Collide Gamer

Eliana: John

Eliana: John, please, I need emotional support.

Eliana: Right fucking now!

Eliana: Please!

John: Where are you?

Eliana: The exhibit

Eliana: Please hurry…

John was already sprinting. He moved to the edge of his Guild Hall, entered the mundane, and then immediately entered Lorelei’s Guild Hall through the overlap. With superhuman speed and many a Magus Step, he first moved through the crowd, then the copied forest and mountain slope.

Images of Eliana mid panic-attack flashed in his mind. A bundle of misery, curled up against a wall, attempting to work through involuntary shivering. Every second he was not by her side was a second he was failing his duty as a man!

He arrived at the public art exhibit. It was a large clearing, a temporary structure on it giving shelter to the art pieces that needed it, while all else stood exposed to the open air. Moderated weather allowed them to leave everything from statues to paintings out.

‘Where is my Eliana?’ John thought, forcing his way through the crowd. He moved so fast most didn’t have time to get out of the way. He did not care. Consoling her was all that mattered.

He switched to aura sight. Colour drained from most of the world into the external expression of the people’s souls. Blue and purple were the dominant colours, flames of arcane blazing all around. Even the retainers of the elite of the Abyss were strong. Annoyingly, that obscured his vision. He teleported on top of a wall.

Eliana’s aura was like a drop of blood in an ocean, refusing to dissolve. The intense red was easily spotted. The Gamer used another Magus Step to get in her direction, then ran the rest of the way. He reverted his sight to the normal perception upon arrival.

Eliana sat alone at a foldable table in a ‘staff only’ area of the exhibit. Nervously, she drummed on the thin metal surface of the scaffold furniture. Little giggles escaped her throat. It was not the kind of sound John knew her to produce during a panic attack.

“I came as quickly as I could,” he announced himself.

“John!” his pretty little psycho immediately jumped to her feet. The light chair clattered to the ground behind her as she dashed across the distance. She threw herself at his midriff, burying her head in his shirt. “It’s the worst!”

The Gamer was starting to get a hunch on what had actually happened here. Stroking her silky hair, he spoke with calm authority, “Tell me what happened.”

Eliana tilted her head back. Her chin rested on the gap between his collarbones. She sniffed, tears in her eyes. “They were nice to me!” she complained. “I put my art up anonymously, because I knew people would recognize it’s shit if my name isn’t on there and instead I keep getting compliments! I wanna fucking die!”

John pinched her cheek.

“Christ, Eliana.” Two words and a dozen heartbeats. John tried to get the agitated hammering in his chest under control and slowly succeeded. “I thought you were having a panic attack!”

“I ahm!” she slurred against the stretching of her face. “I cahn’t shtand thaht fuckery!”

“I know what your panic attacks are like, this is not one of them.” John pinched Eliana’s other cheek and started kneading her face like it was playdough. All of that adrenaline she had roused in him needed to go somewhere. “Bad girl!”

“What?! No!” Eliana’s lips, now squished between John’s hands. “I’m not a fucking bad girl…”

“Very bad girl,” John insisted. “I would have come whatever text you sent me, but you chose to type something that made me think you were hyperventilating and barely able to think.” He let out a long sigh. “I am relieved you’re okay, just… don’t do that to my heart. I love you.”

“You love a bad girl like me?” Eliana muttered.

“More than you will ever understand.” He bowed down and planted a kiss on her lips. It broke quickly due to an uncontrolled giggle from her side. The little madness in the up and down of her voice was endearing. A second kiss swiftly followed. “I wouldn’t get this upset about someone I didn’t care about.”

Releasing her face, he instead grabbed her by the hands. “Wh-where are we going?” Eliana stammered.

“Back out there.” He pulled her out of the staff only area, then attached her firmly to his side. “I want to see this work of yours.”

Eliana was already blushing. Her mouth constantly shifted between grin and frown. Wordlessly, she pointed him in the right direction.

Holding her by the waist, he did not give her any chance to escape. This was a date now. He was missing a semi-important meeting with an African warlord for it. He would have let Romulus himself wait if it meant one of his women was happier for it.

John trusted in his additional senses to navigate the crowd, letting him look at Eliana in all of her adorableness. She wore her usual clothes: a black robe over a combination of BDSM harness and leather bikini. John was the only one to see the latter, peeking down the collar of her otherwise closed robe. Straps of black were hooked into a thick collar, sitting around her neck.

The sight was robbed from him by Eliana’s bashfulness. In a swift motion, the pretty little psycho raised up her hood, pulling it over her white-blue hair and unnaturally pale face. John squeezed her a little tighter, to reassure her of his presence.

They continued through the gallery. It was a wild mix of styles and levels of skill. A statue fashioned from the finest granite depicted an interpretation of the first three Wardens of the Order of the Golden Rose receiving their blessed armaments. Carved from expensive woods, an effigy of Jesus Christ on the cross had been hung from a wall. It was gruesome in its details. A crayon drawing was pinned to a wall. It showed a… pony? John wasn’t sure. A mosaic of stained glass shards created an image of a gorgeous, redheaded lady. It was of adequate make for a gallery, but nothing special.

The exhibit had come together in a variety of ways. Via Eliana, John had access to a network of artists that he could invite for this. Further spots had gone out as political favours. “Why the fuck was there a crayon drawing?” Eliana muttered.

“A member of the House of Exceptionals asked me if I could put it up. He said it would mean a lot to his son.”

“That’s so fu- hecking wholesome.”

“Are you back on that whole ‘trying not to curse’ routine?” John asked.

“I actually have to try now, don’t I?” she asked. “It’s about to fu- happen and I don’t want to shi- fill our son’s brain with curses before he’s even born.”

