Echoes Of The Seven

Eris wrung her hands together. The cool night air was sending a chill over her skin, but she wasn’t entirely sure whether the goosebumps were caused by the temperature or the knowledge of what she was setting out to do. It didn’t matter that the thought excited her far more than she was willing to admit- doing this kind of thing was venturing into territory that Eris hadn’t even considered yet.

Having sex with Jaxie was one thing. Having sex with Alex was another. Having sex with Bailey was definitely leaning in a funky direction, but actively seeking out someone completely random just to prove that she didn’t need help to be a slut? Eris’s cheeks were burning as she stepped inside dorm building number one, then knocked on the first door on the left- room 0101.

A moment of muffled shuffling passed before the door opened and a shirtless boy with tired eyes looked curiously at Eris. A moment of tense silence passed before Eris gulped.

“Err- wrong room. Sorry.”

He shrugged, said nothing, and closed the door with a soft ‘click’. Eris sighed and tried to ease her racing heart. Immediately, a problem presented itself- she would have to knock on doors until a girl opened it, and that wasn’t even accounting for the chance that the girl in question would be interested. Either a lesbian female or a straight futa would give Eris her perfect opportunity, but even then, she’d have to have a roommate willing to let everything happen. Overall, chances were low.

This challenge to have sex with a random person certainly wasn’t being made any easier by the time. A little after ten in the evening, the night before the Obelisk opened to all the new first-year students? There was more than a high chance that if Eris didn’t manage to find a partner in the next half-hour or so, she wouldn’t find one at all. Eris gulped and shifted to the next door down. It opened shortly after she knocked, revealing a blonde girl with an expression that was a little bit curious, but mostly annoyed.

“Uh, hi. I- umm… you’re really pretty, and I was wondering if you would like to… you know? With me?”

The girl blinked multiple times, slowly and judgmentally.

“I have a boyfriend. Boy friend.”

“I- err… sorry for bothering you.” Eris turned and walked away before the girl even closed the door. When it shut, Eris was leaning her forehead against the wall of the hallway. She spent several moments in silent contemplation.

I can do this. There’s no problem with this. It’s just a bit of casual fun- nothing more than stress relief. Stop being such a baby!

Of course, everyone is going to see you as a slut, and you will be the second most judged person in the school right behind Bailey.

Get it together, Eris! Eventually, everyone’s going to have to know that you’re an Artificer of Lust, and you’ll need to be the most publicly whorish person on the planet in order to do your job and help get rid of the Hollow. Whether or not you like it doesn’t matter. You have a job to do, and no job is worth doing if you aren’t going to do it properly. Screw everyone else, and screw what people think about you. Get. This. Done.

When the door to room 0103 opened after Eris’s knock, she was greeted by a shorter-but-still-taller-than-Eris girl with long black hair that was still wet from a recent shower. Eris took a quick look over her features. Pale skin, a light pattern of freckles across her cheeks, soft and tired-looking eyes the colour of dark coffee, and a facial shape that was a bit more angular showing heritage from the southern regions of Kelopa. Overall, quite attractive, and more than pleasing enough to the eye considering Eris’s goals for this interaction. Her oversized sleepwear all but completely hid her body from Eris’s appraisal, but the odds of finding a person who wasn’t in perfect shape in the Syndicate’s military school would have been similar to finding a whale with legs and a penchant for reciting limericks. Eris forced the growing anxieties rising in her throat to recede and allow room for seduction.

…Nothing.

“Hello?” The girl raised an eyebrow at Eris, who scrambled internally. Over the girl’s shoulder, she could see another figure sitting up in one of the beds. This too was a girl, but this one’s hair was short and the same shade of chestnut brown as her eyes. Rounder in her cheeks like she hadn’t completely outgrown her baby fat, but by no means did that make her unattractive.

Do something. Literally anything. Don’t just stand there. Wait, what are you doing-?

Eris felt her cheeks turning a shade of scarlet as her hands went to the hem of her shirt, grabbed tight, and lifted until her knuckles were rubbing her cheeks. Most of her face was covered, but her eyes could peek over her shirt and watch as both the girl in the doorway and the one sitting in the bed stared with wide eyes at the redhead flashing her bare breasts. After a few seconds of silence, Eris let her shirt drop while the girl in the doorway grinned.

“Well hello to you too. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Eris coughed, nearly choking on her apprehensions. It took every measure to shackle them down, nudge her way past the girl and into the room, then stare at both girls who looked on curiously at the random person who flashed them, then walked inside uninvited. She hesitated for only a moment before Eris grabbed her shirt again and lifted- this time taking it all the way off. It was joined on the ground by Eris’s shoes as she kicked them free, followed shortly by her pants until Eris was completely naked in the middle of a stranger’s room. She fought the blush rising on her face, then made direct eye contact with both of the girls- one after the other- before letting an embarrassed smile form on her face.

