Rimelion: The Exploiter

The AI taxi released us onto the curb with a pleasant chime and a little animated wave on its dashboard screen.

I stepped out and looked at it for a second.

In the future, I would have gotten out of that car with my heart rate elevated and my hands shaking, being angry at AIs for stealing our jobs. Now I just waved back at the little screen.

Jerry had recalibrated something in me.

I’d have to tell him that sometime, I decided, when he is not busy with Cloudy and his new body.

The mall rose up in front of us, one of those sprawling early-morning places that hummed with low-level commerce even at this hour, the anchor stores still gated but the smaller shops already lit and open, spilling music and warm air out onto the atrium walkways. Pearl had her hands tucked into her hoodie pockets and was already walking as if she had a destination in mind.

Phèdre walked beside me, taking in the surroundings as if she were visiting a mildly exotic location. Her heels were quiet on the tile.

“You still haven’t explained,” she said pleasantly.

“Explained what?” I said.

“What we’re shopping for.” She glanced at Lucas, who was walking slightly ahead with Pearl, hands in his pockets. “He seems angoissé.”

“He’s processing.”

“Mm.” She considered this. “He’s been processing since the lobby.”

“He’s a thorough processor.”

She made a soft sound that meant she found this answer charming and entirely insufficient, and let it rest.

Pearl stopped.

The shop she’d chosen had no obvious sign beyond a geometric logo in the window. The display held a deliberately chaotic arrangement of pieces that didn’t belong to any single era or aesthetic; sheer layers next to structured cropped jackets, platform boots beside handmade-looking knitwear, a rack of belts that appeared to be holding up nothing.

Pearl walked in like she owned it.

We followed.

The interior smelled of cedar and something synthetic, ambient music pulsing low. A few other early shoppers drifted between the racks. Pearl moved through it all, trailing her fingers across hangers, making rapid decisions invisible to everyone else.

Then she stopped, pulled something off the rack without ceremony, and held it out to Lucas.

A miniskirt, pale blue with a subtle shimmer. A fitted white t-shirt with a small embroidered detail at the collar.

“Lucas,” she said cheerfully. “Wear it.”

Lucas stared at it.

Phèdre looked at the garments, then at Lucas, her head tilting fractionally. “That’s too small for him.”

Pearl’s smirk was slow and deeply pleased. “Non. Maybe too big.”

Phèdre looked at Pearl. Then back at Lucas. She didn’t ask. She turned instead to browse the nearest rack, one hand drifting idly over the items.

“Not mon style,” she said. But she didn’t move away. She browsed slowly, at an angle that kept the rest of the shop clearly in her peripheral vision.

Pearl pushed the clothes into Lucas’s arms.

The changing area was a curtained corridor with a bench outside. Pearl stationed herself against the wall with her holophone, already scrolling, and I stood near the entrance to the booth, close enough to count as proximity, not so close as to make it weird.

Lucas stood with the curtain half-pulled, holding the clothes, not moving.

“You okay?” I asked.

He was quiet for a moment. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, “that I want to... try to embrace it.”

I waited.

“I forced this on you.” His voice was careful. “I’m the reason you’re—” he gestured vaguely at me, “—you. The least I can do is not spend three hours every transformation being miserable about my end of it.”

“Lucas—”

“Pearl wants to try. The shopping thing. The—” he paused, “—all of it.” Something softened. “I want to try too.”

I looked at him. “You’ve already done enough,” I said. “You don’t owe me anything. Not this.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But still.”

“You know,” I said, “we’ve changed a lot. Both of us.”

Lucas huffed a quiet breath that was almost a laugh. “I didn’t think things could just... fix themselves. People, I mean. I thought once something was broken.”

“Me too,” I said.

He was quiet for another moment. “Do you remember the first day? In Rimelion?”

I grinned immediately. “The boss hunt.”

He started laughing before the words were even out. “Lisa just—she walked up and—”

“She shooed us away,” I said, laughing with him.

