Lament of the Slave

“Do we have to?” Idleaf whined as she bounced merrily around Stella and me. 

“I thought you liked Castiana,” I pointed out, knowing full well where her dismay at our return to the human city above was coming from.

“I do, but . . . you won’t have time for me. I want to play with you more.”

Resisting those huge, pleading eyes of hers was next to impossible. And to be honest, those last two hours of playing with her on the grassy hills felt like a dream, a dream too short of which I could wake up at any moment. Even though I wished for this to be true with all my heart, and all signs pointed to the fact that we did indeed return, doubts still weighed on my heart. 

This was simply too good to be true.

[Indomitable Will] reaches lvl 149

Another system notification. Yet another proof that this was the present I knew; that this was the time Stella, and I had been trying to get back to all these eight months. 

Still - one blink of an eye and it could all be gone.

And if there was a chance that I might wake up in Traian’s nightmare at any moment, then . . . “I guess one more hour won’t hurt.”

“Yay,” Idleaf squealed with delight and did a somersault in the air. Quite a feat, given her unique form.

“Um,” Stella cleared her throat, sitting cross-legged on the ground, her hands in her lap. “How about you play with Korra while we go to the platform.”

“But then you go out,” Idleaf frowned.

“Not necessarily right away,” Stella argued, far from the young woman who had the utmost respect for the spirit and had no idea how to talk to her.

“And Korra can stay here, with you, while I go . . .”

“You can play with us, too.”

That left Stella speechless. While Idleaf showed unabashed joy at her return, it paled in comparison to how ecstatic she was to have me back. Understandable, I was her Guardian, not her. However, Stella turned out to be more than just another human to the World Tree. In fact, it was nice to see that in the short time we were all together, Idleaf had formed a closer bond with Stella, and probably the entire Squad Four, than I had expected. Likely the reason she wasn’t so adamant about teleporting me to her tree in Esulmor. Idleaf understood that it would mean leaving her behind and never getting our squad back together again.

Squad Four - the thought of them, and not just them, made my heart ache. ‘Were they up there waiting for us? Were they still hoping we’d come back one day, or had they already forgotten about us? Eight months was a hell of a long time, much longer than the few weeks we had been together. Did Squad Four still exist? Or had we been replaced by new members? What about Deckard? Had he found a solution to his bottlenecks? Maybe he even had a new apprentice.’

“That is - I’d love to, but . . .” The spirit frowned again at Stella’s ‘BUT’ and hummed her displeasure loudly enough to make the aura warrior pause. “Idleaf I - you - it warms my heart to see how much you missed me, but imagine how my family, my mother and father, must feel. When that misshapen space took us away, they must have been as heartbroken as you were.”

The spirit thought about it; her face twisting as she tried to wrap her head around the idea of someone else missing us as much as she did.

“Fine, we’ll go. Very slowly, though.”

“Thank you,” Stella smiled warmly at her and stood up, healed enough to walk already, awkwardly trying to cover her privates.

“Embarrassed?” I couldn’t help the little tease; Idleaf’s playful spirit was more than infectious. Besides, it was strangely satisfying to see someone other than myself in an awkward situation I’d experienced a hundred times before.

“I’m a trained [Aura Warrior], not a [Companion], Korra.”

Yeah, she was embarrassed - a lot. Her increasingly flushed cheeks were proof.

“Stop grinning like that, it’s . . . can we just go, please?”

“Sure, just . . . it’s something you can get used to, you know.”

Stella gave me a strange look, knowing full well of my struggles with my own nudity. “I don’t plan to.”

“But you do realize that when we get out, there will be like hundreds of people in the square.” And that was if we were lucky. Labyrinth Square tended to be crowded.

“I do; still working out what to do about that.”

“You could do this,” Idleaf sang, and the shirt covering her upper body transformed into a fur coat enveloping her whole, only to transform again, this time into epic-looking armor. “. . . or this.”

“If only it were that easy,” Stella sighed wistfully. “But I’m not a mage, let alone an [Illusionist].” 

“Then you could do this,” I seconded Idleaf’s not-so-helpful advice, wrapping Sage around my waist and pressing my wings against my body to cover my chest.

“Funny,” Stella laughed, not so enthusiastically. “But do you see a tail sticking out of my ass?”

