actual reason to be up early."

"I take it it's whatever is on that desk?" I asked.

"You can see it easier beside me than from the bed."

I blushed at the implication—if it was a real implication at all and not just my embarrassment—that she'd known I was watching, but I pushed it aside and sprung from the bed to take point behind Amber. Allowed myself the luxury of touch as I slung my arms around her neck laying my head on her shoulder.

The object atop her desk was my mask now in two pieces. Though calling it an object at this point felt improper. There was the part of the mask I was familiar with, the faceplate as it were, and it sat politely to the side, its expression mellowed in some way. While the other half of the mask was what captured Amber's attention and demanded reclassification. It was a mess of muscles cabled across the mask's other half. While splayed out beneath itself were eight long chitinous legs that made the entire visual remind me of meals involving crab that Dad sometimes acquired from passing traders. The top part of the mask being just another piece of shell to support and protect the dense muscle within.

"Alls below, what is that?" I asked.

"Your little mask," she said. "It's actually a pretty interesting piece of sorcerous technology, and—unfortunately for you and your ilk—as sure a sign as any that Nemesis hasn't let time dull her cruel inventiveness."

I blinked on the Omensight to better examine the "mask" as it was. Threads of an unknown Court ran throughout its muscles carrying countless signals. Amber, noticing my now active sorcerous sight, took that as her cue to begin her demonstration. She pulled forth a long metal tool that was L-shaped and topped with a weight. Slid it beneath the mask and tilted it up to apply pressure from the inside. The legs immediately shivered and clacked against the desk like impatient fingers. Spiked purple-black threads surged through the mask's muscles.

"Parasitism," she lovingly named it. "Not a Court you'd commonly find summoners of outside specific branches of medicine dealing with curses. That being by more socially appropriate channels of course. There's plenty of Parasitism summoners at the veiled markets."

I shifted my gaze to her in surprise at the confirmation of innumerable high school horror stories that would be bandied about around holiday bonfires. They'd involve hunters trying to sell restricted entities, assassin summoners contracted for a killing only to extort the client through the Ghost of the slain, and even stories involving a student discovering a strange site on the NewNet that would trap their mind in an infinite mental Labyrinth only to have their now ego-less body kidnapped and sold. They were terrifying tales to share, but they'd only been stories.

"The veiled markets are real?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, very," Amber said. "Temple, it's not like every bad person died in the Changeover. See Nemesis as exhibit A for that."

She directed my attention back to the mask and continued her demonstration. She traded the L-shaped tool for a scalpel which she used to prick the pad of her index finger. Carefully, she squeezed out three ruby beads of blood that made my mouth water as I craved to learn what Amber tasted like. However, I restrained myself and watched as they hit the mask. The carmine hue of Bloodlust surged through every muscle causing the mask's legs to quiver in ecstasy.

"I'm sure by now you recognize this one," Amber said.

"Bloodlust."

"Good, now the last one I can't really activate the same as the others."

"Why not?"

"It's function is to impede function. I'd have to put this through conditions to send it into overdrive or use some kind of code phrase. However, if you observe…"

Amber exchanged the scalpel for a pair of tweezers and a flat metal pick similar to a file. She snagged a bundle of muscles near the "forehead" of the mask and pulled back while using the flattened tool to press down-and-away the muscle cluster right beneath. Revealing a node of sharp red that reminded me of the phonemes that'd failed to capture the lindwurm.

"Bondage," I said. "It has Parasitism, Bloodlust, and Bondage?"

"Masks as well," Amber added.

"Why does Nemesis need four Courts to curse someone?"

Amber placed her tools down and I dropped the Omensight.

"She doesn't," Amber said, "or at least she didn't when it came to me and my siblings. Back then it was more like dosing us, and she wasn't interested in puppeting us at the time. This is evidence to her desires changing. It's not enough to ruin someone's life and make them do the unthinkable. She wants control of every little monster she's making."

"Thus the Bondage?" I asked.

"So you can't slip the leash. Whether by frenzy or self-restraint."

I traced my fingers against my jaw—when I'd ripped the mask off back at the ERO facility I'd felt a resistance to it releasing my skin.

"Bloodlust is for the obvious reason. It's the curse itself, and apparently when you engage with it it floods the mask and thus yourself with even more of it."

"So it snowballs out of control."

"An exponential progression rather than the linear one I went through."

"And the Parasitism, is that just to be creepy?" I asked.

"No, well, knowing Nemesis that might have been a beneficial feature. The Parasitism is how it hooks into your spirit to pump the curse into you without your body otherwise noticing. That, and it seems to release an enzyme intended to dissolve your face."

"I thought it just helped hide my identity," I said, as I clutched my face in a possessive reflex.

Amber grabbed the faceplate and pressed it into place until the mask came together with a click.

"It still does. The portion of the mask using Masks hides your identity and the nature of your Court. A beneficial side-effect while it covers the other 'features.'"

I moved to the windowsill and leaned it against it—the mask wasn't on me but I wanted to keep my distance. I'd had enough moments of feeling it bleed in my mind to tempt me into wearing it. My lips pulled back into a snarl as my fingers crossed into the seal for Atomic Glory, winding potential futures around and between them as would be kindling for the spell.

"So what next, we destroy it?" I asked, hoping hard that'd be the solution.

Instead, Amber shocked me as she grabbed the mask and clutched it against her chest. She looked at me and my suggestion with disappointment.

"No, Temple, we're not going to destroy it. It's not some evil ring," she said.

I scoffed, "It's a parasitic mask that cursed me. Alls below, on principle it should be destroyed."

"Cause it scares you?" she asked.

"It's an abomination."

"So," Amber said, "it didn't ask to be made. Just like you didn't ask to be born. We can blame and hate Nemesis. She'll die for this, but this little guy is just doing what it's made for."

"It's a 'little guy' now?"

"I suppose it is," she said.

Amber shrugged and smiled gently at the mask in her arms like Mom would do when I'd rush home holding up some elementary school art piece. I shook the spell from my hand.

"You like it that much?"

"No," she answered. "Its purpose is horrific and reminds me of horrible dark times, but that doesn't mean it can't have a little love and sympathy. There'll be no one to applaud it or praise how well it executes its deeply disturbing functions. But maybe there should be…someone who can show a little love to the abominations of the world. Those beautiful monsters, innocent in their creation and purpose."

Amber wasn't looking at the mask when she said this. Her attention was fixed elsewhere—technically at the wall in front of her, but functionally at some higher ideal. Some deep memory that found its way into our shared present moment. The potency of which made me feel ashamed for my haste in the same way I'd felt when Sphinx had made her case about the White Wombs back at the facility.

"Even if they have a tie to your enemy, it doesn't make them your enemy," I whispered. "Fine, just keep that thing in storage. I don't want to look at it even if it is innocent in some respect."

"Thank you, Temple," Amber said, before slipping the mask into her storage-spell.

Anxious for reasons besides the mask and my curse, I paced back to Amber's bed dropping down into it with a groan as my thoughts turned to Melissa and what I'd still yet to tell her.

"Did Melissa get home yet?" I asked.

Amber swiveled in her chair to look at me. Her legs crossed glowing in the morning light.

"No," she said, "is there something you need to tell her?"

"Less of a need, more of a requirement," I said, thinking of my promise to Melissa.

"Now isn't that growth," Amber cooed, "but you're teasing me, Temple. What's the big news?"

"You'll have to wait. I don't want to tell the same information…four separate times."

"Four?" Amber asked. "Isn't this just about Melissa?"

I waved my hand in the air noncommittally. Technically, it was about Melissa as she was a target, but as I lay there thinking it didn't take the Omensight for me to see the grander web of what was happening. As well as how it affected all of my people whose concerns and safety pressed down on my chest as an insistent reminder.

"She's the center, but it's bigger than just her. It touches every—," I said before my growling stomach cut me off.

Amber stifled a laugh, "Let's get some food in you before your grand reveal, hmm Temple? We can hash this all out over breakfast."

My stomach growled again at the mention of hash and breakfast. Amber broke, laughter pouring from her like a tipped cup. While a blush spread across my face fast as ink on paper.

"I'm getting dressed," I tossed out as I fled her room.

* * *​

The place we'd found ourselves was the balcony of an upscale brunch location down near the wharf. Spread out across our table were great plates of pancakes and waffles, bowls of eggs and baskets of fruit, paper-lined tins filled with bacon and slices of ham, while large pitchers of juice stood sentry. All of which was set on a series of concentric wheels to be spun about so no one would be forced to reach across the other.

It was an extravagant spread that I was grateful Amber was paying for, but as we waited I couldn't help but turn toward the horizon. It'd been so long since I'd looked there—where I'd placed my vengeance—and I considered the feeling that the sight aroused. Bitterness, emptiness, and the sorrowful rage of an abandoned child.

The old self that had haunted me had an anger that burned hot as it immolated itself in an attempt to melt away every concern other than revenge. It wounded me to think this, but I didn't burn for the loss of Mom and Dad—I'd not had the pleasure to know them. Yet, I felt a pain all the same because I'd never get to know them. There'd be no answer as to if they'd love me—I liked to think they would, because aren't parents supposed to love their children? The only answer that came was the salt-seasoned breeze of the sea as it rolled past the balcony.

"Temple!" Amber barked.

"Huh, yeah?" I asked.

I turned my head from the horizon to her. She was forking bites of waffle with one hand while reading a text on Parasitism in the other on her sorc-deck. Well, she was, but now she'd fixed herself on me. Anyone could read the concern in her face.

"Anything interesting out there?" she asked.

"No," I said. "Why?"

"Because I've been standing here for five minutes waiting for you to notice," Lupe said.

I spun around to find Lupe leaning over the back of the chair nearest me in her tight conweave—most likely for today's test. Her hair rode the breeze in a lazy fashion that matched the lackadaisical unrolling of her smile. Spreading my arms to embrace her, she circled the table and pulled me into a hug in turn—my face pressed into her soft yet firm stomach.

"I didn't see you at the party last night," I said, pulling back to see her face, only to find my reflection in the shaded glass of her spectacles.

She tilted her head laughing to a joke I never said. "Didn't know I was on your mind like that."

Blushing, I stammered out, "I mean, everyone's on my mind all the time, ya know? Besides, I figured it was an event no one was planning on missing." Alls below, not even Piggy—Sinaya—missed it, I thought to myself rather than say out loud.

"Eh, not really accessible to me," she said. "That many people across that many links, all the special effects run on Sorcery—alls below, even the drinks—it's too much for me. Would mess with my bracelet and just give me back a jumbled glob of silhouettes with functionally no depth."

"Oh, I'm sorry I didn't think about it like that," I said.

She shrugged it off before tousling my head and claiming the chair closest to me.

"You have no reason to," she said, "but I wouldn't be opposed to something more private. Speaking of, you were different just now. I mean, you feel different now, but there looking at the horizon…Amber, does she do that a lot?"

Amber raised a brow, "I think so. Yeah, Temple does now that you point it out."

"I'm a small town girl," I said, "the horizon's pretty."

Lupe looked at me—really, looked at me—her glasses angled down so her clouded could meet my direction and take in my entirety.

"No, that's not how someone who thinks the horizon's pretty behaves," she said. "You had the posture and shift in your spirit like someone pulling out an old knife for sharpening. You know you need it, you'll use it, but you don't love it. The process has become a pain and still you just can't toss the thing."

Amber and I turned to find Lupe crossing the interior of the restaurant to our balcony. A smile broke across my face at the sight of her—it didn't hurt she was wearing her conweave for today's test. She laid her ax in its case against the table and took a seat beside me.

