Soupe aux Nids d'Hirondelles

(TW: The following chapter contains a confrontation related to Sexual ****. Please be advised.)

Mira awoke as she had done every day since the round began, covered in sweat. Even stripped down to underwear, the choices of latex and leather were not breathable, and she had spent each day waking up covered in a thin layer of her own filth. She rose up from her reclined position and turned to observe that Eliza was still resting next to her, barely obscured by the blankets. Following their encounter, the blonde had pretty neatly collapsed; the strain of holding back, followed by intense release, must have been too much.

The Bengali woman got up from the bed, taking care not to disturb it too much, lest she wake her roommate, and headed towards the shower. Flicking a switch, the light hum of the fan turned on in the bathroom as the light flickered alight. Mira leaned over and turned the knob on the shower, and high-powered jets of water began to flow from the brass handle. As she waited for the water to heat up, Mira held onto the side of the sink and observed herself in the mirror. Her hand self-consciously ran to the nape of her neck, where Caleb's teeth and suction of his lips had left a prominent hickey.

Her fingers ran over the tender flesh and pinched her lips. That night hadn’t gone according to plan at all. Looking at her hand, she whispered the keyword and saw the congealed blood mark her at 42 VP. She had been hoping to leave the encounter with over the halfway mark, insurance for later. But she hadn’t accounted for how effective the Sabotage placed by Maddy would be at stoking her libido. By the time of the night it had come to act, the only thing she could focus on was getting Caleb inside her, not the particulars of the side-play. Something to keep in mind about such effects for later.

She stepped into the water and felt the tension in her muscles relax under the heat. As she scrubbed, she reviewed what was left for the week. Most of her machinations were already in play, and she had confidence that by the end of the week, everyone would be out of the danger zone. Assuming she could count on Stella to do what she did best, and that Lily had managed to get her head in the game. She looked thoughtfully; perhaps she should find time to talk to Lily to ensure that things went well. The last thing they needed at this point was for people to get in their own way.

The deadline was a concept in the talent industry that Mira was very familiar with, which could make or break careers. She had seen capable talents fall to the wayside because they couldn’t meet the demands of employment, and while sometimes in her line of work that time frame could be negotiated, she harbored no illusion that would be the case here. Thirty-four days, that was all they had left, having been here sixteen days already.

Diminishing returns, tight parameters for earnings, and limited bonus opportunities meant they had to capitalize on everything to get ahead. There was always the possibility that Lucian just might not post bounties for a round and leave them in a lurch. So they needed to get ahead of the curve and stay ahead. Mira reached out and brought the shower to a halt, standing with her head turned up and just feeling the sensation of the water evaporating from her skin for a moment. A single moment of calm and peace, then it would be back on the clock.

The agent stepped out and grabbed a towel, and began to pat herself dry before wrapping the towel around her waist and grabbing a second for her hair. Feeling clean, Mira stepped back out into the room to get dressed for the day and was surprised to see that Eliza was out of bed and pacing towards one side of the room. She had even gotten dressed, a hoodie and jeans may not be much, but they still met the criteria.

“Good morning,” Mira’s tone was even, but friendly as she crossed the room to her closet to pick from her limited wardrobe. When she didn’t receive any response from Eliza, she paused her hand, stopping between outfits, and turned her head back to the blonde, who hadn’t stopped pacing the entire time. “Something on your mind?”

When Eliza turned to look at her roommate, her face was caught between emotions. Not quite anger, not quite sadness, her eyes were swollen like she had been crying or had trouble sleeping, maybe both. She stared for a bit, and there was silence between them. Mira was about to turn back to her closet when the professor’s voice broke the silence, “-me last night.” her words were quiet, and Mira could barely make them out.

“I’m sorry, Eliza, I didn’t quite catch that.” Mira said calmly, “Could you repeat yourself?”

For a moment, it looked like Eliza might lose her nerve; she bit her lip and stared with aggravation towards the ground before speaking up, her voice cracking in the middle, “You assaulted me last night!”

Mira recoiled slightly, like she had just been slapped, but her expression stayed calm, in control. She exhaled slowly, “You needed a shock to your system, you were languishing, and the game wasn’t going to have patience for you. You needed to snap out of it.”