John chose just to chuckle at her continued confidence they would have a son first. Statistically speaking, it was more likely than not. The workings of human reproduction weren’t entirely understood yet. The mechanical explanation behind it may have been unclear, but it was a fact that rich people had sons at an elevated rate.

“That’s it…” the troubled artist pointed to her right.

The gilded frame was mounted to a wall, framing a picture the size of two HD-PC screens. It was small by Eliana’s standards, requiring him to get a bit closer to get a good look. The crowd around it made this more difficult than one would think. It was one of the few pieces in the exhibit that drew and held a dense ring of people.

John managed to fight his way to the forefront, to behold the image in all of its details.

Drawn with oil paint was a veiled woman. The curtain of white fabric obscured the details of her face, save for a smile that subtly shone through. She was artfully naked, confident in her nudity without flaunting it. She sat in the bend of a gold-trimmed lectus, one of those Roman loungers. A strap of silk across her lap covered much of her legs, emphasizing the pregnant belly. A hand gently lingered on the swell of her stomach.

It was not a self-portrait. It was an image that symbolized the very idea of arising motherhood, done in the style of a Renaissance painting depicting a Greek myth. The background was a carefully woven landscape of black and greens, providing details without distracting from the gold and white woman at the centre. Features were obscured, dimensions of the woman kept average, so that any could project themselves onto the piece.

“Marvellous,” John whispered.

“Shut the fuck up!” Eliana shouted. “It’s not marvellous, it’s fucking shit!”

The crowd around them turned to the pretty little psycho, regarding her with unappreciative glances. Ironic that no one knew they were glaring at the very creator of the picture for her opinions about it.

“It is marvellous,” John said, while moving her away. Their fight did not need to be had out in the open. “All of the compliments you got are justified.”

“Oh, you son of a-“ she stopped herself short on that one. Even in her mood-swung state, she knew that there were lines not to cross. “You cunt-licking-ass-fucking-pent-up-plains-loving-dick-head!”

“Plains loving?” John asked.

“Because you’re all about smooth cunts.”

“I told you before, if you want to grow a bush again, I won’t stop you.”

“Fuck you, I’m your property, I’ll do whatever you want!” Eliana bashed her head against his shoulder. It was a bit painful, but that faded quickly, swallowed by his greater amusement. “Complimenting me like I am some precious thing, when I’m just another set of holes.”

“You are a precious thing. You’re a princess even.”

“Shut up with the empty compliments.”

“Right… you’re a queen, actually.”

Eliana went really quiet suddenly. He had expected further pushback. It was the nature of mood swings to make someone unpredictable. “I am a queen…” she whispered to herself. “That’s so weird to think about… but I am.”

“Empress-Consort, if we are being entirely categorical. Technically that’d require a marriage, but I don’t think there’s authorities that’d insist on that.”

The blood mage hugged his side. “Hey… do you think… I should be more of a… queen?”

“I love you as you are and I will support you in your endeavours.”

“That’s a response, not an answer, you-“ She swallowed whatever insult lay on the tip of her tongue. “I’m picking your fat brains… I’m about to become useless.”

“Eliana, I never, ever, in a million years, want you to associate the idea of being pregnant with being useless,” John responded. “You’re doing something that only you can do. In all of the stars, on every planet, in every Kingdom, there’s only one person that can make our children.” He put a kiss on top of her head. “It’s the opposite of useless. It’s the most valuable service you can offer me.”

“Mhrmamahhahahihihihihnnngh…” Cackling, happy gremlin sounds reverberated against his side. “…-ing charmer.”

“It’s the entire truth.”

“Okay… so it’s not that I’ll be useless… but I want to do more than sit on my ass as I grow heavier.” Eliana’s eyes, like shattered amethysts, stared up at him, past the rim of her hood. “Right now, I’m a threat. The entire world knows that I’ll rip them apart if anything happens to you. Once I’m pregnant… I can’t make that threat anymore. I want to still be something for Fusion.”

John held her gaze for a long while. It felt such a short time ago that Eliana had barely cared about his political ambitions. He wondered when that had changed? This was a topic they rarely talked about together. Any contact she had with that part of his world was accidental, reluctant or isolated. Now, she looked back at him with a deep confidence.

“I think,” he started slowly, “that you are way smarter than you give yourself credit for. I think you are incredibly talented when it comes to the arts. I know that you have a quick tongue.”

“I just know how to string a bunch of curses together,” Eliana muttered.

“You have been doing less of that, and even so, it shows that you got a mind that can be rhetorically effective. We just need to put some eloquent words in your brain.” John looked around and pointed at a vase. “What do you think of that?”

“It’s a fucking vase, shaped like an oversized butt plug.”

John scoffed, amusedly, and smacked her ass correctively. “Try again, but be a good girl. Otherwise, I’ll be disappointed.”

“It’s… a nicely shaped display piece. The pottery is of prestigious size and the thinness of its neck is quite intriguing?”

John smirked at her. “See, you got it. A lot of diplomacy is about using nice-sounding synonyms. As Bismarck once said: the art of using a lot of words to say nothing at all.” They continued a couple of steps. “If you think you can do that, then my answer to whether you should be more of a queen… is yes. I doubt we’ll follow traditional monarchical structures, but… you will be the mother of my firstborn. Some people will expect influence from you for that alone. Then you are also who you are, strong, smart, beautiful…”

“Stoooooop,” Eliana pleaded.

“The point is that you are in the position to help. I can always use more help.”

“I’ll think about it some more…”

“Do that,” he encouraged and put another kiss on her cheek. “Now… if you are calm… I sadly have to be elsewhere – unless you really need me?”

“No, go fucking get to it… but thank you for tending to your bad girl.” She puckered her lips for a goodbye kiss.

One had to oblige.