[Luna POV]
After a spending the rest of that night kissing Tamamo, we were now sitting shoulder to shoulder and leaning our heads on one another while watching the sunrise. We had moved away from the hot spring at some point and were sitting on a small plateau near the peak of the mountain.
“Sights like this are some of the best things. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing them.”
{Sorry to burst your bubble, but you probably will one day.}
“That just means we need to look for or make better ones at that time. We’re both creative people, so who knows what we’ll come up with.”
{Ufufufu. True.}
Tamamo then snuggled closer to me.
{*Sigh* View aside, I think this is one of my favorite things, being next to you. I just feel complete.}
“I feel the same. Like a gap in my being is filled when you are next to me. It’s such an addicting feeling.”
{Yeah.}
Tamamo looked into my eyes once more before bringing her lips to mine once more. This kiss, however, was different from the ones we traded all night. This one was filled with all of her love and affection towards me. It transferred a feeling of warmth directly into my heart and soul. Feeling I had to do the same, I kissed her back with the same feelings as well as my feeling of longing to always be by her side. When we both conveyed what we wanted to, we separated our lips and then we both quietly laughed.
“Fufu.”
{Ufufu.}
We turned back to look at the sunrise in a nice silence. Some part of me wished this moment would last forever, but I knew it couldn’t, at least not yet. Once the sun was risen enough, we both stood up. I hugged Tamamo tightly and she did the same. When we let each other go, we backed away to almost an arm’s length away while still holding hands.
“As unfortunate as it is, I think I should get back to the others. Who knows what kind of trouble they are getting up to without me.”
{Ufufufu. Are you sure that’s right? Aren’t you the one that usually causes or finds the trouble?}
“I’m sure they enjoy it as much as I do. If they didn’t, one of them would say something.”
{Ufufufufufufu.}
“Did I ever tell you that I love the way you laugh? It sounds so pleasant on my ears that it makes me want to hear you do it all the time.”
{I could say the same about you. Now, as reluctant as I am, we should stop stalling. You know I’m just a domain away, so pop one up whenever you need me…Within reason.}
“Tch.”
{Ufufufufufufu.}
While laughing with a smile on her face, Tamamo was surrounded by light and disappeared leaving me alone on the mountain peak. I turned toward the sun again and took a deep breath.
“Alright. Time to go, me.”
I took one more deep breath and then teleported to where I left the others. When I got there it took my eyes a second to adjust to the dark of the cave and my night vision to activate. When I looked around, all I saw was a sea of orc and troll corpses in various states of not alive. Some were cut up, some were torched, some were in one piece, but still dead. In another place that I could see from where I was standing was what could only be considered a forest of frozen statues.
“Damn. Give me snake hair and call me ice Medusa. I went wild down here.” (Luna)
“Do you not remember what you did?” (Velvet)
“No, I remember it all clearly, but it’s still a sight to see when I’m actually calm and thinking about as rationally as I normally do.” (Luna)
“Makes sense. Now, follow me. The others are already in the abandoned city and exploring.” (Velvet)
“Why aren’t you with them?” (Luna)
“Someone needed to lead you to the others, and I was the one that ended up with that job.” (Velvet)
“You need to get better at rock, paper, scissors.” (Luna)
“We actually chose with a game of chess.” (Velvet)
“So basically, you volunteered for this job.” (Luna)
“Hey! I may be bad at chess, but I’m still better than you are.” (Velvet)
“Yes, but I wasn’t here to play with all of you, so my point remains valid.” (Luna)
“…Anyway, I also wanted to talk to you.” (Velvet)
“Let’s walk and talk.” (Luna)
“Yeah.” (Velvet)
We started making our way towards the abandoned city while moving around the corpse mountains and orc bits that were scattered everywhere.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” (Luna)
“I wanted to thank you. About the whole bringing me and Soleil to the floating island so we could talk to my dad. I know this is really delayed, but still, thanks.” (Velvet)
“You know you don’t need to thank me. It’s not like it was that big a deal to bring you there, though I do wish I was there to see his reaction to all the news that you gave him.” (Luna)
“It was pretty funny.” (Velvet)
“I bet. But enough of that. Did you guys find anything in the city while I was away?” (Luna)
“We didn’t really look around all that much yet. The most we did was find a clean enough building to sleep in. Also, we’re going to need you to translate a lot of stuff. Skadi is doing what she can, but, according to her, she’s rusty with old dwarfish text.” (Velvet)
“Fine by me. Also, are we going to leave all of these orc corpses?” (Luna)
“I mean, you can collect them if you want. It’ll just add to your already large stock of orc meat, so I doubt we’ll ever get to butchering them any time soon.” (Velvet)
“You should know me by now, Velvet. Enough ingredients are never enough. When you think you don’t need any more, then that means you are running low.” (Luna)
“Hehehe. Well, you are the one with the space magic and inventory skill.” (Velvet)
“I’ll get to it then.” (Luna)
I snapped my fingers and a domain spread over the cavern and immediately closed it. When it was gone, so were all the orc corpses. I checked the inventory list in my head to make sure everything was accounted for and nodded.
