Chapter 53: Chapter 53 – Wind-down

“Welcome to the party, Sara.” I break my staring contest with the pylon and almost collapse, knees failing to hold my weight as I turn a little bit too fast, too excitedly.

“Slowly, my lord.” Amber catches me, and I’m pretty sure I’d have caught myself but that doesn’t mean I’m not feeling warmed from it. Had she been watching me the whole time, to spring into action that quickly? “Will your legs hold you? We…”

“What.” I hear Sara breathe out that single word, almost inaudibly, after Amber trails off.

“The Outsider stirs.” Zidanya’s voice is calm and collected. “An it be that he see the world as broken, so shall he mend it, or break against it. Is it not writ in the tomes of your own day? Have you not had these thousands of years of them doing so, that you might know this as truth?”

“Oh, come on. Being an Outsider can’t be that special.” I’m smirking at her, though, smirking at all of them as I turn to face them. After the one moment where I almost fell, I’m fine, perfectly steady; I’m not even hungry anymore, which is probably related to my dim memories of Amber shoving food into my hands. I can feel the exhaustion, though; it’s like thinking through mush, trying to come up with an appropriate quip. “The only thing I get specifically from Outsider is double mana regeneration and access to the Outsider class,” I say instead. “I mean, sure, that’s nice, and some of the Skills are great, but…” I stop, not out of reluctance but because I’m just out of words, my usually inexhaustible well gone dry.

“What did you do, Adam?” Amber’s voice is a mix of curiosity and wonder.

I yawn at her, hugely, eyes closing. “Something I probably can’t do again, but might not need to. It’s all good.” I bury my face into the softness of the cloth covering her shoulder, wrapping my arms around her chest. I can feel the furnace-warmth of her body heat through the probably-cotton of her shirt, and my smile gets just that little bit wider. “Mmm. Tired. You’re… great.” It’s all I can do to avoid slurring the words as they slowly find their way out of me. “How long?”

“Five times the passing of an hour, Magelord. We have long since induced this space to provide us with a door, as you did in what was once my own domain; in comfort, we two supped and delved into our rewards while you labored, though our Miss Evetheri declined to leave your side.”

“Not our,” I say, prying my face off Amber’s shoulder. I focus, in that strange way I learned as a child, on pushing the tiredness just a little bit away. My father always used to liken it to a curtain left halfway closed, but to me it’s always more like a heavy cloak; instead of pulling it around myself as a blanket and curling up in its comfort, I swirl it around my shoulders and let it drift around me. The sleepiness dims just enough that I can think straight, and I look around. “Sara’s her own person. That’s what I did. I did that.” My brain is still muzzy enough to find that hilarious, and I barely avoid starting a round of laughter that I suspect would be difficult to stop. “It’s the spoon time for me, you know. Just so you know.”

“Spoon… time?”

“Yeah. You know, when you’re tired enough that everything is just so funny. When, like, someone can just say… spoon.” I start laughing softly. “And it’s funny. Spoon!”

“Is that so, my lord?” I tilt my head upwards to look into Amber’s eyes, Amber’s amber eyes, and that almost cracks me up. “I can just say… spoon?”

It’s my undoing and my unraveling. I laugh, hanging onto Amber’s side as she stands there like the pillar she is, feeling Zidanya’s arms around me. I laugh, feeling the project-success mania rise and sweep me away, laughing until tears are flowing down my cheeks to soak into Amber’s shirt. I laugh until my chest hurts and my breath comes with difficulty, and finally I gather myself and force myself to breathe steadily and slowly, letting the laughter drain away.

Right, Amber’s wearing a shirt. There must be no danger here; just the aftermath of our victory, and the floral smell of whatever Amber used when she showered mixed with whatever volatile organic compounds make up the smell of her, a smell I’m already fond of and am looking forward to growing moreso. I want to close my eyes and wrap my arms around her, running my hands under her shirt to work their way up her stomach to under her breasts, and fall asleep leaning against her with Zidanya’s arms around me; instead, with extreme reluctance, I let go of her, kissing her once where her jaw meets her neck and once on the lips as she turns to face me, and turn to the others.

“Zidanya.”

“Magelord.”

I look her over, then look her over again, grinning. “You look better. You were very impressive.”

“By your good regard, I am gratified,” she says without a trace of a smile, until about a second and a half later I start snickering and her mouth twitches.

“Stars, I didn’t know you had punning in you.”

