A Nereid's World, Words of Encouragement

Castelilise awoke hugging Felix inside the contraption in his restroom they both slept in. She was underwater, whereas he was held above water in a surprisingly comfortable looking position, at least for such a strange situation. While complex, the arrangement allowed them to sleep together despite having such radically different biology. Still, the nereid hoped this would be the last time Felix would have to do this, as it wasn’t a great position for either of them. After she extricated herself from the contraption, Castelilise left the room, and swam through the canals to outside the master suite... where she found the demon waiting for her.

"You did it."

The phrase from the demon was so simple, but contained multitudes. Castelilise still felt the need though for clarification. "I graduated?"

"Of course Castelilise," The demon smiled at her. "Still, I'm proud to make you unaging, grant you perfect health, give you immunity to disease, and to spare you the scariest of transformations. But know that you also play a different role in challenges, and that you will retroactively alter reality itself."

That last statement sent Castelilise into a whirlpool of new memories. A new life entered her mind, one in she had always been a nereid, and had never been a human named Billy Hughes. That change alone made her grateful, because it made Hughes nothing more than a painful memory, and a reminder of why she should be thankful to be who she was. But the largest change from this was something truly wonderful: She had been with other men before Felix. A lot of other men before Felix.

This change wasn't amazing because of mere want for variety, but because it made Felix and his harem the capstone of Castelilise's sexual escapades, rather than a prison for them. She remembered fucking hundreds of people before she met Felix, both men and women, which made being trapped in his harem less bad. This came with a full life as a nereid, a being that was a primal manifestation of the ocean. Except unlike the ocean, which had no thoughts or consciousness, she could think, she could feel. Nor were her thoughts and feelings restricted to sexual pleasure, although that came up.

Just like the ocean, Castelilise was often a violent, destructive ****. The same passion that caused her to fuck Felix, and others, for hours upon hours without tiring, also made her prone to eco-terrorism. Which was a polite way of saying that, whenever possible, the nereid destroyed the things humanity built on or near the ocean. She remembered sabotaging shipboard electronics that sent them dangerously off course, destroying oil rigs through the destruction of a single piece of machinery that lead to inevitable cascading effects, and so on, an endless list of sabotage that lead to destruction that lead to mass ****. The carnage of both humans and machines was enabled by that, as a magical manifestation of the ocean, she had an intuitive understanding of how to break human technology, especially that dealing with liquids like water, or oil.

All of this destruction wasn't something Castelilise was alone in either. Other nereids took delight in sabotaging humanity's ships, ports, oil rigs, and so on, to the point where at times they made a perverse game of it. They'd even seduce the sailors and other such humans caught up in their scheme, gaining even more delight from their deeds. These humans were too foolish and too prideful to realize that the beautiful women swimming through the ocean were also the ones continuously destroying the things they held dear. None of them-

"Castelilise?" The demon asked, interrupting the nereid's train of thought. "Do you have any questions?"

"Sorry, bit overwhelmed by my new life," Castelilise said before pivoting to defend it. "I'm very grateful for it to be clear! I just... everything is so different."

"Indeed it is," The demon said. "Make sure you talk with Felix when you can. You'll find that you changed his life in this timeline in ways you may not have expected, and that he will be grateful for..."

"What is this project you need me for?" Jamina Lightbringer asked. "I would've thought that your power made me unnecessary for anything you wanted to do."

Jamina was standing in the room that was once host to a mirror maze. It had been changed to a room with fewer, bigger mirrors, some of which were the size of movie theater screens. Whatever this room was for, it was no longer meant to be something that caused participants to be lost within it, and she suspected it was also not for the type of challenge they once tried in it. This was the place Paisley had dragged her to after breakfast for reasons she couldn't figure out. After all, the woman had the powers of a host, which from her perspective might as well have been omnipotence.

"We're peering into and uncovering lost memories Jamina," Paisley said. "That is something I understand you are rather skilled at as a mage. Was I wrong?"

"... No," Jamina admitted. "I do have such knowledge, but what do you seek to do with it?"

"Felix and others lost memories that were critical to the harem's functioning," Paisley explained. "He cannot remember why he's so distant from Nox, or the actual, original set of reasons he hates Janessa Smith almost as much as he hated Austin White. That lack of memory hasn't created new opportunities, but has instead just solidified who is in Felix's trusted circle versus who isn't."

"What if he doesn't want to remember?" Jamina asked. "I, after all, offered him the chance to get his memories back and he refused to take it."

"I don't propose that he has to remember forever," Paisley walked over to Jamina and put a hand on the elf's shoulder. "Only that he remember long enough to rejuvenate his relationship with those in his harem he rejects, or at best freezes out. That could include you if you're not careful you know."

