The Dreaded Discussion

Wisps of steam waft through the air, slowly swirling around the five people present in and around this hot spring pond.

“Whmgmn...” The Were-Beast curled up in her barbaric Mate’s lap makes some soft murmuring sounds, her face buried between a pale pair of bare breasts as her tail lazily wags back and forth beneath the waters surface.

Beryl’s long leg touches that of her Draconic lover, their hips bumping together. “Collectin’ yer thoughts?” She quietly asks, pulling a single strong arm right up to her slim chest as she hugs it tight.

“Yeah...” Krvavy mumbles back, lifting her gaze and looking over to her other two girls.

Inanna is close enough to touch, sitting at the edge of this pool with her feet soaking in the wonderfully warm water. Her expression is as calm and reassuringly neutral as expected. She is simply waiting for the barbarian to begin, whenever Krvavy is ready.

Thea, on the other hand, is not nearly as patient. That silver-blonde brat’s kissable lips have been pressed into an annoyed pout as she stares expectantly through the light steam, the restless bobbing of her knee sending small rippled waves across the bubbling surface of this hot spring.

The Drakling closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

She honestly has no idea what to say. Well, actually, that isn’t quite right. She does have some ideas, but she doesn’t know how to say any of them. She isn’t exactly the most eloquent at the best of times, and her nerves really are not helping right now... Is there any way that she can say “I’m from another world,” without sounding crazy?

“Huh?”

Krvavy’s heart stops, her eyes shooting open to stare straight into Thea’s confused face. The barbarian’s blood freezes as a realization hits her. She just said that out loud.

Fuck. That’s...

A thousand thoughts flash through Krvavy’s mind, but none can make it past her lips. Krvavy’s mouth wordlessly opens and closes as her panic grows and grows, leaving her paralyzed with dread.

“Mm.” The Dwarf hums, her copper-orange eyes piercing through the Drakling’s soul. “I thought as much.”

““What?!”” Both barbarian and brat voice their surprise at the same time, the former more bewildered by what she just heard and the latter more shocked by that outrageous statement.

The grey-skinned shortstack slightly tilts her head to the side. “It was the most logical explanation.”

“MOST LOGICAL?!” Those loud and so very incredulous words echo through the air. “How is that the most logical explanation?!” Thea sputters and shouts, her voice so close to cracking. “Are you as deluded as that deranged Dragon?!”

Inanna simply raises a single dense eyebrow and stares at the bratty girl, her gaze not wavering for even a moment. “What else so perfectly explains Krvavy’s... uniqueness? Her knowledge is spotty, with gaps in the strangest of places. She knows numerous topics that you would not expect her to know, while not knowing those you would. The most pertinent example would be how she was not aware that mana could be stored in crystals, despite that being a practice which has been around for thousands upon thousands of years. A practice which Drakling’s are said to be quite proficient in.”

“Obviously she is just an idiot?!” Thea exasperatedly offers an explanation, earning herself a brief glare from Beryl. Which goes completely unnoticed by the rather riled up brat.

“What of her personality? The manner in which she acts?” The Dwarf continues on, leaning forwards ever so slightly, squishing her massive tits into her thick thighs. “Or perhaps you want something more physical? Such as the architectural style she is building our home in? It is not a style you would expect a Drakling to construct. There are aspects to it which I could attribute to specific regions of the world, but Krvavy has never been to nor seen anything from those regions. Neither would she be able to name them. I myself had only learned of those styles through my studies.”

“Why are ya so resistant ta this thought?” The tomboyish Elf asks the brat, sounding genuinely curious.

“Because it sounds crazy!? Am I the only sane one here?!”

“Is all of Humanity as ignorant of the past as you are?” Inanna wonders, her normally neutral voice tinged with just the faintest bit of frustration. “It is not unheard of for someone from another world to enter ours, even if it is an incredibly rare occurrence.”

“WHAT?!” Thea once again mirrors Krvavy’s shock. “Why did you not start with that?!”

The Dwarf simply shrugs her shoulders.

“Ah would’a thought tha’ ya’d ‘ave at least ‘eard o’ this sort o’ thing before.” Beryl nonchalantly comments, earning herself an indignant glare from the brat. “There are plenty o’ old stories tha’ mention the ‘ero, or some other character, ‘avin’ come from some faraway land in another world. Enough tha’ we Wood Elves even ‘ave a name fer those people: allfydwr. Though, Ah will admit, Ah myself didn’t put much faith in those stories ‘avin’ much truth ta them...”

