Misadventures Incorporated

We survived longer than the rest of our people. I yanked her into the forge and barricaded it with all the material that I could find, whilst he continued to prance around the town, consuming all that he could.

At first, I thought perhaps to make something that would keep us safe. Perhaps, if I hammered quickly enough, I could install a mechanism that would hinder his perception. He was unlikely, after all, to hear the sound of my anvil over all the screaming and crunching.

But then I saw the fight in her eyes.

She was seething with anger, embodying exactly none of the cowardice that I had on open display.

It only took a moment for her rage to grip my heart and my hands to change direction.

Rather than creating the barrier I had in mind, I condensed the few elemental power sources I had on hand and forged a single needle—a needle that doubled as the culmination of all my knowledge and research.

She screamed at me when I handed it to her and told her to strike him while I drew the beast's attention.

She took my hand and begged me not to do it.

But I simply shook my head and threw on the rest of my gear. The plate mail was forged in the primordial flame and tough enough to protect against even his divine fangs. My rifles were powered by arc plasma and strong enough to pierce the heavens. And my shield was crafted of true ice, eternal in its unshattering protection.

I knew it was futile.

Half the men had been armed with all the same tools.

But I disengaged the barrier regardless and stepped out into the open.

I couldn't help but gasp in horror.

Everything was destroyed.

We were the last two left.

And he was standing there, waiting outside the door with a bloody grin upon his jagged teeth.

I never thought of myself as much of a warrior. If anything, I was exactly the opposite.

But somehow, I held my ground. My shield held strong against his jaws and my bolts pierced straight through him, blackening his wicked flesh. I fought desperately, with the strength of a thousand. But he was a predator, and I was prey.

Eventually, he sank his teeth into my neck.

So I activated a sealing spell.

And gave her the signal.

Tearily, she burst through the door and stabbed the needle straight through him.

He tried to resist, but with the last of my strength, I grabbed him by the neck, holding him still just long enough for the artifact to work its magic.

The strength suddenly left his limbs as the divinity was drained from his body. Flowing through the needle, it was fed straight into my beloved.

So that no harm could come to her again.

She opened her eyes wide.

I never informed her of the effect.

But I smiled nonetheless, even as my body fell cold.

Because there, in that moment, we had stolen his everything.

And she had become divine.

___

Claire didn't return to the castle until early the next morning. She walked through the halls and entered her room right as the sun began shining through the curtains. She hadn't intended to stay out all night, but a fight had broken out in the tavern just as she was thinking of leaving. A pair of soldiers from the castle had gotten into an argument about ideal tomboy hairstyles, and their commanding officer had dictated that the debate was best solved with violence.

She figured there was no harm staying until they finished their match, but the demonstration had spurred a whole series of scuffles, each more drunkenly entertaining than the last. The night had already started to wane by the time she realised any time had passed at all.

Sylvia, who was in her most elven form stirred as Claire walked over to the bed. She lazily raised her ears and mumbled something unintelligible before curling back up under the blankets.

Smiling, Claire sat down beside the half-fox and lightly ran her fingers through her hair and tail.

Sylvia leaned into the touch, practically purring as her eyes fluttered open.

"Good morning," she said, with a yawn.

"Good morning," replied the snake-moose. She paused for a few seconds before continuing. "Are you awake enough to talk right now?"

"Mhm. Why?" asked the fox.

"I was thinking about your present. Do you want it to be a surprise? Do you want something specific? Or do you want to go shopping together?"

"My present?" The foxgirl raised only one ear and gave her owner a questioning look before suddenly sitting up, her eyes sparkling. "You mean my birthday present?"

"Are you expecting some other kind of present?"

"I dunno! Wait, I get to decide? That's so exciting!" The fox shot to her feet. "Wait, oh my gosh, I can't choose! I kinda want a surprise because I'm super curious what you'll end up getting me, but a shopping trip sounds like so much fun!" Her tail wagged back and forth as she rolled around the bed with a pillow hugged to her chest.

"Try to make up your mind before breakfast." Claire couldn't help but smile as she watched her. "If we want to go shopping, we'll probably have to do it today."

"I have to decide before breakfast!?" squeaked the fox. "How the heck am I supposed to make such a big decision so quickly!?"

"Not my problem." Claire stuck up her tongue.

