'Penny' Weighs In - Non-Canon Shenanigans

Confused? This might help explain.

No sooner had Kevin sat down than the door opened once more. Rather than one of his party members, though. Even extending that label to the druid’s elf disciples or Tess’ sister, he was certain he had never before laid eyes on the young redhead who stepped through the door into the private dining room of The Long Rest.

For one thing, she was astonishingly beautiful. She couldn’t have been more than half Kevin’s age—19 or so at the oldest—with gorgeous green eyes and curly red hair cascading all the way to her waist. If that weren’t enough to set her apart, she was possessed of a remarkable bust pushed up by the same style of corset top as in his Siren bard’s Nautily Nautical outfit. Her features were perfectly symmetrical, with slightly rosy cheeks, full lips, and an adorable nose.

In short, she was not the sort of woman Kevin was likely to have forgotten.

For another thing, she looked as though she was as confused to be standing there as he was to see her. The redhead tilted her head at him quizzically, then scanned around the room before stating, “I do not believe I have been in this room of the castle before. Salutations! I am Penny. Who are you?”

Her tone was polite, and Kevin found himself with a slightly confused smile on his own face. “Hi, I’m Kevin. You aren’t in a castle right now—that’s just up the street from here. You said your name was Penny?”

“Yes. Penny Polendina. How did I come to be outside of the castle? Is Tracy still there? Or Laura?”

Kevin frowned. Those names sounded familiar. “We’ve got a Penny here, but she’s—well, she’s obviously not you. I’m not exactly sure how you got here, and there aren’t any Tracys or Lauras at the castle that I know of, unless they’re part of the staff.” He paused. “Wait a minute, I remember! That’s—I read those names in the archives of other seasons of Harem Hotel. The one with the dragon lady, and the vampire hostess, right?”

Penny nodded with enthusiasm. “That is right!” She then paused for long a moment before asking, “Is that not where I am now?”

“No.” Kevin’s head shook slowly. “I’m not really sure what’s happening.” His brow furrowed as he took a deep breath, then let it out in a sigh. “I hate to do this, but… Lily! Lily, are you listening?”

Both Penny and Kevin waited as several seconds ticked by in silence. When the hostess failed to appear, the DM let out a low grunt of irritation. “Figures. She was just around, poking her nose in our business not thirty minutes ago, but now that we need her, she’s nowhere. Let’s go—”

Before he could finish the thought, the door burst open. Elsie, somewhat wild eyed, stuck her head through and called out, “Kevin! We have a… let’s call it a problem.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

When Kevin, Penny, and Elsie stepped out of the hallway and into the common room of The Long Rest they arrived at the scene of a standoff.

On one side of the room, Tess and Stheno stood side by side behind Hwa, with Abby and Hazel’s four disciples fanned out behind them to form a wedge.

On the other stood a beautiful woman of Indian descent whose body language was caught somewhere between embarrassed and defensive. The former was probably a result of her outfit, since a more of her smooth brown skin than not was exposed between the thin vines and scant leafs which were all that covered her. While the ‘outfit’ technically preserved her modesty, it brushed a hair’s width away from public indecency.

The result was a blush visible even against her naturally darker complexion, but despite her burning cheeks, the woman’s fit body was held in a tight martial stance as she squared off against six other people at once, unwilling to back down. Indeed, she seemed to have taken the offensive, as when Kevin, Elsie, and the new redheaded Penny arrived, she was in the process of demanding, “Where is Miss Turner?”

“Where is our mistress?” Winter shot back without hesitation. “You’re wearing her outfit, but you’re no replacement.”

“If you believe that you are entitled to make demands of us, you are sorely mistaken, mortal.” Hwa, for once, appeared to have taken the side of the party—perhaps driven by her agreement with Kevin the night before—and turned her acrimonious tongue against the newcomer. “You will answer our questions first.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. Kevin watched her amber eyes flick to the side to take in his arrival. In the span of an instant he felt himself assessed, weighed, cataloged, and filed away before the Indian woman—about his age, perhaps slightly younger—returned her attention to Hwa. “I do not know who your mistress is. I only arrived here a few moments ago, and have done nothing to anyone here.”

