Long Time, No Seethe

All the awkward conversations in the world couldn’t keep the morning from coming. Even if John had used his control over his new world to keep the sun from rising, it would’ve been no different than covering his eyes and pretending the day had not come. No amount of delaying tactics could forestall time itself.

Farrah had retired to her room several hours ago, claiming that she’d figured out how to mostly ignore the uncomfortable feelings John was giving off. John suspected she was just trying to make him feel better, but didn’t call her out on it, since one way or another the anticipation would be over soon enough.

Aclysia had left to engross herself with further reading – though John had asked that she promise to keep the erotic reading for a later time. That left John with only his computer and his thoughts to distract him, a situation he’d faced many times as a teenager. The nostalgia was a blessing that helped carry him through the night without dwelling for too long on his troubled thoughts.

Already John could hear the faint sounds of the kittens slowly entering their early morning energetic phase, and knew the others wouldn’t be far behind in waking.

“Better get moving. I can at least have a nice breakfast waiting for everyone, that way the morning can start pleasantly for some of us.”

A brisk trip down the stairs, a brief battle with some overly affectionate little kittens, and a few spells later, John had an array spread across the dining table with a scent powerful enough to attract attention. One by one, his family and lovers filtered down from above and seated themselves around the table. The conversation rotated topics rapidly – first it was the food, then Aclysia’s new voice that everyone seemed to love, then all the new appliances, and then right back to the food.

“Papa, what’s this?” Miriam asked, poking at a combo meal.

“That? Oh, uh, Burger Baron? I think, anyway. Don’t worry about the names, it’ll taste the same as the stuff you’re used to. All fast food is pretty similar,” John responded after he’d choked down a mouthful of taco. “These just look a little different because they were closer to Kim’s place than the usual stuff we get. Next time I’ll keep the bags, if you’re really interested in knowing all their names.”

“Will we be doing any training today, Father?” Sophia asked from John’s right. She was seated slightly farther away than normal, allowing Lerianna and Orria to take each of his sides. She didn’t seem particularly enthused about that, but she did her best not to let her pride show through.

“If you want to train, you’re more than welcome to, but you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way unless Yvara or Shishun wants to make the Barriers,” John responded, glancing over to where the naga was sitting. She was at the far end of the table, allowing enough room for her sizable tail to spill out without tripping anyone up or blocking chairs from moving.

Shishun froze entirely when she heard her name being mentioned, hastily swallowing what little food she was eating and meeting John’s gaze before he’d even finished his sentence. “It would be my honor to fulfill my duty,” Shishun said, nodding firmly.

“Not your duty, and we appreciate the assistance,” John responded, nodding gratefully toward her. “It will just be the two of you, though, so keep it safe. Don’t get too dangerous with the Barriers, alright?”

“I will do my best to please you, Master,” Shishun said, giving a respectful nod of her head. She waited several seconds before resuming her meal, not daring to take another bite until John’s attention focused elsewhere.

“So… what’s the plan for today?” Lerianna finally asked. This time it was John’s turn to pause, fork dangling in mid-air as he stared down, eyes focused somewhere beyond the food below.

“We’re just… gonna go have a talk. That’s all. We’ll see what happens.”

Despite keeping his head down, John didn’t miss the looks that passed between the others. Even the kittens seemed to sense that something was amiss, though he hadn’t dared mention any of what was going to happen around them. He didn’t want to upset any of them by mentioning Vallya’s name, especially the kittens.

“As you wish, John,” Orria noted. She made a very overt gesture toward Maera and Mithra’s plates, drawing eyes toward herself. “What do you two think of the new strains of fruit I’ve adapted from John’s bushes? I tried to create something with a more savory taste.”

“Nyaa, it’s good! Tastes like those big red maters,” Maera said happily, gnawing at the heart-shaped fruit.

“Tomatoes,” Orria corrected, giggling slightly. “And you, Mithra?”

“Mmm. Very filling… wish I could have more, but they’re heavy.”

“Well, we have to make them filling and nutritious, for the times when I don’t get a chance to pick up more. Orria’s been a big help in that department, and I’ve got a few orders at butchers around Springfield to stock up on meat. Yvara is working on several storage solutions for different stuff and new cooking equipment, so hopefully the war won’t affect our meals too much.”

“Nyaa, what about dessert?!”

The Nekos’ happy clamoring about food kept the conversation light and the time flowing. John found his worries fading to the back of his mind, forgotten amidst the simple pleasures of a meal with his loved ones. The only thought he had of the day ahead was a stray, not quite melancholic longing that found its way into his brain while watching the kittens argue about which flavor of berry was best.

