The Systems Challenge

Sonya laughed. Heather hadn't expected Sonya to have reacted that way, but at the same time, she couldn't say she was surprised. After all, Sonya hadn't quite been that specific about what had been mentioned about her new shape. Though, Sonya's laughter did make Heather wonder if she should have stayed quiet about it.

Apparently Sonya noticed Heather's reaction and merely squeezed her hand. "Sorry about that," she apologized. "I just didn't expect you to say that."

Heather nodded, not sure how personally she should take the laughter. Though, she at least wanted to believe that Sonya was being mean with her laughter. Besides, it's not like Sonya knew about her entire past and how bad the bullying had been sometimes, since she really didn't care to talk about it in the first place.

"Anyway," Sonya said, clearly ready to move on. "From what I can tell about the dragon shape is that it's supposed to be like a regular dragon, not a fire dragon. Maybe I could have gotten that, but something tells me that it isn't really an option."

"Uh, you mean you didn't have to draw the shape you wanted?" Heather asked, not sure how to exactly word her thoughts right then, as she slid her finger tips lightly over Sonya's palm.

Sonya blinked at Heather, like she wasn't sure what Heather had said. She looked at Heather for a minute before Heather looked down at the table and started thinking of pulling her hand back. However, she stopped and looked Sonya in the eye again as Sonya squeezed her hand again.

"I'm not sure what you imagined, but I did have to draw it. You know, like a raffle or a gacha game."

Heather blinked, she knew about raffles, but had no idea what a 'gacha game' was. She wasn't sure if she should know either. Though, apparently something on her expression showed to Sonya as she stood up, still holding Heather's hand, and started gently tugging her.

"Let's go upstairs and continue this discussion in our room. I'll answer all your questions that I can, okay?"

Heather smiled, not sure if she really should, but at the same time couldn't think of what else she could do. She had pretty much finished her job already, at least. So it wasn't like she had anything really holding her back at that moment.

"Alright," Heather said, happy at the smile that Sonya gave her in response.

Heather let Sonya lead her upstairs to their room. Part of her wondered why Sonya wanted to go up there, but the rest of her didn't care. Somehow this felt like Sonya wanted to be with her, even with all the time she'd been spending away from her.

When they reached their room, Sonya began helping Heather out of her clothing before undressing herself. Heather wasn't sure if that was really necessary, but she didn't complain. She at least trusted Sonya enough to feel like she had a reason for this. Even if it wasn't apparent to her.

Sonya then had Heather lay on the bed and settled in behind her, with her arms wrapped around Heather. Which Heather couldn't help but sigh in contentment with the feel of Sonya's body pressed against hers, even if it was from behind her.

"You really don't know what a gacha game is, do you?" Sonya asked, her words tickling Heather's ear.

Heather shook her head, not sure if she should say anything, or if this moment was actually more fragile than she thought. She certainly didn't want to ruin this moment by a poorly chosen word.

"Well, the best way I can describe it is that you get something at random in the game. Like a hero or something else that is helpful to you in the game," Sonya replied. "I might not be the best at describing them, since I don't really play them much, but if we ever get back to our own worlds, you could always try a web search to see if your world has them. If they do, then you'll probably be able to find a better explanation than I can give."

Heather nodded, enjoying the sensation of Sonya's hands stroking her bulging belly. She wondered if she wasn't pregnant if Sonya would rather have Heather facing her as she held Heather at that moment.

Heather was certain that she'd like it at the very least.

"Anyway, any other questions you have for me?" Sony asked.

Heather thought for a moment. She wasn't sure if it was because of Sonya's body pressing against her from behind or if it was Sonya's hands rubbing her pregnant belly, but her mind wasn't moving as quickly as it had been downstairs.

Which made Heather wonder if that might have been the reason Sonya had wanted to come up here. Not that she minded. She did like it when they were like this, if nothing else.

Though as she opened her mouth to say that she didn't, a thought came to mind. Which pushed the original words she had been about to speak out of her mind as they came out.

"If it was like a raffle, was that shape like the grand prize? Or are there better shapes that you could have also drawn instead?"

Sonya was quiet for a moment before she started laughing. Heather couldn't tell if her laughter was a good thing or not, but she could feel Sonya's entire body moving as she laughed. Which made Heather at least feel good that Sonya was in good spirits, although she wasn't yet sure if she was mocking her at the moment or not.