"That's pretty poetic," Amber said, "and rather accurate. It's like you're more assured, Temple, and this old knife—to use Lupe's words—might be bringing you down. What changed?"

"Well, I did get laid last night," I said.

Lupe cracked a smile at the news, and Amber tried to hide her wince. It was a good enough answer for them while being close enough to the truth for me. I'd tell them the full story at some point, but there was enough for me to deal with already let alone the chance that they'd…that things would play out differently with them compared to Sphinx.

"So, is that the big reason you called me out here?" Lupe asked. "I'm not the jealous type."

It was technically Amber who'd called her. Apparently, while I was unconscious in the hospital everyone had traded addresses to contact the others to let them know when I'd woken up. A necessity as they'd decided to take shifts so everyone could get some amount of sleep, and so I wouldn't wake up alone.

"Nah," I said, "it's a bigger deal than that."

I spun the table over my way so I could refill my glass with lemonade. Lupe took that moment to steal a few pieces of bacon for herself. She tore off the strips of fat dropping them into a bowl of congee she'd ladled for herself. While the crispy meat bits she tossed into her mouth.

Behind her, I spotted #404 slipping out onto the balcony to join us. They held a finger to their lips, don't say a word. I chuckled into my drink as I accepted my role as co-conspirator in what ultimately was as much a prank as a chance to spy on people. Taking my laugh as acceptance, #404 took the chair to my left.

Lupe asked, "Is the person you slept with going to be at this little get together?"

#404's eyes widened at the news I'd slept with someone. Their attention drilled down onto me craving answers to probably a hundred small questions. However, I only had eyes for the empty chair next to Lupe that I knew wasn't going to be filled.

Last night with Sinaya had been good, so good that we had been too enamored with each other to remember to trade addresses. My gallant butch was out there somewhere in the district, I knew that for sure, but they wouldn't be here. I only hoped they were thinking about me as well.

"That's not likely," I answered. "But again, this meeting is not about someone shoving their dick into me. It's about serious news."

"You had a dick in you." Amber leaned forward in concern, "Temple, did you use protection?"

"Fair point, some girls are pretty nasty," Lupe said, smirking. "Do you like it nasty, Nadia?"

I rolled my eyes, "He was a virgin. It was probably fine, and I don't know."

#404 fell back in their chair in disbelief. Snapped their fingers so that Amber and Lupe could Remember they'd been there the entire time.

Secretary said, "Are you that naive as to just believe some random person saying they were a virgin?"

Lupe laughed, "Oooh, was it pity sex?"

"It wasn't pity sex," I said in a bid to defend myself. "He admitted it after. Even got me water and stuff for when I woke up."

"Woke up?" Amber asked. "It was that good?"

"Yeah," I said.

The table went silent at that detail. They all shared a look as they performed a quick mental calculus of how to judge the situation. #404 and Amber looked to Lupe to ask one last question.

"Where did you two do it?" Lupe asked.

"Inabathroom," I mumbled.

Amber said, "What was that?"

"Inabathroom," I muttered a hair louder.

#404 scowled, "Speak up, little brute."

"It was in a bathroom, okay!"

They all leaned away from the news like I'd shit on the breakfast spread.

"Temple…"

"A brute indeed."

"That's classically nasty."

"It was my choice," I pleaded.

Amber said, "You could've taken their first time anywhere, but a bathroom?"

I buried my head in my hands. This couldn't get worse.

"What was in a bathroom?" Melissa asked.

I dropped my head against the table. It'd gotten worse. When I looked up I was taken aback, as there standing on open air was Melissa sitting astride a strange combination of a moose with the head of an amoeba and antlers made of undulating neurons. Behind her was Ina whose arms were wrapped tight around Melissa's waist.

The two of them slid from the strange entity's back onto the balcony. While the beast narrowed down to needle-width and injected itself into Melissa's arm before disappearing—it was her entity. My mouth stretched in surprise and glee, and Amber broke into soft applause.

"You graduated," I said.

Melissa beamed at my statement—agreement if there was any—and quickly took her seat at the table between Amber and #404. Ina took the still-empty seat, the one I'd rather have filled with Sinaya, and I did my best to stomach the displeasure. Treating her was one of the deals I'd made with Melissa, after all.

"How'd it happen?" Amber asked.

Ina snorted, "Go on Mel, it's your graduate tale."

Melissa poured herself a glass of orange juice, guzzled half of it, and then shut her eyes so as not to see her audience as she recounted it.

"So, I'd gotten kind of drunk last night," Melissa said, "and after getting into some stuff with Ina—"

"I'm stuff," Ina gloated, and I resisted the urge to throttle her.

"After that, I was kind of feeling myself and decided to graduate right then," she said. "I didn't mean to get the entity I did—it's very atypical for Knitcrofts—but I think it was for the best. Most of my family aren't out here fighting like we are, and I wanted a way to keep up so everyone doesn't have to worry about me as much."

She opened her eyes, looking at me first, before glancing back to her drink in embarrassment.

"Damn, princess, I've heard about people graduating in battle, on their deathbed, but drunk that's a special one," Amber said. "Any chance we can hear what your pal's name is?"

"Vind'fulla, He Whose Steps Twist the Familiar," she said. "Enough about me, what's this about something in a bathroom?"

Immediately #404, Lupe, and Amber realized they all were just so thirsty that their mouths were too occupied to provide an answer. Traitors the lot of them. I returned to find Melissa staring at me—all four pupils trained on my person. Her brow furrowed in the early stage of annoyance.

"Nadia, we have a deal don't we?" she asked.

No secrets. I chugged my lemonade for strength and slammed the empty glass on the table.

"I fucked a virgin in the bathroom last night," I admitted.

Ina bent over laughing as she prepared some barb to skewer me with only for Melissa to speak first, and end me worse than any insult.

"Huh," she said, "wasn't our first time in a bathroom?"

"Temple!"

"So you've always been a brute."

"Oh shit, you're the nasty girl!"

Ina's mouth fell open in shock. "Mel, really?"

Melissa said, "It was my bathroom."

I shot up and grappled the reins of the conversation the best I could. "Melissa's being targeted by assassins."

It was about as smooth a transition as the gravel that covered sections of my home's courtyard, but effective was effective. Everyone's back straightened as they focused on me and the news I'd tossed down before them. I allowed the quiet to stretch into a canvas for me to detail the picture of the conspiracy I'd become privy to.

"I don't know about everyone else, but yesterday I was brought to an event a circle was throwing," I said. "They told me about today's test. How we'd be hunting each other directly as targets for 'execution' or capture. But, besides being given specific targets for the test, circles like this one were invested in examinees turning their eyes toward people they'd marked."

"Why her?" Ina asked. "She hasn't done anything."

"That's the thing, it's not about Melissa," I said, as I turned to her. "It's about your last name. This circle is worried about the Lodge, specifically Nemesis, getting her hands on new members from influential families, collectives, businesses, etc. They want to curtail her power."

"The Knitcrofts don't have any power," she said. "It's a co-op."

"I know, I know, but—" I said.

Amber cut in, "You're the only one taking the exam. If they have a hit list so scattered as to target you then they don't actually care about stopping Nemesis. Instead they're just trying to see whose death sticks to the wall."

#404 said, "Everyone knows the test is dangerous."

"There's dangerous," I said, "and then there's Nemesis. You're the one who said she 'incentivized' examinees to take more final solutions. If they pin all of this on her…"

"Isn't that fine for us?" Amber asked.

"Not if it'd mean a bunch of innocent people are killed," Melissa argued.

"It'd be chaos," #404 said. "Lodgemaster Khapoor being ousted would jeopardize the entire region. Alls below, for Brightgate she is the Lodge. She's been running it since the New World began. There's no one qualified enough to keep it together."

"Which is our problem because…?" Amber asked.

Lupe groaned, "Khapoor built a Lodge full of people dancing on the edge of madness and civility. If she's not there to keep them on that edge…"

The silence flowed like a slit wrist as all our imaginations did their best to conjure up the amount of chaos that could engulf not only the district but Brightgate in its peaceful entirety. It was only Amber, myself, and technically #404 who could imagine the true depths of the slaughter that was possible. Amber because of her own familiarity with the curse that Nemesis had implanted in people. While #404 and myself had been privy to a small taste of the madness possible during the wild hunt.

"What's the plan then?" Lupe asked.

"It's not a really good one," I admitted.

Ina said, "Probably not, but your last plan did get us back safely, so lay it on us."

"Was that a compliment?" I asked.

Melissa patted Ina's arm, "Aww, you really are trying to be nice."

I said, "Melissa, you're going to have to be bait."

Ina crushed her glass in her fist. "I take it back, your plan does suck!" she screamed.

"I don't love it," I said, "but I only got to do a once-over of the list. It's pretty long, but knowing Melissa is on it means we know who they'll go for inevitably. They collapse on Melissa and we trigger our trap. We'll kill who we have to and capture the rest."

Amber used a napkin to sweep the shards of glass into her storage-spell. She dropped the napkin inside as well, and removed a new glass to hand to Ina. After which, Amber looked up toward me with a pitying expression.

"Temple, your plan has a problem," she said.

Lupe asked, "What? It makes perfect sense to me."

"It would, if she wasn't cursed," Amber said.

Melissa gasped, "What curse? Shouldn't her spell resistance melt any before they slip inside?"

"Any curse by normal means, yes," Amber said, "but this one was pretty special. Wasn't it, Secretary?"

#404 didn't look like someone who'd been caught in a scheme. Their eyes narrowed—sharp and gray as the cutlery on the table—in their attempt to discern what Amber was intimating. I laid my hand on their shoulder, felt them stiffen beneath my touch, surprised at how gentle it was. They turned to me for assistance in solving the mystery.

"It was the mask, #404." I said, "The masks Nemesis gives us dogs are cursed so we develop a fixation—"

"An obsession. A fetish. A compulsion, if you will," Amber said.

"Compulsion, toward Bloodlust and the violence that feeds into it," I said.

#404's face froze as they processed my words. Their throat tensed around the beginning of swiftly aborted sentences, and they swung their eyes away from me so fast that their shoulder bucked my hand. I tried to reach for them, but they shirked my touch sure as a magnet might flee its kindred self. My heart broke as I knew they didn't know. Just as I knew that they—the same secretary who'd grieve for a death that wasn't by their hand—had just added a new weight onto the already skewed scales of their conscience.

Melissa said, "That explains everything. You've never been the violent type, but a curse that—that'd do it. It'd change anyone. We just have to cure it and you'll be fixed."

I resisted the urge to cringe at her hope as it was. The timelines—if she really knew them—didn't line up like that. It was true that after the mask, the wild hunt, things changed but…I was already changing. When I met her wide hopeful eyes I couldn't hold her gaze. She yearned for a me that I'd already killed, and was quick to chalk me up to being the product of a curse. A bastard personality to be scoured clean from her beloved Nadia.

"Princess," Amber said, "we can talk cures later, if there are any. What's important right now is considering our options regarding Nadia's condition."

Lupe said, "What's there to talk about? Nadia drops out, we protect Melissa, and bust the plot wide open."

"Sounds good to me," Melissa said.

"Not for me," I argued. "I'm not dropping out. Not when you need me. Alls below, I'm one of our best fighters. I'm useful."

Melissa rose from her chair and walked around the table toward me. She touched my arm in a way she hadn't since my parents died—gentle, her thumb rubbing circles in my bicep, as she flashed those beautiful eyes of hers.

"Nadia, it'll be fine. I'm a Baron now, and I don't need you to set yourself on fire to keep me safe."

