Fell Champions

Everett tried to stammer out some kind of response, all while picking up the little twig person in his hands. The miniature Ashborne made some kind of cry-”Unhand me!”-but didn’t fight against it. Otter’s eyes narrowed, and she leaned over and pressed the ‘stop’ glyph on the control panel that Everett had shown her previously while explaining the control. Honestly, she’d only memorized the ‘go’ and ‘stop’ buttons, but that seemed to serve her well here.

The ship lurched to a halt, throwing Otter a little off balance, and Everett kept making noises. She grabbed him by the wrist, hauled him to his feet, and dragged him out the door of the pilot compartment and into the passenger section she’d just come from.

“Sami, I need a translator,” Otter said, “because I’m officially too stupid to understand something.”

Everett managed to look very sheepish, and Ashborne absolutely began to spit furious noises upon being drawn into the passenger section.

“Betrayal!” he cried. “You have alerted the enemy to our presence!”

Kir stood upon seeing him, then pulled out a small rock covered in glyphs that was beating a pulse of purple light. She began to draw her sword as she stood, but Sami slapped her hand down on the pommel, forcing it back into its sheath, and in a moment, Sami was back to sitting on top of a struggling Kir on the seat.

“It’s a Mythwalker!” Kir yelled. “We have to kill it!”

Sami smacked Kir on the ass once, hard. Kir went absolutely stiff underneath her, and a noticeable shudder went through her.

“Adults are speaking. Be a good girl and be quiet.”

Kir made an indignant noise, and Sami spanked her again, causing her to make a surprised squeak. Juala giggled at the sight, causing Sami to arch an eyebrow at her, as if saying, ‘Oh? Would you like to be next?’ Juala immediately went quiet.

“Now, what is this about?” Sami said.

Everett gave Otter a scared look. She knew that one. Everett was always scared of getting into trouble, especially with Sami. Usually right alongside Otter herself. It never stopped him from doing silly things in public, but he was always terrified of getting ratted out to the ‘teacher.’ It’d usually been Il-Su doing the ratting in the past.

“Snitch,” Everett muttered.

“What was that?” Sami said.

“Uh, nothing.”

“I thought not.” She rounded on Otter. “And you.”

“Me? What’d I do?”

“You’re the leader. Why are you leaning on me to enforce discipline?”

“Uh, because you’re hot when you go all ‘Mommy?’ Are we still on this? I don’t wanna lead.”

“Tough. Now, pretend for a second that you’re a mature adult and deal with…” She gestured at Everett and Ashborne. “... whatever this is.”

Everett looked grateful that Sami was passing on judgement. And that more than anything irritated Otter, made her want to do it. She was used to not being taken seriously. She was a deeply unserious person. But too many important things were happening, too many people she cared about were in danger.

“Why is Ashborne still alive? And why is he with you?”

The tone in Otter’s voice caught Everett off guard. His shoulders slumped a little, and he held the little twig man out. “I found him. On the island, the one you burned down.”

“Okay, and?”

“Don’t tell her anything!” Ashborne yelled.

“Shut up, Groot. When it’s your turn to talk, you’ll know, because you’ll be treating me with respect or I’ll be throwing you into the nearest bonfire.”

The little tree did a motion that looked like he was puffing up his chest to look bigger, but she glared at him, and he went quiet.

“I…” Everett cradled Ashborne in his hands like he was protecting a stray kitten he’d just found. “I’m not suited to this, Mayumi. This world. All the killing. It’s… it’s been bothering me since we first got here. And I found him, huddling scared in a puddle, waiting for some still smoldering wood around him to stop burning. So I helped him. And he’s been with me ever since.”

“Doing what?”

“Nothing bad. He’s… he’s just a little guy. And he needs someone to look after him. He’s been helping me with my gardening, tending the banana trees. He helps things grow.”

“He tried to eat me!” Vex said, and then looked surprised she’d spoken.

“I did no such thing,” Ashborne said. “Ashborne did that.”

“Wait, what?” Otter said. “Aren’t you Ashborne?”

“Of course I am Ashborne. But I’m not Ashborne.”

“Pinus contorta,” Sami said, nodding to herself, as if that explained everything.

“What does that mean?” Juala asked.

“Give her a moment. She’s forgotten yet again not everyone is as deep on the spectrum as she is,” Otter said.

Sami sighed. “It’s a tree. It releases cones sealed by resin, which melt away after being exposed to fire. It’s how they reproduce. They’re literally the tree equivalent of a phoenix. They’re honestly quite beautiful. This isn’t the original Ashborne. It’s his kid.”

“See? She’s autistic as hell, but we love her for it and not in spite of it. Is this true, Junior?”

Ashborn folded the small branches that made up its arms. “The analogy is crude, and somewhat inaccurate, but it’s close. The original Ashborne also had to sacrifice a significant amount of his own soul power to make you think he was dead, giving me the chance at life I have. If you knaves insist on trying to fight me, I will defend myself!”

Otter leaned forward and booped Ashborne. “You’re cute. We’re not gonna fight you. Probably. Why’d your dad - mom? - try to eat Vex?”

“My parent did not wish to ‘eat’ her. Ashborne was sick, poisoned by the enemy.”

“What enemy?”

“The ones in metal suits, with others that rode on large, flightless birds.”

“The Criobani,” Vex said.

“Huh. Why would the Criobani do that?”

“Ashborne makes plants grow very quickly throughout the Islands,” Juala said. “They must’ve been trying to destroy our agriculture as they retreated during the Occupation. Fucking storytelling shits.”