“You know, one of these days, I should organize my inventory.” (Luna)
“Make a list of everything in there when you do so that we can see what exactly is in there. I’ve been curious about this for a while, but never wanted to bring it up since I don’t know if my remaining sanity could handle it.” (Velvet)
“Ah, then I definitely need to do that. We can’t have anyone with sanity in this party. It’ll hold us back at some point.” (Luna)
We bantered more about this and that before coming up to the walls of the abandoned city. They were quite tall, and further inside I could see a tall tower. It was a very spiky tower that reminded me of a certain book and movie trilogy.
“Guess I know the first place I’m looking in when I get inside. I wonder if I’ll find some magic crystal ball in the tower. Shame we’re so strong though, since I kinda want to make an epic escape from a mad wizard from the top of the tower on the back of a massive eagle. But in reality, any one of us would be able to just punt him off the top of the tower. Especially Soleil.” (Luna)
“Honestly, I was expecting more of a, “I’m gonna take this entire city for my own,” situation.” (Velvet)
“While I’d love to do that, I also feel that it would be kind of illegal to do that. I mean, this place is technically still a part of the Dwarf Country, so if I commandeered this city, it might count as an invasion.” (Luna)
“Huh. I never thought of it that way. I mean sure, it’s an abandoned city, but a part of the country all the same.” (Velvet)
“That doesn’t mean I won’t take some parts of it and then blame the passage of time for them missing, but the entire city, no.” (Luna)
“You’re taking the tower, aren’t you?” (Velvet)
“I am totally taking the tower. I’ll add it next to my pyramid on my floating island. That way I’ll have an ancient pyramid, a mansion, Isengard, and a Lunar Sakura in my flying Hanging Gardens of Babylon. I think the only thing that I’d be missing after that is some kind of large colosseum or something. Well, that and maybe a temple. I think Tamamo has one somewhere in her place, but I’m not completely sure.” (Luna)
“Speaking of, will you get your own place in the Divine Domain, or will you just show up in Lady Tamamo’s place when you ascend?” (Velvet)
“While we’re not completely sure, I think I’ll end up with my own place that I can then merge with Tamamo’s. Of course, if I just appear in Tamamo’s place then it won’t really change anything, but if I end up with my own, I won’t not be happy about it. Who can say no to a larger living area?” (Luna)
“Nobles that don’t want to take care of all of it. Sure, even then their vassals take care of the land, but the bigger the land, the more responsibilities that come with it. Though I guess it’s probably different when gods are concerned.” (Velvet)
“A fair and reasonable argument. I am glad I attended this Velvet Talk.” (Luna)
Velvet just tilted her head in question at my joke before shaking her head and moving on with the conversation. We had finally reached the gate of the wall and when we went inside, I was impressed. The city was vast, with a lot of large buildings. They were all made of the same stone as the rest of the place, but they were in pristine condition for somewhere abandoned.
“Remember Luna, only the tower. The tower is all that matters.” (Luna)
“Hehehe.” (Velvet)
“This is no laughing matter, Velvet. I’m really considering taking everything now.” (Luna)
“I’ll make the decision easy for you then. This is just the place between the inner and outer walls. If you take only the inner wall and tower but leave the outer wall and other buildings, then I doubt anyone that comes to reclaim this city will miss them.” (Velvet)
“Velvet, when did you start thinking like me? I thought you’d try to stop me from taking any more than just the tower.” (Luna)
“Like you said earlier, sanity has no place in this party. Plus, I wanted to play along with you instead of calling you out on your actions this time. And by the way, I can see why you like this way of thinking so much.” (Velvet)
“Ah. I’m so proud of you. It seems my Velvet is finally starting to fully join the fluff side.” (Luna)
“Don’t you mean dark side?” (Velvet)
“No, you were kind of born on that side and fully integrated yourself into it when you first gave in about not caring about common sense.” (Luna)
“I see…Now, let’s find the others. Last I saw any of them, they were all near the inner wall in what we think was an inn.” (Velvet)
“Let’s go. Everyone else and my tower awaits.” (Luna)
Chaos Realm:
Atmos: So Crisis's daughter Evelyn has Negativity, Illusions, and Blood as Authorities and your daughter, Astraea, has Balance, Positivity, and one unknown Authority. Am I missing anything?
