Collide Gamer

The push and pull of the other side was a whisper of information that Nia could not consciously decipher. The Nirvana was linked to their world, yet separate from it. In a way, that made it its own Kingdom, akin to the elemental planes. In all ways that mattered, it was entirely different. It was an empty canvas that had come alive and defined its own, vast nothingness. It was a parallel space to their world.

Nia liked drifting on the surface of the bottomless lake. To follow the canny sounds of the Nevr’est and the winding kaleidoscopes of the Wyrdwyrms. Her taken eye showed her ripples of magic and concentrations of causality. She followed the stare of the I’cath into the maws of the next occurrence.

People said she had a gift to arrive where she was needed.

Nia knew she had the skill to get lost in the proper manner.

“See you later,” she whispered to the crow. The animal cawed back, taking the shelled peanut she had delivered to it, and then returned to hopping around on the lawn. To be a crow must be interesting. Always entitled. Always greedy. Always familial. Always caring.

Nia looked around her. She stood on the lawn of a vineyard. There was little activity around her. Austria was an interesting country, she thought so every time she visited. There was Vienna and then there was the rest of the country, it often felt like. So many people, so much industry, crammed into one city. So many villages and towns, so much history spread out over the forested mountainsides.

A flex of her will delivered her from this space to somewhere over a dozen metres away. There, she had the proper footing to leap. Her white dress pretended to flutter in the wind of her motion, though it did so too slowly and too gracefully to truly pretend obedience to physics. The cloth that she did and did not wear was another gift from the other side.

Truly, Nia Fae was a woman of many blessings, all of which she counted herself lucky to have.

‘I ought to smile more,’ she reminded herself, forcing the expression onto her face. It was too wide, she knew immediately, and forsook it in favour of her resting face. Perhaps she had reached the limit of her expressiveness.

Weightless, she landed on the roof of a lone building, situated against the slow moving Danube. The city was distant, a ten minute sprint from where Nia now found herself. Others perhaps envied her for the gift of being unnoticed by the mundane. Certainly, it made getting around a lot easier.

A humble request. An unheard sigh by a blue queen of reality. An orienting shift of her position in the weave of matter. Nia now sat in the room beneath the tilted roof, a pleasant little chamber for tourists. In it, a certain white-haired woman wore the appearance of an attractive 30-something with short, brown hair and cyclists’ legs.

Fianna sat cross-legged on the bed, a laptop atop her lap and headphones on her head. Nia thought it would be funny to sneak up on her. It didn’t work. The first sneaky step Nia tried to take, Fianna commented on, “Can you wait one minute?”

Nia considered the question. “Yes.”

The tapping of keys accompanied Nia’s internal countdown. Time was a thing she rarely bothered to consider, it flowed whether she willed it or not. However, when it came to communications and strategy, measured time was deeply important. She had trained her internal clock to reflect this. Not that she was Beatrice.

After 60 seconds had passed, Nia continued walking towards the bed. She plopped down next to Fianna, who had taken off her headphones. Without a word spoken between them, they leaned into each other. Neither of them were the expressive sort, but in the kiss lay all the passion that they had for one another. Though the lips that she tasted were not of the form she was accustomed to, the woman behind them was still the same.

The laptop was put to the side. Pulses quickened. Their mouths moved in rhythmic re-arrangements of their kiss. Nia put her arms around Fianna’s neck. Fingers brushed through the dark hair of her false exterior. It was so sad that it was so good that there were no tiger ears to scratch.

The silence of the room broke, filled instead with subtle moans and the smacking of lips. Tongues wrestled. Nia found herself in the leading role. It was in the nature of the maids to take the submissive position. Having learned that long ago, the blonde pariah asserted herself a little more forcefully. A gentle bite of Fianna’s lower lip had the scouting woman fully fall into the sheets.

The wooden frame of the bed creaked. Nia’s pale lips brushed over slightly tanned skin. Fianna was dressed in nothing more than a loose white shirt and black panties. Little to obstruct what the blank had planned.

