Everyday Life with Bubbles

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Author's Note: This one takes place at the same time as Hooktooth's Daughter. Not that you need that to understand anything.

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"Fuck off." Bubbles batted away the hand, glaring out of her twisted blanket as she peered up at the person interrupting her precious and perfect sleep.

Sharhalla's black eyes blinked impassively, "Time to remove bandage and sling. Need to go easy on arm, but need use it, too."

She groaned and sat up tiredly, lifting up the arm she had been asleep on top of. The doctor expertly unwound the bandage, before lifting the sling from her neck. He looked at her curiously, pulling a gemstone from his kit and peering through it. She rolled her eyes as he checked over each of her bones with way too much intensity.

Bubbles popped her cheeks, feeling her stomach grumble, "No Rali?"

"She at market." He grunted, and turned her her hand, tickling her palm as he scrutinised it, "She still sent treat. Erientyara brought them. In lounge with Ninaein."

The neko whistled, sucking in her breath too quickly. She whispered urgently, "He left those two... Alone!? Is he fucked in the head?"

He looked up at her, "Hmm?"

"Your dragongirl hates Nina! Who hates her even more!" Bubbles said in astonishment, "They were only nice at Halfdark because it was festival! How damn stupid is he?"

He shrugged, and went back to checking her, "You have lost considerable mass. Need to change diet, more. Do you exercise for fun? And don't just mean with brood. Sex not count."

She tsk'd in frustration, terrified of what she'd find when she escaped the doctor and got to peek in at her loungeroom. An overbearing and hot-headed fire dragon, against a half-insane catgirl with a thing for knives. It was an absolute recipe for disaster.

"Bubbles."

The woman shrugged, "She likes running on rooftops. That count? It's cold. So right now, Bubbles mostly likes curling up by fireplaces. Edric's boiler. She's been thinking she wants to write some new songs, so she probably go to taverns and listen to adventurers."

"No drinking." Sharhalla admonished, before finally releasing her and putting away the gemstone, "Two hours of hard exercise, every day. No tuna. Can have salmon."

"Tuna?"

"Midfish or less." He grunted, turning it over to nekan slang.

Her bottom lip instantly started trembling. "B-but... Her fish..."

"Expensive fish is fine." He shrugged, "What else...? Ah. You need to have more grains. Are you regular?"

"Fish!" She warbled, "She spent all her platinum on Halfdark! She's not a rich girl, stupid dragon! She has to save up if she wants nice fish! And if anyone else gets there before her, then none left! Fucking plague in all the good fish!"

"Then no fish." He was unmoved, "Bowel movements. I need to know... If you're not getting enough regularity, then you need more grains. Seeded breads, oatmeal and -"

"Out." Bubbles pointed at her doorway.

The salamander blinked in surprise. "Hmm?"

"Get out!" Bubbles screeched, her yellow eyes lighting up as she instinctively channelled her magic, projecting her voice into him at an intolerable volume that should have hit him like a wall.

He stood up tiredly, and calmly began packing up his things, "I will leave list with Ninaein, then? Kaia isn't home. Do you know where she is?"

"Working." Bubbles said glumly, "Stupid youngling lord liked her at Halfdark, so she got assistant job. She abandoned him to get frozen near death by angry salamander, but he still fucking want her. So she only gets her Kaia at night, now."

"That should bring silver."

She grabbed a simple book from her bedside table and threw it at his head. The cardboard book hit corner-first and bounced off with a dull crack. He didn't even acknowledge the attack before turning to leave.

However, someone else had heard her, and come to investigate.

The woman in the doorway was nothing short of radiant. Her red hair was tied into a painstaking plait that still somehow reached down to her ankles. Golden flowers were threaded throughout it. Her left ankle was clasped in a dozen thin, similarly golden, bangles.

Most of the woman's red scales were hidden by her rough black leather garb. A pleated leather skirt sitting below a thick cowhide jacket. Even the scales that framed her face were beneath her wispy fringe. The eyes looking out from that cold face were a shockingly bright blue that made you feel like she could see your soul.

"Sha'r'halla." She pronounced his name with a delicate complexity, and gave him a quiet and affirming growl, an overly formal draconic greeting. He responded by puffing out his chest, and snarling as freezing mists spilled from his mouth.