Eliza’s eyes stared like saucers at Mira, “So you **** me? Got me high out of my mind and then you…you…” She froze, her fists clenched.

“I was checking to see if intercontestant contact might earn VP simultaneously. I figured if it did, it would put us both in a better position.” Mira’s voice was even, but there was a slight quiver in her tone, a fluttering in her throat that was almost imperceptible, “Did you not enjoy yourself?”

It was Eliza’s turn to rear back, her face turning crimson before she scoffed angrily, “That’s-That is not the point, you took advantage of me, Mira! To what? Try and help me?!”

“I apologize, I thought you would be more receptive to the experience and it would be more pleasant than other forms of tough love.” Mira had taken a step back, into her closet, the hanging clothes pushing around her frame. They were nowhere close to each other, but the Bengali woman felt like she was being physically pushed back from the anguish emanating from Eliza’s form right now.

“Y-You…you’re serious.” Eliza stared in disbelief, “You thought…you genuinely thought I would be happy being **** and toyed with like that.”

“Maybe not right now,” Mira’s tone wasn’t so much defensive as it was explanatory, like a teacher trying to pass on a difficult subject matter to a student, “I just didn’t want you to be left behind. I respect you too much to let something bad happen to you.”

“So you’ll do something bad to me, and that makes it ok?” Eliza ran her fingers through her hair, “Mira, you’re making me feel like a crazy person.”

Mira held her hand forward and tried to make a calming gesture, “I’m just doing what I can, not just for you, for everyone. You don’t want to see anyone fail at the end of this, too, right?”

Eliza froze and stared at Mira, and the look she gave her was the first indication the agent ever had that the professor might be capable of ****. “You did this, were planning to do this to the other girls?”

Mira swallowed, “Not this specifically, but helping them push their limits, sabotages, bounties, and earning VP. Making sure they make it to the end.”

“So it was just me then…” Eliza’s expression took on a mix of relief and bitterness.

Mira stepped forward, her towel coming loose, but in the current situation, made no move to fix it as she reached out and took Eliza’s hand, “Eliza, it was not meant to hurt you, I’m sorry. You can hate me if you want, but I just wanted to help you. Seeing you stuck for so long…I respect you and wanted more for you than that.”

Eliza stood still and looked at the ground before slowly looking up into Mira’s eyes, “Mira, when you decided to help me….were you thinking of me as a friend, or were you thinking of me as a problem to be fixed?”

Mira blinked, and her tongue felt too large for her mouth. “Why can’t it be both?”

Wordlessly, Eliza tugged her hand out of Mira’s grasp and turned away. She walked to the door and opened it.

Trying to keep the trembling in her lips out of her voice, Mira asked, “Where are you going?”

Eliza turned back and looked at the Bengali women with an expression that conveyed just how done the professor was with everything.

She then spoke up, “You gave me a plan, right? For my date. I can’t do the preparations for that here. Would hate to see your hard work go to waste. Not like I have any better ideas, so sure,” her tone was bitter and hurt, and she finally looked Mira in the eye, “Thanks for trying to help, but next time leave me out of it and…” Her lips tightened, “If I hear from anyone that you’ve done anything remotely similar to them, I will ensure that you don’t leave this island unscathed myself.”

With that, the professor walked out and slammed the door behind her, leaving Mira standing naked in the middle of the room, biting her lip, fists clenched at her side. This was fine, she reminded herself; the important thing was that they all made it out. They could all hate her if they wanted; she could handle that, as long as they made it out. She reached up and touched her lips; she had bitten so hard they had started to bleed. She wiped the blood off on her thigh and turned to the closet to pick out her clothes.

“This is fine.” She repeated again, this time aloud, letting the words linger alone in the empty space as her hands aimlessly moved between outfits.

Down in the breakfast hall, the atmosphere was about normal, overall friendly, with an undertone of everyone waiting to hear gunfire. Surprising Caleb when he and Noemi had come down, the girls had joined the tables together and were all sitting with each other. No dividers between groups, Maya and Lily were sitting next to each other, and that was enough to almost convince Caleb he was dreaming, but he kept his mouth shut.

The only noticeable absences were: Mira, who was nowhere to be seen, Maddy, who was in the kitchen preparing some sort of picnic for her date today, and Eliza, whom the group was unfortunately getting used to not seeing. Stella and Amy were sharing what they had seen while they were out yesterday, with Amy putting the pitch they had found in the clock tower on the table.