After kissing her way down to her crotch, Nia pulled the underwear off Fianna’s womanhood. It was discarded in the same breath that sent the void dress into a temporary state of true non-existence. Repositioning herself, Nia put her own sex above Fianna’s lips.

The ensuing, mutual oral service was a delectable affair. Nia loved her man dearly and all that they did together. She loved being alone with her future sister-wives almost as much. It was an altogether less ecstatic affair. In this lack of constant, mind-wiping bliss lay a different value. Not that John wasn’t capable of showing them tender love like this… though there was always a bit of male roughness that sapphic engagements did not have. For better and for worse, it had to be said.

Skilled motions of nimble tongues brought them both to orgasm in just a few minutes. Nia came first, she just was more sensitive. Fianna knew release just a little after. They kept it at one, disentangled after, still speaking no words whatsoever. What needed to be said when they were so in sync?

They enjoyed the aftermath for an appropriate amount of time, Fianna resting her head on Nia’s shoulder. Eyes closed, Nia tilted her head to feel the warmth of the military maid’s hair on her cheek.

Then, they had to converse.

“Anything to report?” Nia asked.

“Nothing solid, though there is an emerging pattern.” Fianna sat upright and grabbed her laptop again. After rolling on her side, Nia had a good enough view of the screen that she did not bother rising from the bed herself. Displayed was a map of the area, the Austrian part of the Danube. “I’ve managed to infiltrate two groups in two nearby villages,” she reported. “Their recruitment is typically in or around local landmarks, usually at the highest spots around. Old castles, hillside farms, tourist attractions, unused during this season.”

“Should we raid them?” Nia asked.

Fianna shook her head. “Not yet. Doing so would have no point. Their recruitments are open, but they recruit and promote based on violence. The strongest in a given circle gets to go to the next layer, learning more of the inner workings. I need a few days to penetrate higher levels. I assume there’s a leader somewhere.” Fianna grabbed an USB-stick that she had placed on a nearby night stand. “Get this to Scarlett.”

“I will,” Nia promised, taking the stick and then placing it back on the nightstand. “Later.”

The disguised maid raised an eyebrow. “What is the reason for this delay?”

“I want to spend time with you.” An unheard negotiation put Nia next to Fianna, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You sacrifice time with us for safety. I want to repay you.” Nia managed to put a half-decent smile on her lips. It was always easier when it was genuine.

“I am… much obliged,” Fianna admitted with a sigh. “A cruel thing was done to me by joining this harem.”

“Was it?” Nia wondered. “What do we need to rectify?”

“Nothing,” she responded stoically. “I was setting up for a joke.”

“Oh… proceed?”

“I used to not mind the loneliness. I used to prefer working alone.” Gently, the chosen of the White Tiger traced the length of Nia’s pale-blonde hair. “Being with you all has taught me that I was simply starved for good company and competent aid.”

“Ah. It makes being alone harder, doesn’t it?” Nia asked.

“You know the feeling?” Fianna’s mouth remained slightly open for a moment, then she shook her head and laughed dryly. “A stupid question, of course you would.” She tensed up. “Was that rude of me?”

“Perhaps?” Nia leaned against Fianna’s shoulder. “It is also true. You forget how to bear true loneliness when you love.”

“But we gained so much for it.,” the sniper whispered.

“So much more,” Nia agreed.

They took the moment to exchange another kiss, a fluttering, chaste one that time. “I still do not mind the loneliness,” Fianna assured. “Especially not after the wedding week.”

“I am not going to stay long.” Nia playfully swayed, bumping shoulders repeatedly with her fellow haremette. “I am visiting a beloved on her mission. Leaving swiftly would be rude.”

“And efficient,” Fianna added.

“Efficiency is for dispatching our enemies. For you, I have sweet nothings.”

“Hah!” Fianna laughed at the pun, causing another slow grin to spread on Nia’s face. That one was ugly. The military maid didn’t mind. She even mirrored the expression, stretching the false face into a toothy smirk. They both giggled lightly, neither of them accustomed to raising their voice.