After a few minutes of Sonya laughing, Sonya pulled on Heather's face to turn it so she could give her a kiss. Whether she was mocking or not suddenly didn't seem to matter to Heather when she received the kiss. She just craved more right then.

"You know, I actually hadn't thought about what were the possibilities and if there was essentially a grand prize for the shapes or something. I mean, as I mentioned, it is like a gacha game, so the shapes could be ranked and the dragon could be like an SSR shape, but at the same time like an SR or R rank." Sony let go of Heather's face and sighed. "I haven't seen anything that would tell me about that, but I'll see if my tutorial will tell me anything."

"The tutorial is mostly useless, right?" Heather asked, resting her hands over Sonya's "When we ask about the things we want to know the most about, we get told that it's not able to say anything about it."

"Maybe, but you just have to know how to phrase things and listen to what is said. Sometimes you can learn more about something just by bits and pieces of carefully selected words rather than a dissertation about the subject."

"What?" Heather asked, feeling confused. She wasn't sure she followed Sonya's logic about that. It felt like there was something missing.

"It's simple. If you ask me a question about something I haven't really decided about, then my answer could have information that I might not realize I've decided."

Heather thought about that for a minute before sighing in defeat. "You lost me."

"No problem," Sonya said, nuzzling Heather's neck.

Heather waited, but Sonya didn't say anything more, so eventually she asked, "Is that all you're going to say?"

"I thought you might be getting mad at me with what I was saying," Sonya cooed.

"I couldn't get mad at you," Heather said, feeling like she'd be more likely to get mad at herself before she'd get mad at Sonya.

"Did you learn anything from your own statement?" Sonya asked.

Heather blinked. What did that have to do with anything? "What're you talking about?"

Sonya chuckled. "Sorry, I was just seeing if I could provoke a realization from you with that."

Heather sighed. She was starting to feel like Sonya was taking on the role of the tutorial by not answering anything with a straight answer, but instead taking a roundabout route that she wasn't able to follow.

"Let's try it this way," Sonya suggested. "Think of it like what Stanley said to us when he first approached us about joining his group."

"Okay," she said, feeling like she could work with this.

"It's not so much about what he said, but about how he said it and the words he used."

Heather thought about that sentence for a moment before nodding. She could understand what Sonya was saying there.

"Now, I can't remember exactly what he said, but if you recall, he didn't lie outright about anything. He just made it clear he wanted us to work with him and help him enjoy his time in this world, right?"

Heather nodded. She couldn't remember what he'd said exactly either. All she could remember was that she felt almost like she had to do what he said, no matter what it was or if she wanted to do it or not. Just that it was almost like she had to do it just because Stanley told her to.

"Now, I recall that he seemed rather pleasant and friendly when he approached us, but later while he didn't really lie to us, his words didn't match up with what he'd said. That he'd said things that he meant in a different way than he probably knew we'd take them to mean."

Heather wasn't sure if she agreed with that, but couldn't think of how to argue against it. Especially since it wasn't like it was clear to her. It was again feeling like she was talking with the tutorial about how the words just didn't connect very well.

Yet, what surprised her the most was what Sonya said next. "You're not following me, are you?"

Heather shook her head. "No. It just feels like it was like how the tutorial explained some things. In a roundabout way that felt like it didn't make any sense, even as it made sense."

Sonya chuckled and moved one of her hands to Heather's breast. "You never really had any friends did you?"

Heather shook her head. She wasn't sure what that fact had to do with if she'd had any friends or not. It wasn't like she was stupid or anything. She'd did very well in school on her own, regardless of if she'd had friends or not.

"And that's what I think your problem is," Sonya continued. "You might be smart when it comes to books and all that, but you don't seem very smart when it comes to socializing."

"What does that-" Heather started to say, but was quickly cut off by Sonya.

"That means you aren't good at working with logic that isn't as straightforward as all the problems you've encountered in your books were. Because of that, you find yourself confused at how others talk about things and don't go with your own logic."

"I've understood a lot since we've been here," Heather protested. "It's just when you start talking in a roundabout way that I get confused."

Sonya chuckled, like Heather was missing the point. Though, she couldn't really say whether she was or not, as she really didn't understand what was being said in general.

"Let's just go to sleep, okay?" Sonya asked after a minute. "It's late and maybe you'll understand more after a good night's sleep, okay?"

Heather nodded. She could work with that. "Okay."