“I was so angry,” Lucas said.

“I know, I was there, you made a very specific face—”

“I still make that face.”

“You do,” I confirmed.

He was still smiling when he pulled the curtain closed.

It didn’t take long.

The soft rush of wind. The flutter of petals against the curtain. The shimmer of light leaking under the hem. Then the curtain opened. The miniskirt was—

Well.

Pearl’s description of too big had been generous.

It was very mini.

The blue shimmer caught the shop lighting perfectly, the fabric moving with every small shift of weight. His ponytail was up, the massive ribbon slightly askew, as if it had materialized in a hurry. Bracers glowing faintly at his wrists.

He stood there with his arms slightly out from his sides, looking down at himself with an expression caught between resignation and something that was working toward acceptance.

“Kinda works?” he said.

Pearl made a sound that was not words. She crossed the distance in two steps, wrapped both arms around him, and lifted him.

“OH MY GOD,” she said into his hair, spinning once. “The skirt! Luka, look at the skirt—”

“I can see the skirt, Pearl, I’m wearing the—”

“The ribbon is crooked—” she reached up and fixed it with one hand, still holding him with the other, “—there. Perfect.” She set him down and held him at arm’s length, beaming with the intensity of someone who had just received everything they wanted for every holiday simultaneously.

Luka bore this with his eyes closed.

I was grinning.

From behind me, quietly, came the soft sound of heels on tile.

I turned.

Phèdre stood at the entrance to the changing corridor, one hand resting lightly on the curtain rod, her browsing apparently concluded. She took in the scene with the particular stillness of someone who had just received an answer to a question they’d been too polished to ask.

Then the smile returned, delighted in the way her smiles always were. “Ah,” she whispered. “Mais oui.”

Her eyes found mine, briefly, with an expression that said she had approximately forty follow-up thoughts and had already decided which three she’d share and when.

Luka looked at her.

She tilted her head at him with gentle, unhurried appreciation. “Très bien, chéri,” she said simply. Which was, somehow, the worst and best thing she could have said.

Luka’s face went pink.

Pearl lit up. “Right?!”

Phèdre absorbed the explanation with the calm of someone receiving a weather forecast.

Pearl had delivered it in full, standing between two racks of sheer tops, gesturing occasionally at Luka as a visual aid. The transformation. The three hours. The wind magic. Mine involvement.

Luka stood slightly to the side with his arms crossed, watching the ceiling.

“…and this happens,” she said, “every time he says the words.”

“Triggered by proximity to Charlie.”

“Within range, yeah.”

“And lasts a minimum of three hours.”

“Three hours minimum, no early exit, unless Charlie is too far away and there is not enough mana.”

Phèdre nodded once, as if she’d fully catalogued something and filed it correctly. Then she turned to look at Luka with an expression of complete attention.

Luka met her eyes for approximately one second before looking away. “You can stop.”

“I haven’t started,” she said pleasantly, and turned back to the rack.

She browsed differently now. Before, she’d been drifting. Now there was direction to it, fingers moving through hangers, as she knew exactly what she was looking for.

“This isn’t my style either,” she remarked, sliding past a section of structured blazers.

“You said that already,” I said.

“I’m saying it with more information now.” She moved further down the rack. “There’s a différence.”

Pearl had already pulled three more things and was holding them against Luka experimentally. A cropped hoodie in dusty rose. A pleated skirt in charcoal. Something with lace trim that Luka was looking at with an expression I couldn’t quite read.

“Arms out,” Pearl instructed.

“Pearl—”

“Arms.”

He put his arms out.

The shop assistant, a young woman with elaborate braids, drifted over. She looked at Luka, tilted her head, and pointed at the lace trim piece. “That one’s going to be great on you,” she said with complete professional sincerity. “The proportions are perfect for your frame.”

“...Thanks,” he said very very quietly.

The assistant smiled and moved on. Luka stared after her with the look of someone whose brain had briefly stopped processing.