"Temple, let's be serious right now. If you take this test you'll be surrounded by so much Bloodlust it'll only be a matter of time before you succumb to the curse." Amber said, "As you said last night, you're really good at killing people. If you succumb and your curse advances then this whole plot doesn't matter. You would be the only thing needed to cause a big enough bloodbath to destabilize everything."

"Amber—," I tried to speak, but Lupe cut me off.

"Don't be selfish, Nadia," Lupe said, "there's more than you at stake."

I looked around the table—they were all in agreement that I should step back, step down. Melissa didn't want to lose a Nadia who was already gone. Lupe saw the big picture I'd painted, and so I couldn't blame her for wanting to prevent the worst from happening. Amber…she knew what the curse could push someone to do, and I could tell in her eyes and her voice how badly she wanted me to never go through what she'd experienced. They all cared about me, and that made it hurt even more.

"The little brute might be selfish," #404 said, "but so are the rest of you!"

The table turned as one to regard the Secretary that we'd forgotten. #404 rose from their chair and pried Melissa off of my arm. Put theirs out in front of me as a bulwark to the group's demands. They raised their chin and looked down on all of them.

"You see an easy way out of this. Toss her to the sidelines as if she's a liability—."

Melissa said, "She is."

"No," #404 spat, "she's your friend. She carries the lot of you as burdens on her shoulder, and the one time she has a burden of her own you abandon her rather than share the weight. The least you could do is believe in the brute's strength."

Amber rose like a serpent from the water, eyes narrowed down on #404 like they were a blemish to be wiped from the world.

"I have seen many fall prey to your Lodgemaster's curse."

#404 laughed, "Then they were weak, and they were not my brute."

They tossed a question over my shoulder, "Nadia, are you strong enough to resist the curse?"

Ironic as it was, I smiled and bared my fangs to the table, to my fears, and answered.

"Yes," I said, "but it'd be easier if I had help. Please, I can't drop out of the exam. You've all been with me long enough to know I don't go down without a fight. Just, don't make me fight alone."

Lupe groaned, "Alls below, it's not like I'm much of a fighter by myself. Long as you can tell enemies and allies apart, we can make it work."

I rushed around to Lupe, nearly pouncing on her in a hug. We tumbled from her chair, but I stabilized us enough that we only fell in slow motion. I pressed thankful kisses against her face feeling the warm touch of the Morning sun cause her face to blush.

"L-let go," she stammered. "I'm helping you with a curse, not joining your damn polycule."

I couldn't help but grin at the statement. "I know, but I didn't know you had your mind on it. I can bring you the paperwork if you want."

She flipped me off with a bright smile and climbed back into her chair. I stood and looked over the rest of the table to see who else would fight beside me against my curse.

#404 said, "We're in this together, little brute. Don't make it look like I picked wrong."

Melissa's tongue peeked between her lips as she thought—her hands operating unseen needs of thought as she knit a solution from the yarn of this problem.

"What's the point of being a Baron if I just give up," she said. "I haven't abandoned you yet, and I refuse to let someone like them imply that I ever would. Let's do this."

She shared with me a smile that I knew was for someone else, but alls below it'd be one I'd cherish. The steel with which I'd wrap chains of conviction around Nemesis's stupid curse.

"Amber," I said.

"What?" she asked.

I circled the table. She circled the other way.

"Amber," I repeated.

"Temple," she said, "the curse is very serious. I'm telling you—."

I leaped onto the table. Skipped over the food and drinks, and launched myself at Amber. Her back was against the railing. If she dodged in either way I'd go sailing over—she never considered dodging at all. Instead, her arms flung open to catch me, and with all her strength she spun the both of us away from the edge and back toward my chair. Amber fell into my seat while I made a cushion of her lap.

"Amber," I whispered into her ear, "if I fall you'll catch me."

There wasn't a question in my statement. From the beginning she'd been catching me, against the lindwurm, when the wild hunt had come for Melissa, when I'd fucked up my own relationship, and now with this curse. I knew Amber would always catch me.

"Every time," she said. "I'll catch you every time."

I twisted back to look at everyone and felt the moment still as if a Godtime was cast. Around the table were all the people I'd assembled across this weird quest of mine. In all of their expressions were unique shades of love that let them put their trust in me. Lupe called all of us a polycule, but that wasn't accurate. They were the one thing I never thought I'd have again after Nemesis and her allies killed my parents—a family and a second chance.

"Ready to be tested, little brute?" #404 asked.

"I'm ready to win."

---

And lo, we now learn about the curse that's bedeviling our poor Nadia. At least she gets to enjoy a fun breakfast spread with her kinda sorta not!polycule situationship (and Ina, I guess).


If you love breakfast and want your lovely author to enjoy breakfast, do check out the patreon by clicking on the banner below! Get advance chapters, get to ask me the author fun questions, and access to a special discord channel! Which speaking of, check out the DISCORD by clicking the hyperlink. It's a fun community of fellow Comfort fans. We play games, watch movies, the works!

 

[MxOberon]

While I'd left breakfast with my head held high, it took only a few hours and a boat for me to be brought low as the shifting ocean churned my guts to rebellion. It wasn't that I was bad on the water—only days earlier I'd taken a ferry without incident—I was just untested when it came to enduring the faux-stillness of a boat. As every whim of the ocean rolled through the bones of the barge that the Lodge had assembled all us examinees on only hours prior.

I slid down the glass barrier meant to keep deck furniture from going overboard, and leaned into the soothing touch of Melissa's hand as she stroked my hair. Beside me, Amber had pulled over a reclining deck chair on which she was sprawled. While Lupe made herself comfortable in a chair beside Melissa.

Whining, I asked, "Melissa, do you have anything for this?"

She clicked her tongue. "Not right now," she said. "I could expedite an internal mutation, but since it'd have to be tailored to your body it wouldn't be done before we're off the boat."

"Couldn't you just directly affect her spirit?" Lupe asked.

"I could if a little sick somebody hadn't pumped her resistance to Sorcery so high. It'll be purely biological vectors at this point that'd have any effect."

"Ah, my mistake," Lupe said with a smirk you could hear.

We'd been parked for about two hours at that point. Halfway between Brightgate Bay and an island about four miles off the coast. According to the pamphlet Amber read when we boarded, it used to be only one-and-a-half miles away. Yet, Old World climate change had eaten away at the coast, and events in Brightgate during the Changeover—or what would become Brightgate—had led to a short-lived exodus to the island and its relocation. There was more to the story, but I'd made it only the first page before I was forced into my current position vomiting up an expensive meal into the sea. The most recent was the loss of very thick fluffy pancakes which had soaked up the lavender syrup perfectly.

I shifted my head so I could take in the competition that milled about the deck. At a quick eyeballing, there looked to be only two hundred of us remaining—there'd been five hundred before the first test. Of the two hundred, I spotted a few faces from dinner last night that I'd set within my memory. They were the would-be-assassins who I knew had Melissa on their list, but Apogee had said we were one cell of many. Making every other unknown person a threat.

It was while I oversaw potential targets that I spotted a familiar furry entity on the head of an armless woman of little height sporting a navy eyepatch. One of the entity's six arms held a pipe between its claws. Beside them walked a secretary narrow and sharp as an icepick. They took position in front of a microphone set-up on the upper deck.

"Oi," they barked, their voice ashen and rough thus very attention grabbing.

"Good, now some of you who have minds sharp as those canines I bet you're feeling right now, might know me as the Kennelmaster," they said. "For the rest of you who have something akin to morals, and you less-than-sharp pups, you'll be getting to meet me in the unenviable position of your Proctor. I will be the god watching over you and your little dramas—."

"Time, Proctor," their secretary—who I realized was likely their handler—interjected. "We're behind enough as is because of your high standards around mai tais."

"Alls below, they can wait or they're fools who're rushing to their doom. Besides, a mai tai is an art not just a common cocktail—it survived the Changeover for a reason damn it, have some respect." They turned back to addressing us, "Now, because some people have no standards nor patience, I'll explain your test—even though I know most of you were likely informed by some circle or other."

Their secretary said, "I heard that."

"Your test is Execution and Capture, a simulated game of a common Lodge request many of you will be using to fill out your quota of mandated actions. Often we're called in or invite ourselves, to reap the lives of those summoners deemed unhandleable by all communities impacted from their actions. In most cases execution is not needed and thus, Capture. While infinitely harder, it is the more humane course of action as every summoner like every life may still prove capable of some benefit to the world."

The secretary tapped at a sorc-deck they held, conjuring from a drawn together mist a recreation of the island in the distance albeit upside down so we could have a better look at where some of us would likely die. Above me, was a blocky castle covered in large pipes that wove in and out of its body like silver serpents winding through a corpse.

The Kennelmaster continued, "To facilitate this simulation we've re-sculpted the island and Fort Tomb—this year the Lodgemaster wanted an 'enchanted forest' theme. All of you will be teleported there to random locations where you will find a scroll detailing your target. You will decide whether to execute or capture them. The latter of which will require bringing them to the capture location also detailed in the scroll."

Some yelled out, "Are we really supposed to just kill each other?"

"Supposed to—no—but I hope someone kills you for interrupting," they said. "When you boarded, you all had a somnambulant cicada planted at the base of your neck which has likely burrowed into your body to take up space at your brainstem. Devised by some of the best gu-scholars on this side of the world, it will have constructed a Dream Shell for you. Making it so that whatever you experience happens to you, but does not affect your true Real body. If you would suffer bodily harm that could conceivably kill you, the Dream Shell will pop, dropping you into a brief period of slumber as the cicada burns itself from your body and you reawaken."

I felt for the back of my neck even though I knew the Kennelmaster was right—the cicada had already burrowed into my body. While most of the people on deck were astonished or disgusted by the admission, I actually breathed a sigh of relief. Melissa had said that biological agents were the only things that could work on me now—Viscount and above sorcery not being accounted for of course—as my spirit was too hot to accept anything lesser.

The secretary said, "If executed, you may continue the test, but will do so without this safeguard. While all those captured will be detained until it becomes mathematically impossible to pass or are released by another summoner. Some of you will find your targets to be a poor match for yourself. In accounting for this scenario, Lodgemaster Khapoor has decided that you may still pass this test if you can execute or capture three people in lieu of your singular target."

"And with that, good luck and fuck off," the Kennelmaster said.

Instantly a person disappeared in a brief flash as photons warped to account for the spatial vacancy. I used Mother's Last Smile to hoist myself up. We all looked at each other with our own unique flavor of anxiety as seconds and people dwindled before we too would be moved.

"How are we meeting up?" Melissa asked.

"We converge on you," I said.

"Random starts, not good enough," Lupe said.

Amber said, "We all meet up at Fort Tomb. One site. No chance to get lost."

"Got it," we stated.

Lupe asked, "What about Nadia?"

"We just—," Amber was cut off by her teleportation.

"Ah," Melissa yelled.

"I'll be fine; the cicada means no one's dying," I said.

Lupe argued, "But what if they—."

Teleported. Melissa grabbed my arms—like that would've stopped anything, but I appreciated it all the same. We stared at each other as if any last questions or answers would be found in the other. Only to come to the conclusion that there were no more words, so I didn't speak. Instead, planting a kiss against Melissa's cheek. She opened her mouth to speak—teleported.

I clutched my glaive and pressed the shaft to my forehead in prayer to my Sovereign—and cause why not—a prayer to you, Mom. That my target would be a true enemy rather than one of my new family. Maybe I had more faith in that possibility happening than I'd had regarding any prayer being effective at mitigating my curse. A consequence of how much I'd hung my prior confidence on the belief I wouldn't be facing it alone—how naive of me.