“Hmph. A likely story.”

Hwa’s glowing red eyes narrowed in suspicion as she spoke, and Kevin quickly stepped forward, hands raised, to attempt to diffuse the situation before it could devolve further. “There’s something weird going on. She—” He gestured over his shoulder at the redheaded Penny, “—just arrived out of nowhere, from a completely different season of Harem Hotel. Am I out of line in guessing you’re in the same situation?”

The vine-clad woman’s expression remained tightly controlled, even as she struggled to retain her composure in the face of her overly-exposed state. “Yes. Richard Turner—my employer’s step-brother—and several women connected with him were recruited by our hostess, Genet.”

Richard Turner—wait, Dick Turner? The congressman?” Helena nodded, and Kevin continued, “I—I remember… Lily had us write letters to all of you. I’m not really sure when, though. It… I half thought it was a dream, after that.” He shook his head to dispel the thought, and said, “I’m Kevin. Kevin Burgmeyer. I’m not really sure what’s going on, but I promise that we’ll do everything we can to figure it out.”

The Indian woman regarded Kevin coolly for a moment, then offered him a polite nod. “I am Hazel Singh. If you are the ‘Master’ of this season, I would appreciate it if you could do everything in your power to return me to my employers.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

A few minutes later, Hazel and Penny were back in the small dining room of The Long Rest, seated around the table with Kevin after he’d asked the rest to give them a few minutes so things weren’t so overwhelming for the new arrivals.

Much of that delay came from the effort it took Kevin to allow the new Hazel to re-shape the vines which covered her into something slightly more modest. His own Hazel had so few hangups about her own body that the near-nudity of Flower Child hadn’t ever bothered her, but the newcomer wasn’t quite so blasé.

House Rule allowed him to make modifications and changes to class abilities, but they needed to be somewhat in-line with Harem Hotel’s standards. The result was akin to the new Hazel wearing a bikini. Broad flat leaves molded themselves over her breasts and between her legs, and while it left most of her athletic, toned physique on display it was at least better than the lingerie it had been.

“Sorry about that,” Kevin apologized again, only for Hazel to frown and shake her head. “It isn’t your fault. I spent some time watching excerpts from several other seasons of Harem Hotel with Ms. Turner to help us better prepare to face our own. I am well aware of the nature of the show, and that the reception I have received here could have been far worse.”

“Besides,” Penny chimed in brightly, “it’s a great look!” The orange-haired woman seemed somewhat oblivious to the flicker of a grimace which touched Hazel’s lips in response to her comment. Her attention was instead turned towards her own outfit as she tugged at the corset and twisted her torso from side to side as she tried to get a better look at it. “Is your Penny some kind of pirate?”

Kevin shook his head. “No, she’s a Siren—apparently those already exist in the world, they just don’t advertise it—and a Bard. I think she just picked out that outfit because she liked the way it looked.”

Penny beamed a smile. “She has good taste! It took me some time to notice that I wasn’t wearing the same thing I had on before I got here.”

“I wish that I could say the same about your Hazel.” The rather severe tone in Miss Singh’s voice softened slightly as she added, “Not that I suppose I can blame her. It doesn’t sound as though she chose this outfit for herself.”

“She didn’t,” Kevin confirmed. He then took a quick glance at the two new arrivals and continued, “And, on that note, you didn’t choose to be here either. I have a—” He trailed off for a moment as he tried to think of the best way to explain the additional sense House Rule gave him, eventually finishing, “—an ability, that gives me a sense of some of the magic behind the season. The good news is, I’m pretty sure you aren’t here permanently. The outfits you’re wearing are crafted with the same magic as the rest of Adventuria—”

“Adventuria?” Penny interrupted him with open curiosity and a hint of wonder in her voice, only for Kevin to let out an embarrassed laugh.

“Yeah, it’s—well, it’s my setting that I use for some of the games that I run. I named it that when I first started Dungeon Mastering, and never got around to renaming it.”

His response, in turn, caused Hazel to examine him with a critical eye. “You play Gauntlets and Giants?”

