Chapter 157: Chapter 138: Catena

I jerked awake when something touched my shoulder. I blinked furiously in the darkness until a familiar silhouette appeared. “Tristan?” I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “What time is it?”

“Late.” He motioned behind him. “Ready to switch?”

I blinked a couple more times, my brain barely half awake. Sitting up, I glanced at Keke’s slumbering body beside me and drew a deep breath. Waking her was always an experience. “Just need a minute.” I turned back to Tristan. “How’d it go?”

Tristan flashed a smile, the light of the campfire behind him creating a warm glow around his body. “Great. Destiny’s tending to the fire. Guess it takes some time to return it to its natural warmth.”

“Yeah, I bet.” I wasn’t paying much attention. Our traveling had sapped more of my energy than I’d thought, and the exhaustion that followed sent me into a deep sleep. I was out within minutes of lying down. My body clamored to return to the dream world. A burning sensation forced my eyes shut, and I rubbed at them.

“Don’t rub too hard; you could remove the film from the front of your eyes. Makes your eyes sting more,” advised Tristan. He turned to an approaching form behind him, nodding. “All right, Destiny’s done. Ready whenever you are.”

“Okay.” God, keeping my head up and my eyes open was hard. With one lazy arm, I gripped Keke by the bicep and shook her gently. “Hey. Keke, it’s time to wake up.” 

She whimpered an incoherent response.

I shook her again. “It’s our turn for the watch.”

Another whine followed. “Really? Already?”

“Yep. Come on, let’s get up so Tristan and Destiny can catch some sleep.” I wandered to the tent’s entrance and waited.

Various grunts and mutters escaped her lips, none of which I could make much sense of. I sympathized. Eventually, Keke rose into a seated position and stretched her arms above her head. She rested them on top of her head behind her drooping ears and paused. I was grateful that Tristan and Destiny were so patient. 

“Okay…Okay, I’m up.” Keke yawned, then got to her feet and walked over to the tent’s flap where I was standing.

Destiny moved to stand beside Tristan, looking at the small pile of sheets set aside for them. She gave us a bow, and Tristan added a casual wave.

As a precaution, we all stayed in [Combat Mode] while we slept. We hadn’t seen anything more dangerous than the gigashanks thus far, but if there was any environment that scared me the most, it was the desert. Outside of the firelight, it was pitch black. Black, endless dunes of sand that protected Encroachers ranging from the size of Buttons to enormous gigashanks. There was no running to safety out here. No trees to climb or lakes to plunge into. I summoned my axe and found a little reassurance in gripping the handle. 

The fire crackled at our approach. Sparks floated into the air, and countless stars decorated the night sky. Keke looked to her left, then to her right, rubbing at one eye. “[Pinpoint Weakness],” she grumbled. I watched as she scanned the immediate area, her gaze running over the fire, the hills beside us, and the grooves in and around the campfire. Then after a few seconds, she shook her head. “We’re okay for now.”

“Thanks for checking, Keke.” I smiled and took a seat in front of the fire, resting the axe against my thigh. 

Keke sat down beside me, then rested her head against my shoulder.

“Any weird dreams?” she asked.

“Yeah, but I can’t remember them now. Always thought that was weird, how quickly you forget dreams.” I grabbed a stick and prodded at the fire, scattering sparks into the air.

“Me too. Have you ever thought of keeping a journal on them?”

I raised a brow. “Nah. I guess I never saw much of a point.”

She nuzzled against my shoulder. “I thought you might be a bit more, umm, would ‘romantic’ be the right word? For Earth sayings.”

“Yeah, I suppose that would fit. What, no, hey! You don’t think I have any romanticism?”

Keke sat upright, and I tilted my head toward her. She seemed to be thinking about it for a while. Then she drew her legs closer to her chest and smiled. “I think you’re the most romantic person I’ve ever met.”

I could feel my cheeks growing hot. I averted my gaze and rubbed my cheekbones. Hopefully, that would calm me down a little. “That’s hard to believe,” I said honestly. “Don’t need to meet a whole lot of people to tell you that.”

“But it’s true!”

I shook my head. “You mean to tell me I’m more romantic than Tristan?”

Keke blinked, then scratched the back of her head. “He has his charm for sure,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “but he’s never spoken to me the way you do when we’re alone.”

I swallowed hard. The soft yet erratic glow of the campfire captured her incredible curves. She watched me intently, bouncing her brow up and down.

I groaned. “I don’t know half the things I say.”

“But you still mean them. I can tell.”

“Yeah, I do.” I ran a hand through my hair. Really, if I thought about it, I’d said—and meant—a lot of things that I hadn’t expected to. To a lot more girls than I’d ever expected. It’d taken me a while, but at some point in our travels, I’d started adjusting to my role in Nyarlea. Well, mostly, anyway. There were still many things about the world that bothered me. It left me feeling powerless at times. But all I needed to do was look at Tristan to see the positive impact we’d had thus far.

I dislodged one of the wood remnants, pressing my tongue against my cheek. Judging from the look on Keke’s face, I’d made a concerning expression.

“I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Sorry. No, not at all. Just bad with compliments.” 

A smile quirked the corner of her mouth. “I know.”

