Chapter 35: Chapter 33: Ludonarrative Dissonance

“Did you find anything yet?” Lisa asked, looking up from her notes. She’d been doing quite well at her job, her commanding presence still as powerful as ever. She was still just as good at telling dissatisfied customers off so effectively they ended up apologizing and buying more products. And the ones she didn’t manage to twist around her finger had complaints, complaints she excelled at describing exactly where to put them, and the anatomical acrobatics required to put them there. Of course there had been complaints about her, but she’d gotten better about avoiding those too. Sensitivity training had helped. And she took notes now, like an adult and everything. Notes she was studying in the evening, ranging from clients to call back to pointers she’d gotten from colleagues. She was learning fast, and probably going to get promoted soon. 

 

She was also bored to the point of insanity. Lisa didn’t want to spend her entire life receiving or returning phone calls for the kind of people who dialed a help desk to turn a printer on, or make orders for toner. No matter how good she was, she was never going to be happy doing it. But Daniel had asked her to find a job and she’d found one and at this point she really didn’t want to let him down.

 

“Nothing yet,” he answered from behind the monitor, and stretched for a moment. Lisa could hear his joints and vertebrae pop all the way to where she was sitting, and she cringed. He’d been reading terrible fan fiction for days now, hoping for a kernel of truth, something they could use to help Liz and the others with, anything they might have overlooked. Nothing, so far. “It looks like most of the people who’ve played my life are mostly interested in who I shared my bed with.” He rubbed his eyes. “Not that that’s any of their business, of course.”

 

“Of course,” Lisa said as she got up and walked over. She could use a stretch herself and pulled her arms over her head and yawned, then gave Daniel a look that made him blush. “Just my business, then?”

 

“Yeah,” he said quietly, and he failed to hide his smile. It dropped immediately.

 

“What’s wrong?” Lisa asked. 

 

“Uhh… I don’t think you want to read this one.”

 

“Oh? Why not?” She leaned over his shoulder to read. “It looks like it’s about the two of us, so that’s already headed in the right… di… rec….” Her words petered off as she read the words on the page, and her eyes grew big. A mischievous smile played on her lips. “Daniel gasped softly as she moved her… Daniel! How much of this have you read already?” She looked at him incredulously.

 

“Just a few pages,” he mumbled, blushing furiously. 

 

She grinned. “Naughty boy. Do you want me to leave you two alone?”

 

He sighed deeply. “I think I’m done for today, actually.”

 

“Something wrong? Other than your… ‘innocent man cave’?”

 

He shook his head and rubbed his face again. “It’s nothing. Just read one too many stories where the author decided that the ‘Great Hero of Eferton’ is a woman.”

 

Lisa wrapped her arms around him. “I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for poking fun. I know… I know how this feels.”

 

He leaned into the embrace and sighed. “I wonder sometimes if there’s an alternate universe out there somewhere, where everything is slightly different, and I’m a woman. Where I made different choices at key points, you know? The game showed those, so I can’t help but ask myself.”

 

She nodded and kissed him softly on the head. “How about…” she said as she gently nudged him off the chair, “I take over from you for a while, and you make us some dinner. How does that sound? That way you do not have to deal with the… With people’s incorrect image of you.”

 

He smiled, then cupped her face in his hands and kissed her deeply and tenderly. When he finally pulled away, they were both short of breath, and Lisa was blushing furiously. 

 

“What the fuck was that for?” she mumbled, smiling. 

 

“No reason,” Daniel said, and he scurried off to the kitchen before she could try and turn the tables on him. 

 

Lisa sat at the desk for a good minute, trying to focus on the screen and instead just biting her lip and trying not to giggle to herself. If she’d ever had the chance at a proper childhood, she would’ve felt like a teenager. As it stood, she was just bouncy and happy and didn’t know what to do about it, trying to find an outlet for the sudden surge of energy she felt. And she found it when she glanced at the screen again. 

 

On it, in big, black letters, was the title of a story. 

 

“Dominating the Demon Queen”

 

Happy energy turned into rage as she clicked the link and began to read. 

 

“Do you mind if I put on some music?” Daniel asked from the kitchen. He’d finally discovered music from this world he really liked, and he listened to it whenever he got the opportunity. A song had been playing at the gym and he’d asked what kind of music this was. As soon as he got off work the next day, he’d gone to the store and bought several albums of the artist, and a few that were recommended by the owner of the store. Now he spent as much of his time as possible listening to what the shopkeeper had referred to as ‘Dad Rock’.

 

“Mmm,” Lisa said, too focused on reading to give a decent answer. She was already halfway through this one -- it wasn’t very long -- and her hands itched. Back home she would’ve destroyed something, or someone, just to get the anger out of her system. But she’d been working on that and therapy had helped her understand that outbursts of physical violence were still violence, direct at the people around her. It was a process. But the anger needed to be let out somehow. 

 

She got to the end of the page and she was furious, and noticed a button that read “Discuss this story on the official forums.”