“That, uhh—do you mean Dungeons and Dragons?”

The pair stared at each other in mutual confusion for a few moments, until Penny cut in to get the conversation back on track. “So you made this place?”

Kevin shook his head. “I mean, yes, but no. It’s like… the shell of the world I envisioned is here, but everything is twisted just enough to be barely recognizable. Like, for example, when one of my players asked me how come the water in the sewers wasn’t disgusting, I tried to come up with a reason for how a fantasy city this big had decent sanitation. The answer I came up with the that the city’s alchemists had managed to breed a new type of slime monster that they used to clear the water ways.”

“That seems unnecessarily complicated,” Hazel commented.

Kevin shrugged. “It’s fantasy, the whole point is that some of the answers will be weird. Anyway, the slimes in the river here still keep the water clean, only these ones also dissolve clothing on contact. They don’t harm the people wearing them, of course, that wouldn’t be sexy—but if you’re going swimming in the city, you’re skinny dipping whether you plan to or not.”

Hazel’s tone was somewhat dry as she responded, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Anyway, the point I was trying to make is—I can feel the magic that’s affecting the two of you, and it’s not the same as what’s in the rest of us. You still aren’t natives here, so one way or another we should be able to get you home.”

“Yay! Not that you haven’t been very nice and polite, but I would like to return to Tracy soon. She must be terribly worried about me.” Penny’s response was delivered with a bright smile.

“Home? Or—” Hazel, on the other hand, sounded more skeptical.

“Oh, um—sorry if I raised false hopes. Back to your original seasons was what I meant. If there’s any power that lets you escape the show, I haven’t heard of it. Other than, I guess, going the whole way through, but—”

Hazel nodded. “Understood. As the person most familiar with the setting, do you have any thoughts on how we might expedite our return? I may not be as eager as Miss Polendina, but I would prefer not to be separated from my employers any longer than necessary.”

“No, that’s fair. Normally I’d try talking to our hostess, but if she hasn’t responded yet, I’m not sure that she’s going to. The only other thing that comes to mind is—” Kevin frowned, his eyes seeming to stare through the wall as he considered. “There’s someone not far from here that I talked to recently. He’s supposed to be the class trainer for the class the audience gave me, only he’s—I’m not sure what he is, really. He definitely seemed like he knew more about what was going on than anyone other than Lily.”

“But you believe this class trainer of yours can help us?” Hazel prompted.

“It’s worth a try, at least.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The walk from The Long Rest to the class hall was uneventful, but far from quiet.

After Kevin and the two party member namesakes emerged from the back room of the inn, he’d explained the plan to seek out one of the class trainers and try to get some answers there, since Lily was still nowhere to be found. Since he hadn’t yet had the chance to explain to the party how his conversation with Hierophant Kyle had gone the last time, that had received a few raised eyebrows, but since no one else had any better ideas, no one had complained.

In the end, both Blue and Elsie wound up tagging along. It had felt right, since they’d been the two to accompany Kevin there the first time around, but mostly they’d both wanted the opportunity to talk to the newcomers.

“Wait, your main collectible trading card game is called Wonders the Collecting?” Elsie did her best to keep up with Hazel, but the Indian woman’s longer legs made that something of a challenge. Since the leaf-covered woman was somewhat eager to get home—or at least, somewhere that she was able to wear something more comfortable than a set of leafs—the pace she’d set was a brisk one, and the English girl was slightly out of breath as a result.

By contrast, while Blue was the fastest member of the group by far, that mostly manifested in skipping along backwards while she quizzed Penny for details on the orange haired woman’s home season. “The castle is large enough that the entire thing takes place in it? I think I’d like to see that some time!”

“Indeed! It is a most impressive edifice, even if it is night all the time. It is nice to be outside and see the sun here.” Penny turned and gave a bright smile to Kevin as she politely complemented, “You have designed a very beautiful city.”

While the alternative season’s Penny seemed thrilled for the chance to trade details and tips with Blue, Hazel’s responses were, while not rude, rather more to the point. “It isn’t exactly my area of expertise, but a large part of Mr. Turner’s… current group—” she rather obviously avoided the use of the word harem, “—was already engaged in regular gaming sessions before Genet **** us. In the time since the show started, I’ve learned more about gaming than I would have previously expected.”