“Mm.” Inanna nods her head and leans even further forwards, just so that she can look past both Krvavy and Khalia to meet the Elf’s eyes. “Yes, many such tales could have that detail added in simply to make a specific character seem more unique. But there are instances of these bar-gukin, as my people would call them, within the historic record whose claims can be seen as credible. An example would be when two completely disconnected people, who are utterly unaware of each others’ existence on account of being in vastly different places and even times, recount matching details of the world they came from. A surprisingly common occurrence, considering how rare such people are to begin with. It –”

“Ugh!” That exasperated, and really quite bratty, groan interrupts the Dwarf. “You!” Thea’s accusatory gaze snaps over to the Drakling. “What do you have to say about all of this?!”

“Uh...”

“Ach, don’t put ‘er on the spot like tha’!”

“She is the one who started this whole conversation!”

“Krvavy, my Ushumgal,” Inanna calmly speaks up, “perhaps we should start at the beginning?”

The barbarian just blankly blinks at that. She honestly isn’t sure what that beginning would even be. She can’t just jump right to talking about the fact that she used to be an entirely different person, can she...?

“What drove you to tell us this now?” The Dwarf asks, her neutral tone tinged with a hint of curiosity... and affection. Her hand comes to rest atop Krvavy’s shoulder, stout fingers giving the strong muscles hidden beneath black scales a soft squeeze.

“Shadow.” Krvavy immediately answers. “I... I’m pretty sure Shadow is also not from this world. I didn’t really ask, but...” She awkwardly trails off, roughly biting the inside of her cheek.

“The chances of two bar-gukin being present in the world at once is... rather unlikely...” The busty Dwarven shortstack idly voices her thoughts. “And it is even less likely for two to meet... Mm. How interesti– No.” She abruptly shakes her head, her thick black brow furrowing even further. “How worrying. Both are Champions of Gods, Gods who likely brought both here... But the Gods have not acted so overtly in millennia... So why now...? What are they planning...?”

Thea rolls her eyes as Inanna trails off, muttering to herself. “Hmph!” The bratty girl huffs and crosses her arms, glaring at both Krvavy and Beryl. “This is not just some elaborate prank, is it?”

“Not on my part.” The Wood Elf states, resting her head on the barbarian’s shoulder.

“Then why are you so calm?! Do you not care that this lizard is from another world?!”

“Does tha’ change who she is?” Beryl rhetorically asks, stretching her neck so that she can give Krvavy a kiss on the cheek. “My dearest love is still my dearest love~.”

Krvavy grimaces, those sweet and loving words stabbing into her heart. Which is a reaction that Thea quite clearly notices. “It does.” She speaks up before that brat gets the chance to. “It does change who I am. I wasn’t Krvavy before... before coming here.”

“Ya took a new name?”

The barbarian bites the inside of her cheek before responding. “More than that. I... didn’t have this body. I wasn’t even a Drakling.”

“Huh? Then wha–” Thea quickly catches herself, taking a moment to clear her throat before continuing with her mildly accusatory interrogation. “Then who were you?”

“Leanna Harris, twenty-nine years old, human.” Krvavy dispassionately lists off, staring intently at the brat sitting all the way across from her. “I was around your height, thinner, paler, frailer. There was nothing really special about me. I was just a normal, average woman.”

“You... you were a Human?!” Thea shouts in surprise, almost jumping up onto her feet but stopping herself before she can do much more than lean forwards. “What?! How?!”

A long, slow sigh escapes from deep within the Drakling’s chest. Her body deflates a bit, shoulders slumping as she sinks ever so slightly into the water, her chin pressing into the top of Khalia’s head. That contact causes the sleeping Orc to stir a little, but it is hardly a bother compared to all of this shouting. “I...”

“Why are you a Drakling now?!” The silver-blonde brat drowns her Draconic lover in question after question, getting a little more worked up with each one she asks.. “Were you cursed?!”

“No.” Krvavy tiredly states, scaled fingers slowly sifting through the beige-brown fur that covers her Were-Beast’s wide hips. Those short strands feel so soft and smooth beneath the warm water... “I...” The barbarian takes a deep breath. “I designed this body myself.”

Thea freezes... for no more than a second. “You chose to be a lizard?!” Pure and utter shock underlines those incredibly incredulous words. “Why would you ever do that?!”

“Because I didn’t want to be weak!” Krvavy spits back, anger and frustrating flaring up inside her. “I wanted to be strong for once!”

“Wait!” Thea doesn’t seem to hear the Drakling’s response, her eyes going wide as she suddenly puts two and two together. “Does that mean you chose to have such a perverted body?!”