 

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You are reading story I didn’t ask to be the Demon Queen at novel35.com

 

“Dinner’s ready!” Daniel said as he walked in with the wok. He wasn’t quite the accomplished culinary artist that Lisa was, but he still made a pretty good stir fry, if he did say so himself (repeatedly), and the smell following him from the kitchen was delightful. Sadly, Lisa didn’t seem to notice, as she was typing quickly and furiously on the keyboard. It had taken her a while to get used to the concept of typing instead of writing, but what she lacked in accuracy she more than made up for in enthusiasm. 

 

Daniel came over to look and saw that she’d started a new thread, titled “Nobdody DOMOinates The Quenn!!” 

 

She was already two pages into a heated, structured argument with nobody in particular, and Daniel saw there was no slowing her down. He quietly filled them both a bowl, knowing that it was best to let her ventilate her feelings in a more constructive way than to try and interrupt her now. He quietly handed her her food and a fork, and left to go sit on the sofa to watch something. He nearly fell over when he noticed that she had his shirt in a vice-like grip, and she pulled him back.

 

“Just because I’m mad,” she said softly, still typing with one hand, “doesn’t mean I’m mad at you.” She turned to him and her expression softened for a second, and she kissed him. “I love you. Thank you for understanding,” she turned back to the screen and instantly the glaring intensity was back. “That I need to do this.”

 

He smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “I love you too.” He loved how that made her blush, every time. He looked at her warmly, and then went to eat his food on the sofa to watch a detective serial he’d been obsessed with. He’d mentioned to Lisa once that they appealed to him because detectives had a similar role in society he used to, trying to solve problems other people couldn’t and, almost as if not more importantly, constantly getting into trouble and almost getting killed before then getting chided for not doing more, doing better. It was, he concluded, nice to see that some things never changed. 

 

“And thank you for the food!” she said with her mouth full, refusing to not have one hand active at all times, writing paragraph after paragraph of angry typoes.

 

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“I’m going to bed, Lisa. Are you coming?”

 

Her head swiveled away from the screen to him, back to the screen, and back at him. 

 

“I-- But… People are being wrong! On the Internet!”

 

He grinned at her. “They’ll still be wrong tomorrow.”

 

She sighed, shook her head, and smiled. “You’re right,” she said, and joined him. After their interrupted kiss a few days before, their relationship had evolved rapidly. Their first kiss had quickly been followed up by another, and another. They moved away from the couch, though. Even though the portal was no longer there, they both felt watched by the now no longer extant hole in reality. Instead, Lisa had grabbed Daniel by the hand, dragged him to his bed and thrown him onto it. They had felt each other’s hot breath on their skin. Their lips had touched, their hands entangled, and they’d said each other’s name a thousand times.

 

It had been awkward and weird and sometimes very uncomfortable. But both being adults, they’d also talked and soothed and walked each other through the pain of not being themselves fully, physically, and the understanding and caring had made their first night together beautiful and completely sleepless. After that, things had been much more relaxed between the two of them. They weren’t roommates anymore, not really. Lisa hadn’t spent a single night in her own bed since. 

 

They went to bed together, and Daniel fell asleep not long after. His work tired him out, but not so much he didn’t have enough left in him to pay her the attention she deserved. Or distract her. 

 

But despite the intensity of the distraction, Lisa didn’t find sleep, and it didn’t find her. She lay awake, staring at the ceiling, her head full of thoughts. Three hours later she slipped out of bed, put on her bathrobe and slippers, and went into the living room, making sure to sneak quietly, and turned on the computer. 

 

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“Have you been up all night?” Daniel yawned. He was wearing a bathrobe that matched hers, and he walked past her to the kitchen. The sun was rising and he closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the morning light. 

 

“M-hmm,” she mumbled, her fingers moving across the keyboard at lightning speed. She had both her legs pulled up onto the chair, and she looked at him with bleary eyes. She wasn’t even looking at the screen anymore. “I had something stuck in my head and I needed to get it out.”

 

He smiled, shook his head and went into the kitchen. After a few minutes, he came back out with two cups of coffee. As a way to wake up, it was wonderful, and definitely something he’d missed out on back home. Tea was all well and good, but coffee at least tasted like something that kicked you in the back of the head and said ‘get to work’. It definitely wasn’t for everyone. He handed her her cup.

 

“People being wrong on the Internet again?” He asked and sat down on the chair next to hers, looking over. If she’d been arguing with people it had clearly elevated to the next level, because the document she was typing in was already thirty pages long.

 

“What? Oh,” she said. “No, that was a few hours ago. I read some more stories and talked to people about them,” nonchalantly trying to avoid the tone with which she’d been ‘talking’ to people. “Someone called me out, told me I had no idea what I was talking about and that if I knew what these characters were like, I’d write them myself.”

 

Daniel chuckled. “You didn’t.”

 

“I did.” She smiled sheepishly.

 

“Can I read it?”

 

“Not yet!” She held her hands in front of the screen protectively. “It needs more work.”

 

Daniel kissed her on the cheek and went to make them both breakfast. Despite the absurdity of their situation, he realized he was quite happy. It was Sunday morning, and Lisa was writing fanfiction about them. It was Sunday morning, and he was in love.

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