She inclined her head and puffed a single burst of white smoke, causing him to relax. The woman smiled and kissed his cheek, before turning to the neko and sighing, "Now, how have you offended you patient this time, husband?"

"I not." He protested, but she dismissed him with a wave of her hand, "Oh, shut it. I can taste it in the air. Go away before I feel the need to bite you."

He retreated, muttering to himself, and Bubbles giggled, brightening. The neko shrugged and sat cross-legged on the end of her bed, grabbing a nearby shirt, as his wife took up an imposing position opposite her. The neko looked at, "She likes the way she speaks. So... It's well spoken. Sound like royal."

"I am royalty." Erientyara replied simply, smiling at her, "Distant, though it may be, I am a related to a king. I was educated at the temple from a young age, and have spent most of my life among human scholars and tutors. Understandable confusion from one not of draconid origins, but none of my own would mistake me for anything common."

The neko's eyes widened, "Sorry! She didn't mean to offend! Just meant... Words... Sound pretty."

"Indeed." The salamander smiled, "Nin'aei'n tells me that you find you cannot speak my husband's name. Is this, so?"

Bubbles nodded glumly, "She... She street kitty... Her Edric is... Still trying to teach her... How to read..."

Erientyara bent down and retrieved the book from the floor, dusting it off and opening it with delicate care. She brushed a corner affectionately, "Ah. Nekan. I recall this one. The Catgirl and the Kitsune. A neko has her favourite sweet roll stolen by a kitsune, and chases after her, until the kitsune throws it in a mud puddle rather than give it back. A fable on the inevitability of betrayal if a neko dares to befriend one. More than a little racist, but such is your history."

"Bubbles has kitsune friend!" She announced smugly, "She sits and drinks with him! Or... She did. Fucking doctor says Bubbles isn't allowed to fucking drink. Jerk. Says she isn't eating right, neither. And now she has to give up her fucking fish! No! He go too far."

She laughed, a tinkling sound, and swept a hand through the edges of her hair, "Sha'r'halla can be insensitive. It is his way, I am afraid. I find it to be one of his most endearing qualities, but such is the way of my people. It is embarrassingly often that Ra'li must step between my husband and his patients, yet her interests in cooking do frequently smooth the way. A stomach filled is a tactic deployed from the highest of society, to the lowest."

The neko glanced towards the doorway, catching the smallest hint of fur, and smiled softly, "Bubbles hopes that the Er... Err... Um... Dragonlady? Doesn't find it too offensive to come to her house. She is not the highest."

"Of course, not!" Erientyara laughed lightly, "Oh my. I didn't mean to mislead you. I may be royalty, but my husband is certainly not! His ancestors were slaves, not kings. Married, my status is his. I willingly gave it up for him. I may speak well, my adorable neko, but I have lived without a roof above my head, at times."

She gave a polite smile.

The woman crossed, sitting and smoothing her skirt quickly. "That is our culture. I am no higher than my husband. Nor would I ever wish to be. Though... Do not mistake respect for compliance."

"He call you... Fiery. Always smile when say it." Bubbles gave a small laugh, "She thinks that the... Doctor... Must love her very much."

"He didn't give you a human name, for myself, either." She tsk'd, "That is so very much like him. Well, dear little neko, you may call me Erin. A human name that I do not find to be entirely offensive. As for my husband, who so often is cruel to those around him through indifference, he sometimes goes by the name of Shin."

Bubbles nodded slowly, "Shin, Rali, and Erin. Cute."

"Cute?" The draconid said in amusement, "I suppose Ra'li can be considered as such, on occasion, but I was to understand that the woman had... Taken relations with yourself. Such an attitude as she displays at such a time, might not be so considered so cute."

"She fucking scary horny!" Bubbles erupted, and shook her head, "The Erin has seen it? She didn't know if Shin shared or what dragons do. Bubbles' lovers not share her. Well... She did make Nina kiss Kaia that one time... But Nina do anything for her Bubbles."

Erientyara nodded politely, "Indeed. Your bride seems quite proud of it. She has made many dozens of threats to me, this morning, intimating that her love for you makes her quite difficult to handle."

"Eugh." Bubbles groaned, "Very difficult. For starters, Bubbles not married to no one."

The draconid shook her head, "My apologies, a slip on my behalf. The concepts of dating are difficult to recall, at times. Mating is mating, to those of my background. We may sometimes take another mate, or simply leave one, but we are either mated presently, or not. Girlfriends, fiances, and wives, are difficult concepts to process, for myself."