“I want Vallya to be back. Not just to be fixed from whatever happened to her – I need her to be a part of this again. I need her to want to be a part of this again.”

It wasn’t long before John and Aclysia were gathering up plates, with Yvara standing by to eagerly show John how to work the sink she’d installed. Even as the others filtered out, Yvara and Aclysia were bubbling on happily about plans for further kitchen remodels, and their enthusiasm was so genuine and intense that John could have listened to them talk about interior design for hours.

But chores never took long – particularly not with two beautiful women helping to speed them along. When John turned away from the sink a few minutes later, he found Orria and Lerianna already waiting for him by the door.

“Come on. No sense spending the whole day dreading it,” Lerianna said, giving a jerk of her head that seemed meant in a comforting way. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Everything will be alright, John.” Orria gave her warmest smile as she held an arm out toward the exit. “The worst thing that can happen is things simply remain as they are.”

“I appreciate all of you keeping things light… and you’re right, Lerianna. No point in dreading this any longer. Let’s get going.”

“You’re sure that she’s out this way?”

“Positive.” Orria nodded in further emphasis of her confidence. “When you first assigned me to watch over her, I was limited to a certain range from her before I would lose precise tracking – but with some practice, I’ve found a way to track auras over this entire realm. I have been utilizing the plants across your world to keep track of magical auras by expanding their roots far enough to monitor the presence of any high levels of magic.”

“That’s impressive! I knew you’d be able to come up with something, Orria. And since you’ve been working so hard on spreading flowers and the fruit bushes, you have quite an array of plants to work with, right?”

“Indeed. I can also use the trees of the forest or the natural grass, but the plants that I’ve helped shape and grow are easier to commune with and provide greater detail over long distances.” Orria beamed at John’s praise, happily bouncing on her feet as they walked. “I check in on her in person too, but I thought it better to give her at least some level of privacy.”

“You don’t think she appreciates having someone check in on her?” The comforting look that Orria shot John made him realize he’d let more of his guilt slip into his voice than intended.

“No, and she hasn’t even asked to visit the house again, or for anyone to come speak with her. She tends to keep to this area of the forest, for the most part. Even though you told her she could use the temple at night, she rarely ventures far from the woods for more than an hour or two. And she’s always careful to keep well away from Lunaya’s home as well. I believe for now she quite welcomes the isolation.”

“And… she’s made no attempts to hide herself?” John hated even voicing the thought, but he was well aware that Vallya’s illusions and ability to conceal her magical signature were dangerous. The only person he’d have faith in to see past them was Layla, and he’d never put that to the test.

“None. Well, to be entirely accurate, she disappears quite frequently – but only ever to train inside of Barriers. Every time, she re-appears at the same location she exited from… and frequently, wounded.”

John’s posture slumped a little at that. It wasn’t as if the rest of them didn’t get injured frequently during Barrier runs, but what if she had gotten hurt more severely? She had her own magic, but it wasn’t exactly suited for healing…

“How often has she been training?”

“Fairly frequently. Perhaps as often as we have, at least. She has busied herself with other hobbies on occasion – whittling, sculpting, gardening, tending the forest… they never seem to last long, though.” The last part was punctuated with a frown, one that culminated with Orria biting her lip slightly before she added hastily, “But then, it’s only been a few days. I suppose she’s probably just taking the chance to try new things.”

“Probably…”

The three of them had entered the forest by that point, weaving between the large trunks as they made their way north and east, toward the far edge of the timber.

“We’re closing in. I think she’s noticed us, actually. She’s fidgeting around a lot more than usual.”

“Just how precise is your tracking?” John glanced up at Orria, who returned his look with a smirk of pride.

“At this range, it’s accurate to within a few inches, a foot or two at most. Nothing like the way you described the sensing abilities of others, but enough to tell when someone is this uneasy.”

It didn’t take much longer for Orria to be proven right. By the time they were within sight of Vallya, she had already stopped moving, but there were enough footprints and trodden grass to tell that the Kitsune had been pacing quite anxiously. Even now, Vallya was leaned up against a tree trunk, her body half-turned away from them, all nine of her tails wrapped around her body to conceal as much of herself as possible from them. Only the tiniest sliver of her face peeked out from between them, enough for John to lock gazes with one glistening purple iris.

“Vallya.”

“...John.”