"Gosh, you're such a meanie!" The orange dog grumbled as she lightly pummeled the snake moose's tail.

Laughing, Claire tickled the fox's chin and lightly pinched her cheeks. "At this rate, you're going to end up stuck with a surprise."

"Oh, fine!" huffed the fox. "We can go shopping if you want to go that badly!"

"I never said that."

"You totally implied it!"

"Not in the slightest."

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"Ugh, sometimes, I wonder why I even put up with you." Sitting up again, Sylvia crossed her arms and turned her nose away, but she didn't maintain the facade for long. It was only a matter of seconds before she started peeking at the lyrkress from out of the corner of her eye. "Keep this up, and I'll start ignoring you."

"I'd like to see you try." Claire moved behind the fox and started tickling her sides.

"Wait! Stop!" cried the vixen. "That's cheating! Tickling is unfair!"

"Too bad." Claire continued to wiggle her fingers as the furball rolled around and struggled. It wasn't until Syvlia was completely out of breath that she finally relented.

"Geez…" said the fox, between gasps. "You didn't have to tickle me that much. I thought I was gonna run out of air for real." She wheezed a few more times before sitting up. "And is it just me, or do you reek of booze?"

"I had a few drinks," said Claire.

"How many is a few?"

"Maybe twenty? I lost count."

"Twenty!? How the heck did you manage twenty!? I'd pass out after three!"

"Maybe you should work on your poison resistance. Or better yet, your court etiquette," said Claire, with a laugh. "I'll go rinse off."

"Okay," said Sylvia. "Oh, and I've made up my mind!" She jumped out of bed and turned into a fox. "I think I want to go shopping. It just seems like it'd be way more fun, since we can do it together," she said. "Oh! And this way, I can get you to help me pick your gift too!"

"Didn't you already help pick out my accessories?"

"That doesn't really count," said Sylvia. "And it'll be way more fun if we're both looking for stuff together."

"Alright." Claire smiled. "Let's go after breakfast. I'm going to freshen up."

"Okay!"

Leaving Sylvia still disheveled in bed, Claire walked into the attached bathroom and took off her runecloak. Bringing it to her face, she flicked her tongue at it, but she couldn't make out any notable smells. She cupped a hand in front of her face and tried to smell her breath, but again, found herself unable to pick anything out.

"Maybe she read my mind." Claire muttered under her breath as she turned her runecloak into a loose bracelet and wandered into the giant stone bathtub. She lightly touched the runes on the side of the artifact and turned one of the knobs to the far end. The whole container instantly filled with steaming water. It was difficult for Claire to discern its temperature; it probably would've felt cool on her skin even if over a thousand degrees.

Climbing inside the tub, she sank into the bath, stretched out her body, and closed her eyes. Her hair spread throughout the water, her fins opened wide, and her scales rose to better catch the water. Though no longer a lyrkress, she was still adapted to life beneath the waves.

She magically grabbed several types of soap as she relaxed. They were the same ones that she had used growing up, as well as the same types that the maids used on Rubia. It took Claire a moment to recall that they were, at first, a souvenir from her father, something that he'd picked up on one of his trips to the western front.

"How did I even forget?" she muttered under her breath as her head, shoulder, and collar animals appeared in their various positions. Like her, they sank into the water and basked in its supposed warmth.

"You probably repressed it," said Shoulderhorse. "That isn't the kind of thing you remember when the guy actively treats you like trash for six years."

"He's a good dad," said Collarsaur. "He did it with her best interests in mind."

Shouldersnake shrugged. "It's hard to say. I mean, I get it and it worked, but justified child abuse is still child abuse."

"Can you talk about anything else?" muttered Claire. "I'm not thinking about that twice in one day."

"It's technically not the same day anymore," said Shouldersnake.

Claire rolled her eyes.

"How about we talk about our upcoming plans instead?" suggested Collarsaur. "Have you already figured out where you're going to take Sylvia?"

Claire shook her head. "I was going to go wherever she wanted."

"That sounds like a really roundabout way to say you're just going to the fish market," said Collarsaur. "It'd probably be better if you came up with at least something of an itinerary, just so you don't get side tracked. Things tend to go better when you have a plan sketched out."

"They grow up so fast, don't they Pony?" asked Shouldersnake.

"They sure do," said Shoulderhorse. "I never thought she'd turn out to be so ridiculously violent."