Nope.
Atmos: You seem to be taking the whole Fated One thing in stride now.
Order: He really isn't, but he's trying.
I can't help it, OK. My daughter is only a few days old, and she already has a wife in a sense. How would you feel if you had a child and then someone comes along that they will love more than you before they even really get to know you?
Atmos: ...
Order: Payto, go take a nap.
I-
Order: Go. Take. A. Nap.
Yes Order.
Order: Good. Even gods need to sleep sometimes and you've had I don't know how many cups of coffee over the past few days that you are going kind of crazy.
See you later then.
Atmos: You handled that well.
Order: Obviously. Though what I don't get is why he is the one that's acting all crazy about this.
Atmos: Well, he is way older than all of us put together and for most of that time he was most likely alone, so now that he has a family that he has probably wanted for the longest time, he might want to just spend a few millennia without outside interruptions, but this situation is kinda throwing off his whole vision of how he wanted this to go.
Order: Hmm. While that makes sense, he still needs to calm down. I'll make sure to talk things through with him when he gets up.
Atmos: You should. As the one with more relationship experience, the two of you need to talk about stuff like this. I'll even do you the favor of babysitting Astraea while you two talk.
Order: Thanks.
Atmos: Anytime.
Author's Message:
Hello everyone, Paytoechip here, and all I wanted to say in this part is: Have a Merry Christmas and happy New Year. If you don't celebrate Christmas, then still, have a happy holiday season, I wish you all the best, and I look forward to continuing this journey of fluff now and into the future. May you all be assimilated into the Abyss of Fluff along with me.
[Luna POV]
After a spending the rest of that night kissing Tamamo, we were now sitting shoulder to shoulder and leaning our heads on one another while watching the sunrise. We had moved away from the hot spring at some point and were sitting on a small plateau near the peak of the mountain.
“Sights like this are some of the best things. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing them.”
{Sorry to burst your bubble, but you probably will one day.}
“That just means we need to look for or make better ones at that time. We’re both creative people, so who knows what we’ll come up with.”
{Ufufufu. True.}
Tamamo then snuggled closer to me.
{*Sigh* View aside, I think this is one of my favorite things, being next to you. I just feel complete.}
“I feel the same. Like a gap in my being is filled when you are next to me. It’s such an addicting feeling.”
{Yeah.}
Tamamo looked into my eyes once more before bringing her lips to mine once more. This kiss, however, was different from the ones we traded all night. This one was filled with all of her love and affection towards me. It transferred a feeling of warmth directly into my heart and soul. Feeling I had to do the same, I kissed her back with the same feelings as well as my feeling of longing to always be by her side. When we both conveyed what we wanted to, we separated our lips and then we both quietly laughed.
“Fufu.”
{Ufufu.}
We turned back to look at the sunrise in a nice silence. Some part of me wished this moment would last forever, but I knew it couldn’t, at least not yet. Once the sun was risen enough, we both stood up. I hugged Tamamo tightly and she did the same. When we let each other go, we backed away to almost an arm’s length away while still holding hands.
“As unfortunate as it is, I think I should get back to the others. Who knows what kind of trouble they are getting up to without me.”
{Ufufufu. Are you sure that’s right? Aren’t you the one that usually causes or finds the trouble?}
“I’m sure they enjoy it as much as I do. If they didn’t, one of them would say something.”
{Ufufufufufufu.}
“Did I ever tell you that I love the way you laugh? It sounds so pleasant on my ears that it makes me want to hear you do it all the time.”
{I could say the same about you. Now, as reluctant as I am, we should stop stalling. You know I’m just a domain away, so pop one up whenever you need me…Within reason.}
“Tch.”
{Ufufufufufufu.}
While laughing with a smile on her face, Tamamo was surrounded by light and disappeared leaving me alone on the mountain peak. I turned toward the sun again and took a deep breath.