“How did that happen in your case, Miss Singh?” Kevin, for his part, seemed as fascinated by the differences between his home reality and Hazel’s as Elsie was, but his attention was torn between keeping up with that conversation and an attempt to keep an eye on Blue to make sure the occasionally bratty harpy didn’t get out of hand.

“Wait, Hazel Singh?” Elsie spoke up before the Indian woman could answer. “I knew a Hazel Singh in school. Great volleyball player.”

That comment, in turn, launched a slightly more in depth dive into the possibility of further parallels in alternate realities—only for it to die out after a few minutes when it became apparent that there weren’t any other names of significance that overlapped for the two humans and the brownie.

By the time Kevin tore his attention back to Blue and Penny, however, it was to overhear the harpy ask, “Does she enjoy it when you spend time paying attention to her ears during sex?” While he blinked in surprise, she followed up unprompted, “One of the members of our group, Hwa, sometimes has these beautiful white fox ears and tails. I want to play with them so bad but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t let me even if I asked nicely. Maybe if I can convince her it’s a sex thing she’ll let me, though, she seems pretty interested in sex these days.”

If Penny was at all phased by either the topic, or Blue’s rapid changes in topic, it didn’t show. “Most of the women on our season are very interested in sex. It has been very enjoyable to learn about it from them!” She then paused, and asked, “If Hwa has fox ears and a tail, is she a faunus? Even though Tracy has cat ears and a tail, she isn’t one.”

“What’s a faunus?”

“They’re animal people, but they aren’t real,” this time it was Elsie who answered, her attention apparently having been sufficiently captured by what she overheard of Blue’s conversation to pull her away from Hazel, “they’re from a TV show.” When Kevin raised an eyebrow at her, she shrugged and explained, “I watched some of RWBY when it came out. It’s got its flaws, but it’s a good show. Wait—Penny Polinda? As in the robot girl?”

Penny spun on Elsie, shock evident on her face. “What do you mean they aren’t real?”

“Look, at this point let’s just assume that they are real, just not from our home reality. Hell, for all I know, you and I aren’t even from the same reality—I certainly didn’t think magic was real back home, but apparently I lived with a literal nymph for an entire summer and just didn’t realize it. Penny is here, if she says she’s from a world that sounds like one from fiction where we come from, that’s probably just more weird multiverse divergence stuff like with Miss Singh.”

“I mean, for one thing, Penny on RWBY didn’t have tits the size of my head.”

For all that Elsie’s comment was muttered quietly, it seemed that Penny’s hearing had no trouble picking it up. “Do you like them? Tracy gave them to me. They are far from the largest on our season, but they are much bigger than they were when I was first created.”

Kevin shook his head. “This is too weird.”

Hazel’s lips quirked up in a smile for perhaps the first time since arriving as she commented, “You know, you and Mr. Turner seem somewhat similar. You’re both doing what you can to hold things together for everyone, even in the face of the apparently impossible. It’s a shame you don’t have any way to talk to each other.”

“That’s the weird thing—I remember writing to him, even knowing that he was on a season of Harem Hotel, but I can’t remember when.” Kevin shook his head and sighed. “Probably just more Harem Hotel weirdness.”

“Perhaps if you did it before, you can find a way to do it again. Our hostess, Genet, is quite willing to assist us when we make requests of her. If you asked yours, she might be able to find a way to allow the two of you to communicate.”

That brought a grimace to the DM’s face. “I’m… not sure I’d trust Lily not to warp that into something more than we wanted, honestly. Not that I’d object to the chance to talk to your Mr. Turner, but—”

He trailed off, only to have his mind catch up to his ears a moment later. While he’d been talking to Hazel, the three other women had gone back to the conversation regarding faunus. Kevin had mostly tuned it out and trusted Elsie to keep Blue from disturbing their visitor too much, only to have his attention yanked back abruptly.