Caleb looked it over, “Anglo-Saxon?” He frowned, “I’d expect it to be in Italian, right? Given Lucian’s…” he paused, exchanging glances with the oni before pivoting, “Accent.”

Stella shrugged, “Maybe he didn’t write it, wouldn’t be that strange to me.”

This caught Caleb’s attention, “Can you elaborate on that? Wouldn’t you expect the host to be behind the design of his own show?”

Stella took a pencil from her pocket and balanced it on her nose, “Not really? Like, we know this is a franchise, numbnuts is just the face of the season. Alex Trebek, rest his soul, didn’t write the questions for Jeopardy.” She took the pencil from her nose and started to gesture with it, “Or like, shows like Fboy Island, Nikki Glaser hosted, but I doubt she had anything to do with the production side of things.” The imp then shrugged, “Like maybe I’m totally wrong and it’s normal for hosts to design stuff from the ground up for this show, I’m just saying in the world of entertainment it would be unexpected.”

Maya stared at Stella in excitement and disbelief, “What things don’t you know about?”

The imp shot the purple-haired woman a wink, “I have approximate knowledge of many things.”

Caleb lifted the pitch up and began reading, “Ic sēce tō wyrcenne tīdmǣl swā…gods I wish I knew what it actually was saying.”

Amy took the pitch back and rolled it up, “Yeah, unfortunately, we don’t have access to the internet here. Would be a pretty trivial thing to translate if we did.”

Next to Maya, Lily was looking over at Noemi, who was quietly listening as she sat by Caleb and held his arm, “Date go well?”

The master exchanged a glance with Noemi, who was smiling brightly, and then shrugged before Noemi leaned in, “It started a little rough, but we figured things out. It’s destiny after all.”

Caleb tensed as Lily raised an eyebrow, “Destiny? Pretty sure we all got ****.”

“No! See, we all were brought here by fate! Even if it was Lucian who did the action, destiny knew that true love was here for all of us, an opportunity to live our lives to the fullest.” Almost reverently, Noemi held out her hands as her gaze turned upwards.

Maya’s eyes shone bright, and she reached across the table and grabbed the Chilean’s hands, “I get you! I get you! Who needs the boring hum-drum of life when being here is so much more exciting?”

Leaning in, Noemi smiled fanatically and nodded exuberantly, “Right? We just need to accept this as an opportunity for joy and happiness!”

Stella leaned in towards Lily and whispered, “I don’t think they’re saying the same thing, but they are agreeing aggressively.”

Smirking Lily nodded and whispered back, “We’re all fuckups, some of us are just crazy on top of it.”

Caleb smiled at the table and tried to interject between the two proselytizing members of the harem, “Does anyone have any interesting plans for the day?”

Lily shrugged, “I was gonna head to the bazaar. I haven’t really spent any time thinking about my day yet, and I was kind of hoping maybe looking at stuff in the shop would help.”

Turning her attention to the plant woman, Noemi cut in, “Can I join? I always loved the idea of shopping with friends, and maybe I can help with your date!”

Smiling with a strained expression, but unable to find any reason to refuse Lily, let out a “Sure, why not? Anyone else want to come?”

Stella leaned back, “I got my date planned out, and I don’t need anything from the bazaar, so I think I’ll pass.”

Amy looked around furtively, “I’ve kind of been running around non-stop this week, so I think I actually want a day to chill out by myself.”

Caleb just nodded towards the oni, not catching her look, “Yeah, if anyone deserves a break, it’s you, Amy. Take it easy.”

Feeling a flush creep to her cheeks, Amy looked away and hid her face partially with her hand, “Yeah, sure, thanks.”

The master then turned to Maya, “How about you, Maya, got any exciting plans for the day?”

Raising a finger to her cheek, the purple-haired woman thought for a moment before smiling broadly, “I think I’m going to head to the Ante Table.”

“Oh, that sounds like fu-” Caleb started before it sank in what she had said, and all eyes turned to face Maya, and Lily gave a sound of concern mixed between a parrot squawk and a Tarzan yell. As the noise began to grow at the table, Caleb rubbed his temple. “Well, it had been a peaceful morning.”