“And the Silayans did nothing to protect my parent!” Ashborne cried. “The agreement was broken! And then he was killed by you!”

The little tree pointed directly at Otter, and then seemed to think about it, and also pointed a branch-like arm at Vex.

“We couldn’t protect you,” Juala said. “We couldn’t even protect ourselves. We had to get help from the Mikovians, of all things. They diseased us, too. The Faceless Oppressor killed most of our pelanoa. And the amount of our people they put to the sword or tried to enslave… we didn’t even know they’d tried to do anything to you, until you or your parent or whatever got all prissy and wouldn’t let us on your island anymore.”

“Excuses! I trust none of you anymore. Except this one.” He gestured at Everett. “He is a Sungrifter. The Dreamers trusted him with the power of light itself. And he came to my rescue when I needed it. It is a sign! This one has my trust, and no one else.”

“You trust Everett because he feeds you light,” Otter said blandly.

“Because the Dreamers trusted him to feed me light!”

“Of course. Are you going to be a problem?”

“Why would I be? Just leave me alone, and I’ll leave you alone. I have no intention of harming any of you. But I also have no intention of helping any of you either.”

“Fine. Whatever. Sami, get off Kir.” When she complied, Otter said, “Kir, this isn’t an order or anything, but… just leave Ashborne alone. Him being alive is keeping Silayan agriculture going. If you kill him, you’re going to do probably just as much harm to the Silayans as the Criobani did total. So, yeah. Don’t do that.”

Kir looked annoyed, but nodded. “The Silayans need to distance themselves from that thing. Mythwalkers always turn. Always. But I won’t act against it.”

“Great. Try it again, and Sami will spank you again.” Kir blushed, and glanced nervously at Sami, fidgeting in her seat. “Or maybe I should say, leave Ashborne alone, and she’ll spank you again. You really do have a pain kink, don’t you?”

“No.” The word came out very small.

“You know, just because Rua isn’t here doesn’t mean we don’t know when you’re lying. Because holy shit that was a bad lie.” Otter turned Everett. “Put us back on course. And no more secrets. That goes for everyone. If anyone has anything they need to get off their chests now, please, do so, or by Sun Wukong’s sodomizing pole, I will throw the next person who has a sudden revelation into the ocean.”

“Spoken like a true Silayan. For a change,” Juala said.

Everett excused himself, giving a small apology and smile as he did so, Ashborne climbing from his hands to his shoulder. Otter didn’t feel like joining him, but there was nowhere to really sit in the passenger compartment with it already being at capacity.

“I can stand, dad,” Vex said.

“No, it’s fine.”

“Oh, for the love of…” Juala muttered. “You were so close. So close to actually being a leader. Give a command, take what you want, do something.”

Otter rounded on her. “Okay, fine. Stand up. I’m taking your seat, and you go without until you stop giving me attitude and earn your seat back.”

Juala gave her a pleased smile, which was somehow even more annoying than any further lip, and stood, giving a mocking bow. Otter sat down, and then after thinking about it for a second, pulled Juala down onto her lap. Juala squawked, and went rigid.

“What are you–”

“Quiet,” Otter hissed. “You’re an absolute brat. And I think you’ve needed someone to tame you for a while now. You want me to take what I want? Okay, fine. What I want right now is for you to sit in my lap and be a good girl.”

Juala went still, not making a noise, sitting stiffly. Some part of Otter - some angry, annoyed part that felt extremely foreign to her and was probably stupid Silayan hormones - felt very pleased at having Juala obey her. It wanted to push the boundaries further. To see how far she could go.

“You swore yourself to me. So, are you going to obey?”

“Within… within reason. I’m not following anything that sounds fabled.”

Otter ran a finger along Juala’s thigh, and the normally proud warrior squeaked. “Any order?”

“I… I…”

Juala began blushing, and Vex started looking anywhere except directly at the two of them, while also peeking when she thought no one would notice.

Kir let out a laugh. “Oh, now that she’s the one being chased, she doesn’t know what to do. Poor little Juala, not used to being on the receiving end, are you?”

Juala, her face aflame, spat, “You shut up.”

“I’m not from here,” Otter admitted. “From this world. I’m from a place called Earth.”

Otter recounted the whole story. Kir evidently already knew it from Il-Su, but it was all new to Juala. She explained the concept of video games, of Grey Gear which you could wear that allowed your mind to be transported into a virtual world built by others, to either pursue adventure or watch others do so, and how it’d only take mere moments in the real world but feel like weeks or months or even years had passed.

“There are no pelanoa where I come from. Well, not with the way Silayans do it. It’s complicated. Intersex people exist, and there’s also surgeries and procedures, but it’s not like what you have. I’m a woman from where I’m from. And now I’m suddenly pelanoa, dealing with this cock-” She shifted in her seat as she said it, she could feel it threatening to emerge from her body. “-dealing with these hormones. It’s all so different. My body’s different. The culture’s very different, too. We’re not used to just pinning people down and fucking them in public. We have whole courtship rituals and the like.”

“Like the Mikovians,” Juala said. “Or the Cribs. Or any of the others except maybe the Nguarians.”

“So, I’m gonna need some enthusiastic consent in a second. Because you are a brat desperately in need of some kind of taming, and I think you’re down for it, but I need a yes or a no.”

Juala made a frustrated sound. “Just… just take what you want. That’s how things work here. If I don’t want to go along with it, I’ll let you know.”

Otter pinched Juala’s thigh. “Not good enough, brat. I need you to verbalize it for me. Tell me you want it.”

There was a pause, and then, in a very quiet voice, Juala said, “Yes.”