“No, that’s the great part, even though she took away my wings, I can still fly! I’m just sorry that all of you are stuck on the ground.”

Penny laughed. “I am not though!”

And, just about when Kevin’s mind finished processing the implications of that statement, both Penny and Blue launched into the air side by side. A moment later, blue feathers and the green flames of the robot woman’s rocket boots spiraled in a helix as they shot into the skies far above the city.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

By the time Penny and Blue returned from their impromptu sky tour of the city, Kevin was exasperated, Hazel was visibly struggling to keep a lid on her frustration, and Elsie’s face betrayed hints of anxiety.

Kevin dealt with the latter by the simple expedient of reaching out and taking the English girl’s hand. The act caught Elsie off guard, but a moment later her expression dissolved into a slightly giddy smile a moment later and she stepped up to his side.

He dealt with the former as best he could by reassuring the new Hazel, “Even if this doesn’t work to get you back, we’ll figure out something. I promise I’ll do everything I can to get you back to your people.”

The smile he got in return was slightly brittle, but Hazel’s eyes softened slightly as she responded, “You’ll forgive me if that is of limited reassurance. While I can tell that you are working hard to put things right, I am unfortunately very well aware of how limited the power of the Master can be.”

“I’m sure we’ll get back eventually, and then just think of the stories we can tell to everyone!” When Kevin turned to Penny to look at the woman when she spoke, he was surprised to discover that she and Blue had mirrored him and Elsie, with the azure-feathered monk holding the hand of her new friend tightly enough that he was a little concerned for her safety. If the bird-woman’s grip bothered the redhead, though, she gave no sign of it—indeed, her expression was set in a broad smile that showed that of the two newcomers at least one of them was enjoying herself. “This world is fascinating! While I am very eager to return to Tracy and the rest of my friends, I would very much like the chance to return with some of them and explore it some day.”

“If you can figure out a way to make it happen, feel free—just as long as your hostess can find a way to keep mine in check. I’d love some company to help make sense of everything, but Lily is—devious.” He let out a slightly dark chuckle and shook his head, then motioned with his free hand. “C’mon, we won’t get anything solved by standing around. I guess I should warn you—the last time I talked to Kyle, the conversation was a little weird. I don’t know what he’ll be like this time, but be prepared to—you know what, just be prepared. We’ll figure it out as we go.”

The interior of the Class Trainer’s Hall was as impressive the second time around as the first. Even Hazel’s stern exterior slipped as she took in the massive soaring arches of the grand hall—and the fact that the building was far, far larger inside than its exterior could possibly have contained.

“Like Professor How…” The comment was muttered under the statuesque Indian woman’s breath, but in the vaulted hallway the sound echoed loudly enough for the others to overhear. When four sets of eyes turned on her, the skin of Hazel’s cheeks darkened a shade or two with a blush, and she explained only slightly defensively, “I—saw an episode or two, it’s not like I’m a big fan.”

Elsie let out a delighted giggle. “No judgment, I’m a huge fan of Doctor Who. I loved watching old reruns of the fourth Doctor’s series growing up.”

The walk the rest of the way to the Favored Soul trainer was uneventful, and the group stopped in front of the massive wooden double doors of room 108 to regroup briefly. “Ready?”

There was enough apprehension in Kevin’s voice that Hazel picked up on it easily, but the leaf-clad woman chose to let it pass rather than call him out on it. A moment later, the doors swung wide and revealed the cushioned and veiled interior of the Favored Soul training space. Just as with the Class Trainer’s Hall itself, the room was far larger than should have fit through the door, but this time that wasn’t what caught everyone’s attention.

What caught their attention was that Hierophant Kyle was not the reclined image of poise and mysterious control that Kevin had observed on his first visit. Then, the man had dressed in silk robes that draped over his athletic physique, had taken occasional drags from a hookah that had distorted reality, all while the soft sound of a distant string instrument plucked a mildly disconcerting tune.

The man in front of them was still tall, still handsome, his vaguely middle-eastern features adorned by the same neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He was garbed, however, in a slightly worn gray tank top rather than robes, held an oversized and rather clunky vape in one hand and a mouse in the other while he leaned forward in front of a computer monitor—the computer itself glowing brightly from within thanks to various multicolor LEDs set throughout its hardware a few feet away.

