Felix and Harper

(Chronology on this might be a little weird, but I thought this was the best place for bit, and I really wanted to share this awesome bit I made with 4og's help with you guys.)

Harper sits apart from the others during lunch. She enjoyed the obstacle course. It is so rare to actually be able to cut loose and push her limits. Too many days alternating between sitting on a throne or at a desk. Too many sparring sessions with children. The show makes a slave liberation campaign on the other continent a little tricky to schedule at the moment. *Thinking about the show, this is a working vacation for me…*

The tablet comes out of her inventory. Harper checks the on-location cameras for footage, using her hair to feed herself. So, she does not immediately acknowledge someone sitting across from her.

Felix had seen Harper at the wedding, but hadn't gotten to talk to her one on one yet. It could end up being one of the last times he saw her, depending on how things went after the wedding. So he went up to her, greeting, “Tyalangan, mind if I join you?”

With a final few strokes on the tablet, the elf notes, “Just Harper for today, Felix. The sunshine here treating you well?” One flick of the wrist later, and the tablet is back in her inventory and she gives the kid her full attention.

Felix shifts in his seat a little. “It’s good. I am not regretting the workout plan the demon and Josie put me on. That obstacle course was crazy, even with me avoiding the super power fight in the background.”

Harper gives a slight smile, “Half of us have crazy physical superpowers, by your world’s standards. But, point taken. I will let Josie know that you are a satisfied customer.”

"How badly do you think your life could've gone outside of Harem Hotel?" Felix asks. "And... if it turned out it was far worse, but better for members of your harem, how would you react?"

“Ah, multiverse thoughts. I will admit that the show keeps me from keeping tabs on everyone as much as I would like, but I actually do have forum conversations with some of my interdimensional counterparts. And I have seen the lives of other mes. The average me from when I got grabbed loses his teaching job at the community college within six months. A measurable percentage of them drown themselves in the Rio. Some lose everything suing the college for wrongful termination. A few find moderate financial success as a personal trainer or an archery instructor. All of them die alone, unloved and unmourned. Why do you ask?”

"I found out things about a past version of myself I don't love," Felix said. "Things I can't talk about, as Cammy and Noah don't need to learn of it. But it was about the version of myself that was in the first week. He maybe wasn't as bad as some masters you've encountered, but... he did something horrible nonetheless. Horrible enough that it changes everything that happened afterwards."

Harper nods. “You dig deep enough into those branch points, you find that most people are but a few different decisions away from a monstrous end. I don’t know how far you got in my old season, but one of the other mes comes to mind. Her name was Frances, with an ‘e.’ She, like me, was a teaching assistant as a grad student. She, like me, caught a large number of students cheating on a term paper; sorority girls stupidly submitting a paper straight from their collection of assignments without bothering to change it one bit. One literally just photocopied the version in their files with the old teacher’s corrections written in the margins and everything. She, like me, turned the plagiarists into the course coordinator. Both course coordinators did the bare minimum: approved giving the cheaters zeroes on the paper, but not expelling them from the course or referring them to the Dean of Students for further punishment. Both sets of cheaters retaliated. That is where the difference arose.”

Harper breathes, then pauses for a bit. Her tale isn’t exactly one she wants to dwell on. “My cheaters review bombed me. My school had a policy of not renewing contracts if student evaluations are too negative; the coordinator almost fired me, until I pointed out the cheaters being the reason for my low evaluations. That experience made me a worse teacher, mind you; I learned that administrators won’t have your back unless you force them to and that ‘bad’ students are petty enough that I should ignore their complaints. But, that was the end of it.”

Another pause, then she continues, “Her cheaters went a… different direction to get revenge. More overt attempts to ruin her. Some went sneaky, filing false harassment complaints against her. Some went stupid, lighting her car on fire in the parking lot. One went far enough to toss scalding hot coffee in her face, giving her a nasty burn scar. It all fell apart for her basically at once. She was snagged by the Hotel right as she was sent to pack up her dorm room after being expelled. Her revenge season featured her intentionally getting every single one of her contestants, those cheaters that ruined her, eliminated.”

Harper summons Vix out of the familiar’s little pocket dimension. She strokes her fur and gives her some cookies from a plate a Mildred has set down to tempt her. She looks to Felix, “So, understand that the other you, the one that did that bad thing, isn’t the you you are now. Different decisions have separated you from him. That potential to commit whatever evil he did is still there, mind you. Embracing the darkness that lies in men’s souls is often the easy, tempting thing. There are reasons why most Masters are corrupted by the show. The question you need to ask yourself is how do you stay on the path of righteousness.”

Felix nods. “The big difference with mine is that he did something outside Harem Hotel. I can’t blame it on the corrupting influence, or on something a host made me do. And that’s what bothers me about it. The hotel may have made me a better person.”

“Funny how that works,” Harper quips, pointing to almost every single Master in the room as they are mentioned, “despite the wide variety of Hosts and themes and rule sets in the room, the game tends to magnify what was already there, waiting to come out. Andy’s love of Laura grew from the show to the point where he ripped the rules of reality apart to save her from the pit. Laura Black rediscovered her ability to love and reunited with her sisters. Nick over there, same thing; he rediscovered how to love and care for those around him instead of being a ghost in his own life. Kevin, not my season’s contestant, the other Kevin, same thing. Van, the kid with the black hair, is slowly learning how to be a person and not just a function. I’m not going to throw myself into the mix of being better, but the only master here I could argue has gotten worse is Mark. He took a lesson about indulging his desires a tad too far. So, yes, when the game is played properly, it will make you rise up to the responsibility of the role thrust upon you.”

“But me being on Harem Hotel is worse for the contestants. Well, maybe not for Castelilise, but otherwise… it makes me feel selfish.”

“That… is admittedly harder to dispute. Neither of us can predict what would have happened if you all weren’t kidnapped by the show. You saw a possible future, maybe more, but not all of them. I doubt you saw enough to predict probabilities. I can tell you that Mona’s Kevin is happier now than he was before the show. He found self-confidence and a boyfriend. I can make similar arguments for about half of Mona’s contestants and most of my companions. But, yours being in a ‘worse’ state is arguable.”

Vix gets up out of Harper’s lap, heading toward the cookie plate. Harper jokes for a moment, then returns to being more serious, “She will eat all of those, so, if you want one, you better grab it now. I am going to pose some questions about what would’ve happened if you weren’t targeted by the Hotel. Think about them. How likely would have Noah found his spine? How likely would have Cameron ended up like his father? How likely would have Zach ended up like some abusive monster athlete like a Michael Vick or, worse, like Craig? How likely would have Smith repented of his ways? Or Winters? How many more women like your mom would Austin have hurt before he got his just desserts?”

Felix knows that Harper has a point. Initially he nods, then smiles as she points out each of his harem members.

“You’re right, I think, on that front. There’s Hailey as an unfortunate exception… but even that isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Something you would know very well at this point.”

A burden lifts from Felix’s shoulders as he remembers he wasn’t the only person that had a harem to take care of nor the only one who felt like they had failed a harem member…