* * *​

My mind didn't register my own teleportation instead opting to cut away the interstitial moment of being at one place and now another. I shook my body out—you couldn't tell that what moved was a sleepwalking body protected by a Dream Shell—and assessed my new location. They'd dropped me on a beach, white as powdered bone, that sloped up a hill leading into the depths of the forest Lodgemaster Khapoor had designed.

In front of me, nestled in the sand like a washed ashore bottle, was the scroll. A black tube six inches in length with a recessed button at its top. Technically they were sorc-decks in all but shape, but the shape had proved critical to designing a more secure one even if it also meant the device retained less information.

I freed the scroll from its dune and activated the button at the top. From a slit in its side it projected a cool sheet of air creating a thin mist that coalesced to become its screen. The first slide was my target and I knew my earlier prayers had gone unanswered. Swiping past, I read the second which detailed that the capture site for the test would be the same Fort Tomb that Amber, Lupe, Melissa, and myself had decided on making our rendezvous point.

"I guess I jump anyone on their way to make a capture?" I asked.

Stepping from my spirit, Sphinx said, "It'd be the prudent decision. Far easier to catch fish when others help hold the net after all."

She stretched then spread her wings, so I could take my place between them. In a short loping step she hammered her wings against the air taking off for the sky. It was the quickest way to reach Fort Tomb—a place I could see above Nemesis's 'enchanted forest' whose trees rivaled many of Brightgate's towering apartment buildings in height.

When we'd cleared the canopy to reach the forest's emergent layer, Sphinx swooped low, her paws skimming the leaves. I activated my Omensight to scan the area, but was quickly stunned. The forest was a multi-colored riot of Courts woven together to create something so unnatural yet seemingly Real. It almost hurt my eyes to look at as any one point I fixed my gaze on became a psychedelic static—only the forest as a whole was beautiful.

That was until the sharp spikes of Bloodlust appeared skewering the sky as they snaked out from the phalanx of the forest canopy. Examinees were making contact. It was then I smelled the aromatic copper scent of Bloodlust—there was a tie of murderous sympathy already attached to Sphinx. Signaling with my knees we veered off course diving down below the canopy as an ember flew wide before exploding into a rose of fiery death.

Sphinx bounded from tree branch to tree branch in a bid to bleed off momentum before we touched ground. When we landed, we circled to face the direction my fated tie pointed in.

"Ehhh," our attacker groaned, "why'd you have to dodge? It's not easy Cultivating embers."

A hunched over man with dark eyes and darker bags exited the thick shadow that clung between the trees. He turned over a pill bottle rolling out three glowing embers into his hand.

"Am I your target?" I asked.

"No, just an opportunity. I'd rather collect points while its easy versus banking on the luck I meet my target. You understand, right?"

"Oh, I get it," I said, crossing my fingers around our connection. "I was unlucky and got my friend as a target. Executing you helps me make a dent in the three I need to pass. No hard feelings?"

"None at all."

He wound back his arm to throw the embers—at this range I could tell how he did it, Cultivating their heat and destructive potential over years until they'd become dangerous explosives. Before he could release his toss I uncrossed my fingers splitting infinity and igniting the fated tie of our mutual combat. He was halfway through his throw when he combusted—chalcedony fire crawling across his body like blazing ivy.

The embers fell from his hands exploding the instant they touched the ground. Three explosions that fought to consume each other swallowed up any vision on him. However, they did nothing to disturb the clutching darkness nor marr the trees of the forest as both were constructions of much grander Sorcery than either of us were capable of. When the flames cleared I heard the crack-pop of breaking ice. Where there'd been the ash sculpture of a dead man was replaced by the snoring body of one very much alive.

I saluted him and set off on Sphinx in the direction of Fort Tomb this time on foot. As the trees blurred into smeared walls of color, my tongue traced my curse-given fangs. There'd been no temptation to properly finish the man off. The only scent of Bloodlust was what preceded his attack meant to kill me.

"Maybe I'll be fine," I said.

Sphinx said, "Now is as good a test as any."

Her words were prophetic as our path soon intersected a current of heavy Bloodlust winding between the trees. It fell upon my mind like a snake waiting, constricting all thoughts, as I had to know more, so I inspected the current. Using the Omensight, my vision carried back to the source—a small clearing, two Summoners wounded and curled beneath the skirt of a giant mushroom the size of a cable car stop, and two more eager to finish what they'd started.

"Do we press on?" Sphinx asked.

I pulled myself free from the vision to find Sphinx's head twisted back to observe me. My tongue slid across my lips as I considered. We didn't gain anything from rescuing people—they knew the risks…but I did need two more executions. It'd be on the way.

"Detour," I said. "It won't be a large one, and if those four wound each other it'll be brief."

Sphinx hummed, "If you trust your reasoning."

She ran toward the source of the current, drenching my thoughts wet in the psychic gore that floated in the Bloodlust that dusted my mind. I formed a fist tight around Mother's Last Smile, fixed myself on the woman I wanted to be that deserved Mom's grace. She wasn't a woman who grew giddy on slaughter or smiled as she killed. No, she was sober.

I raised my thoughts up onto this image making it an anchor. A rock on which my rationality could find respite from the surging sweetness of Bloodlust that we ran within. I checked my reasoning—it was still sound. I needed the kills nothing more.

Sphinx vaulted us up onto a tree branch that overlooked the place where the wounded summoners had curled up. We'd arrived only seconds in advance of the two who'd wounded them in the first place. They were of slight builds, differing in gender but obviously twins, and flanked on both sides by matching entities reminiscent of hunting dogs with faces made of churning blades like a woodchipper.

"Don't make us keep following you," the male twin said.

His sister said, "You're dying either way. A Voracious bite doesn't end until someone's dead."

"We're doing you a kindness, finishing you off properly," they said together.

One of the wounded summoners, a boy about my age, yelled back, "A kindness would be executing us and moving on. Your way would destroy everything about us."

"True," the female twin said, "but we want to be thorough about making sure you don't pass."

The male said, "It'd be pretty bad if the scions of two merchant families like you and your love there were to join the Lodge."

If it wouldn't have disturbed my hiding spot I would've hollered right then. I didn't come this way to save these two—I only needed the kills—yet here I lucked out on premium targets. Would-be-assassins that might come after Melissa after finishing off these two.

When they strike we do, I said to Sphinx telepathically.

She replied, Then prepare now.

The wounded summoner raised a pistol. Squeezed the trigger belting out a brief flurry of bullets that were swallowed by a shield of yawning black and rotten teeth that materialized before them. Both twins cackled in unison at the ultimately futile attempt. I noted, however, that the spell, while quick, still took time to form.

"Shame," the male said. "We worried your Luck would prove annoying to circumvent."

The female nodded, "Stray bullets are so unpredictable, but who'd have thought Luck might prove so delectable. We'll remember this meal won't we brother?"

"At least until the next," he said.

The both of them pointed at the summoners wounded and immobile siccing their entities on them. At the same time Sphinx leaped from the branch, her wings wide catching the air so we'd glide down toward the twins. I formed the requisite seal and glanced at the summoner whose gun still smoked, dragging him into a Godtime with me.

Both twins' faces froze in complementary sadistic expressions while their entities hung poised in the air ready to gorge themselves on the wounded. Sphinx landed atop one while I leaped from her back spearing the other to the ground. The Godtime prevented their autonomic spell-shields from forming. We decapitated their Dream Shells which popped not long after.

"Woah," the wounded summoner said, in the time it took for me to save him.

He hefted his gun pointing it at Sphinx and myself—to be more accurate, he nervously changed targets between the both of us. I couldn't help but drool a bit at how much the boy screamed, 'prey' with his body language. The Bloodlust wet the anchor of my reasonable thought—we'd be doing him a favor taking him out. He had a gun trained on us anyways. It'd be self-defense. Sphinx crossed in front of me—I'd taken a step toward the boy. When?

"Lower your arm," Sphinx said, "we come not for you."

The boy argued, "No, no, they approached us talking about forming a team. Then tried to kill us. I'm not lowering my gun just because you saved our lives."

Sphinx sighed, "Your weapon is but a comfort, and will smother your own life if you continue to threaten ours."

I shook my head jostling the Bloodlust-born thoughts off balance. Turned around and threw my glaive like a javelin away from me. Raised my now empty hands.

"Seriously, put the gun down. I don't want to risk advancing my curse on the two of you," I said. "Besides, you have a curse of your own. You heard those two, either you die or they do, and they're only sleeping. So how about it, you put down the gun and handle them how you want while we continue on our way, deal?"

The boy hesitated—some point of me wished he pulled the trigger so I could see how well he burned—and then his love laid a hand missing three fingers on his shoulder. The bite marks of its edge slowly consuming more the extremity in a conquest of inches.

"Put it down," he said. "We'll need the bullets for them."

"You will," I said.

The boy lowered his arm. I breathed a sigh of relief as the Bloodlust which had become thick as fog soon dissipated. As the summoners made their way over I heard the faint beep of a sorc-deck notification. Looting one of the twin's sorc-decks from their pocket, I opened the device using a sleeping twin's thumb bringing up a map that had updated.

Across the map were triangles representing agents of the circle—such as the twins—and stars denoting targets on their list like the two wounded summoners. I groaned on my walk back to my glaive. Of course the circle had found a way to hack into whatever system the examiners were using to keep track of us. It even updated every ten minutes.

I swiped across the map until I found Melissa's star. She was making her way to Fort Tomb—in good time as well—though between her location and mine there was a pack of hunters en route to intercept her path. Even more packs followed directly behind her. It'd be a race.

The sound of thunder muffled by a human skull clapped twice. I turned to the two summoners that had claimed the twins' lives. They only had eyes for each other as they examined every bitemark to make sure none continued to consume their flesh. Lovers after all.

"Here's a tip for you," I said, "take the other twin's sorc-deck. Apparently they and others like them are using some map capable of tracking targets like the two of you. Should help you avoid situations like this one."

"Thank you," the boy said, "and I'm sorry for pointing my gun at you."

I climbed astride Sphinx—we knew our destination—and tossed my reply over my shoulder.

"None needed," I said. "If you somehow beat them—unlikely but possible—I'd have executed both of you myself. Not for their reasons, just the test. Try not to die, okay."

I left them with a smile. One that I tended to use when Dad and Mom made my favorite food for dinner. It was what came naturally when I saw those wounded boys that needed the other just so they could stand. The both of them scurried back in terror at the sight of it.

Sphinx ran hard blurring the trees again, and I turned all my thoughts—even the Bloodlust ones—toward my new targets. According to the map we were gaining on them. In seconds we'd reach them. Five. Four. Three. Two.

One. We broke past the tree line into another small grove where a bundle of five killers decided to make their stand. None of them had Sorcery to enhance their perception—it might've saved them. Alas, Sphinx and I were a blur of death that entered the center of their group. I whirled my glaive in a wide killing arc of bright metal.

Even without an Inviolate Star burning in my chest, Mother's Last Smile was a conceptual weapon few could hope to match. It cleaved through necks and bodies with the smoothness of a knife spreading a thick jam across toast. Mom's favorite was apricot.

A chorus of four cracking pops sprouted around me…four? I ran my eyes over each snoozing body to discover one was missing. It was the one furthest from me. I tilted my head in surprise as I saw the Ripples of a defensive spell in his wake. If I had to guess he had some shield or other that harnessed the conceptual power of an action and let him ride the Ripples of causality away from the danger. I giggled—he'd be fun to hunt down, I thought.

Then the map updated. All of their sorc-decks chirped bringing me back to the present issue. They'd wake back up eventually—I wasn't going to kill them kill them after all—but I didn't want to worry about potential threats at my back. So, despite the time it took, I made sure to find their decks and one by one set them on fire using Atomic Glory. If they were going to hunt they'd do it properly this time.