On that note, Idleaf happily hopped up behind her to get a rather close look at her rear end. “No, I don’t see any. Humans are weird.”

A chuckle escaped my lips. “They are, huh?”

“Have you given up being one?” Stella raised her eyebrows in wonder.

I waved her off. “Nah, I’m the weirdest of them all. After all, I am a [Deviant of Humanity].”

We had a good laugh together.

“Okay, it’s time. Let’s go.” It wasn’t my effort to play leader here, but Idleaf being Idleaf, she listened more to my word. And so, at my command, the spirit grabbed Stella’s hands and, despite her reluctance to pull them away from her body, started dancing with her through the labyrinthine floor, dragging me into her joyous frolic shortly thereafter.

 

***

 

“How is it? Do you know which way to go?”

“Well . . .” I grumbled, looking again at the black labyrinth block and its white glowing runes. “It’s been over eight months, you know.”

“Don’t give me that shit, Korra. Your wisdom is almost 30. I know that very well, you told me, and do you know why I remember that? Because my wisdom is at 30 too. There’s no way you could forget something like that so fast. And don’t give me those eyes, it’s giving me the creeps.”

“Are you sure it’s not the ever-present breeze brushing against your skin?”

“It certainly doesn’t help, but - I feel - exposed under that gaze, like prey, alright?”

That gave me pause and hurt a little. Stella was definitely not prey, not to me. She was part of my pack, a predator, just like me.

“Sorry . . .”

“No, Korra, don’t droop your ears. I - you know what, forget it, the lack of clothes just makes me uncomfortable.”

Having fun at her expense was amusing, somewhat veiled by our mutual joy at being back. Still, I knew from my own experience that there were limits to how far you could go without hurting the other person. So I put on a more serious face and turned my attention back to the runes, Idleaf doing the same. “You know, being from where I am, I still find it hard to wrap my head around the way some things work here. Like the Wisdom you mentioned. I know it increases the amount of things my brain can hold in memory . . .”

“Among other things.”

“Yes, among other things. But even knowing that, my brain is wired differently - to forget things over time, to filter out the unimportant to make room for the essential.” Without training our brains like that from a young age, humans of modern Earth would go crazy with the insane amount of information around them."Are you trying to tell me in a very roundabout way that you just forgot what Deckard taught you, Korra? Because if you are, I - I - Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I didn’t get off the Echo just to end up wandering around here naked."

I laughed, glad she’d forgotten to be embarrassed for a moment. “No, it’s just that it’s not as easy for me to remember things as it is for you. I didn’t grow up with the system in my head, but with a smartphone in my hand.”

“Smartphone?” asked Idleaf, curious, eyeing my hands.

“Cursed tool. Better not talk about it.”

“Your humans give seedlings cursed tools that are dangerous to talk about?”

Curse my big mouth. I had completely forgotten what it was like to have Idleaf around - the boundless curiosity and childlike innocence. It almost made me want to make fun of her with You-Know-Who.

“That’s all well and good,” Stella said, after I’d properly briefed Idleaf on the pitfalls of Earth’s communications equipment. “. . . but you know which way to go, don’t you?”

“No, not a clue.”

At first I wanted to chalk it up to Idleaf trying to stall us here, but there was no such ploy behind her blatant honesty. She was just enjoying being here with me, with both of us - simply being herself again.

“And you, Korra?” 

“That way,” I pointed in the direction where the runes lay most densely on the block. “Though I’d head a little more to the left, towards that block in the distance, just to be sure.”

The loud sigh of relief Stella let out was hard to miss.

“You know, it’s not that difficult to tell. If you want, I could . . .”

“Thanks, Korra, but we can just go.”

“Sure.” I’d have to be blind not to see how much she wanted to be reunited with her loved ones. So did I. Only I’ve already been reunited with one of them, unlike her. As far as Eleaden was concerned, Idleaf and Deckard were closest to my heart. He, I would say, was the cool, traveled uncle I loved to learn from about the ways of the world, while Idleaf was the little annoying sister I never had.

“Come on, Idleaf, let’s go.”

“Already?”

“You can show me how you can play a blade of grass on the way.”

She squealed with delight and plucked a blade. “I’ve practiced a lot.”

 

***

 

“Hey guys, do you hear that?”

“You mean the damn rustling of the grass?” Esme asked their scout back, spitting into the green terror they were wading through on these floors. “It’s so damn annoying.”