"No, Nina the kind to brag she married when she not." Bubbles giggled, "She is very, very, possessive of her Bubbles and very, very, worried that because Bubbles has had fun with Erin's master, she might try to play with the Erin as well."

The red salamander nodded slowly, and then surprised the neko. "Her fears are justified. I did accompany my husband to see whether I could bed you, to speak plainly. I find it... Difficult... That he has bedded you, and I have not."

Ninaein sprang through the doorway, and Bubbles put her head in her hands. She had really been hoping to avoid this kind of nonsense, for at least a day. She was tired, and it was her first day without a sling. She just wanted to get out and enjoy the city. Find a nice place to curl up and snore her head off.

Instead, Ninaein was dangling a foot off the ground, as a salamander threatened to crush her throat.

The knife the thief had hoped to use, was mostly lying on the ground in broken fragments, though the hilt was still in the neko's hand and scratching through a hole in the jacket at the red scales. But expecting an ordinary knife to cut a red salamander was expecting the kindness of the moon.

Bubbles looked from one to the other, fretting about their expectations of her, and then being irritated by their expectations of her, and then noticing that they were too busy glaring at each other to notice her.

She shifted off the bed ever so slowly, and then turned and bounded out of her window in a blur of movement. She skidded as she hit the frozen rooftop, slipping towards the fucking gutter, but managed to just barely skid to a stop, blunting the claws painfully on one of her hands.

The neko raised one eyebrow in confusion as she spied a storm cloud in the city. Just one. Sitting above a particular house and hating on it in particular. The catgirl nodded to herself, and decided to spend her day in the city by running in the exact opposite direction.

She channelled a touch of magic into the portcall around her ankle. She felt the magic punch her in the head, shadows swirling in around her.

Bubbles feet hit the cobblestones, and she gave a little wince. It had been a while since she'd been running, and her soles had softened so it kinda stang to jump onto stone.

She started trying to put together a tune as she walked near-naked along the street. Tossing notes and melodies back and forth, humming, and searching for a bit of a ditty. Something slow and drawn out, that she could use as part of a love song, or something along those lines.

Taverns didn't really like the slow songs. Sure, they could get rooms rented for couples, but there weren't a lot of rooms, however they could offer drinks all night long. Love songs had the effect of slowing down the drinking, not improving it.

However, a bard is a bard. Having access to a songstress wasn't something that most places could get, so she usually managed to negotiate. As long as about half her songs could bring in the silver, she could sing whatever it is that she felt like.

A song for Kaia, was what Bubbles was really thinking about. She was feeling like she hadn't given the succubus enough attention lately, and she did still adore the woman. It was easy to neglect her, because it kinda made Kaia happy to be hurt, which was not something that Bubbles had a real grip on.

She preferred trying to spoil her.

The catgirl looked down at the portcall around her ankle, smiling. She might sometimes forget to spoil Kaia, but that one never forgot to spoil her neko. Always looking out for her, just like she had when they had met.

Playing with the music for the song, Bubbles hadn't really been paying attention to where she was going, and found that she had drifted into the marketplace, and into a crowd. They were gathered around an inventor showing off his latest contraption.

Most of the onlookers were human, there were surprisingly few exotics around. Bubbles moved around until she could get a clear vision of the invention. Most catgirls had a thing for gadgets, things that worked in strange ways. Few still bought them after becoming adults, but it wasn't unusual to find them staring at a stallholder's things, too proud to admit they wanted to buy the kid's toys.

This wasn't a kid's toy.

Two round circles were joined by some simple pipework. A seat went over the higher of the two circles, so that Bubbles would be sitting at about head-height if she were to go on it. A little down from there, some kind of stirrups were linked into a bunch of clockwork that ran down the length. A pair of horns seemed to guide the front circle's direction.

Her tail swished back and forth excitedly as she looked at the new form of transport. Picturing herself outdistancing a stinky horse, but without putting in the effort to sprint. She could outrun any kind of equine animal. But that was running, not a marathon. Moving long distances without a pack animal wasn't really an option, still.

Her ears flattened as she looked at the device some more, dissecting it inside her head. She raised a hand timidly, and the inventor broke off his speech with an irritated sigh, "Yes, ma'am?"

"Why different sizes?" She pointed at the two circles.