When that was done I urged Sphinx on after our straggler who the map showed as being just ahead of us moving still toward Melissa's location. We raced through the trees, Sphinx kicking off of tree trunks and weaving in flaps of her wings to find any extra momentum possible. The lone survivor had maybe five minutes on us—his spell having launched him quite far—but we crossed the distance to him in only three.

We'd caught up to him in a field of bioluminescent flowers glowing in bright acid colors normally only visible under a blacklight. Fitting as stretching over the glade was a dome of Night freckled in pink stars. The survivor sprinted through the field without thought to its beauty in the direction of a short-haired woman meditating on a rock at the glade's center.

"Stop," I yelled, voice echoing through the glade.

He raised a hatchet ready to cut down the woman before she'd proven herself a danger to him. Something whistled through the air as it sliced into him. Pop went his Dream Shell. He stumbled, a now sleeping body. The woman opened her eyes looking through him and at me as he fell apart in two pieces severed lengthwise by a second whistle of an unseen stroke. Sphinx and I stopped, but it was too late.

Surrounding us and obscuring the treeline was a folding screen two men tall that circled the glade's perimeter. On the screen were shimmering illustrations of sword wielding women dancing through the clouds and bisecting heavenly bodies with abandon. All of which glowed bright in the color of a Court whose name I felt on the tip of my tongue, but couldn't verbalize.

"Am I your target?" I asked.

"Is your name, Nadia Temple?"

"Are you planning on executing me?"

"That's up to you. Is capture on the table?"

I hefted my glaive, "Someone needs me right now."

"Then you have your answer and I have mine," she said. "I promise to be merciful."

While her tone was clipped her voice was soft, breezy, as if she truly had no stake in any choice that led to this moment. To be honest, I don't think she was lying. Though I couldn't help but snarl at her offer. While she had no stake at all, I had everything at risk because those killers were closing on Melissa with every second that passed. Mercy, for me, was a luxury I tossed aside as Sphinx and I charged my test-assigned killer.

---

AN:
We're off to the races folks! Will Nadia get to Melissa in time, will she get too bogged down fighting this mysterious lady, and can she keep a lid on the curse rolling through her? Guess you'll have to check back in this Saturday to find out! Buuuuut, if you can't possibly wait then do check out the patreon by clicking the banner below, as we've long since concluded this arc (and you won't believe how it ends). Though if nothing else, do check out the DISCORD, so you can stay up to date on all things Comfort, have a community to chill within, and get to check out fun goodies like the complete chart of Courts.


Now, this is where I also have an announcement to make. Due to certain life things, I've been having to slow down on Comfort a bit unfortunately, and while its not been an easy choice I'll have to shift Comfort to updating once a week for the unforeseen future. Since this is a bit of a surprise for sure, you all will still get Saturday's update. Meaning the once a week updates will begin next week Wednesday. (Though hey, if enough folks join the patreon maybe I'll be able to reverse that, haha. This is a joke by the way...unless.) Anyways, I appreciate all your readership every single one of you, and hopefully get over this hump soon so we can get back to enjoying as much Comfort as possible.

 

[MxOberon]

We made it two steps—then came that malevolent whistle. Sphinx reacted before me. Atomic Glories used as thrusters to push us a few feet to the right. Dirt and stones showered us like wedding rice. Where we once were was now a gash in the earth at least four feet deep. The terrestrial wound terminating just before touching the stone my would-be executioner still sat on. She dismissed the stroke with a flick of her wrist and the folded-up fan she held.

The drumbeat of my heart swallowed any words or pithy phrases I could've made. I knew my spirit burned hot, capable of besting most sorcery of my link and higher, but resistance wasn't immunity, and whatever this was had already proved its killing power on my stolen prey whose corpse was dyed in the acid color of the glade's flowers. Sphinx conjured an Inviolate Star above us while I slid from her back to take stance—and there came the whistle again.

I'd just assumed the correct grip and directed a thought—the smallest idea—of violence toward the woman. It was enough. The whistle approached from our two o'clock allowing Sphinx and myself to face it head on. That baleful sound which heralded death was the accompaniment to a phantom that peeled itself from its illustration on the folding screens that enclosed the glade. She—as all the figures on the screen were feminine—danced and twirled with her blade held behind her, rending stroke following in her wake like a duckling.

With a cartwheel, the phantom woman brought her sword down on the outer edge of the Inviolate Star's light. My nerves hung on the moment of that collision. She didn't immediately disperse. Would the star fail? Then, with a wink, she exploded into an aurora mist of Dreams and War. The combination felt familiar to me; a song whose words I could feel but not repeat.

"Interesting," the woman said. "You think fast."

As my heart rate fell, I assembled what information I could easily parse. First, she hadn't formed a single hand-spell as far as I saw. Second, the attacks targeted my exact location. More of a two-A point, if evaded the attacks carried on in a straight line even if it would hit her. Finally, each attack happened without the familiar scent of Bloodlust that normally preceded an act of lethal violence.

I loosened my grip on Mother's Last Smile. Propped a hand against my hip and took my time to assess the woman. She wore heeled boots whose tips were capped in gold depicting a snarling ogre. Wrinkleless slacks the dark blue of a stormy night and a black thigh pouch that matched her boots. Topped with a white button-down whose sleeves she wore rolled up and the first of four buttons undone. Leaving bare the tattoo of abstracted storm clouds that rolled across her body—half conquered by ink and the other blank flesh. Her aesthetic bisection even showed up in her hair, brown and undercut, with the uncut portion arching down in a nutty wave to her jaw.

"Why're you smiling?" she asked.

I admitted, "My luck's pretty bad usually, but at least my executioner is hot."

She lay supine on the rock—a predator sunning itself beneath a sunless sky. Pulled free a sucker from her pocket, tapped it twice against her tongue stud, then closed her mouth.

"You know I'm like, ten years older than you, right?"

I said, "Doesn't make you less hot, or more dangerous."

"I'm hot but not dangerous, explain."

Gesturing with my glaive at the partition, I said, "This is dangerous, any trap is at least the first time. You made the mistake of letting me see it three—scratch that—four times. Sort of loses its touch after a bit."

She smirked around her candy. Closed her eyes and with her empty hand pulled free four shuriken from her thigh pouch that glowed the bluish-white of Catharsis. Whipping her hand, the shuriken hung in the air before zipping toward Sphinx and I—spinning stars of Cathartic lightning. When they struck the light of the Inviolate Star the lightning peeled off in energetic petals of Storms and Stars. The metal shuriken themselves continued on, but it took only a lazy Atomic Glory to reduce all four into nothingness. The woman opened her eyes to find me leaning against my glaive.

"That was a bad idea," I said. "You gave the game away."

She shrugged, "What's the game?"

"Intent. You covered your eyes so that you showed no intent to hit me. If I moved or didn't that was my choice. While you remained divested from the actual result," I said. "It's why you didn't attack me first. This trap's rules affect you as much as me."

"You sure about that?" she asked. "It could be a field-spell. Maybe I'm switching things up to lull you into a false sense of security."

"Sphinx, could you drop the star?" I asked.

"Easily," Sphinx said, doing just that.

With the star down, I threw my arms out in embrace and challenge. Breathing deep the cool air.

"If it's a field-spell," I said, "then cut me."

We locked wills, neither moving, but as the seconds stretched into a minute—we'd been fighting for only a minute—my executioner fell back onto her rock with an exasperated sigh.

"Ugh, your file is wrong," she said.

"What?"

"It's wrong. Alls below, it said you have a short fuse, a lust for violence, and an animalistic desire to prove your superiority against anyone."

"That," I said, "feels inaccurate."

Sphinx quietly chuffed.

"Oh, so it's not all inaccurate?" the woman asked.

"Sphinx, don't be a traitor," I said.

Sphinx tipped their head in a sarcastic apology. "My apologies for mistaking crimson and maroon, Nadia. Whilst the same color family their hue and saturation do differ."

I didn't quite follow the metaphor, but it felt at my own expense.

"Anyways, sorry your formation didn't prove as effective as you expected," I said. "Now which screen gets me out of here?"

The woman answered, "None of them. The Lunar Enclosure formation, segments local space away from each other. Everything on the other side of those screens may as well be in the Underside. No one gets in or out until it falls, and I'm not budging."

I groaned realizing the stalemate we'd arrived at. Any violent action I took would be met by the formation responding in kind. Sphinx could block, but attempting to counter would only cause more attacks to come our way until our defenses ran out. The trap might have not been dangerous but it was undoubtedly canny.

Noting that I'd come to the conclusion she began at, the woman said, "Summoner on summoner combat is all about deception and cheating. I won the moment you let your guard down chasing this guy. You must think of yourself as quite the killer, huh?"

"It's a talent," I admitted. "Any chance I can get your name?"

She considered the request, but her entity answered for her. Emerging from within her spirit, it took the shape of a woman with four floppy bunny ears that covered her ears and eyes bound down with an embroidered band. While her body was wrapped in voluminous robes that banded over her form in a manner that reminded me of the ribbons Dad would stick onto presents.

"My bondmate's name is Tsumugi. I am but a mere swordbearer and you may call me thus," she said, pressing her head to the ground in a kneeling bow.

Tsumugi snapped, "Woman, you don't have to reveal all that."

"Hmph," Swordbearer huffed, "you are my bondmate, not my mistress. I shall reveal what I wish when I wish. Especially when in the presence of royalty."

"Equal bond?" I asked.

Tsumugi nodded. "I wanted a partner, not a slave. I don't regret it…"

"But some moments are easier than others?"

"Yup, the cost of free will cuts in both directions," she said. "So, what's Swordbearer talking about calling you royalty when you're a soldier like me?"

"It's a weird story," I said.

Swordbearer hopped to her feet—which weren't really feet, but rather flat nubs of some lacquered material. She crossed her arms over her chest.

"Apologies, but it's not a weird story," she said. "It's a marvelous one. Tsumugi, it's a Canonical Path and we're a step on it!"

Swordbearer squealed in glee.

"Cease your prattle unless you mean to cross ancient treaties," Sphinx said.

While Swordbearer blew raspberries at Sphinx, Tsumugi and I shared a moment of confusion.

"This make any sense to you?" Tsumugi asked.

"None," I said. "Sphinx, what's Swordbearer talking about?"

"Things that are to remain beyond mortal ken until the Sovereigns deem otherwise."

"Sorry, Tsumugi, I did say too much," Swordbearer stated.

"Moving on from that," I said, "I'm going to need you to drop the formation, Tsumugi. Right now there's a circle hunting down well-connected examinees and they're—."

"Planning to kill them all and pin it on Lodgemaster Khapoor," Tsumugi said. "It's pretty obvious."

"If it is then let me go. Melissa, my…um, ex-fiancee is being targeted."

Tsumugi whistled, "A bit young to have already annulled an engagement, aren't you?"

"Fuck," Swordbearer swore, "the beleaguered path?"

Sphinx nodded.

"Yes, I know, but I might be able to fix it," I said, ignoring the entities' commentary. "That is, if she's not dead."

"I love a good romance, Nadia—can I call you Nadia?" Tsumugi asked

"Sure."

"Great. Now, I love a good romance in books, but in real life I have higher concerns."

I slammed the butt of my glaive into the dirt. Teeth bare I hissed, "Then do it so the entire region doesn't go up in flames. If Nemesis is ousted it'll be chaos!"

"Probably," Tsumugi said, "but that's not my problem."

"If you don't care then why are you testing here?" I asked.

Tsumugi leaned forward resting her arms on her knees. She removed the sucker from her mouth—it'd shrunk to the size of a pea but hadn't fallen off the stick—then pointed it upward.