“So, which one of you wants me first?”

Yenni dragged the comb through wet knots, gritting her teeth as she worked to straighten the mess atop her head before patting down the strands with a towel held in her other hand. Black hair eventually gave way, letting it be at least pseudo-dried before she pulled on a baggy sweatshirt and pants of an identical quality. The rest of the dorm wasn’t cold per-sae, but it still made a shiver run down her moistened skin when compared to the deep humidity of a post-shower washroom. She tossed a glance to Amber, who was sitting against the headboard of her bed with a book clutched in her fingers.

“Did you reach a stopping point, or do you want the light on a little bit longer?”

Amber glanced up, huffed disgruntledly, then slid her bookmark in between the pages and set the book on the nightstand. Yenni rolled her eyes. “Alright, I guess that gives me my answer. On the plus side, I don’t need to ask if you’re still mad at me.”

As the room went dim and shadowed from Yenni pressing her thumb into the rune on the wall, she heard Amber’s voice coming from the silhouette in the other bed as Yenni started to climb into her own bed.

“Of course I’m still mad! Are you kidding me?”

“Hey, you never know.”

Amber’s silhouette rolled over to look in Yenni’s direction. “I was mad at you for the entire time we waited at the station. I was still mad during the hour-long monorail ride back from the capital. What makes you possibly think that I decided everything was okay in the fifteen minutes you spent showering?”

“I dunno, maybe you had a change of heart.”

Though Yenni couldn’t see much of Amber’s expression, the sheer annoyance on the brunette’s face was somehow still the clearest thing in the room.

“A change of heart? You dumped a bottle of ketchup all over my boyfriend.”

“Ex- boyfriend,” Yenni corrected. “And I only did it because he dumped you right in the middle of the restaurant.”

“That doesn’t make it an appropriate response!”

“The old lady in the corner wouldn’t say so. She started cheering.”

Amber let out a loud, angry sigh. “Can you please shut up? For once, please.”

“Are you sure? If I stop giving you a reason to be mad at me, you might realise that you’re actually mad at yourself.”

“Mad at myself? What kind of bullshit is that?”

“Well, since you asked so nicely…”

Yenni stood up, walked back over towards the door and pressed the rune lightly. Immediately, the room illuminated from the crystals in the ceiling. Not full power- just enough to give everything a soft, candlelit feel. Amber groaned and rolled over to face away from Yenni who returned to her seat in her bed.

“Simple. You’re not upset with me.”

“I’m definitely upset with you,” came the muffled reply as Amber buried her face into her pillow. Yenni shook her head.

“Nope. You’re upset because every single relationship you’ve had with a guy ends up dead on arrival. All of them say the exact same thing- that it didn’t feel like you were putting in the effort. You’re mad because you know they’re right, and that the reason your relationships don’t last is because of you.”

Amber glared angrily over her shoulder. “Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

“Actually, yeah.”

She rolled her eyes and returned to looking away. “I’m begging you- please, shut the fuck up.”

Yenni let out a sigh. “Maybe the reason you find it so hard to connect with a guy is because you aren’t as gay as you think you are.”

A moment of silence passed. After several seconds, Amber rolled over with a death-stare. “Excuse me?” Yenni held up her hands defensively.

“Hey, just spitting ideas here. You’ve been hard-gay since you were a kid, right? You’ve only ever tried playing on the boy’s team. Well, if you’ve only ever been with guys, then you don’t actually know for sure if you’re gay. Like only eating strawberry ice cream and saying it’s your favourite without ever trying other flavours.”

“You can’t be serious…”

Yenni chuckled. “All I’m saying is that maybe you could try hooking up with another futa. It doesn’t even have to be anything serious- just a one-night-stand or something. Fuck, maybe even just a kiss. Give it a shot and see if there’s even a chance that you’re bisexual. Even if you aren’t, it could give you the confidence to know that you really are just into guys and you’ll try harder in your relationships.”

“You’re a bitch.”

“Hey, they’re the ones that said you weren’t putting in effort, not me. Give this a shot and you might just find what you’ve been looking for to give you that little kick in the ass and get your butt moving.”

Amber remained wordless for a while before letting out a quiet; “Not with you.” Yenni chuckled.

“Did I mention myself? I mean, I’ll extend the offer if you want to take it, but that’s up to you.”

The brunette’s eyes quickly scanned over Yenni- but not quite fast enough to keep the black-haired girl from noticing. Amber frowned, huffed, then rolled onto her back while pressing her face into her palms.