"I know very well," Jamina said. "I still don't understand why you're unable to access this magic yourself, but I will help you in your project. Felix needs to face the past, whether he wants to or not..."

"You got mail," Paisley said while handing Felix fanmail at breakfast. "Before you ask, the HH proceeds very, very quickly in terms of time compared to us here."

Felix at first didn't open up any fanmail. He had only been up for an hour or so at most, and had sent fanmail the prior evening, making it a lot to react to. But after he finished another protein heavy breakfast, he reconsidered. One of the letters was from Andy, and even though he anticipated an angry reaction, he needed to know what the man would say. Felix's initial reaction to Andy was the truth at the time, and Andy needed to know how he came off to a lot of viewers before the grief he carried came into focus. Most people didn't get to be successful developing an app, or heck, be successful enough in love to have multiple exes. So Felix took a breath, and opened the envelope.

"Dear Felix,

Thank you for telling me about the hatred. I mean that. It would have been easier to leave that part out, and you didn't, and that shows character.

You're right about the luck. I've thought about it a lot, more than I used to let myself, because for a long time it felt easier to frame everything as either my fault or my achievement rather than look at how much of it was just the universe dealing unevenly. Arabella isn't trying to break us. That's not nothing. That's actually enormous, and I didn't fully understand what it meant until I started hearing about other seasons.

I want to say something about your season, because you mentioned graduating high school and I don't think you meant it as a throwaway line. I don't know the full shape of what you've been through, but (thanks to Arabella's Cliff's Notes info dumps) I know enough to say that getting yourself together under those conditions is no small thing. The weight you were carrying going in was different from mine. That doesn't make either of us better at this. It just means we were both working harder than the outside looked.

I'm glad you watched. I'm glad you wrote.

If there's ever anything I can do from here — advice, a second opinion, just someone to write to who won't pretend the hard parts aren't hard — I mean the offer genuinely.

Keep going, Felix.

Andy Cooper

Master, The HH — Current Season

Masters Support Group — Founding Member

P.S. Laura read your letter and said to tell you she agrees about the luck, and that she's the avalanche of misfortune in question, so she feels qualified to weigh in."

Wait, the girl that Andy had been grieving was brought back? The question haunted Felix's mind. It was just an additional note at the end of the letter, but it spoke volumes about how powerful Harem Hotel was. Someone had been brought back from the dead, and who had been dead for more than a decade by that point. But it also a message he needed for entirely banal reasons. It assured him that it was okay he couldn't get his shit together immediately. That it was okay he wasn't in the headspace to be optimal, because not everyone could be, and while it would've been better if he could have been, there was no use in wallowing in what if scenarios. What the past was, as a human without access to magic, was something he couldn't alter, hence, the question was what he was going to do about it.

Felix knew he had to be a better master, which in practice meant being a better boyfriend, to the people in his harem.

The next bit of fanmail was from Erin. It was mail Felix hoped was taken well, but he wasn't sure how a discussion of nudity would go with someone of the opposite sex on another season entirely.

"Felix,

Okay, first: you're eighteen and your harem controls whether you get to wear pants. I have a lot of questions about how that happened and I respect that I probably don't have enough context to fully understand the answer. I'll just say that whoever designed your season had a very specific vision and I hope they're pleased with themselves.

You're right that the nudity thing is old news by now. I won't pretend the first week wasn't rough — it was, and I'd be lying if I said I handled it gracefully. But somewhere around week three I stopped noticing, and somewhere around week five I started not caring, and now it's just... how I am. The plant stuff helps, actually. Hard to feel exposed when your skin looks like something out of a nature documentary. People stare at the color before they stare at anything else.

What you said about the forgiveness — I've been sitting with that. It didn't feel like a big thing when it happened. It felt more like putting down something heavy that I'd been carrying for so long I'd forgotten it was supposed to hurt my arms. But you're right that it was. Years of rage is a fair way to put it. I'm glad it shows, and I'm glad someone noticed, even if you're in a bunker in a completely different universe.

I hope someone gives you pants soon. Or at least the option. You're eighteen — you should get to decide that one for yourself.

Rooting for you too.

Erin"

Felix smiled as he finished the letter from Erin. It made his **** nudity amusing, and a shared pain with a contestant, rather than a source of shame. He was still bothered by it, because indeed, he wasn't able to make the decision, but maybe his new abilities could change. Before he could continue that line of thought however, he was brought out of it by Z.

"Felix?" Z's voice was sudden, as was her hand on his shoulder. "I need you for something. Please follow me..."