"The Tenken-bumon," she said.

The heat of anger I felt was perforated by the curiosity the name inspired.

"And they are?" I asked.

"Normally, not your concern," she said. "Our name translates to 'Heaven Sword Division,' and that's what we are. The sword of the heavens, of the Godtenders and their incarnate deities. Through us, they see to problems across the world. My division handles those which a sword is the best tool for."

I scoffed, "You're telling me the Godtenders have a secret force of summoners to what, destroy problems? They don't need soldiers like us."

"Everyone needs soldiers like us," Tsumugi said.

"Right, so you just came all the way from Tokyo—."

"Shin-Tokyo," she enunciated with a voice heavy as a sunken stone. "We don't shorten it."

I held up my hands in surrender. The last thing I wanted was to destroy the diplomatic bridge I'd build between us—even if at the time it was largely rapport.

"Sorry, a friend had told me otherwise," I said.

Swordbearer rubbed Tsumugi's thigh in support while the Tenken-bumon agent exhaled the frustration my gaffe had injected into her. She squeezed Swordbearer's hand.

"Must have been an old friend. It's been Shin-Tokyo for two generations," Tsumugi said. "Anyways, I wasn't set for something as minor as a plot against a regional lodgemaster."

"What were you sent for?" I asked, fighting down my own frustrations.

"Hybridae," Tsumugi said. "Human-entity blends, forbidden under the heavens. My superiors tell me that wherever you find hybridae the apocalypse is sure to follow. See? Higher concerns."

My mouth went dry. She was looking for the White Wombs—the Godtenders knew about them, but only sent a soldier? If they knew beyond rumor they'd have sent someone else higher up the Chain, and not have them bogged down with an exam. I looked up from my own thoughts to meet Tsumugi's uncovered eye—blue as the azure sky on a summer day—unflinching and all-encompassing in what it saw.

"Do you know something?" she asked.

About the White Wombs or my own strange heritage? The thought skipped across my mind sprouting images of the White Wombs, hybridae, floating inside their tanks in that hidden facility. Then came the thoughts about myself and my relationship to Mom. I drew my foot back, angling my body in a calm yet martial stance. I didn't know how accepting of mysterious curiosities, like myself, the Tenken-bumon was. Did I have to be born a blend, or was it enough that a Sovereign let me speak her coronation name and granted me access to her Court through Mother's Last Smile—those techniques I used were Mom's no matter what Amber said.

Amber, she said people just called it Tokyo, but they hadn't for two generations apparently. How long was a generation? The thoughts poured from me in a flood that threatened to knock me from the perch of calmness that I'd found inside Tsumugi's trap.

Tsumugi said, "There exists a line, Nadia. You don't see it normally, but it's there if you know where to look. The horizon. Those moments we decide to lie or tell the truth. When someone offers you a way out if you'd only take their hand and accept their terms. Alls below, it's there every time we decide whether to kill someone or not."

"The partition between Is and Is Not," Swordbearer said. "That which determines one from zero, and makes two from one."

"A sacred severance made mundane for how little we consider it," Tsumugi said.

Swordbearer intoned with pride, "The Court which is first and last. Whose Sovereign is twin-faced awake yet sleeping."

"Make the right choice, Nadia," Tsumugi said.

I looked up—Tsumugi's face was devoid of her prior calm yet not committed to a new stance. If I was on the line of choice then so was she. A smile crossed my face as copper teased my nose—a memory, a premonition perhaps? I shrugged it off and sat my focus in the moment.

"Or what, you'll kill me?" I asked.

Tsumugi stood, "If the heavens demand—."

"Tsumugi," Swordbearer screamed.

There it was, Bloodlust, that faint scent which came from Tsumugi's own determination to do right by the Godtenders too lazy to solve this problem themselves. It was paired with the whistle of a scything blow trailing behind a sword-wielding dancer.

Tsumugi leaped from the rock—below where she'd sat was the control circle for the formation, I was right. Wielding the enclosed fan she parried her own trap. At the same time, I circle strafed with Sphinx conjuring an Inviolate Star above my fingers.

"We need not defenses, Nadia," Sphinx said.

"The Inviolate Star is a defense, but its purpose isn't to block."

I tossed my glaive to Sphinx, and with my other hand grasped the Inviolate Star between my fingers. Stealing a page from Tsumugi's grimoire, I slid to a stop, wound back my arm, and whipped it forward releasing the Inviolate Star as a shuriken.

"It's to unspool sorcery and defy fate," I explained. "Sometimes that's better than any defense."

Swordbearer swung her head away from Tsumugi and over to us, but she was too slow. It plunged into the stone seat that served as the formation's control point. The Underink that Tsumugi used went up in the chalcedony flames of Revelation. Sorcery unspooling as if a spell had struck its light or tried to sink into my body.

Fwoosh. In one beautiful sweep, all the folding screens combusted burning down into skeletal remnants and then not even that. Only through Omensight did I see the aurora smoke of Dreams and War twinning through the air to merge back into the general tapestry of the world.

"Ahhhh, Nadia," Tsumugi said. "Your file didn't mention you loved bad decisions."

"I'm starting to think the examiners have it out for me," I said.

"You'd deserve it. Swordbearer," Tsumugi said, "to me."

Swordbearer raced to Tsumugi. I formed the seal for Atomic Glory, wrapping the tie of Bloodlust that hung dripping with promised violence between Tsumugi and myself around my fingers. Fate is faster than physics—I split infinity content with my victory.

Tsumugi raised two fingers miming scissors—a hand-spell—and brought them together severing our tie of fate. She turned to me sporting a smug grin. A wind blew lifting the brown curtain of hair and unveiling her hidden eye. A scar ran over it—thin and well-healed—but the pupil was split into two hovering halves set within the same iris made of two colors: gold and azure.

"What's wrong, Nadia," Tsumugi asked, "didn't someone teach you scissors beats string?"

Swordbearer reached Tsumugi's side in a kneeling powerslide. Back arched, the arcing robes that covered her flesh blossomed. Breasts bare she graced me with an upside-down smile, and the perfect view of why she was termed, 'Swordbearer.' Up her chest, from crotch to sternum, were the intertwined fingers of two hands which composed her torso. They clutched tight around a sword sheath which curved graceful as a woman's eyebrow.

"In the name of our Twin-Face Sovereign—draw," Swordbearer declared.

The thumbs of the two hands lifted from the guard no longer imprisoning the sword in its sheath. Tsumugi drew and cut with the curved saber in one motion. She was across the glade from me having raised neither a hand-spell nor uttered an incantation. Yet Bloodlust flooded my nose, dilating my eyes and tuning my ears to catch the angle from which violence would find me.

My spirit told me it was already there as something—a sense, a memory, knowledge that hid where I'd made the cut between me and what lurked in the mirror—passed through me. Horizon Severs Sea From Sky. The name vibrated through the fibers of my spirit as it passed cleanly through the pre-existing cut in my spirit. With it came a memory too fast to recall.

"You two are annoying," Tsumugi said, bringing my attention back to the glade.

I inhaled a breath to remind myself I was alive. Sphinx had interposed herself between me and Tsumugi just in time. The bright metal head of Mother's Last Smile, the bulwark that defied what had happened to trees at my side and behind me. All of them were cleaved in two perfect halves. Their stumps smooth as tabletops.

"The forest is stronger than soldier Sorcery," I stated.

Tsumugi pointed the saber at me. "If you want to destroy them then yes, but what happened to them is natural. A possibility that can't be denied if they're to be Real."

"Fate?"

Tsumugi mimed zipping her lips. I hefted my glaive—it wasn't like I needed an answer that badly. We charged. Behind us, our entities threw spells down in great volleys at the other's summoner alternating between offensive and defensive in smooth transitions.

Sphinx released an arcing cascade of Atomic Glories. Swordbearer swept her arms conjuring a sliding door that caught them all before burning away. She lifted her arms releasing scything waves promising bisection. Sphinx conjured and kicked an Inviolate Star intercepting it.

Below them, Tsumugi and I traded blows of our own. She snaked around the head of my glaive twisting like a reed. Step-by-step gaining ground where she could before leaping forward in a swipe meant to take my head. I bent back like a willow in a storm letting the entity conjured weapon taste air instead of flesh. Then pushed the end of the glaive's shaft down kicking the head up toward Tsumugi's heart. Only for her to leap and barrel roll through the air returning to the range I wanted her to stay at.

In physique and Sorcery we were even. She was cunning and I was quick. Hers were ten years of hardened skill at fighting within this link. Mine came from—well, not to brag, but talent—and a taste for killing that I sought to sate in every exchange. Yet, somewhere in our dance where every step felt known and right and we could chase each other through the glade until the sun rose—I'd forgotten that this was a fight and not a dance. I'd allowed her to gain my measure, and so she did what I'd not entertained in twenty moves.

"Solar Severance," Tsumugi incanted, while raising the seal for the same hand-spell.

Instinctively, I raised my glaive to defend myself…then I followed her eyes. It was for Sphinx! A horizontal wave of gold cut through the air. I formed the hand-spell for an Inviolate Star tossing it to Sphinx. It spun fast and flew hard arriving just in time for the wave to strike it. Reacting, she flapped her wings shooting herself backwards just in time for the star which had saved my life so many times prior was cut.

Revelation fell to pieces. The wave severed the tips of Sphinx's wings. I tried to run over.

"No cheating on your dance partner," Swordbearer said, as she spun conjuring partitions that segmented local space—splitting the glade in half.

I yelled, "Sphinx!"

"I'm hurt," Tsumugi said.

I whirled to face her. My glaive raised high in one hand. Mouth opened, ready to rip out her throat with fangs that craved blood—her face was so close. Close enough to kiss. Why? Something dripped onto the ground between us.

Looking down I found my answer—she'd stabbed me. In the moment I cared for Sphinx she'd found my end. Mother's Last Smile fell from my hands hitting the ground with a thud.

"It's not fair," I said.

Tsumugi tilted her head, "Life usually isn't. You should be happy you're tasting failure now rather than when you can't come back from it."

I stumbled forward. Wrapped my hand around the back of her neck. Laid my head against her—Tsumugi was nice enough to let me. Nice enough to hear the final words I whispered.

"No," I said. "It's not fair for you."

"What are—?" Tsumugi didn't finish her question.

Swordbearer's scream had clipped the end off. The partition she'd conjured fell into the ground discorporating into nothing in a grand reveal to display Sphinx—triumphant, as I knew she would be—with her fangs sunk into Swordbearer's neck.

"No," Tsumugi said. "How?"

"Take a peek," I said.

Tsumugi looked down to find her answer. What had dripped onto the flowers wasn't the blood of my Dream Shell. It was the melted remnants of the sword which had come from Swordbearer.

"'Summoner on summoner combat is deception and cheating,' you said, and I never showed my full hand," I said. "Wanted to see what you knew about me. Which, from how you kept throwing spells my way like they'd work, wasn't much. See, it's new but my spirit burns so hot that it melts entities and sorcery alike."

Swordbearer howled in pain as the weapon pulled from her body—of her body—melted to the guard. Tsumugi shook her head in disbelief before raising up a pleading expression.

"Nadia, the hybridae—," she said.

"Aren't my highest concern," I stated. "That's taken by my vengeance and my people, and all things in between those two concerns—well—I'll enjoy killing them."

I split infinity with my other hand, cupping an Atomic Glory gentle as an egg. Then pressed it against Tsumugi's chest, grinning as it ate greedily of her body. Wreathing her in beautiful chalcedony until you couldn't make out a single discerning feature. I watched her burn and let her final sight be my broad fang-filled smile of ecstasy as I drank in the unique scent of our paired Bloodlust wrapping about one another. It wasn't a real kill—no more than reading a smutty novel was real sex—but after what she put me through…it still hit the spot.