The sound of Coldplay filled the room—loud enough to drown out both the sound of the door opening and their footsteps—and as a result it took the man a few moments to notice the new arrivals. When he did, he half-jumped out of his chair, knocked over the bowl of what looked suspiciously like Doritos on the table next to him to send them scattering across the floor, and let out a strangled, “Holy shit!”

The reaction was not what Kevin had been expecting. He released Elsie’s hand as he walked slowly into the room, the four others fanning out behind him with expressions that ranged from curiosity to disapproval to alarm. “Hierophant… Kyle?”

“What are you doing here, Kevin? You’re not supposed to be back until at least next week, this is—” Kyle’s speech cut off as his eyes took in the appearance of Hazel and Penny. His eyes widened, then narrowed, then glowed golden, then emitted a pulse of energy that seemed to distort space throughout the room, then finally narrowed again in irritation as they returned to brown. “Fucking. Herb.”

“Salutations!” Penny stepped forward, undaunted by the strange behavior of the Favored Soul class trainer. “I’m Penny! I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean, but Kevin told us that you might be able to help us return to our friends. Do you think you’ll be able to help?”

A moment later, Blue, Elsie, Kevin and Hazel walked forward to surround Kyle in a loose circle. Kevin was both amused and disappointed to see that the screen displayed not a mysterious enigma or hidden Harem Hotel agenda, but the brightly colored rectangles of some kind of card-based video game.

Kyle sighed and collapsed back into his bean bag chair. He took a long drag from his vape, exhaled a cloud of that smelled so strongly of skunk that the pineapple meant to mask it was basically an afterthough—causing Hazel, Kevin, and Elsie to take a step back, while Penny and Blue sniffed at it curiously—then sighed. “Yeah, I can get everyone back, but this is going to require so much paperwork. Dad, you have no idea.”

Blue stepped forward, picked up what remained of the bowl of chips, and shamelessly began to eat them.

“Ok, what the fuck is actually going on?” Irritation finally broke through Kevin’s normally calm demeanor. “Is this show actually run by clowns behind the scenes?”

Kyle shook his head. “No! No, it’s—look, man, it’s run by like—multidimensional beings of unimaginable power. They get bored, and even when they could fix things, they don’t, because the drama is the point.”

He looked at Penny, gestured vaguely at her with his vape, and explained, “Like, take Miss Polendina there for an example. She’s not even from the same home reality as the contestants on her season. Could they have adjusted her knowledge so that she fit in better? Of course they could. You saw that with Blue, there, when they changed your past so you’d met before. They can adjust history, why wouldn’t they be able to give Penny the skills and knowledge to be a normal, functioning member of reality?” Kyle took another hit of his vape, then answered his own rhetorical question as wisps of vapor escaped his lips. “I’ll tell you why. It’s because it’s way more fun and sexy to take an innocent robot girl out of her element, give her great fat honkin’ tits, and let her explore her sexuality in front of a literally countless number of multiversal audience members.”

Rather than being offended at Kyle’s description, Penny seemed somewhat fascinated. “I am very glad that I retained my memories from before I was brought onto Harem Hotel, and learning about sex has been very enjoyable. Is it truly that much of a draw for the show’s audience?”

Kyle let out a snort of laughter and kicked out his feet as he sprawled on the bean bag chair. “You kidding? They eat that up. Hot innocent girl learning to enjoy sex, what’s not to love? Or you—” He gestured at Hazel. “You’re caught between your bosses, right?” He didn’t wait for her to respond before continuing, “On the one hand, you get off when big strong congressman Turner orders you around in bed, or you get to hold the leash of your sassy CEO. You might think the Producers would want you to just jump into bed with both of them, but no!” He waved his hand theatrically. “No, the drama is the point. Don’t get me wrong—they’d love the spike in ratings if Miss not-actually-related Step-Sibling gives in and lets submits to you while you’re submitting to Dick. Pun intended. But if you just went straight there, it wouldn’t be Harem Hotel. It’d be some cheap porno, and if all the viewers wanted was to get off, there’s plenty of that for free on the internet.”