The exchange was every bit as awkward as John had expected. Vallya’s posture only tensed further as she watched John approach, her eyes darting between him and the others behind him. She didn’t seem alarmed, or even particularly surprised to see the others, only nervous. Nervous and ashamed.

“Have you… figured something out?” Vallya’s skirt flared as she twisted about nervously behind her tails.

“I think I’m supposed to be the one asking you that.” John **** a chuckle that he didn’t feel, and one that Vallya didn’t entertain. She only waited silently. “...No. But it’s… it’s your day.”

“My day? What-” This time the chuckle came from Vallya, and wholeheartedly at that, though the ring of mockery echoed through her choked laughter. “After all of this, after… after what I did, you still want to give me a day? Shall we frolic through the fields? Go on a flying lesson? Perhaps we can spend the day playing with the kittens and make a game of how close I can get to them before they start trembling in fear!”

The words came with great vitriol, but not for John. Tears formed in Vallya’s eyes as she spat the words, her jaw trembling slightly when she finally warbled the last few words out.

“I just thought that you deserved a chance to be heard out, if you had anything to say.”

“Well… I do, as a matter of fact.” Vallya straightened herself up as she spoke, stiffening out the quivers of her extremities as best as she could while hardening her gaze. “I meant what I said before. I think you should Purify me, John.”

“Vallya, I don’t-”

“You said this was my day, didn’t you?” Vallya interrupted, voice steeled with resolve. “Then this is what I want. I want… to stop being afraid of myself. I don’t care if you just fix what’s wrong or make me into someone completely different, but I need to stop feeling like… like…”

The Kitsune’s tails tore away from her body, thrashing erratically around her. An intense mixture of fear, anger, and grief seemed to wash over her in waves of varying intensity, finally settling on a frantic desperation.

“Like I’m not the only one in here anymore.”

“...Vallya, did something happen? Orria told me that you were training.”

“No… no, nothing happened while I was training.” John hadn’t expected that answer to come with such anger, but it did. Vallya’s ears twitched wrathfully as her eyes fell to the ground, her tails flicking back and forth with **** agitation. “No matter what I did. I even let them strike me, let them hurt me. I thought I could learn to feel that anger, to best it, to conquer it, but I feel nothing for these Barrier creatures. I see them as what they are – mindless, soulless beasts. There is no joy, no thrill in seeing them suffer, in punishing them for-”

Vallya grimaced, her tails suddenly going still as her hands clapped against her skull, palms pressed against her temples so hard that her wrists turned white from the pressure. John stood frozen in hesitation, uncertain what was happening to her.

“Vallya, are you alright? Do you need help?”

“I need you to Purify me!” Vallya half-shouted, half-squealed, finally pulling one of her hands off her head long enough to glare up at John. “You see? These feelings are so strong, yet they come on so smoothly they corrupt my thoughts before I even realize the dark paths they’re pointing me down! I’ve always relished in protecting this world… perhaps a little too ferociously at times. But this? This is something else, something dark.”

“You said that those Barrier creatures didn’t cause those feelings, but talking about them sure worked you up. What’s going on in your head, Vallya?”

“It’s not the creatures… it’s any thought of vengeance.” Vallya whimpered loudly, recoiling as if afraid of even uttering the word. “Just the idea of punishing someone for a slight, no matter how small, starts this fire in my skull like my soul is ablaze and taking my sanity into the pyre along with it! But… but it’s never been this bad before!”

“We should leave,” John said immediately, throwing a quick glance at the others behind him. “This can’t be a coincidence.”

“No, don’t leave me like this!” Vallya fell to her knees as she pleaded, letting out a squeal as she fell. Her whole body tensed up, and her free hand shot back to her skull even more intensely than before, as if trying to hold in the fraying strands of her mind. “Please! Master… John, something is coming! You have to do it, quickly!”

“John, she’s not kidding,” Orria whispered beside him. Her eyes were glistening blue, and the trees around them were beginning to sway in an ominous fashion. Vines trickled down from the branches, slithering down bark and across grass toward the twitching, spasming Kitsune. “Something is different about her aura. Something major. Even I can tell that it isn’t natural.”

“Vallya, I’ll… fine, I’ll do it!”

John staggered forward, caught between urgency and hesitation, mana already surging through him.

“What should I be thinking about? How can I save her without erasing her?” John panicked as he stepped closer. “I don’t even know what’s happening, and she doesn’t seem to either! How can I help her?!”

John almost stopped at the halfway mark, but Vallya’s cries went from panicked to painful, piercing through the forest with a suffering that shook the blossoms. Vallya started to writhe back and forth on her knees, throwing herself as if shaking off some invisible attacker.