“Yeah, I’m sick of it.” Samir, their party swordsman, agreed with her. “If it wasn’t for the shitty quotas . . .”

They usually dive to floors thirty and below, where the hills and meadows were already covered with bushes and trees. That made the breeze more bearable and the grass shorter. But the Cryptic Raiders, their Company, required them to turn in 5 horned rabbit pelts per person every week. Those damned beasts were down there, too, but they weren’t the only creatures there; they were rarer, harder to find, and with a strength appropriate to the floor. Therefore, it was much easier to fill the quotas by going up to Floor 10.

“No, idiots. I mean that horrendous whistling,” Dash, the scout, growled at his crew. “It’s coming closer, from . . . there.”

“Huh. I don’t see shit,” Colten replied, looking over the hills in the direction Dash was pointing. “You sure you’re not still messed up in the head?”

“Screw you, Colten. I know what I’m hearing and it’s not the damn wind or a beast.”

“If you say so.”

“Anyway,” Zev, their healer, spoke up. “Get your asses on the platform. We need to get back to Castiana and report the . . . the shit that hit us. Seriously, it’s not normal for Esme to be giggling like a little girl.”

“Mention it again and I’ll cut your balls off. Besides, I’m not the one who started dancing around and singing nursery rhymes, dickhead.”

“All right, calm down, everybody. Let’s agree not to talk about what happened here,” the swordsman Samir suggested.

“And what do we tell the Company and the City Hall?”

“We tell them shit, Zev. Weird stuff happens in labyrinths all the time, and this was just one of them. We simply get out of Fallen’s Cry, re-enter the Tenth Floor, finish our quotas, and that’s it. What do you say? No one needs to know that I was grinning like an idiot or that Dash was kissing his daggers for whatever reason.”

Everyone seemed to be on board with his suggestion. However, before anyone could open their trap, a warning came from their scout. “Heads up, guys. We have visitors.”

“A horned rabbit?”

“No, three pussies.”

“I thought you looked at him, Zev; that Dash was okay?” Samir questioned the abilities of their healer. After all, it was impossible for anyone else who hadn’t come with them to be on this floor. Labyrinths didn’t work that way.

“Hey, I’m not a mind expert. Besides, he was a bit nuts before. How am I supposed to tell if . . .”

“Shut your traps, guys,” Esme stopped them. “I see those three chicks, too.”

Silence fell over the group as they all looked over the hills. And indeed, there was a trio of gals walking toward them. A human, a terran, and . . . the strangest chick they had ever seen, playing on a blade of grass.

“Traina’s tits,” Zev gasped in disbelief.

“Tits, indeed,” Semir added, seeing that two of them were naked. “But seriously, what the fuck is going on today?”

 

***

 

“Are you ready?” I asked Stella as the teleportation platform came into view and with it, five seekers. It turned out that the Labyrinth, or should I say misshapen space, did not bring us back to the floor we left eight months ago. Well, not really surprising. Stella and I disappeared, and the rest of Squad Four and Sergeant Pinescar got out - according to Idleaf. No one was on the floor, so Labyrinth had no reason to maintain that iteration of it. Thus we ended up on Floor 10, currently in existence, meaning there were seekers on it.

“I don’t think I ever will,” Stella replied, pressing her hands tighter to her body.

“We could play more.”

“We will, Idleaf. I promise. As soon as we get everything sorted out with the people in Castiana, I’ll go with you to Esulmor and we’ll play for days.”

The spirit’s eyes shone with hope. “Why don’t you come to play first?”

“And leave everything to Stella?”

“Yes . . .” her eyes pleadingly fixed on the aura warrior, hope in her tree-heart.

“I-I’m sorry, Idleaf, but there’s so much we’ve been through, so much to tell others. I can’t do it alone.”

“Yes, you can. Just tell them, it’s easy.”

“Idleaf, I can’t leave her alone.” We had each other’s backs in Echo, I couldn’t ditch Stella the first chance I got. “Besides, you’ll be there with me. I’m not leaving you.”

She lowered her wings. “I know, I just - I’m so happy, Korra’leigh.”

“Me too,” I ruffled her hair, to which she giggled.