“Alright. Time to go, me.”
I took one more deep breath and then teleported to where I left the others. When I got there it took my eyes a second to adjust to the dark of the cave and my night vision to activate. When I looked around, all I saw was a sea of orc and troll corpses in various states of not alive. Some were cut up, some were torched, some were in one piece, but still dead. In another place that I could see from where I was standing was what could only be considered a forest of frozen statues.
“Damn. Give me snake hair and call me ice Medusa. I went wild down here.” (Luna)
“Do you not remember what you did?” (Velvet)
“No, I remember it all clearly, but it’s still a sight to see when I’m actually calm and thinking about as rationally as I normally do.” (Luna)
“Makes sense. Now, follow me. The others are already in the abandoned city and exploring.” (Velvet)
“Why aren’t you with them?” (Luna)
“Someone needed to lead you to the others, and I was the one that ended up with that job.” (Velvet)
“You need to get better at rock, paper, scissors.” (Luna)
“We actually chose with a game of chess.” (Velvet)
“So basically, you volunteered for this job.” (Luna)
“Hey! I may be bad at chess, but I’m still better than you are.” (Velvet)
“Yes, but I wasn’t here to play with all of you, so my point remains valid.” (Luna)
“…Anyway, I also wanted to talk to you.” (Velvet)
“Let’s walk and talk.” (Luna)
“Yeah.” (Velvet)
We started making our way towards the abandoned city while moving around the corpse mountains and orc bits that were scattered everywhere.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” (Luna)
“I wanted to thank you. About the whole bringing me and Soleil to the floating island so we could talk to my dad. I know this is really delayed, but still, thanks.” (Velvet)
“You know you don’t need to thank me. It’s not like it was that big a deal to bring you there, though I do wish I was there to see his reaction to all the news that you gave him.” (Luna)
“It was pretty funny.” (Velvet)
“I bet. But enough of that. Did you guys find anything in the city while I was away?” (Luna)
“We didn’t really look around all that much yet. The most we did was find a clean enough building to sleep in. Also, we’re going to need you to translate a lot of stuff. Skadi is doing what she can, but, according to her, she’s rusty with old dwarfish text.” (Velvet)
“Fine by me. Also, are we going to leave all of these orc corpses?” (Luna)
“I mean, you can collect them if you want. It’ll just add to your already large stock of orc meat, so I doubt we’ll ever get to butchering them any time soon.” (Velvet)
“You should know me by now, Velvet. Enough ingredients are never enough. When you think you don’t need any more, then that means you are running low.” (Luna)
“Hehehe. Well, you are the one with the space magic and inventory skill.” (Velvet)
“I’ll get to it then.” (Luna)
I snapped my fingers and a domain spread over the cavern and immediately closed it. When it was gone, so were all the orc corpses. I checked the inventory list in my head to make sure everything was accounted for and nodded.
“You know, one of these days, I should organize my inventory.” (Luna)
“Make a list of everything in there when you do so that we can see what exactly is in there. I’ve been curious about this for a while, but never wanted to bring it up since I don’t know if my remaining sanity could handle it.” (Velvet)
“Ah, then I definitely need to do that. We can’t have anyone with sanity in this party. It’ll hold us back at some point.” (Luna)
We bantered more about this and that before coming up to the walls of the abandoned city. They were quite tall, and further inside I could see a tall tower. It was a very spiky tower that reminded me of a certain book and movie trilogy.
