A woman, a snake and many questions.

When you entered, you saw “Skippy”, the name you had mockingly given to the snake that killed the ranger in the forest, imprisoned in a small metal cage, as one of the völva women tried to feed him small pieces of meat through the bars.

She presented herself as Lia: A rather short völva with deep black hair tied up in a ponytail, speaking with a cheery disposition. And she explained that she had found “Skippy” wandering through the throne room not long ago.

He seemed to faint while struggling when she grabbed him, which she found amusing, so she decided to keep it as a pet.

Lia had heard the story of how you met when Tabitha was cleaning your feet, and was thinking of giving him back, but considering you had not even asked for him since you arrived she figured you wouldn’t mind if she kept him.

You thought she had a point, as you now stood there thinking, “Skippy” pleading for you to at least take him out of the cage, which you did.

“You are not actually thinking of leaving me here, are you…?” He asked in a worrisome tone, stretching his whole body as he was finally free from imprisonment.

Lia looked at you with puppy dog eyes as she asked to keep him and promised to take care of him, like a child who just found a stray and is imploring his mother to keep it. It was certainly an amusing scene to you, although maybe not so much to Skippy.

“Well, what is it to you?” You said while shrugging “She looks like a nice enough girl. You’ll have food, a place to stay… Pretty good life for a snake if you ask me.”

“And do you not think I, perhaps, want something more from my life than eat and sleep all day…?” He points at you with his tail accusingly, as if punctuating his question, before continuing “…Hmmmm…? For that, I could’ve just stayed in the forest.”

“W-Well…” You didn’t quite know what to say to that, suddenly as it came, and it took you a couple of seconds to regain your footing “Well, what are you even gonna do out there anyway?”

“Not be inside a cage, for starters.” He says, a little bit of anger palpable in his voice, obviously directed towards Lia “And I would not mind staying with you for a time.”

Before you could say anything, Lia intervened, her voice just as cheerful as when she was telling you the story of how she caught the talking snake.

“Come on, Skippy. Just stay with me. We’ll have fun!” Now looking at you directly, with an innocent smile on her face, she asked “I mean, haven’t you had a ton of fun so far?”

You doubted for a moment.

It’s true that the völva women had given you more pleasure than you had ever experienced, but you were sure your own pleasure was incidental. You were only a toy for them to explore their own desire, as replaceable for any of their other prisoners.

Nevertheless, from her tone of voice and earnest demeanor, you could clearly see the völva, or Lia at least, had no ill-intentions towards you.

Still doubting, you said “Y-Yeah… It was… Fun. But I guess it’s time to move on now.”

“But why?” Lia asked, genuinely puzzled “You’re having fun, right? And it feels good! So why not stay here with us?”

That was a good question. Why did you want to escape so vehemently? Why not just give yourself to pleasure? Isn’t that your entire purpose in life as a Lust Nymph? And what was out there for you anyway?

All of these questions appeared inside of your head almost simultaneously and before you could answer her question, Skippy interrupted your train of thought.

“Why would you limit yourself to just this castle? Or just fornication? There’s a whole world out there, if you weren’t aware, and I’d like to see more of it than just this castle.” He said to Lia, who shrugged as she answered.

“What about it? Out there you can get killed by a player any minute, there’s no peace of mind. We are safe here.”

You noticed her expression changing as she spoke, her tone of voice becoming just a little more serious and focused, then a little melancholic, though never abandoning her detached cheeriness.

“Plus, what does it matter anyway? All of this is fake. We’re just toys. At least in this way it is us who play with the players.”

“Well… That’s not really true…” You said, half-doubting your own words. “Yeah, this is a game and all, but… Well, we’re not just toys. We can do things we’re not really supposed to, right?” You saw her shrug at this “And… I dunno, there’s gotta be something more to all of this, you know? More than just waiting around to be killed by players, more than just mindlessly fucking all day and night... Something more.”

“…Like what?” She asked inquisitively.

“I… Well, I don’t really know right now… But there’s gotta be something more out there somewhere… I just gotta find out…”