“All right, let’s get this over with,” Stella breathed, taking a step toward the platform and the seekers a few hills away, me walking by her side while Idleaf bounced around us, playing on a blade of grass. She did get better, no doubt. Yet the sharp sound coming from the blade of grass hurt my ears just as much as before, making it damn hard to hear what the seekers were talking about.

 

***

 

“Bailout or . . . ?”

“Bailout, Dash? You’ve got to be kidding me. This is an opportunity.”

“For what?” the scout shot back, the nature of his job kicking in. The three were unknown, something that had no place on this labyrinth floor. Unless one had an overwhelming advantage, it was better to avoid the unknown. And they hadn’t. Sure, they were overleveled for this floor, their levels ranging from 102 to 114. All post-class evolution.

But the same could have been said of the three who were approaching them.

[Deviant: lvl 122]

[Warrior: lvl 135]

And - well, that weird, transparent chick playing jarring notes on a blade of grass did not elicit any reaction from the system or his skills. If he had to guess, it was some kind of summoned creature, but the catch was that neither of them was a summoner. In fact, he had no idea what Deviant was about either - for all he knew, that weird chick could have been the summon of that terran pussy.

Be that as it may, all his instincts told him he’d be better off using a platform than messing with them.

“To make a hefty sum of coin, Dash,” Semir said, his eyes fixed on the trio. “Creatures like those will be in demand on the slave market.”

“Creatures? Are you blind? It’s a human and a terran.”

“Are you sure?” Samir raised an eyebrow and put a hand on his shoulder. “Because in my books, no other human should be here with us. By any definition, they are beasts or monsters of the Labyrinth. The fact that they look alike is a plus that we will capitalize on in the slave market.”

“Not to mention the fun we can have with them before that,” Colton added, to which Zev nodded eagerly. “And Esme, you can watch. I know you like it.”

“. . . or join in.”

“Shagging you? In your dream, dickheads. The coins, though . . .”

“Guys, I’m telling you, let’s get out of here.”

“Grow a pair, Dash,” Esme snapped back.

“Fuck you, bitch! Can’t you see they’re not beasts and have a higher levels than us?”

“Whatever they are - there are only three of them and five of us.”

“Besides, we’re in full armor, and they . . . can’t you see the tits?”

“Come on, Dash, it’ll be easy coin.”

The scout had nothing against easy money; he just - had a very bad feeling about the whole thing. “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

 

***

 

“Hello,” I waved at the group of seekers from the bottom of the gentle hill they were on and the teleportation platform, Sage around my waist, wings covering my chest. The guys, four men and a woman, had certainly noticed us, arguing under the silencing field and casting not-so-friendly glances in our direction now and then. Understandable. Down here, you just don’t expect someone to barge into your floor instance.

“ Do not be alarmed, we are not beasts.” My concern was that they might think we were, considering the way Idleaf and I looked, and for good measure I showed them the back of my hand, where the labyrinth mark stained my skin, a black tear. The same on the back of Stella’s hand she covered her chest with. Yet my gesture and my efforts to sound as non-threatening as possible seemed to be in vain. No response, just more hostile looks.

“Did I speak in beast talk, or . . . ?

“Shit! Korra, look out!” Stella yelled and threw herself at me. A fireball flew over our heads as we both landed on the ground. 

“Leave Korra’leigh alone!” Idleaf screamed, charging at the five seekers who, for whatever reason, had decided to attack us.

Not really wanting to see my ward attacked, having a teleportation platform within reach, and especially after everything we’d been through, I was in no mood to play the good-hearted, naïve hero. They attacked us, so I responded accordingly.

All five of the seekers fell to the ground under the crushing pressure of my beast presence.

“Thanks, Stella. You can get off me now.”

She blushed and scrambled to her feet. “Um, how long can you keep this up?”

“Well, I don’t really know,” I said, wondering myself. After the fight with the beastman, no more cycles where I could test my presence followed, only our long-awaited way back here. “Perhaps a good time to find out. What do you say?”

The seekers said nothing, squirming under the weight of my presence and Idleaf’s kicks. She was hopping from one to the other, giving them what they rightfully deserved. With each heartbeat, however, I became more and more aware of the consequences of my unleashed presence. Very quickly, it grew into a heavy burden on my body. And so, while I still was able to put on a tough face, I strode over to the seekers and squatted down next to the man who seemed to be the most reasonable of the group.

[Scout: lvl 108]

“Hi. Looks like we got off on the wrong foot . . .”