I said nothing, and I was very good at saying nothing.

“She’s right,” Pearl said, holding it up higher. “You have great proportions in-form. It’s genuinely unfair.”

“I’m not—” Luka started.

“Objectively,” Pearl continued. “I’m saying this as your girlfriend who is also extremely objective.”

“You’re the least objective person I’ve ever met.”

“Objectively,” she repeated, and draped the lace piece over his shoulder.

He didn’t take it off.

We moved further into the shop. Pearl had accumulated a small bundle of options; Luka was carrying half of them with the air of someone who had made a series of decisions he was still processing.

Pearl leaned over to me while Luka was examining something on a hanger with reluctant interest.

“He has a type,” she said, in a low voice that was mostly unsuccessful at being quiet. “Like. He has a whole aesthetic he actually likes, and he’s embarrassed about it.”

Luka turned around immediately. “Pearl.”

“I’m just saying—”

“You’re saying it very loudly—”

“It’s cozy,” Pearl said to me, ignoring him completely. “Like, e-girl cozy. Oversized soft things, but make it cute. He saw an outfit online last week and spent ten minutes claiming he was just looking at it critically.”

“I was—”

“Saved it.”

“I did not—”

“Lucas.” She looked at him with complete serenity. “I saw the saved folder.”

Luka’s mouth closed.

“There’s a folder,” I ask with a grin.

“There’s a folder,” Pearl confirmed. “It was encrypted, but, hey, who is the better hacker in our relationship?”

“There is not a—it’s not a—” Luka stopped. Exhaled. “It’s called ‘reference material.’”

Pearl and I looked at each other.

“Sure,” I said.

“Absolutely,” Pearl agreed.

Luka turned back to the rack with great dignity and said nothing.

Phèdre vanished and soon reappeared from around the far corner of the shop. She was carrying one item, held lightly over one arm. “Luka,” she said.

He turned.

She held it out.

An oversized soft-knit sweater in a deep dusty mauve, it looked like it would be unreasonably comfortable, with a slightly wide neck that would slip off one shoulder. Paired with what appeared to be matching bike shorts in a complementary charcoal, just visible beneath the sweater’s hem.

Cozy, and somehow still put-together. Pearl inhaled.

“Oh,” Luka said. His face turned red. Not gradually, just immediately, completely red, from his collar to his hairline, the colour rising so fast it was almost impressive.

“Oh,” he said again, quieter.

Phèdre watched this with gentle patience, the item still extended.

“The sweater has a slightly off-the-shoulder fit,” she said helpfully, as if she were simply providing product information. “The fabric is very soft. I checked.”

Luka was staring at it with the expression of a man being handed evidence in a case against himself. Pearl made a sound that was dangerously close to a squeal. “Phèdre.”

“Mm?”

“How did you—”

“I pay attention,” Phèdre said simply, and tilted the hanger slightly toward Luka. “Well, chéri?”

Luka reached out and took it. He didn’t say anything. Just held it, looking down at it, still very red. “Reference material,” I said.

“Shut up, Charlie,” he muttered.

But he was already heading toward the changing room. Pearl turned to Phèdre with undisguised admiration. “I knew I liked you.”

Phèdre smiled. “Évidemment.”

The curtain opened.

We all went quiet.

The sweater had done exactly what Phèdre had predicted. The soft mauve against his silvery-blonde hair. The wide neck sitting off one shoulder, exposing a collarbone and the faint glow of his bracers. The hem falling just long enough that the bike shorts were mostly a suggestion. His ponytail slightly loosened from the change, a few strands escaping around his face.

He looked at himself in the mirror fixed to the changing corridor wall. His face was hard to read, still pink, still embarrassed, but beneath that, he was smiling.

A long pause.

“...Okay,” he said.

Phèdre tilted her head, satisfied. “Très bien.”

“We’re getting it,” Pearl said, her voice only slightly strangled.

Luka looked down at the sweater again.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “We’re getting it.”