He rolled his eyes as if it were obvious, "A large wheel makes it easier to propel you further distances. You will go faster, as it will turn to cover more ground."

"Or you could just use step-up gear. Drum is heavier, but means that you put in less effort and go even faster. Just need link stirrups to back circle with chain." Bubbles pointed out, "And if closer to ground, then when accident happen, you not scatter brain on cobblestone as easy."

The man looked incensed, and went to yell at her, but as he opened his mouth the vehicle suddenly fell sideways to the ground with a horrible shriek of rending metal. A flame-engulfed woman stood up slowly, and crossed her arms, glaring with her terrifyingly blue eyes directly at the neko. "That was rude, leaving when you did. I thought even a street kitten would be more polite than that."

Bubbles tail curled in around her leg and she swallowed nervously, "Um..."

"We are going back to your house. Right now." Erientyara declared.

The neko winced, and tried to point out the salamander had pancaked a rather expensive object, but the burning red dragon wasn't interested in having any kind of conversation. She strode over confidently, and seized Bubbles' wrist, burning her.

There was an awful sensation of her arm being yanked by the weight of the world, and then the catgirl was screaming into the wind with the city far below her.

It took her less than a second to decide she hated flying. The screaming was real anxiety. Her hands and feet pulsed with adrenaline as she saw the world impossibly far beneath her. This was nothing like climbing. She liked climbing to high places, she liked falling.

This... This made her want to piss herself.

The distant houses suddenly flew up to greet her, at a ridiculous pace. Erientyara wasn't just dropping out of the sky, she was flying straight towards the ground. Bubbles regretted not ducking into the nearest tavern and becoming difficult to find.

A boom deafened her, and she was blinded by snow being tossed into the air. Bubbles found herself lying sideways, the salamander's arms under her legs and around her waist, supporting her through the sudden impact.

The neko rolled to try and escape, but found a hand as strong as any cuffs locking around her wrist as she did. Her bottom lip trembled and she let out a timid hiss at the dragon.

"Release her, or I'll carve you a new vagina, right here." Ninaein spoke quietly, a knife appearing against the redhead's throat.

The enormous tail swung sideways into the catgirl, knocking the thief flying. Bubbles stared in fear at her girlfriend, who seemed to be almost disappointed with the attack, lightly flicking from her hand to her feet with a puff of snowflakes.

Ninaein tossed her knife lightly, "Release my wife, dragon. This is the last time that I'm warning you."

Bubbles looked at the ground, and mumbled, "Both go away... She isn't anybody's..."

"Erientyara!" Came a deafening roar, and the front door swung behind the blue salamander as he stalked down the steps to the house. White mist billowing from the doctor's mouth in a show of anger that the neko had never seen before.

The woman, holding her, puffed black smoke, "Go back inside, husband."

"Release her, or I strike you." He threatened, black eyes glaring.

"You bastard!" Erientyara replied angrily, "You bed her, and expect that I will not seek to do the same?"

Sharhalla growled, a deep rumbling sound that shook the broken cobblestones, "I gave choice. She chose."

"I deserve to have her!" Erientyara yelled straight back at him, bursting into flames again and scorching Bubbles. The neko wailed in pain and dropped to the ground, her wrist still held.

She looked up in agony with her pale yellow eyes. "L-let go of her! Please! Stop it!"

The catgirl was sent flying, and her blistering wrist cooled, as Sharhalla landed on his wife and let out a scream of freezing ice directly into her flame-ridden face.

Bubbles held her wrist lightly, looking up in confusion as she started to cry. Ninaein crouched beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders, whispering to her, "Let's go inside."

Erientyara was staring up at her husband in shock, her red hair covered in tiny ice crystals, as his black eyes glared down at her. She swallowed nervously, and then emitted a tiny puff of white smoke.

He grunted and stood, "Go home. I not be long."

"I... I'm sorry." She whispered, but he just waved a hand in irritation.

Ninaein pointed her knife at the doctor, "I can handle burns. Go home with your wife. The last thing Bubbles needs today is more time with a fucking salamander."

"I..." He hesitated, looking pained.

Bubbles sniffled and shuffled over to the doctor and kissed his cheek lightly. "She... She doesn't hate anyone. She thinks... She thinks she got caught up in dragon things. Go with wife. Bubbles not dragon. She not understand dragon things. But... She not want dragons. Not today."