“Ach, girl!” Beryl clicks her tongue and softly shakes her head, looking rather disappointed as she stares across the steamy water. “Just let ‘er talk! We won’t get anywhere wit’ yer constant interruptions.”

The bratty noble girl glares back at the tomboyish Wood Elf, looking a little annoyed about being told to shut up. But, after a moment, it becomes clear that she is going to keep quiet, even if she looks a little resentful about that.

“You designed that body?” Inanna questions, getting the conversation back on track.

“Yes...” Krvavy slowly nods, anxiously nibbling at the inside of her cheek. How can she even begin to explain that this was just a video game to her? She has had over a week to think about this and still has no idea what to even say. “I... didn’t think that this was... exactly real when I came to this world...?”

“Why was that?” The Dwarf asks after a couple seconds of relative silence, trying to draw an answer out of the Drakling.

“Well... it was supposed to be a... video game.” A tinge of discomfort flows along the length of Krvavy’s inhuman tongue, its tip caught between her sharp and carnivorous teeth. “An ‘immersive virtual reality’ game, to be specific... That is... Uh...? Imagine specific dreams that are sold for entertainment. You can then ‘play’ these dream whenever you want and ‘waking up’ doesn’t end them, because you can just continue where you left off next time. That’s... not entirely accurate, but... I’m not sure if I could do better without having to explain dozens of other things...”

“And I presume that this ‘game’ didn’t operate as normal?” Inanna verbally prods Krvavy once more, kneading and massaging her lover’s stiff shoulder.

“No, it did. It worked just as well as the dozens... hundreds... of other games I’d played before. I had no problem making my character,” the Drakling awkwardly gestures at herself, “or ‘playing’ this ‘game’. But that... When I died that changed. I couldn’t exit out anymore. I would just get an error saying that... my ‘soul-link connection’ was lost and that it couldn’t connect with my ‘original form’.”

Inanna’s thick brow furrows faintly. “Interesting...” She quietly mutters to herself.

“I... didn’t really know how to handle that, being trapped in a world that might not even be real.” Krvavy continues on, her voice a little softer. “I thought that maybe I had actually died, for real, and that everything here was just... just my imagination, the last gasp of my brain before everything would suddenly disappear. I thought that maybe the device I was using might have glitched out, trapping me here and leaving my original body to slowly die. I came up with a lot of... possible explanations. None of which were good.”

“Ah do remember tha’ ya were rather shaken...” Beryl idly comments, gently rubbing her Draconic lover’s arm, nimble fingers trailing from wrist to elbow and back again. “Do ya still think tha’ we... tha’ this world might not be real?”

“No.” Krvavy answers with a sigh. “This ‘game’ was supposed to be single-player. I never even considered that there would be other people like me here. Not as a Champion of a God – that makes sense – but as... you know... So Shadow...” She sighs again, slowly shaking her head. “Everything has to be real. It sounds crazy, but it is the only thing that makes sense now. It is the only explanation...”

Thea crosses her arms as she stares across the steamy water. “Yes, it does sound crazy. You sound crazy. But...” she drags that single word out, “this does explain why you are so weird.” The girl briefly rolls her eyes. “It also explains why you were so heartless and cruel when we first met. And for a while after that too... I can not blame you though. If I thought that I was in a dream, then I definitely would not act as empathetic and caring as I normally do.”

“Ha.” A hollow laugh escapes Krvavy’s mouth, her lips curling into the slightest smile. “Thanks, Thea. Didn’t expect you of all people to try and lighten the mood.”

“Lighten the...? Hey! I was–!”

“Would you mind talking more of who you used to be?” Inanna suddenly cuts the brat off, her copper-orange eyes brimming with curiosity as she stares intently at the Drakling.

Krvavy scowls slightly at that request, even though she knows that it is a completely reasonable thing to ask. She doesn’t really want to talk about Leanna, to relive those memories, but... “I worked in IT, which is... dealing with information systems and the like, it doesn’t really matter. I pretty much ran the whole department of a mid-sized corp, but that was mostly because they were cheap fucks and purposefully left it understaffed. At least I can be happy knowing that they are absolutely screwed without me...”

“That sounds like a job which would require a fair bit of education.” The Dwarf states, not so subtly searching for more answers.

“I guess.” The barbarian dispassionately shrugs her shoulders, glancing down at Khalia as she gently squishes her cheek into the Were-Beast’s head. “I have a Masters in IT, as well as three Bachelors each with honours and first class standing: one in computer science, another in computing and business, and the last in business administration. Four fancy pieces of paper that are pretty much worthless, even more so now.”