“Guess I know the first place I’m looking in when I get inside. I wonder if I’ll find some magic crystal ball in the tower. Shame we’re so strong though, since I kinda want to make an epic escape from a mad wizard from the top of the tower on the back of a massive eagle. But in reality, any one of us would be able to just punt him off the top of the tower. Especially Soleil.” (Luna)
“Honestly, I was expecting more of a, “I’m gonna take this entire city for my own,” situation.” (Velvet)
“While I’d love to do that, I also feel that it would be kind of illegal to do that. I mean, this place is technically still a part of the Dwarf Country, so if I commandeered this city, it might count as an invasion.” (Luna)
“Huh. I never thought of it that way. I mean sure, it’s an abandoned city, but a part of the country all the same.” (Velvet)
“That doesn’t mean I won’t take some parts of it and then blame the passage of time for them missing, but the entire city, no.” (Luna)
“You’re taking the tower, aren’t you?” (Velvet)
“I am totally taking the tower. I’ll add it next to my pyramid on my floating island. That way I’ll have an ancient pyramid, a mansion, Isengard, and a Lunar Sakura in my flying Hanging Gardens of Babylon. I think the only thing that I’d be missing after that is some kind of large colosseum or something. Well, that and maybe a temple. I think Tamamo has one somewhere in her place, but I’m not completely sure.” (Luna)
“Speaking of, will you get your own place in the Divine Domain, or will you just show up in Lady Tamamo’s place when you ascend?” (Velvet)
“While we’re not completely sure, I think I’ll end up with my own place that I can then merge with Tamamo’s. Of course, if I just appear in Tamamo’s place then it won’t really change anything, but if I end up with my own, I won’t not be happy about it. Who can say no to a larger living area?” (Luna)
“Nobles that don’t want to take care of all of it. Sure, even then their vassals take care of the land, but the bigger the land, the more responsibilities that come with it. Though I guess it’s probably different when gods are concerned.” (Velvet)
“A fair and reasonable argument. I am glad I attended this Velvet Talk.” (Luna)
Velvet just tilted her head in question at my joke before shaking her head and moving on with the conversation. We had finally reached the gate of the wall and when we went inside, I was impressed. The city was vast, with a lot of large buildings. They were all made of the same stone as the rest of the place, but they were in pristine condition for somewhere abandoned.
“Remember Luna, only the tower. The tower is all that matters.” (Luna)
“Hehehe.” (Velvet)
“This is no laughing matter, Velvet. I’m really considering taking everything now.” (Luna)
“I’ll make the decision easy for you then. This is just the place between the inner and outer walls. If you take only the inner wall and tower but leave the outer wall and other buildings, then I doubt anyone that comes to reclaim this city will miss them.” (Velvet)
“Velvet, when did you start thinking like me? I thought you’d try to stop me from taking any more than just the tower.” (Luna)
“Like you said earlier, sanity has no place in this party. Plus, I wanted to play along with you instead of calling you out on your actions this time. And by the way, I can see why you like this way of thinking so much.” (Velvet)
“Ah. I’m so proud of you. It seems my Velvet is finally starting to fully join the fluff side.” (Luna)
“Don’t you mean dark side?” (Velvet)
“No, you were kind of born on that side and fully integrated yourself into it when you first gave in about not caring about common sense.” (Luna)
“I see…Now, let’s find the others. Last I saw any of them, they were all near the inner wall in what we think was an inn.” (Velvet)
“Let’s go. Everyone else and my tower awaits.” (Luna)
Chaos Realm:
Atmos: So Crisis's daughter Evelyn has Negativity, Illusions, and Blood as Authorities and your daughter, Astraea, has Balance, Positivity, and one unknown Authority. Am I missing anything?
Nope.
Atmos: You seem to be taking the whole Fated One thing in stride now.
Order: He really isn't, but he's trying.
I can't help it, OK. My daughter is only a few days old, and she already has a wife in a sense. How would you feel if you had a child and then someone comes along that they will love more than you before they even really get to know you?
Atmos: ...
Order: Payto, go take a nap.
I-
Order: Go. Take. A. Nap.
Yes Order.
Order: Good. Even gods need to sleep sometimes and you've had I don't know how many cups of coffee over the past few days that you are going kind of crazy.
See you later then.
Atmos: You handled that well.
Order: Obviously. Though what I don't get is why he is the one that's acting all crazy about this.
Atmos: Well, he is way older than all of us put together and for most of that time he was most likely alone, so now that he has a family that he has probably wanted for the longest time, he might want to just spend a few millennia without outside interruptions, but this situation is kinda throwing off his whole vision of how he wanted this to go.
Order: Hmm. While that makes sense, he still needs to calm down. I'll make sure to talk things through with him when he gets up.
Atmos: You should. As the one with more relationship experience, the two of you need to talk about stuff like this. I'll even do you the favor of babysitting Astraea while you two talk.
Order: Thanks.
Atmos: Anytime.
Author's Message:
Hello everyone, Paytoechip here, and all I wanted to say in this part is: Have a Merry Christmas and happy New Year. If you don't celebrate Christmas, then still, have a happy holiday season, I wish you all the best, and I look forward to continuing this journey of fluff now and into the future. May you all be assimilated into the Abyss of Fluff along with me.
