Ch.37
The light changed before I opened my eyes.
Floor 18 didn't have sunrise. The crystal ceiling shifted its glow from purple to pale blue in a slow gradient that took about an hour, the Dungeon's approximation of dawn filtering through the tent canvas and turning the air inside a soft gray. Hestia was still on my chest. Her arm across me, her face against my collarbone, her breath coming in long even cycles that moved her ribs against my stomach. She'd barely shifted all night. Her hand was still in mine, fingers loosely laced, our joined grip resting between her breasts.
My back was sore from the Dungeon floor. The thin bedroll hadn't been enough padding and there was a knot between my shoulder blades that was going to bother me all day. The scratches on my chest had scabbed over and the skin was tight when I breathed.
Hestia stirred. A small sound, not words, just a noise she made when she was between sleep and awake. Her hips shifted against mine and her bare thigh slid across my leg and the warmth of her moved against me and I was half-hard already from the morning and the contact and her.
She moved again. Her leg hooked over my hip, pulling herself closer, and my cock pressed against the inside of her thigh. She was warm there. Warm and still slick from last night, the residual wetness that hadn't dried, and the contact against bare skin finished what the morning had started. Fully hard in seconds, pressed against her, the heat of her thigh and the slickness making my hips push forward before my brain caught up.
Her eyes opened. Blue, unfocused, still swimming in sleep. Her lashes were crusted faintly at the corners and her hair was a wreck, tangled and matted against one cheek where she'd slept on it. She looked at me from close and didn't say anything.
I shifted my hips. The head of my cock slid along her, through the slick from last night, warm and frictionless, and found the opening. I pressed forward. No resistance. She was so wet from hours ago that the entry was just smooth heat, her body parting around me and taking me in without effort. The stretch of last night was gone. She'd already shaped to me and I slid in and kept sliding until I was halfway inside her and the warmth was everywhere.
Her eyes went half-closed. Her mouth opened on a slow exhale, breath hitting my collarbone. I pushed the rest of the way in and her leg tightened over my hip, pulling, and I bottomed out with a soft grunt I didn't plan.
"Morning," I said.
"Mm."
We lay there. Side by side, her leg hooked over my hip, my hand on her lower back, connected and neither of us moving. Just the warmth and the fullness and her breathing against my collarbone. The angle was shallow. I wasn't as deep as last night's cowgirl. Less concentrated, more spread. My cock pulsed inside her once, involuntary, and she made a small "mm" sound against my skin.
She moved first. A small roll of her hips, barely a thrust, just her body grinding forward and taking me a fraction deeper. I matched it. Slow. Our hips finding a lazy rhythm that was more grinding than thrusting, more pressure than speed. The bedroll creaked faintly under us. Outside, someone was already moving. Boots on crystal grass. The clink of a camp stove being set up.
The wet sound was barely there. A quiet slick noise on each grind, almost inaudible under our breathing, the residual wetness from last night making every movement frictionless. My cum from hours ago and her arousal mixed together, and I slid without any resistance at all, just smooth warmth on every stroke.
Hestia's hand found my chest. Her fingers spread across the scratches she'd left last night, tracing the scabbed lines, and she pressed her palm flat against them. Her eyes were open, watching my face. The pale blue light from outside caught the wet on her lashes.
"Does it hurt?" she whispered.
"A little."
Her thumb traced a scratch from my collarbone down. "Good," she said, and her hips rolled forward and her pussy clenched around me and I exhaled through my teeth. She smiled. The faint, sleepy version of the possessive smile.
The sex was slow enough that my brain stayed online. Camp sounds outside, the clatter of someone arranging cookware on metal. Mikoto, probably. The sounds were close but I didn't care and Hestia didn't either. Her face was soft. Unguarded. Warm and sleepy, watching my face with an expression she probably didn't know she was making.
I pulled her closer with the hand on her lower back. The angle shifted and I sank deeper and she breathed in sharply through her nose, her nails pressing into my chest, into the scratches. The sting mixed with the heat of her and my cock throbbed at the deeper angle, the head pressing against the back of her, and I rocked my hips and she rocked back.
The rhythm was still slow but the depth was different now, hitting further, and her breathing started to change. Deeper pulls through her mouth. Her lips parting. The flush creeping up her neck in the pale light.
"'Nn-'" Quiet. Almost nothing. Her eyes unfocused and her hips pushed forward, grinding her clit against my pelvis, and the slick heat of her was increasing, the wetness building on top of what was already there, the slide getting smoother with each grind.
Her lower lip pulled between her teeth when a particular angle hit right. Her breathing went from deep to shallow, switching to fast pulls through her nose.
Her toes curled against my calf. The same tell from last night, the flex and grip that she didn't know she did. Her fingers spread on my chest and pressed into the scratches and her leg pulled me deeper, held there.