Her Dream Shell popped banishing away the flames of my Atomic Glory. As well as washing away the half-pleasure I'd found in her 'death'. As I stared at her slumbering body there in the flowers, I felt the red rivers of Bloodlust erode the stone of sanity I'd constructed in my mind. A dreamer's death wouldn't sate me. It wouldn't make me less hungry.

"Princess, please spare my summoner," Swordbearer called out.

I rolled my eyes, lying, "Oh, of course I was. No point in killing her killing her."

"Apologies," she said, "your mien said otherwise."

Sphinx unhinged her jaw allowing Swordbearer to scurry to Tsumugi's side. As if she'd change her mind about what I presumed was a withdrawal from our fight, I hurried toward Sphinx. Burning droplets of chalcedony blood dripped from her wounds reminding me of her tears. I stroked Sphinx's face once, twice, three times.

The ritual of my fingers sliding through her hair pushed back the tide of Bloodlust. With my mind returned to me I called out to Swordbearer, "What Court are you anyways?"

She twisted her head to face me and answered in the language of entities—that mystical vibration of the spirit known as conceptual speech. Somehow still a wind stole her answer cleaving off portions of the tune.

"Divi****," she answered. "It's not my place, but may I ask a question?"

"Sure," I said.

"How did you evade Tsumugi's horizon which cuts the world?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe it was because Sphinx blocked with this?"

I raised my glaive up. Swordbearer shook her head.

"She was too slow. Please, for me, think harder."

I swam upstream through the memories of my duel with Tsumugi. Trying to return to that place when I felt the horizon pass through me. It passed through me as if I was what it already sought to do. Swordbearer awarded me a tiny applause.

"Take the lesson to heart," she said. "What already is struggles to be acted upon. Good luck with your path, Princess."

Sphinx nudged my leg—we had to hurry. I climbed astride her back, and we left Tsumugi and Swordbearer behind in the glade.

---

AN:
And so Nadia wins her 1v1, let's go! Though wonder what all that stuff about hybridae is on, also that stuff with Shin-Tokyo, also that bit involving the Godtenders having a semi-secretive order of warrior-assassins working for them...ehhhh it'll probably be fine.

Now, as stated on Wednesday, the story will be shifting to one chapter a week updates for the unforeseen future. As a bit of a treat regarding that, I'll be making chapter 38 available to be read today for ALL FREE MEMBERS OF THE PATREON. Which speaking of, do check out the patreon and the DISCORD! In the former you get extra chapters, a special patron only discord channel, and many chapters in advance! While in the latter, you just have access to a super cool community of people to play games with (League of Legends and Deadlock being two big ones currently), watch films and TV shows with (shoutout to Thunderbolt Fantasy!), and just talk all things Comfort! So do come on down, and otherwise I'll see you all next Wednesday!

 

[MxOberon]

"Help us," moaned one of Melissa's would-be killers. "Please."

Despite the rush I was in, I did consider it; Stylistically, I trended toward the direct when it came to killing—cutting a man down, setting him on fire, or a thrust through the soft palate to sever the brainstem—direct, quick, debatably merciful. Melissa, as I realized racing down the path toward Fort Tomb, was the opposite in all aspects. She was creative.

In running away from the idea of killing a single man she'd Mutated the forest into a gauntlet of biohorror torment. The man who'd groaned out the request was suspended in the deceptively dainty fingers of the tree's branches which squirmed beneath his skin. Sewing around nerve clusters as the tree drugged him with a potent sorcerous variant of dopamine that hoisted your spirit to the highest heights of ecstasy. The rest of his comrades were so far gone that any attempt at language was rendered down into arpeggiated moans.

It was on the cusp of granting him mercy that I saw what he clutched in his fist…a lock of her hair. I raised my glaive and with it the light of hope in his eyes. Swish. One swipe, his hand fell like an overripe fruit. Fingers uncurled from the shock—their last command—releasing the lock of Melissa's hair into my custody. The hand I left in the dirt as Sphinx and I continued on.

"We all make choices," I said. "Some, better than others."

"Wait don't goooo," he yelled before it became a dragged out moan.

We sped through the psychedelic scenery of bodily transmogrification that Melissa left behind like breadcrumbs. I'd stopped relying on the map at that point; my love's creations became the signpost for navigating every turn or bend. As Fort Tomb's grandeur dominated more and more of the sky, the clues that Melissa was being run ragged were increasingly apparent.

Her creative means to avoid taking a life were replaced by methods both simple and effective. Grass twisted to be sharp as a mosquito's proboscis skewered trackers through their limbs, slime mold nets melted flesh into earth, and vines swung as killers kicked at the air struggling against their vegetative noose. It was in one of the traps that I passed a summoner whose claws had impaled and tore away a fat leg—Melissa's leg.

Then came the sign that she had pushed herself too hard. Plants scattered the path broken, burned, wilted, hacked through, and melted in their futile attempts to stop or even stall those who'd kept the chase going. Amidst their remains was her arm. Stomped into the dirt by a hundred feet until it had become more mush than limb. It was here that I'd caught the scent of Bloodlust on the wind—no longer smothered beneath Mutation's twisty aroma and Melissa's flagrant abuse of her new power as a Baron.

Sphinx and I broke past the treeline arriving at the base of the hill Fort Tomb claimed as its own. In the dipping sun, the shadows of the mob stretched to the trees in an umbral carpet. Slowly shifting as they made their bitter ascent toward my love who stood silhouetted in the dying ruby sun ready for this to be her last stand.

She was magnificent, the scene, however, was a torment—alongside the limbs I'd passed she had been stripped of an eye, missing a chunk of her torso, and the birch hair she maintained as if a religion was torn and bloodied. Despite it all, there wasn't a trace of melancholy on her face. Instead, I only saw conviction—to grant them no pleasure, to grant them no easy win, and to hold faith that her friends would arrive. That I would arrive. She didn't need me to be sad on her account. She needed me to be sharp. A knife that would cut a path between the obstacle that was everybody which stood between her and me.

Under the Omensight, the crowd's Bloodlust speared the air in the form of carmine war standards dancing along to the fluctuations of the mob's murderous impulse. It was on those carmine standards I fixed my sight and inhaled. Flooding every gap of my spirit with Bloodlust's sticky savagery until my eyes dilated and time dripped slow as a blood nose.

I wove my hands into the seal of a Fivefold Atomic Glory. Took aim at one of the knots in the crowd—a figure whose commitment to Bloodlust had ensnared those around him. Infinities upon infinities spun a wreath of possibility around my fingers—none of them mattered if Melissa wasn't in them—so I split it all and watched as these killers' futures burned.

A baleful star screamed itself into the world banishing shadow in its passage. Its life short-lived as a half-thought later it collided with the earth. Exploded in four directions. So many Dream Shells popped that the sound was a thunderclap. Fire dispersed. In its wake was a scar in the hill shaped in the image of a four-pointed star—Revelation's calling card.

The mob halted their advance, turning back to see who'd struck them. Melissa raised her head to see if salvation had arrived. Sphinx conjured an Inviolate Star above us—security and light so every would-be killer could see the face of their doom. I leveled Mother's Last Smile and drank in the silence. In one act, I'd made this my battlefield, and none dared to move.

"Let it be known right now," I bellowed, "you are all dead! What I offer is not mercy, but your last and only chance at Resurrection. Leave now and embrace life, or make ready as I send you to whatever Afterlife shall receive your pitiful spirit."

The leaves rustled in an arboreal furor as a summer storm rolled in. Clouds disemboweled themselves unleashing a hateful downpour. I looked to Melissa.

"Baby, momma's coming."

Lightning severed the tension. Thunder set the beat. The mob roared in challenge—their reason, a chilled corpse on the altar of Bloodlust—and they descended upon me, a tide of death. I charged forth silent, focused, and smiling. They needed a mob; I only needed Sphinx.

Collision. My glaive swam through bodies carving channels of passage for my inexorable advance. The Sorcery of soldiers broke against the light of the Inviolate Star in bursts of color and Principle. Spells from Barons drilled past the shield only to melt at the touch of my body. All around me limbs and heads climbed into the sky as Dream Shells popped. I was sharp. I was a knife. I was the cutting line between here and there, and I never stopped watching Melissa's face. Not even when she gasped.

Bang. My body snapped backward. Bang bang. I was cast to the ground. Three molten fingers had jabbed into my torso. On shaky legs I rose and beheld a mousy woman holding a gun whose barrel steamed in the rain. Not fingers, bullets. I coughed, blood stained my teeth as it waterfalled from my mouth—she'd gotten a lung.

Sphinx whirled around, her wings wide in a threat display as she tried to stare down the summoners that encircled us. None of them moved—they probably hoped I'd pop here, drop into a slumber, and allow them to go without fear of my reprisal. The woman looked around in disbelief at the unanimous trepidation.

"Come on," she screamed, "she's just a soldier. She—."

"You talk too much," I said.

I had wound the tie of bloody fate that stretched from me to her between my fingers; Atomic Glory. Her words evaporated becoming hoarse screams as chalcedony flames consumed all that she was—until her Dream Shell popped. Then she fell to her knees sleeping. I spit a glob of blood into the dirt.

"Do you want a fucking invitation?" I asked the crowd.

When no one answered I tossed Mother's Last Smile into the air, reversed my grip on it, and threw it like a javelin. The metal gleamed brighter than lightning. Pierced through one man's heart. Pop. Gored a second man's intestines. Pop. Impaled a woman through the lower vertebrae, the only thing keeping her standing. As the men before her fell to the ground dreaming she met my eyes. I have no idea what she saw in them, but I wanted to have a little fun so I jerked forward—ignoring the pain that caused—chomping at the air. She clutched her chest and…pop. Falling free from her impalement as if it were just a horrid dream.

I laughed, "I'll come to you."

The crowd edged forward belching sacrifices my way as I stumbled forward. One carried a spinning flail that gathered Cycles of kinetic force—Sphinx tore his head off before he swung. His hand released the weapon launching it into the distance where it exploded with unfocused power. Bodies ragdolled through the air from that.

A second was prodded forward at the same time as the first fell. He wore the crown of Kings, his entity. Sphinx's head spun to catch him racing toward my back. Noting her shift in attention I fell forward turning around before his outstretched hand could touch me. I gifted him two Atomic Glories; one through the head and a second through the heart. His crown rolled from his head unfurling into a small bejeweled lizard that snarled in disapproval of me.

My back struck the mud. I grunted in pain—a break in the illusion of invulnerability I'd maintained until then. The crowd surged at once. I tried to form the seal for Godtime, but a boot found my head a hair quicker than my hand could contort. Sphinx rushed over goring through the woman's spine in punishment. I crawled up her tumbling body using it as cover to block a bolt of Voracity fired by a different summoner in the distance. My attention swiveled to them—another wrong decision—as an uproar of skeletal limbs surged from the dirt pummeling me into the sky. The Ghostly musculature that enabled their motion melted on contact, but the bones were real enough.

"It has to be Real," a summoner said, I assume the one who'd launched me.

Arrayed below me was a mob—depleted but not removed—who latched onto the advice. Spears of lightning, bullets, gouts of fire, materialized swords, chakrams of ice, and boulders—not sorcerous someone just found a rock—soared up after me. Adrift between heaven and earth, I looked to Melissa. In the brief respite I'd carved out for her she'd grown a new leg, an arm, and an eye. I should've been happy, but the only thing I really cared about in that moment was that she was crying. I hated to see my people cry.