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“Mayhap it was put there by the Magelord, seeded by him.”

I snicker harder, and her lips twitch again. I step in towards her, not that there’s far to go, and kiss her; not a light kiss like I’d turned away from Amber with, but a kiss with my hands tangled in the back of her hair and my body pressed up against her as close as my clothes would allow. She sort of melts into me, and I run my hands across the muscles of her back and shoulders, drinking in the feel of her through my hands, all ready strength and eager yielding as she responds by moulding her body against mine in return.

There’s not a lot between my hands and the muscle, or between my clothes and her flesh. Her armor is shredded, what little remains hanging in strips from her shoulders on down, shifting as she shifts. From the waist down, there’s nothing until her boots, with arcs and traceries of barely-reddened flesh running in bands down her thighs. I step back, looking over her with an eye not just hungry, sleepiness notwithstanding, but also a little worried; she smirks a little at me, hands coming up and moving as if to pirouette slowly under my gaze, but I stop her with a touch that runs down her collarbone to her breast, tracing the raised ridge of what might be a scar and is certainly new.

“This is where Lim put a sword through you in bear form?” The arc, the possibly-scar, is slightly rough under my finger, visibly paler than the skin surrounding it until it terminates in a puckered, reddened spot on the inside of the underside curve of her breast.

Zidanya surprises me by turning away, hand grasping mine and bringing it down to her hip. “Enough, Magelord. I’d as lief have you take less notice of that as more, an it please you.”

I keep my hand light, letting her shift away from me. “I feel like I’m supposed to take note of… I dunno. An injury taken in my service? Is that an appropriate phrase? You don’t think,” I say, my words slowing with a realization, “that I’m going to be repulsed by it, or think differently of—”

“Magelord, have a care with your implications.” Zidanya brushes my hand off and steps away, pivoting back around to level an unmistakable glare at me. “Welcome as your attentions are, I’m no blushing maiden in the bloom of my girlhood, fain to define myself in the reflection in your eyes.”

“My lord.” I look to the side at Amber. It hurts to have Zidanya step away, but I shove it aside, using the just-adjacent shroud of exhaustion from how tired I am as a way to maintain emotional distance. “She is weaker than she once was, and is bearing the mark of that shame; it is not for your recognizance that she wishes to not think of the strike she took, but for her own.”

I blink. “But… she was amazing. You were amazing, Zidanya. Terrifying and astonishing and frankly kind of ridiculous, a titanic engine of… I don’t know. Onslaught?”

“Tch.” Zidanya sounds like she’s grimacing, but she’s still facing away from me, fiddling with something on the pylon that was hers. “Mundane blades in the hands of children. I was Arcadian. I should still be more than I am.”

“Yeah, you should.” My voice is more emphatic than I intend it to be, and she spins towards me, with something like surprise in her eyes. “But you’re not, and it’s not your fault that you’re not. Don’t you have Status access, or whatever? Isn’t it obvious that you’re being held back by me, by the fact that I’m in my first tier, just an Outsider?”

“I…” Zidanya’s hands are clenched in fists for a moment, and her face twists, and then the moment is gone and her body language is calm again, fast enough that I wonder if I imagined it. “Spare me, my lord, that grace of yours. Regressed to your tier though I am, I am deficient in more important ways; in motion, in action, in sight.”

“You’re rusty, is what you’re saying.” I force myself to nod slowly, like I understand. I don’t, not really, there’s no amount of good faith that’ll cover me thinking Zidanya’s ursine rampage was anything less than deeply impressive, but that doesn’t mean I have to invalidate how she clearly feels.

Zidanya doesn’t respond other than with a nod in return, and she strides off towards the Keyhome door. I sigh, sinking to the ground and shaking my head, leaning against Amber’s leg, and my eyes close as I feel the cloak of my exhaustion starting to wrap itself around me again.

Sara’s voice almost startles me. I’d forgotten about her, forgotten that she’s only a meter or so away from me; but I’m sleepy enough that it barely registers even as a surprise. “Why did you use a resource you will not recover to avoid ensuring my loyalty?”

“I dunno.” I yawn again, feeling myself drift off. I do know, but I’m not sure I can explain it, especially mazed as I am. “Chains me, if I chain you. Bet on there being a better way.”

I think I say something else, but I don’t remember what it is even as I say it. Head tucked against Amber’s knee, arm wrapped around her calf, I fall asleep.

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