I pressed deep and stayed.
"Bell-" Whispered. Her eyes half-closed and her hips ground against mine in a tight circle and her whole body shuddered. A long, rolling contraction that started in her stomach and traveled down and clenched around me in slow waves. Her mouth open, no sound, her eyes squeezing shut, her body arching against mine in one sustained pulse. Gentler than last night but deeper, longer, her walls squeezing and releasing in waves that ran from base to tip and kept going. Her thigh trembled against my hip. Her fingers curled and uncurled on my chest, pressing into the marks she'd made, pressing harder as each wave rolled through her.
My orgasm hit in the middle of hers. The slow build had been winding for minutes and her body clenching around me pulled me over. My hips pressed forward, holding deep, and the pressure broke. Forehead against hers. Eyes closed. Her walls still pulsing around me, and the warm spread of cum inside her and she shivered when she felt it. A small "'ah-'" against my collarbone. Barely a breath.
We lay still. Breathing. Connected. The crystal light through the canvas was brighter now, the pale blue of Floor 18's morning washing the tent in soft color. My cock softened inside her and neither of us moved. Her heartbeat against my chest, slowing.
"The falna," she murmured.
A warmth on my back. Faint blue glow reflecting off the canvas above us, the hieroglyphs reacting to the excelia spike. It lasted longer this time. Five seconds, six, the light visible through the tent fabric from outside.
Hestia put her face against my chest. "Anyone packing camp just saw that."
"Probably."
"Blue light. Through the tent. At dawn."
"They'll figure it out."
She laughed. Small, muffled against my skin. "I don't care." She kissed one of the scratches. "I don't care at all."
My cock slipped out of her and the warmth followed, leaking between her thighs, and she made the same small unhappy sound from last night and pressed herself against me and didn't move to clean up.
We emerged from the tent twenty minutes later.
Hestia went first, stepping through the flap into the pale blue light of Floor 18's morning. I followed. The air was cooler outside, the Dungeon's approximation of a breeze moving through the crystal tree line, and the warmth of the tent evaporated off my skin in seconds.
The camp was already packed. The tents were down except ours and Hermes's. Welf's bedroll was strapped to his pack. Ouka was loading supplies onto a frame. Chigusa was crouched near the fire, face-mask on, focused on something in her hands.
Mikoto was cooking.
She had a small camp stove set up near the crystal tree and she was working over it with the efficiency of someone who'd done trail cooking her whole life. Rice in one pot, fish in another. The smell hit me from ten feet away and my stomach made a sound I hoped no one heard.
Ryuu was sitting by the lake.
Facing away from the camp. Her hood was up. Her supplies were packed, her twin swords resting across her knees, and she was eating from a small bowl balanced on one thigh. She hadn't turned around when we came out of the tent. Her shoulders were straight and still and her whole body was oriented toward the water.
She knew.
The pause last night. The blue light through the canvas this morning. The tent that smelled like sex when the flap opened. Ryuu's elf senses were sharp enough to catch all of it without trying and she was sitting by the lake facing away from us because looking at us right now was more than she was willing to do.
Lili was sitting near the dead fire. She had her backpack open and she was inventorying supplies with a focus that was surgical and absolute. She didn't look up when we appeared. Her small hands moved through the pack contents, sorting and counting.
"Good morning," Hestia said. Bright. Glowing. She'd pulled her dress on and retied the ribbon but her hair was loose and tangled and she was barefoot.
"Morning, Goddess," Welf said from across the camp. He was sharpening his sword on a whetstone and he glanced up and then down and his ears went slightly red but he kept grinding the blade.
Lili said nothing.
Mikoto turned from the stove. "Good morning, Bell-dono. Goddess Hestia. I have prepared rice and grilled fish. The seasoning is limited but I brought miso from-"
She stopped.
Her eyes had landed on my chest. My collar had shifted when I stretched, the loose shirt pulling open at the neck, and the top of the scratches were visible. Red lines against pale skin, scabbed and raw, running from my collarbone down past where the shirt covered.
Mikoto's face went from its normal color to a shade of red I'd only seen on cooked lobster. Her mouth opened. Closed. Her hand holding the cooking chopsticks went slack and the chopsticks hit the stone with a wooden clatter that echoed off the crystal trees.
"I- the fish- your- I need to check the fish." She turned back to the stove so fast her ponytail whipped around and nearly hit the pot. The fish did not need checking. The fish was fine. Mikoto stared at the fish like it held the secrets of the universe and her ears were crimson.
Hestia sat down near the fire and began eating with both hands. Rice in one, fish in the other, taking bites in alternation with the enthusiasm of someone who'd burned a lot of calories. She was smiling.
I sat down beside her. Mikoto handed me a bowl without looking at me, her arm extended at maximum length, her eyes fixed on the middle distance.
"Thank you, Mikoto."
