Chapter 141 – Reunion

Lilyth - Now

The axolotl-thing, which I assumed to be Taros, gave me a toothy smile and waved back. Deirdee just continued to look at me. She then made a slight nod, likely directed more towards herself rather than anyone else and got up. She started slowly approaching us.

No, I realised. She's approaching me.

Taros closely followed behind her, and even though I’d never been that good at reading emotions and vae being a fucking lizard made it even more difficult, but I thought that the demigod seemed anxious.

Unsure what she’ll do, eh?

As my mind raced, trying to settle on the reaction, I noticed that at some point I must have subconsciously decided that if she tried something, I would defend myself. I did nothing wrong as far as she was concerned. I killed her brother in self-defence and I didn't ask for her to be brought here. Fuck, I didn't ask to be brought here.

Deirdee finally stopped before me, eyed me up and down and, to my great surprise, threw her hands around me and squeezed.

‘Hey, Lilyth,’ she whispered into my ear. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

We ended up conferring in my and Caei’s room. To my surprise, Taros also turned out to be a shapeshifter and changed to a form not unlike vaer mother’s. Unlike me, however, vae stayed in the Klabter form when among people due to it actually raising fewer questions than the humanoid one. Well, that and the simple fact that Taros felt more comfortable in it.

It was strange meeting another trans person, or well… a genderfluid to my genderjelly, but it gave me a much-needed perspective. My existence on Dwynveia has been a non-stop trauma. Even during that week of relative peace and quiet in Dan-Hem, I couldn't truly be myself, because I had to hide the form I was actually fucking comfortable in.

You know what? I’ve had enough. This ends now.

Since, due to not wanting to forget myself, I was still in my elf form, I changed into the Kitsune.

The renewed flow of magic in my body felt like a breath of fresh air.

I am not going back to the elf form without a good reason ever again.

Would that be a mistake? Perhaps. But this felt no different to me than boymoding back on Earth. No. It was worse - boymoding only caused psychological discomfort. The elf form resulted in a physical one, too, as it felt like something was… missing. The best I could compare it to would be to have a unilateral earwax build-up. You can still hear, with one ear better than the other, but you are not at your hundred per cent, and there is that persistent pressure you can feel. Now imagine this happening to your soul. Maintaining an illusion of safety was not fucking worth subjecting myself to that for weeks on end. Like here in Dan-Hem I could only be myself at night. In Mer-Cas, I likely would only be limited to our home.

No. I can't live like that.

Deirdee and Taros looked mildly surprised by my change but they seemed more curious than off-put.

‘That’s new…’ the assassin-turned-dancer said and then shuddered. ‘Come to think of it, Caeileera… what happened to your wings? And where is Aki?’

The expressions on the faces of Taros and Deirdee after we were done telling the story belonged on a wall in the Louvre.

‘Is it too late to go back to Tyr-Mel?’ Deirdee asked.

‘Yeah… I think I can get mom to shelter us in the realm of Water during the Winter,’ Taros said weakly.

Deirdee turned back towards us.

‘You know… based on our… shared experiences… I knew this would be bad, but not THIS bad.’

‘Yeah,’ Taros agreed. ‘I mean… you went out of your way to find every single dangerous place between here and Ror-Bhyk. And then some.’

I wanted to protest, but couldn't. Taros was right. We really needed to stop doing that. We already decided on not dealing with the Murdergrove for now as we simply lacked the resources and skills to do that right then and there. This was the closest thing I’ve seen to an actual raid since Y-Ram, though that one was probably a category of its own.

The biggest issue here was the numbers. The four of us were willing to deal with it, and since that struck me as a Tenebral Order thing, we could probably get Savri to join. From less certain resources Arcarius and likely Taros would be very useful, the former being a soldier and the latter, I assumed, a powerful caster. Deirdee would probably be a decent scout, but I doubted there would be much use for assassination on that one. Anika though… she would be basic DPS, but that's where it ended. As I understood, she was a combat technician/hacker, making her a decent shot and we had a nice stockpile of guns at the mansion. I could easily imagine her being deadly with one of those bolt-action rifles, but I wasn't sure how viable firearms would be in taking on an “evil” force corrupting a forest. Her milspec, on the other hand, was almost completely useless on Dwynveia. Like if we found salvageable Vandarian Empire technology MAYBE she could get it to work. It was also possible Anika could have an easier time branching out to Dwynveian bullshit than me, but the opposite was just as likely. Once you incorporated things working a certain way into your core perception of the world, it was very hard to accept “lolmagic” as a valid explanation.

I shook away those thoughts and turned towards Deirdee.

‘But enough about us… How did you become a dancer?

Deirdee - Day 9 of Lilyth's stay on Dwynveia

By the end of the second day of their travels, it became clear to both Deirdee and Taros that they would likely be sticking together for longer. They both wanted to see the world and got along well enough. This became even clearer as they approached Gly-Hem and Taros suggested they perform at the inn together. Deirdee said she had no idea how, but the Klabter walked her through some basic dance moves and soon they had a very simple number set-up.

‘Don’t worry, Dee,’ Taros said. ‘I won’t make you perform the whole evening. Let’s focus on one song first, and as we continue travelling, we’ll expand the repertoire, eh?’

‘Sounds like a plan!’ Deirdee agreed heartily, looking forward to seeing what it was like to entertain people rather than kill them.

Deirdee had never been so terrified as she was before the performance at the inn at Gly-Hem. Not even the tooth horrors were that scary. This was made worse by them suddenly ending up on another version of Dwynveia the day before.

‘You’ll do fine, Dee,’ Taros reassured her. ‘I’ve seen you move. You may not have trained in dancing but you clearly had done some work that required you to have some degree or grace to it.

Who would have thought that ‘assassin’ and ‘dancer’ had such and overlap in skill sets, she thought wryly.

Taros got permission to perform from the innkeeper, a young brown-haired man named Dazroc who did his best to pretend not to stare at Deirdee’s ass whenever she passed him by. Then again, he said that if their performance brought enough business they would get a free room and supper, so if his staring at her assets was part of the deal, who was she to complain?

Taros began vaer set pretty slowly. Just a few slower songs to get people in the mood, and give time for any stragglers to get there. Then as people were getting excited, some had already thrown a few Divines into a hat the Klabter left on the floor for that purpose. Then it came time for her song.

In the dark shade of the largest tree

Lives the wanderer who yearns to be free

Their path is unknown, their goal unseen

No man knows all the places they've been

The song was the Ballad of the Wanderer, well-known even in the Badlands. It told a story of some being seized by eternal wanderlust. It was a tragic tale, as the Wanderer seemed to never be able to find rest. Deirdees role was to act as the Wanderer. The speed moves followed the intensity of the song. While she used the same simple routine for both the slower and faster parts, she soon started enhancing the more intense parts with pirouettes and jumps.

‘Go with the flow,’ Taros advised her before the performance.

So she did. And by the Blood, Deirdee would have never expected it to be so fun. She felt the eyes of the entire room on her: both male and female. They were all looking at her entranced. And it only pressured her to try harder.

By the time the last notes of the ballad sounded, Deirdee felt tired like she did after a good workout or a very good fuck. So she gave the audience a bow and awaited their reaction. What followed was thunderous applause and cheers. Some were asking for an encore.

‘Play something fast-paced,’ she mouthed to Taros.

Vae nodded and launched into a bawdy song about a miller’s daughter and a priest.

Good choice, Deirdee smiled internally.