Chapter 471: She Said Nothing, Could This Be A Sign?
Everything was blurry for a long time. I fell, and kept falling, for a long time too. In the first stretch of that plunge through the darkness there was only the stinging pain, radiating through every inch of me, and I tried to duck into my Soul Sanctum to escape the cost of feeling it. It was futile.
I could not access my Soul Sanctum.
It was a lot like that Chameleon’s gate, where for some reason I hadn’t been able to enter my Soul Sanctum. Here, I couldn’t either.
And so I was left to swallow the pain whole. But I wasn’t alone.
The darkness rushed past so fast I lost left from right, up from down, every sense of direction stripped away until nothing was left but the falling itself.
But through all of it, one warm thing refused to leave my hand. Fingers clasped tight around mine, and though the speed of the fall should have torn us apart, they stubbornly held. Nothing in that endless black was enough to pry them loose.
The pain went numb eventually. The falling didn’t stop. Somewhere in there I started counting, and I counted to thirty thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven before I lost the thread, then started over and reached twenty thousand before I gave up entirely.
And then I fell, and fell, and somewhere in the falling I slept. When I woke, I was on solid ground.
I looked around with what must have been a dumb shock on my face. Not that I could see my own face, mind you, since everywhere was rich, drowning black, but I could feel the rest of it: ground of some kind beneath me, solid and real.
‘Should’ve slept instead of counting like some kid with savant syndrome…’
I sighed and started to push myself up, and that was when I felt it again — the grip still locked around my hand. With one hand gone and one leg gone, balance was a joke, but I managed to roll over onto whoever it was and came down against hard armor. It shifted under me, almost slick, almost alive.
Even in the dark, I knew her before I saw a thing.
‘Kassie?’
Kassie. She was the one who’d held on through the entire fall. For how many hours? And more than that, she was unconscious.
‘Right. A fall like that, there’s no way the impact shouldn’t have killed me.’
If she was here unconscious and I was still breathing, the answer was pretty obvious, wasn’t it.
‘She saved me…’
Again.
A small smile pulled at my mouth, and I lowered my head onto her chest.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Out of the darkness, two crimson dots opened. But it wasn’t her usual glare. If anything they were dim, and her voice came out tired.
“What else? forting you.”
“How are you supposed to do that by sleeping on me?”
“That’s the exact point, don’t question it, just stay still and enjoy the moment…”
To my surprise, she actually went quiet, just breathing softly, saying nothing.
‘Am I dreaming? Why is she quiet? Wait, did she just listen to me…’
“By the way… if you’re hoping to fort me, shouldn’t this position be the reverse?”
I thought about it for a moment, and realized she had a point.
“Oh… actually, but what are we gonna do… I’m half a pair of arms and legs, and your weight could crush me…”
“I can control my weight.”
“Oh you can… I never knew that.”
“I never thought there was a reason for you to know…”
‘You were slamming me against death’s door and figured there was no reason to mention you had such an ability? Be for real…’
I cleared my throat and rolled off her, settling flat on the ground.
Then she shifted, and she was on my chest, and it was the strangest thing. I could barely feel any weight at all, only the soft press of her against me.
Both of us stayed silent for a long time. After a while I moved my hand, hesitant, up toward her shoulder. It was bare, her skin smooth as porcelain. I rubbed there gently, then drifted to her neck, then threaded my fingers through her hair.
AND SHE SAID NOTHING!!!
‘What is going on? She must be very tired… yea that’s it. She’s tired…’
Was that even it, though? I’d seen Kassie tired before, and tired Kassie still never let me get away with things like this.
On the other hand, it was nice. I liked this. No, I loved this. Everything else in the world felt wrong, cracked straight down the middle, and still, lying there under her in the dark, I was at peace.
For a while the silence held between us, the cold wind of that darkness sweeping over us both.
Then I cut through it.
“By the way, Kassie…”
“Hmph?”
“There’s something I want to apologize for.”
“Do you want to lose your other arm…?”
I shuddered.
“Eh?”
For a moment, I was silent. Eventually I sighed.
“But still, I think I need to do this…”
She said nothing, and just rested on my chest.
After gathering my nerve, I spoke.
“Remember the first… well, the only time we had sex. I think, no… I know I tricked you into it. I wasn’t being genuine, and I feel like I owe you an apology for that. Especially since I’ve grown to depend on you. To appreciate having you in my life. And to love you. You didn’t deserve that.”
Silence for a bit. Then she spoke.
“You… have grown to love me? I treat you like shit.”
I chuckled.
“Yea, you do… maybe, I’m trauma-bonding right now.”
“You want to lose your leg.”
I chuckled again, a little louder this time. Then I sighed.
“But if that’s what it is, then I want to be trauma-bound forever. Yeah, you’re not the best at municating, but I’ve found something precious in whatever this is between us, something that lets me understand you beyond words.”
“You just want to fuck me…”
I shuddered again.
“What?! Gods no! I don’t… I’m just enjoying the moment and being vulnerable.”
‘If I wanted to, I’d be using Summoner’s Touch on you right now!’
She went quiet again. Then she spoke, impassive.
“You did not manipulate me into doing anything, Cade. Whatever I did, I chose to do it.”
“I see…”
“Eh? Wait a minute. So, you wanted me?”
She didn’t say anything after that.
After a while, I asked carefully:
“By the way, Kassie, I’ve been meaning to ask… are you naked?”
“Yes. Why? Do you want to fuck me?”
‘Eh… wow, you’re surprisingly vocal today, Tyrant Empress.’
And strangely enough, I felt like that little boy who’d first stumbled into Ealdrim. Hesitant, shy, timid, and even so, I made myself speak, tripping over the words.
“Will you allow me? Wait, it’s not like I want to or anything, I honestly am not thinking about that. See it as a rhetorical question, okay? Just that.”
She just chuckled. And for some reason that chuckle shut me right up, and set something warm glowing in my chest.
‘Ah shit… dammnit, what’s happening to me.’
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