“I do not believe Ms. Turner is likely to give the viewers what they want, in that case.”

Kyle waved away Hazel’s objection. “No, see, that’s the thing—she almost can’t not give them what they want. It’s like—” He glanced at Kevin for a moment and explained, “—Hwa, right? They love seeing her humiliate herself. If she just jumped in and was all passive about everything, nobody would care.” The trainer looked back to the leaf-clad woman once more and added, “Same thing for Helena. They could make her be all ‘help me step-bro, I’m stuck,’ but they won’t, because viewers love the resistance almost as much as they love it when they finally give in.” He looked up, saw that Blue still held the now-mostly empty bowl of chips, and gave her puppy-dog eyes until she relented and held it out for him.

He didn’t notice when she snagged his vape in the exchange.

“Anyway—point kinda got away from me there. Point is, shit like this—paperwork fuckup by some show functionary out of his depth, swapped around contestants, all that nonsense—the Producers could fix it in a heartbeat, but they don’t. They leave it to folk like me to do it, and y’all get to experience new thrills and vistas in the meantime.”

Hazel arched an eyebrow and met Kyle’s now somewhat bloodshot eyes. “So are you going to return us to our own seasons? Or do we have to take some other steps first to satisfy their need for drama.”

The man met her gaze vacantly for a few moments, then finally caught himself. “Oh, no, yeah, I can fix you right up.” He gestured behind them. “Pass through the doors. Soon as you exit the scene you’re back at home.” Kyle broke eye contact to look around for his vape, only to spot Blue taking an experimental inhale from the stick. He furrowed his brow, but didn’t comment except to mutter, “Probably won’t remember shit about what you saw, but with the clown fiesta of paperwork we’re gonna have to fill out to fix this, who knows?”

Kevin plucked the vape from Blue’s fingers and tossed it back to the man. He fumbled the catch and grunted softly when it hit him in the stomach instead. “Well—thank you for your… profound insight, I guess. Hazel, Penny—it has been very nice meeting you, and perhaps some day we can find a way to connect in a more structured manner that involves more of your season, but you heard the man. Let’s get you home before anything else gets fucked up.”

The group turned and headed towards the door. Just as they began to step through, a last muttered comment drifted over the air from Kyle as he began to quit out of his game. “Now what the hell has Lily so tied up she couldn’t manage this herself?”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Look at that, they wrote back!

The words weren’t spoken, they simply were. The speaker was not visible—not as an entity—but his presence was an undeniable weight in the room, even if the only other person there appeared to be more exasperated than impressed.

“Of course they did, J, they’re on Arabella’s final season. You’ve seen how she babies them. They’re a bunch of—” Lily’s face twisted for a moment as she struggled to find the right compromise between her need to remain professional in front of her boss and her underlying irritation, “—sweethearts.”

The word did not come out sounding like a compliment.

They really are. I’m so proud of her. You know, you could stand to be a bit more like her. I know she’s not exactly your sister, but if you put your mind to it, there’s a lot you could learn from how she does things.

To call the speaker’s tone patronizing was to undersell it by several orders of magnitude. It was obvious that the being—J—believed utterly and completely in His own vision of reality, and for all that it was warm, loving, and filled with infinite forgiveness, there wasn’t a lot of room for alternative interpretations while within the same room as the Producer.

“I’m sure I could. Now, I’ve delivered the letters to you, can I get back to my season? Something feels off, and I—”

I’ll need to write replies to them, of course. And they have a wedding coming up, I should send the whole cast something for that. A Blessing. Sit with Me a while, Lilith. I’ve responses to write, and you’ll need to deliver them to little Arabella when they’re done.

“You could just—you know what, fine. It’s your season in the first place. I’m sure whatever is going on can’t be worse than the… inconvenient swap… with Ishtar.”

---

Penny courtesy of Wrynn's Haunted Castle, which is where our Penny wound up.

Hazel courtesy of Mothneb's Domestic Affairs where they're treating our Hazel quite well.

Go read them!