“I don’t know, okay! Like sure- you’re objectively attractive. But we’ve been roommates and party members for two years. If we do this, it’ll make things way too weird.”

Yenni leaned back on her hands. “Like I said, we don’t have to if you don’t want to. Tomorrow, why don’t you go find a futa and see if you two don’t hit it off? After that, you can probably go for a female and make sure you figure everything out. You might even be tri-sexual. Have you ever looked at a female in that kind of way before?”

“...I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Well, that’s something you can check. Maybe you can go and head over to the freeuse room to try out some straight sex and see if it’s your style. Actually, if you’re lucky, she might have an open-minded futa over and you can have a threesome. See both other sides at once kind of thing, you know?”

Amber pulled her hands from her face and looked at Yenni with anxious eyes. “Ugh, this is so weird!”

“If it helps, I’ve got whiskey in my closet. A shot or two might calm the nerves if you try to get a hookup tomorrow.”

At that, a knock on the door sounded through the room. Yenni raised a brow and turned to look at the closed door. She glanced at Amber, shrugged, then stood to answer. Meanwhile, Amber focused her attention on the ceiling.

“Hello?” Yenni asked to silence. After several seconds without a response, Amber furrowed her brow and sat up to look at who could possibly have been knocking this late. A girl with an extremely anxious expression and red cheeks wearing a casual shirt and jeans was standing there, but her hair caught the most attention. It was short, barely hanging to her ears, and so bright red that it had to have been dyed. Amber could only look quizzically at her for about two seconds before the girl suddenly grabbed her shirt and yanked it to her nose. She wasn’t wearing a bra- a fact made evident by the perfectly rounded breasts pointing into the room and the twinkling in emerald-green eyes peeking over the hem of her shirt.

Amber stared with a dry mouth until the girl eventually lowered her shirt back into position. She heard Yenni chuckle.

“Well hello to you too. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

The girl didn’t respond, instead staring at both of them with a red face. Then, surprisingly, she moved forward. She nudged her way past Yenni in the door, walked directly into the middle of the room, and to Amber’s jaw-dropping surprise, started stripping. Nary a moment passed before the only thing she had on were socks. Amber could see every inch of the short girl- a fiery scalp, smooth stomach, slightly wider hips, pelvic stubble of a growing bush, and long, lithe legs without a single imperfection that Amber could find. Objectively, she was one of the most attractive females that Amber had ever seen, and she found her eyes wandering far more than they should be. She liked guys! Why was Amber staring at this random girl’s boobs?

The random girl in question then gave an anxious smile, awkwardly wrung her hands together, looked at both Yenni and Amber, then gave a weak;

“So, which one of you wants me first?”

Amber could only look over at Yenni with wide eyes as the black-haired girl moved to sit beside her. As if sensing the question, Yenni laughed.

“Before you ask, no. I didn’t set this up. That’s a pretty creepy coincidence though.”

The unnamed girl paused. “W-what?”

“Oh, nothing for you to worry about. Amber here was right in the middle of considering the option of switching sides for a day, if you understand what I mean.”

Amber coughed. “That’s not- I… It was a hypothetical conversation!”

Yenni chuckled and wrapped an arm over Amber’s shoulders. “It doesn’t have to be. I mean, the opportunity to give it a shot literally just walked in our dorm, stripped naked, and asked us ‘Who’s first?’ I think that’s a pretty damn good chance to test the waters. Wait-” She turned to the redhead.

“This isn’t some kind of joke, right? You’re actually trying to fuck?”

The redhead gave an embarrassed, smiling nod. Yenni furrowed her brow. “Who sent you? Was it Arlin? I bet he got a kick out of the thought.”

“No- nobody sent me. I’m just… here for me.”

That made both girls raise their eyebrows, but Amber was the one who spoke. “You’re asking us to have sex with you… because you want to? Why us? We have no idea who you are.”

The girl hesitated. “I was knocking on random doors.”

After an awkward silence, Yenni let out a loud laugh. “Well then. You were thinking about trying a different side and one of those sides is knocking on doors and looking for sex. I think the universe is trying to tell you something.”

Amber glared. “I thought I was going to try with a futa, first.”

A moment passed before Yenni gave a shrug. “I’m here too. Unless that’s still too weird, of course.”

The naked girl stared confusedly between the two other girls, obviously trying to resist covering her own nudity in the quiet. Eventually, Amber let out a loud sigh, stood, and walked over to Yenni’s closet. A moment of searching led to the retrieval of a bottle with yellowed-brown liquid that burned the throat as she uncorked it and took several large swigs. She let the bottle hang down at her side, then stared at the other two girls in the room with a sigh.

“Fuck it.”