Nia knew Fianna little, compared to other haremettes. They were both oddballs, they both liked to operate on their own and Fianna was new as well, broadly speaking. Despite all of that, Nia did truly love her. It was easy to love one that had the backing of the harem as a whole. The greatest hurdle to starting any relationship was trust. Trust that promises would be kept, that secrets remained secrets, that arrangements would be met, trust that usually took a long time to build.

Trust that was easier gained when those she loved acted as a shared net of experience. They didn’t just have individual interactions with Fianna, they had interactions that were then shared. What could take months or years could be done in a matter of days when a person was ‘tested’ thoroughly by so many women.

To learn to love someone was easy when trust was swiftly built and guarantees given by people she trusted with her life.

“What do you make of Layla, Esmeralda and Daiyu?” Nia asked, once that thought had formulated in her mind.

Fianna’s response came after a moment of delay. “…Unstable, unruly and adorable, in that order.” Absent-mindedly, she ran a hand over Nia’s leg. The pariah couldn’t imagine it felt particularly good. Compared to the other women of the harem, she was just so thin. “The stalker has my respect for her competency. I’ve been following her on occasion.”

“Stalking the stalker?” Nia asked, a tinge of amusement managing to sneak into her tone.

“Scanning a security risk,” Fianna put it into more agreeable (and still accurate) terms. “She has incredible infiltration prowess. I hope she can be salvaged regardless of the romantic outcome. She would be a fantastic asset for Nightfall.”

“Do you think we should help her be salvaged?” Nia asked.

“I am… still a bit uncertain if I should be part of these conversations- Ow!” Fianna cried out when Nia suddenly pinched her cheek. “Why did you do that?”

“Discard that uncertainty. You are one of us.”

“I am simply expressing that I am lacking a lot of context,” Fianna clarified. “There’s so much that I, as a woman outside the harem, was not classified to learn. Layla’s entire existence is something I only truly heard about during that prolonged grinding session over Christmas.” The sniper let out a long sigh. “When it comes to her, I am primarily taking Rel’s and Momo’s word for her ability to be better. I am trusting the judgement of my fellow ladies.”

“Ah… sorry for the pinching.”

“It came from a good place.” Now Fianna bumped shoulders with Nia. “Though I call her unstable, John has a clear preference for the odd and unhinged.”

“True.” Nia did not even have to think about giving that answer. Even the most stable women of the harem, to which she counted herself, each had an oddity at a minimum or easily triggered weirdness. Lydia could go into rants on the oddest things, Jane was every bit as pervy as John, Gnome had multiple adorable ticks and Moira combined both a woman unaccustomed to living happily and a zealous paladin – to name only a select few.

Nia loved them all for it. These weren’t negative points in her mind, only truths to adore.

“What do you make of Layla?” Fianna asked.

“I like her. She has a good spirit.”

“Mhm… I will remember that,” Fianna said. “On Esmeralda and Daiyu, I have much less to report. I have not cared much about the Dancer so far. She doesn’t know I exist and I will keep it that way unless John wills otherwise. Daiyu and I had closer contact. I like her a lot, though there is… something off about her?”

“Like what?” Nia asked. “That she is the Black Turtle?”

Fianna snorted. “Yeah, right, that little thing.”

Tilting her head, the pariah slowly blinked. Her singular eye traced the lines of magic around the sniper’s head. A subtle distortion moved around her. It didn’t alarm Nia, because she knew the difference between a spell cast to harm and a spell cast to defend. The realization that should have occurred was excised from Fianna’s head in a swirl of atmospheric mana, pulled towards the nearby river by an omnipresent force.

For a brief moment, Nia crossed gazes with the beast that lived in that flow of magic. The Black Turtle stared back, its esoteric body dispersed across the entirety of the landscape and beyond. Reading its request was complicated. Nia interacted with greater eldritch entities on a regular basis.

“I won’t tell,” she said aloud.

“Won’t tell what?” Fianna asked, entirely unknowing of what had just happened.

Nia managed an enigmatic wink.