"Godtime," I incanted, plunging the both of us into a state of temporal stillness.

Well, it was relatively still. There were too many summoners pushing against the constraints of my Godtime even if most were only soldiers. I could've loosened the spell's reins accepting a sluggish procession of events, but I'd die then. Instead I allowed myself ten unpassing seconds.

One. I assessed the violence that sought my demise. A panoply of weapons frozen like stairs up to the sky. I could work with that.

Two. My body fell. I grasped both spears of lightning—they were the closest to me—and threw them back to the earth at different trajectories.

Three. The throw had taken my full body causing me to flip forward. I rolled over the tip of a sword, reached up to clasp its hilt just in time, and parried the seven that would've otherwise skewered every important organ.

Four. I threw the sword behind me—it'd come back later. Crossed my arms to steal the chakrams from the sky and released them just as soon. They skimmed the air on their way to take some other poor fool's head.

Five. I rotated myself the best I could—there'd be no way around the bullets. They perforated my sides leaving trails of blood behind me.

Six. The gout of flame washed over me, but Real fire prefers a concentrated stream if it's to be lethal. It still fucking hurt though.

Seven. I winked at Melissa. She couldn't hold back the laugh of disbelief and hope at my antics. It felt good to make her laugh again.

Eight. The boulder and I made our acquaintance. My bones shivered from the force, but I crawled—Nine—leaped from it to clear the circle of foes I would've fallen back into. Ten.

Godtime ended, and the projectiles that had refrozen once they'd left my hands went to work. Lightning struck its target, skewering them through the skull and frying their nerves. The parried swords fell with the rain severing limbs and nicking arteries which fountained blood into the faces of those nearby. Two heads—decapitated courtesy of frozen chakram—rocketed from their proper bodies. Then after came the comforting chorus of popped Dream Shells.

I soared toward the location of Mother's Last Smile. I'd land close to it. A few steps and I'd have my weapon again. A perfect plan. An obvious plan. As a woman in silk robes that snapped in the wind proved when she'd leaped into the air beside my glaive. Her eyes wide and attentive so she'd miss nothing. With the Omensight I could see the Court which hung tight to her body in a crystalline lattice—Mastery, but a Master of what?

The answer came when her shin, hardened from decades of training, snapped my ribs in a kick that returned me to the circle I'd tried to leave. She was a Master of martial arts—fuck me.

I crashed to the ground—probably snapped my ankle—then scrambled to my feet. My body could scream in disapproval of how I treated it, but I wasn't lying down until I reached Melissa. Sphinx ran to me—the bastards had stabbed her while we were parted. A summoner of Bondage intercepted her with his entity, a chitinous knight with the face of a sleeping maiden. The damn thing opened along seven seams snapping out with seven black barbed tongues that coiled around Sphinx's legs, her neck, her wings.

"Sphinx, forget about me," I said. "Drop the star. Fight back. Fight!"

"Always, Nadia," she yelled back.

The Inviolate Star fell—darkness rushed in around us—this was the wrong move. The fucking jackals that these summoners were shaped their spells ready to pummel Sphinx. It didn't take Godtime for me to see how everything slowed. Regrets slid into my mind. Why didn't I graduate? Why not try harder to have Melissa drop out? Why not use Godtime earlier? Then, when no answers came, I shaped the seal to return Sphinx into my spirit. In the darkness she was incandescent. Something somewhat Real returned to burning glorious concept flowing free from the entity's clutches, snaking between legs and dodging spells, before shooting into my chest. Returning to the depths of my spirit.

"No, no, Nadia don't do this," she pleaded from inside of me.

I said, "It'll be okay. We'll get through this."

Then a kick took me in the back. I stumbled. Shifted my spirit to make use of Sphinx's paw, and whirled on my attacker eviscerating his throat. Bang. I fell to a knee—though it was more accurate to say I lost a knee. Someone had recovered the sleeping woman's gun.

"Fuck," I said, before a knee crunched into my face toppling me into the mud.

That proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was gassed—I wasn't, but I had been shot like eight times by then. Only so much adrenaline and love can do. The mob pushed and shoved at itself for each person to have the privilege to kick me while I was down. Granted it was more like they stomped me. My thigh, my ribs, and some tried my head, though I had the good sense to cover it the best I could—more training courtesy of Mom.

There was only darkness. I was so covered by attackers and blinded by my own pitiful attempt at defense that not even the sharp fangs of lightning could grant me illumination. There was only mu; up my nose, in my mouth mixing with blood. I wondered if you could drown in mud. The Dream Shell would let me find out.

Then I pondered on how alone I was. My family from breakfast wasn't here beside me. I fought and was about to die alone. Sphinx had said it'd be only us in the end. This was a taste of that. Loneliness was dark. It was cold. It was—

"Isolating," a voice said.

Then, raising her head from the pool of darkness was the face of the unnamed Baron who wore stars as a crown. She smiled wide and pleased with herself.

"That's your name, Revelation Isolating?" I asked.

Revelation Isolating nodded. "I knew you'd figure it out once you had a taste. Though apologies at how bitter this must be—to learn and accept that in the end it'd be just you and me."

"No," I said, "it'd be me and Sphinx."

Revelation Isolating laughed at me. Her laugh reverberated in my dark isolation. I hated how bright her laugh was. How I wanted hear it again, so at least I wouldn't be faced with nothing.

"You have to stop being a child, Nadia," Revelation Isolating said. "I am Sphinx, or rather Sphinx is me. The path you're on leads to me Nadia, it's inevitable, and when you graduate my younger sister, that lesser self of mine, I'll emerge. Replete with all that love she holds for you—it really is so heartwarming to know that I'd be joining a real lover girl like yourself."

She retreated into the darkness. I couldn't help it but reach out for her—my hands fell on a door knob. We were inside of my spirit in that place I'd fallen into due to Ferilala Nu-zo's questioning. I looked behind myself to see Sphinx battered and curled up on a pillow. She raised her head with eyes unfocused and lip busted.

"Don't let her make you—," she groaned, before Revelation Isolating emerged from behind her screen, took her by the hair, and bashed her head into the small table at the center of the room.

Revelation Isolating whispered, "Quiet, little sister. The adults are talking—that is, if you're ready to be one Nadia."

Her hand redirected my head to the door—unadorned but hot. I hadn't seen her move, but in my spirit I imagine that was unnecessary. She laid her chin on my shoulder.

"You know," she said, "I'm one of the more popular Barons historically speaking. If you need someone to love you Nadia, then pick me. I'll love you forever. I'll love you completely. So much so that you'll be full and sated with no need for anyone else."

"I'd be alone," I said.

She rolled her eyes, "Yes, dear, but that's getting older. Ascending until you're at the peak and there's no one else who can join you. The isolation that comes natural to those who crave power. It is why you started on this path in the first place after all."

Tears welled in my eyes. Maybe she was right. I mean, it was my birthday when they killed Mom and Dad. I got a little older and more alone. If it was natural then…then…

"You'll always have me," she said. "No need for anyone else. No need for any more pain."

Revelation Isolating pressed a kiss to my cheek stealing a tear.

"Now open the door, and we can step into—."

The roar of a beast ripped through the air drowning the thunder. It was a bellow that vibrated in my bones and made me a bit aroused…Melissa. I let go of the door knob.

"No, come back, she won't make it," Revelation Isolating said—no, she was pleading.

Then I heard the screams that came from human voices. She was fighting? I turned my head freeing myself from Revelation Isolating's grip.

Revelation Isolating screamed, "She's Crystalline you fucking moron. Once she sees you really sees you free from the scales of your pitiful love—she'll toss you aside."

"She's coming for me though," I said. "Maybe she won't always, but she is now. Which means…"

"No, it doesn't mean anything. Not in the grand scheme—."

"...I'm not alone. I'm not isolated. So, Revelation Isolating," I declared, "Fuck off."

My spirit shuddered as it expelled her. She flew into her silk screen disappearing into the scene within before it went up in flames so bright that they banished the darkness behind my eyes. I felt my body again, bruised and broken and bleeding, but it was my body. It was being lifted from the cold sucking mud that had nearly drowned me.

I cracked an eye open—the other one was swollen shut and caked closed with mud and blood. There above me was the towering chimeric form of my ex-fiancee. The bodies of two summoners hung from her jaws as she shook them back and forth until her teeth had severed them. Their Dream Shells popped forcing Melissa to spit out their sleeping bodies. Hearing my groan of consciousness she looked down at me with her two pupil eyes blinking with her three eyelids so she could behold me with the greatest clarity.

"Y-you killed them," I said.

Melissa smiled—well, her chimeric form didn't have the muscles to smile but she did flash her silver teeth the length of sabers, "Of course, they touched my baby girl. For that, I'd kill anyone."

She then looked sad as her eyes roamed across my body cataloging every wound.

"Nadia, why didn't you try eating the star?" she asked.

I coughed a puddle of blood into her scaled hand that cradled me.

"You all didn't want me to anymore. So I didn't," I said. "Wanted you to know I was serious. About us. Everything."

"You idiot," she said. "You big idiot, I know. But it isn't about the spell, it's about how much I hate to see you like this, broken."

"How'd you think," I coughed, "I felt seeing you missing a leg and arm?"

"Not great. Though you know what?"

"Huh?"

"You really know how to fall with style."

I laughed, and then groaned as I felt a rib slice deeper into some organ I knew was important. Using her thumb as a support, I pulled myself to a sitting position. Glanced to the side to see that the mob was diminished further but still had just enough people to put up a fight if Melissa planned to take them on herself.

"Hey, so it might be a weird time to ask this," I said, "but since it's just us against them right now, think this could be a date?"

Melissa's laugh boomed like thirty ceremonial drums hammered at once.

"That's this Nadia's taste in dates?"

I shrugged, "Who doesn't want to look cool in front of a girl."

"Well, until that one lady kicked you out the sky you did look pretty cool," she said. "But you should probably eat up, I can't go on a date with you if you're asleep."

"Eat up?" I asked, then I understood. "Really?"

"Sure," she said, "let me see you at your best."

"Fuck yeah."

I conjured an Inviolate Star, winked at Melissa—which admittedly just looked like I closed my eyes, and then swallowed the star whole. It burned going down. I relished the burn because it pushed away the cold. Pushed away the isolation. Incinerated the pain and the weakness in my body. Then, limbs and organs held together in Revelatory fire, I opened my other eye and took in the fearful faces of those about to die.

"I told you fucks, you're already dead," I said, jumping down from Melissa's hands for round two and my first ever battlefield date.

---

AN:
Don't you just love it when Nadia goes limit testing? I know I do, heh. Though now it's time to see what her and Melissa can cook up together when neither one is holding back.

And speaking of not holding back, you gotta check out the Patreon because I'm definitely not holding back when it comes to the goods. The second Wonders of the Court article went live earlier this week, and covered many of the nuances around Conceptual food, weapons, and what it would look like if you wanted to make a Conceptual shovel. What's also happening today is the 50th chapter of Comfort should be going live later this evening, and will be one I intend to make very special! Though besides the Patreon do come join us on the DISCORD where we're watching movies, tv shows, talking Comfort, sharing some amazing fanfic (one that just went live asked the very important question, "What if the cast of Comfort got together to play Commander?").

The discord is also a fun place because its where people are sharing their own stories written in the Comfortverse, as I like to call it. We have one that's being written by one of my betas actually, The Anguish of the Hearth, which explores the idea of what if someone from the Old World got isekai'd into the New World. There's another one in the works from a different beta of mine that's taking a look at what's going on in Chicago. So again, click the banner below to check out the patreon and click the link to join the Discord, so that way you can take part in the Comfortverse as well!