Inanna raises a thick eyebrow as she stares at Krvavy. “I doubt that your degrees were worthless.”

“They basically are.” Krvavy dryly returns, meeting her Dwarf’s gaze. “I had to learn pretty much everything I needed to know on my own time because most of my actual education was just terrible. It was all either generalized to the point of being functionally useless, focused so intently on specific examples that what was taught was useless beyond those specific examples, or just reiterating the same information so much that barely anything new was ever even introduced. It was a glorified daycare.”

“You are being needlessly pessimistic.”

“Wha’ o’ yer personal life, my dearest love?” Beryl quickly interjects, a kind and gentle smile playing at her soft lips as she swiftly changes the topic.

“What about it?” The barbarian coldly replies... only to scowl and mentally give herself a good kick mere moments later. She shouldn’t be snapping at her girl’s like that... “I didn’t really have a personal life. I spent what free time I had playing IVR games. By myself.”

“Really...?”

“Yeah.” The barbarian blankly states, staring at her Elf. “I was an incredibly boring person. Most people didn’t have the time or energy to become ‘interesting’, and I definitely wasn’t any different. Also, it was in everyone’s best interest to be boring and unnoticeable. Standing out doesn’t really do you any favours...”

“Just wha’ sort o’ world did ya come from...?” Beryl reluctantly wonders, almost sounding like she doesn’t want to hear the answer.

“A miserable one.” Krvavy replies with absolutely no hesitation. “To be completely honest, it was a dystopia. And not even the fun kind...” She sourly shakes her head. “Also, I probably should have started with this, there was absolutely no magic. None at all. Kind of the reason why all of this being real was... hard to believe.”

“Fascinating...” An inquisitive gleam shines in the Dwarf’s copper-orange eyes, her feet idly swishing back and forth in the water. “So you are truly from a world without magic?”

“Yeah...” The barbarian nods back, before a faint frown finds its way onto her face. “Well, as far as I know. The fact that I was brought here is kind of making me question that a bit... There must have been some if my soul could be pulled all the way into this world, right...?”

“Not necessarily.” Inanna answers after just a moment’s thought. “That could have simply been a result of some power, almost certainly the Gods, piercing the veil between worlds to bring their chosen Champions over. Not dissimilar to how someone could reach into water and pull something out, while not being capable of surviving under the water themselves.”

“Right...” The barbarian bitterly clicks her tongue, feeling like a child who just learned that Santa isn’t real. “Well, then yeah. My world had no magic. It had no attribute points, no levels, no enchantments, no spells. None of that fun stuff... There weren’t even any races other than Humans.”

“Then how did this ‘video game’ function?” Inanna can’t quite keep her curiosity in check, her head tilting to the side as she stares rather intensely into her lover’s emerald eyes. “I understand that you were not being literal when you referred to it as a ‘dream’, but I’m having a hard time understanding how that would be possible without magic.”

“Well...” Krvavy’s brow knits together, focusing so hard on trying to find a way to actually answer her Dwarf’s question that she briefly forgets some of the frustration she has with her previous life. “The IVR device... It connects to the users brain... Uh, not physically, but via monitoring and inducing various electrical signals... Anyway, the IVR device functions as an interface for the user to remotely control a computer with just their thoughts. And a computer is a... its a machine that performs calculations and simulations, essentially.”

“How–?”

“Ugh!” Thea cuts the Dwarf off with an exasperated groan. “You can ask those useless questions later! Can we get back to talking about whatever world Krvavy came from?! You!” Her hand jumps out of the water, a single finger pointing dramatically at the Drakling. “I remember how you acted all snide when I told you that Svaneti housed a few thousand people! So, what kind of city are you from if you see that as a laughable amount?!”

“One with a population in the tens of millions.” The barbarian tiredly responds, her touch slowly sliding up Khalia’s side, fingertips trailing across green skin decorated with a slight smattering of freckles. “Everything felt... crammed together. It was very high density, with barely any buildings less than... about fifty stories tall. They were oppressive... Ugly pillars of glass, steel, and concrete looming above the streets... I could hardly even see the sky, not that there was much to see up there anyway... At night the city lights drowned out the stars, so even if the sky was clear it’d just be a murky mess...”