"It is nothing Bell-dono please eat while it is warm." All one sentence. She turned back to the stove and began aggressively washing a pot that was already clean.
Lili ate in silence. Her chopsticks moved at a precise, measured pace, each bite the same size, and she watched Hestia's hand on my arm.
"Lili," Hestia said. "Would you like more rice?"
"Lili has sufficient rice." Flat.
"The fish is very good. Mikoto is an excellent cook."
"Lili is aware of the quality of the fish."
Hestia's smile didn't waver. She took another bite of rice and leaned against my shoulder and Lili's chopsticks paused before resuming their precise rhythm.
I ate. The rice was good. The fish was better than good. Mikoto had brought proper miso and the flavor reminded me of my old life, where miso was a convenience store purchase and not a supply carried through seventeen floors of a monster-infested labyrinth.
Hermes emerged from his tent. Hat first, then the smile, then the rest of him. He looked across the camp: Hestia glowing against my shoulder, Lili eating in frozen silence, Mikoto scrubbing a clean pot, Ryuu facing the lake alone.
"Good morning, everyone," he said. "What a beautiful dawn."
Nobody answered.
He sat down and accepted rice from Mikoto and ate with his hat tilted at an angle that let him see everything while appearing to look at nothing.
I adjusted my collar. The scratches pulled and I winced and Hermes's eyes tracked the motion and his chopsticks paused mid-bite and he looked at the strip of red visible at my neckline and then at Hestia and then back at his rice.
He took another bite. The smile got wider.
"Ouka," I said. "How long to reach the surface from here?"
Ouka looked up from the pack frame. "Direct route, six hours. If we avoid the crawl spaces on Floors 12 through 14, add two."
"We'll take the direct route. I want to be topside by afternoon."
"Agreed," Ryuu said.
She still hadn't turned around. Her voice came from the lakeside, directed at the water, pitched to carry but not aimed at anyone.
"The monster density on the return trip should be manageable," she continued. "I cleared the path from 17 to this floor last night during patrol. Everything above will be standard spawns."
She'd been clearing monsters. All night. Instead of sleeping. Because she'd volunteered for patrol so she wouldn't be in a tent near ours.
"Thank you, Ryuu," I said.
She stood. Picked up her swords. Turned to face the camp. Her sky-blue eyes passed across the group, across Hestia at my shoulder, across the marks on my chest where my collar had shifted, and they didn't linger. Nothing moved in her face.
"We should leave within the hour," she said. She walked past us toward the trail and didn't look back.
Mikoto watched her go. Then looked at me. Then at the scratches. Then at the ground. Her face was still red.
"Bell-dono."
"Yeah?"
"Your... collar. It is." She gestured vaguely at her own neck. "Perhaps you might adjust."
I pulled the shirt closed. "Thanks, Mikoto."
"It is nothing." She stood, grabbed the clean pot she'd already cleaned, and began cleaning it a third time.
Lili stood. She packed her bowl, packed her chopsticks, packed everything with the efficiency of a woman who was controlling the only variables available to her. She hoisted her oversized backpack onto her small frame and cinched the straps.
"Lili will take point with Ouka-san," she said. "Bell-sama should rest in the middle of the formation."
"I'm fine to take-"
"Bell-sama was clearly very active last night." She said it looking straight at Hestia. "Bell-sama should conserve energy for the return trip."
She turned and walked toward the trail.
Hestia's smile cracked. A flicker of guilt, there and gone, replaced by the stubborn lift of her chin. She squeezed my arm.
"She'll be fine," Hestia said.
"She's furious."
"She's jealous. It's different." She stood and brushed off her dress. "She'll be more jealous if she sees the ones lower down." Her fingers touched my chest, just above the lowest scratch. "You should keep your shirt closed."
She walked toward the trail, barefoot, twin-tails loose.
Mikoto appeared at my elbow. She'd abandoned the pot.
"Bell-dono," she said. Very quietly. "I apologize for my reaction. It was improper. What occurs between you and your goddess is-"
"Mikoto. It's fine."
"I simply was not expecting-" She stopped. Swallowed. "The marks were very... defined."
"They'll heal."
Her eyes dropped to my chest and back up so fast the motion was almost invisible. "They are quite deep. If you require treatment I have a basic medical kit that-"
"Mikoto."
"Yes?"
"I'm fine."
"Yes. Of course. Naturally." She adjusted her katana on her hip, straightened her posture, and walked toward the trail at a pace that was slightly too fast for someone who claimed to be calm.
I stood alone in the dismantled camp. The crystal trees hummed. The lake was flat and pale in the morning light. Ryuu's bowl sat by the water's edge where she'd left it, the rice eaten, the chopsticks placed parallel across the rim.
The scratches on my chest pulled when I bent to pick up my pack.
I shouldered it and followed the group toward the trail.