My shoulders slumped, and I threw my head back, sighing. “Anyway. I’m really hoping this place doesn’t turn into another Shi Island ordeal.”

Keke breathed hard through her nose, her eyes wandering. I’d learned that Keke usually did that when she was thinking about something. It appeared like she was looking through her memories and experiences for a good answer. “It could.” Then she shook her head. “But I don’t think it will. We have you, Tristan, and to some extent, Cailu.” Keke stretched her legs out in front of her, leaning on the backs of her palms. “Magni can’t ignore the plights of three men and their Parties.”

“I hope you’re right,” I breathed.

“Even if I’m not, we’re all here for you. I know everyone in that tent would say the same thing. Even Ravyn. In her own roundabout way, of course.”

I chuckled at that last part and leveled my gaze to the fire. “Thanks.”

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“Always, Matt. We’re a team.”

“Yeah.”

And then there was silence. To me, it was comfortable. All I wanted at this moment was to sit by Keke’s side, taking in her beautiful features while I thought about the future. Hopefully, my future wouldn’t end up like those of the other men so far. As tough as Nyarlea was, it was my home. I wanted to do anything I could to improve it.

“So, what did you dream about?” I asked.

“Ahh.” Keke scrunched her face and snapped her eyes shut. “Right! I remember! You and I were going for a swim.” Sounds like a nice dream so far. “When something slithery grabbed my ankle and pulled me under.”

“Oh God, that sounds scary.”

“It does. But it gets better!” Keke shifted her body so she was sitting on her calves. “As you tried to reach for me, I was dragged down, deeper and deeper, all the way until I reached the bottom. I couldn’t see the sun, your body, or much of anything.”

I frowned. “This sounds like it’s getting worse by the minute.”

“Hang in there!” Keke put her hands out like a businessman trying to sell me something. But wait, there’s more! “Then, I get pulled down into this cave, and when I come out the other end, there’s this incredible castle before me. There were portraits of hundreds of different men on the walls. Some big red carpet lined the bridge between me and the castle. Catgirls started spilling out of the castle once the portcullis is raised, and then—”

She had my attention. “And then?”

She shrugged. “I woke up. Weird stuff. I never found out where I was or what I was doing there.”

“Dreams are like that, I guess. Mine have never been much different.”

“Oh really? I found my dreams were usually pretty messy. Something typically bad happens in them.” Her gaze veered to the campfire. “Rough memories come up.”

“So I take it this wasn’t a tough memory then? Sounds more…I dunno, thought-provoking if anything.”

Keke nodded, snatching the stick from my hand. “That’s how I chose to look at it,” she said as she prodded the fire. “A lot of [Sorcerer]s and [Enchanter]s believe that dreams have power in them. My mom used to tell me things like that. Nyarlothep has an entire division of catgirls who study dreams.”

“What do you think about them?” I had a feeling I already knew the answer.

Her cheeks flushed. “I think they can be all kinds of things. Saoirse’s first followers healed catgirls through dreamwork.”

“Like [Slumber]?”

“Kind of. A lot less threatening than that.” Sparks flew into the air. “I’m sure Ravyn and Cannoli would know more than me.”

“Maybe.” I scooted closer, so our bodies touched. “But I’m asking you.”

She smiled. “I adore that feature about you.”

Her statement caught me by surprise. “What feature is that?”

“Your attentiveness. Whenever you talk to me, I feel you’re truly listening. That what I have to say is important and that my safety means a lot to you.” She breathed deep. “It gets my heart pounding every time, no matter how often I see it. I didn’t have a lot of that after my mom passed.”

I struggled to think of something to say. I wanted to be that nurturing shoulder, but at the same time, I’d learned that sometimes it was best to limit my words. Maybe all she needed was to know I’d be there. If so, I was more than happy to oblige. I slid my hand into hers and gently squeezed. “You are important.”

Keke rested her head on my shoulder and watched the fire. “Thanks, Matt,” she finally said.

“I, uh, had a rough start, I’ll admit.” I danced on the knife’s edge of whether or not I should tell her how I initially felt when I picked this world. I had a one-track mind at the time. It’d make for a better story in the future. Perhaps once all of this had calmed down. “Thanks to you and Cannoli, I’m still here today.”

“With a bit of tough love,” Keke said with a playful elbow between my ribs.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I was an egg head.”

“Egg head?”

I frowned. “Means I didn’t understand the realities of my situation. That I was, uh, out of touch, so to speak. Like a culture shock.”

“You mean like how lost we were when we first arrived at Shi Island?”

I snapped my fingers, pointing at her. “Exactly like that.”

Keke giggled. “There’s still so much I don’t know about you.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not very deep.”

“Oh, I doubt that. I just hope you’ll continue to let me dig.”

I scratched the side of my neck. “We’ll see about that.”

“Oh?” Using two of her fingers, Keke walked up from my shoulder to my neck. She stopped at the lobe of my ear and pinched it. “‘We’ll see,’ he says.”

I was getting more comfortable with her teasing nature. To think there was a time that would’ve put me into overdrive for the rest of the day. “We’ll see.”

She hummed. “Well, let’s back up a bit, then. What’s the weirdest dream you’ve ever had?”

I paused, but I already knew my answer. “How do you feel about turning into a spider?”