The vines that were encroaching on Vallya flickered, losing cohesion from the shrieking wail as Orria’s concentration was shaken, but then surged forward all the more intensely. The vines aligned themselves in a defensive circle, forming a perimeter around Vallya that John had to step over to reach her. They seethed and surged, ready to react to even the slightest sign of hostility, but John could only focus on the anguish in the raven-haired vixen’s voice as she threw herself against the ground.

“I’m going to try to help you,” John promised, as he tried to lace his hand through Vallya’s hair as she thrashed about. His fingers whiffed once, barely missing Vallya as she thrashed about wildly. “But I’m not going to change you! I want you back, the real you, Vallya!”

John made another grab for Vallya’s head, a little more intensity behind this grasp. His aim was true – but his hand stopped short as Vallya’s own hand struck like lightning. Her fingers gripped his wrist with a strength beyond hers, beyond John’s, beyond anything he’d felt since Adantia’s metal coils wrapped around him. John instinctively tried to wrench his hand away, but couldn’t even pry the tiniest movement from her delicate digits. He tried grasping her wrist in return, not comprehending why she would stop him, but as soon as he moved to do so, Vallya twisted her hand and nearly shattered his wrist entirely, his fingers going slack from pain and the awkward angle his arm was put into.

Vallya’s movement stopped entirely, her body tense but frozen. The vines seemed to hiss as they rose into the air, preparing to strike. Lerianna and Orria moved in closer, darting forward – and then they too froze, their bodies stopping mid-stride. Orria’s vines fell limply to the ground, all signs of life gone from them as Orria herself assumed a loose standing position, blankly staring ahead into the distance. Lerianna took a similar posture beside her, both of them slack-jawed and unseeing, something that struck a fear into John far deeper than Vallya’s panic.

“Vallya, release me at once, or I’ll-”

“Ooohhh, do tell. I so love a good **** threat.” The voice that came from Vallya was hers, and yet it was not. It was as if John were hearing a second voice layered over it perfectly, eerily similar, but with a deep, threatening undercurrent that set every hair on his body erect.

“You’re… you’re not Vallya,” John stated plainly, grimacing as he tried again to free his wrist – again, unsuccessfully. “You must be the reason she’s been feeling this way! What the hell are you?!”

“Observant as ever… which, I suppose, is hardly a compliment for you,” not-Vallya said, giggling sadistically as she finally raised her eyes to meet his own. John gasped at what he saw when she did – gone were her pupils, her irises, even her veins. Vallya’s right eye had become a white so solid it may as well have been painted on, while her left had become as black as the abyss. Her head tilted from side to side menacingly, while her smile seemed somehow to remain in place, a Cheshire grin of devious lust and gleeful cruelty.

“Whatever you want, if you hurt my family, I’ll-”

“Oh, please, I didn’t even show up in a Barrier this time, yet you still assume the worst of me!” Not-Vallya’s expression transformed shockingly quickly, all the intimidation vanishing – seemingly intentionally – as she broke into a pout. She released John’s hand with a dismissive wave, flicking it away as if it were no more than an annoying gnat. “Honestly, between that and you not remembering me, I’d be a lot angrier… if I didn’t enjoy seeing that stupid look on your face so much.”

“Remember you? I don’t-” Something in the predatory grin sparked a distant memory in John’s mind, and it all came back to him in a flash. “...You’re the spirit that I purified Vallya from?”

“Bit insulting, but at least you’re pointed in the right direction this time,” the woman said. John couldn’t see any movement in the depth-less monocolor that had replaced Vallya’s eyes, but he got the distinct impression this body-snatcher was rolling her eyes at him. “I’m not a spirit, I’m a goddess. A Fragment at that. My name is Jiina, and I’m quite hurt that you don’t remember it – Dike was quite clear that she mentioned it when you two spoke. You should be bowing and begging for forgiveness, really, but I’ll allow you the privilege of standing, since you’ve provided me with so much amusement.”

A thousand thoughts ran through John’s mind, a hundred questions that all seemed relevant, and none immediately sounded like a good place to begin. His worries for Vallya, for Orria and Lerianna, and for all of their safety all clashed with basic informational questions, ping-ponging around in his mind until the simplest one eventually bounced its way out of his mouth.

“Why the hell are you here? Why are you possessing Vallya?”

For the first time, a frown crossed the woman’s face. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and one of Vallya’s tails waved in an uncertain way, a certain annoyance and discomfort radiating from her as she spoke through clenched teeth.