“Tens of millions...?” The silver-blonde brat slowly repeats those words, her expression going just a little slack. “That sounds –”

“There were a lot of cities much, much larger than that one.” Krvavy talks over the girl, her dispassionate emptiness slowly burning away with each breath she takes. “It was terrible... People were everywhere...! There were so many that they’d just blend together in your mind...! Everyone was a stranger, a nobody! It was pretty damn common that, on your way to work, you’d hear someone desperately crying for help, to see someone getting assaulted! And nobody ever did anything, because it was best just to do nothing! Either the ‘law’ would fuck you over for trying to help, or it was just a trap to lure in some goodhearted idiot! Everyone was either apathetic to the point where we’d just walk past a body rotting on the side of the road with the rest of the trash, or they’d be the heartless thugs that put the body there in the first place!”

“Ah’m sure there were some good people, right?” Beryl quickly speaks up, her voice tinged with worry and concern. Her hands gently squeeze Krvavy’s arm as she lifts it up just enough to nestle beneath it, cuddling closely with her distraught Draconic lover.

“Hardly.” Krvavy scoffs, a deep scowl filling her face. “In my whole life I had only met two people who I would even consider to be slightly ‘good’! One was a teacher I had in high school. She was a stern old woman who didn’t seem to care about her students at all. Turns out she just didn’t care about the ‘lost causes’ and... I guess she thought I wasn’t one of them.” The barbarian’s brow furrows even further as she briefly pauses, feeling a bitter sorrow mixing into her anger. “If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have gotten into uni. She taught me things that I should have learned in school. She helped me apply for scholarships and bursaries that I didn’t even know existed, saving me from a lot of extra debt... She...”

Silence fills the air as Krvavy trails off, closing her eyes as the misery of her past melts away her anger. There is a lot about Leanna’s life that she could be mad about, that she should be mad about. But it just feels so exhausting...

“Was...” Thea hesitates slightly, speaking in a soft tone void of her usual haughty arrogance and judgmental brattiness. “Was the other person your older sister?”

Krvavy’s eyes snap open to meet the noble girl’s soft-blue gaze, her breath catching her throat. “I... I don’t want to talk about her.” The barbarian nearly whispers those words. “Not now. Not –” she abruptly cuts herself off, biting her tongue. “Maybe someday...”

“It’s alright. We’re ‘ere fer ya when ya’re ready.” The tanned Wood Elf gently states, reaching her head up to plant a loving kiss on Krvavy’s cheek.

“Mm. Do you regret leaving that world?”

Krvavy can’t keep the look of disdainful derision from her face as she glares at the Dwarf. Why is Inanna even asking that? The answer is obvious. “No.”

“You don’t miss the life you left behind?”

The barbarian’s lips press together into a thin line. “Leanna is dead.” she icily states, her expression filled with a cold emptiness. “And so is everyone who used to care about her.”

Inanna solemnly nods her head. Her mouth opens to say something, but Krvavy continues before a single sound can leave her parted lips.

“I have more now than Leanna ever did. More of everything. I am living a life she wouldn’t have even dared to dream of.” Krvavy firmly replies, giving both her precious puppy and her sweet berry a strong squeeze. Her meaty tail twitches, brushing past her Dwarf’s stout legs to poke its tip into her princess’ outer thigh, just barely able to stretch across the hot spring pond. “There are some things I regret, some things that I would have done differently if I came into this world knowing it was all real. But those regrets aren’t... I can live with them. Easily.”

“Mm. Then this is settled.” Inanna nods again. “Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?”

“I...” Krvavy blankly blinks at that shortstack, briefly stunned by how this whole conversation seems to have been brushed aside in just an instant. But... that isn’t something she is going to complain about. And none of the others seem to object either. “No. I... I just want to laze about and relax.”

“Aawaaahhhh...” Khalia suddenly yawns, stretching her arms high into the air. “Cuddle?” She hopefully asks, half-lidded eyes looking up at the barbarian as she nuzzles a cheek into her Mate’s pale chest.

“Were you listening to everything we were talking about?” Krvavy curiously wonders, getting a bored nod in response. “Then... what do you think?”

The Were-Beast woman scowls slightly, looking a little annoyed by the fact that she is being forced to use her brain. “Mate is Mate.” She plainly states. “Cuddle now?”

“Alright.” The Drakling gives that Greenskin a weak smile, before leaning down to plant a kiss on Khalia’s forehead, and then another on her precious puppy’s plump lips.

“Are ya goin’ ta stay down ‘ere, or would ya like ta enjoy our bed some more?”

Krvavy closes her eyes and simply relaxes into the hot spring water, letting the stress of this whole dreaded discussion leave her body. “I’ll stay here a little longer.” She replies after a few short seconds.