"Nor so perfectly graceful."

"I'm pretty sure the pony was supposed to be gluttony and pride, not grace," said Claire.

"I was hoping you'd forget that," said the sock puppet.

Claire laughed. "You've been annoying me with your terrible acting for as long as I can remember. I'm not going to forget that easily."

"You have had him for that long?" asked Collarsaur. "Have you always been able to manipulate souls?"

"That was a fairly recent acquisition," said Claire. "He used to be something of a tumor."

"Not really my fault," said Shoulderhorse. "Flux stuck us together."

Collarsaur gave the pair a puzzled look.

"He was sick of living, and she thought that this might be better," said Claire.

"Basically, yeah. Going through thousands of cycles with your memory intact just isn't it," said the pony. "Not when you're hunted down each time."

Collarsaur paused for a second. "Were you one of the species that Kael'ahruus wiped out?"

"Yeah. I was one of the qilin," he said, with a laugh. "The rules weren't quite as strict back then. He was allowed to come for us, even though we were Primrose's servants."

"What was your concept?"

"Artificy."

"You weren't the one that got it banned, were you?"

"How'd you know?" he asked, with a grin.

The dino laughed. "I knew you were trouble, but I didn't know you were quite that much trouble."

"It only gets worse," said Claire.

"Oh, come on. I haven't even been that much of a nuisance. Not to mention, I helped you regulate your urges."

"Only a little," said Claire.

"Only a little, my ass!"

"It's true," said Claire. "The snake was supposed to suppress my urge to kill, but I still wiped out the borroks, killed Zelos' friends, and wiped out all of Pollux's people. It clearly wasn't doing a very good job."

"Yeah, but it kept you from trying to kill Sylvia."

"The only reason I didn't attack her was because she was clearly too strong for me."

Both shoulder animals shrugged. "Sure, I'll give you that, but everything else still would've ended up way worse."

"Maybe." Claire closed her eyes and sank deeper into the tub. The removal of Shouldersnake's reinforcement had more of an effect than she'd expected. Suddenly, everyone around her looked like prey and it didn't help that her hunger had been similarly returned. The urges weren't strong enough to change her behaviour. She had no trouble keeping them suppressed. But she couldn't help but feel that her gaze was tinged with some amount of impurity and that she no longer looked upon her friends and allies in quite the way she should.

She felt like she was starting to understand why her nation's people behaved the way that they did. Violence was the perfect outlet for the killer instinct. And perhaps, if they were lucky, they could even prove its inaccuracy.

"I wonder if this is how Father sees everything." She frowned as the words left her mouth. She'd finally gotten over her fear of him, but she was starting to think that she'd swung too far in the opposite direction. It was already the second time in two days she'd wondered about his opinion.

It wasn't like everything had been suddenly resolved.

Claire frowned as she considered the prospect of forcing him to acknowledge her. Not even she was all too sure exactly how she was best defined. And perhaps that was exactly why the system had described her as an aspect of chaos. Unlike the members of Flitzegarde's flock, she followed little rhyme or reason beyond her own haphazard will.

Sighing, Claire sat back up and quickly lathered her body with soap. A light touch of the artifact sent it into rinse mode and a second dried her off. Once fully dried and clothed, she walked out of the bathroom to find a fox-eared elf waiting by the door.

Sylvia had already cleaned herself off with a spell and changed into a traditional elven dress. Like the many that she had worn in Llystletein, it was made of large leaves weaved together to form a light garment. It was a wonder how it didn't tear with every one of her all-too-energy-filled steps. Apparently, there was a special process that eliminated the material's fragility, but that was all Claire knew; she couldn't be bothered to learn any more.

"Ready?"

"I was planning to do breakfast first."

"We can have breakfast while we're out! I still haven't had a chance to try all the stuff they're serving in town."

"Somehow, I doubt you'll be able to try everything."

"Oh, shush! You knew what I meant!" Sylvia grabbed Claire's arm as she crafted a portal that led straight out of the castle. "Hurry up! Let's go! We don't have time to sit around!"

"Alright." Smiling, Claire wrapped her fingers around the silly half-elf's and stepped through the magical gate.

Her silly pet was practically jumping for joy.

It turned out, Gladora was right.

Asking was all it took to arrive at the result she'd wanted.