Gemwright Ch 10

*Author's Note* There are no intimacy scenes in this chapter.

I need to talk to Hanamaya. To tell the love of my life.. that I love another woman, too. I feel sick.

It is.. rather unlikely that she'll be upset. Going by everything I know about her, it's likely that she'll react with happiness, and then suggest I find 3 or 4 more women to fall in love with. But on the other hand, she'd be well within her rights to be upset with me. What if she demands I renounce my love? I can only pray that that waking nightmare doesn't come to pass.

I open a connection to Sentral, and then to Honeydew, and then to Hana.

¬your everloving Hanamaya here= did you and Rin have a good time£ some of the Crew is staying the night but some will be going back to the caravan if you're done)¬

That twists the knife a bit. I'm glad no emotions flow through a connection through Sentral.

¬um# yeah# they can come back# hey you and I need to have a conversation when you return)¬

There's a pause. ¬is that guilt I smell£ knowing you as well as I do# knowing what you were just doing there's only one thing that could mean)¬

I don't say anything, so she continues on. ¬let me guess# you would love it# if Ringara would stay with us for our entire journey# absolutely love it)¬

The relief is almost unbearable. ¬you're right# I confessed# it was impulsive and foolish, but it's how I feel# she said she loved me too)¬

¬horray= I'm so happy= I know you'll be good to her too# now, stop moping around over there like I'm sure you are and make her feel loved)¬

¬thank you Hanamaya# I was terrified you'd take this poorly# It means the world to me that I can love you both)¬

¬I love you too= oh# one more thing I let you go)¬

¬what's that£¬

¬If she wants to get pregnant then I'm okay with you putting a baby in her# see you soon=)¬ She abruptly disconnects

You...! That damn firecracker! I laugh anyway. What a relief.

Rin, "How did it go?" She's sitting on my lap again, legs across mine.

Me, "She said to make you feel loved. I love you, Ringara."

Rin blushes. "Why is that so embarrassing.. I've heard you say it how many times now, and it still makes my chest squeeze."

Me, "I'll say it as many times as you want, Rin. I love you."

She blushes even harder. "I love you as well, now stop trying to embarrass me."

Me, "There is one way to shut me up, you know." I pause, then "I lo-"

She seals my mouth with a kiss. I'm not sure if she wants it chaste or not, but when she presses her tongue to my lips and I welcome her in. Our tongues swirl and dance for a time.

- - -

I'm interrupted by telepathy. ¬we're here= come on out lovebirds=)¬

I feel her jerk, and we break off the kiss. I speak, "Our entourage is here. Let's go, my love." I ask Sentral to clean us up again.

She nods, and we stand up. "Let's go meet them."

We walk out the front door. Hana jogs up to us, and hugs not me, but Rin. "I'm so glad! You feel the same way I do! Let's all be happy together, okay?"

Rin looks conflicted, but then changes to a big smile. "To our happiness, may it last a lifetime."

Hana breaks off and hugs me. "And yeah, I love you too. But you already knew that! Come on, we brought some food! Also, you drove past the scroll. Did you pick it up yet?"

I hug her back. "Not yet, I'll have Sentral grab it."

Rin lets go of my hand. "Hana. I want to talk to you about something. Do you have a moment?" The two of them go off together towards Rin's cart.

I have Sentral grab the scroll, and then I take a bird up and look around. I think the area we looked at for camping was... yes, over there. Good. There's a lot of open land, mostly rocky with some sand, and this spot's no exception. It's got good visibility all around, isn't far from one of the town's gates, and it's relatively flat. It doesn't take long to get there, and I encircle the carts. The 'horses' stay where they are for now, I need a table and chairs. I quickly whip some up. Sentral's Zone puts the total body count at 7, so I make (sigh...) an octagonal table again, and 7 chairs, out of assorted gems. I set them out in the middle of the encampment.

Dinner is a chicken dish, with some wild seasoning I never had before. One of Wed's men informs me it's made with spices imported, or perhaps smuggled, out of the Demon Kingdom. Perfectly healthy, but insanely pricey. I just appreciate it because I don't care about money.

Fre, "Wed will be staying the night in town to negotiate with a potential client about the gems you wrought. As you know, a matching set of 9 gems is incredibly rare, and arguably wasteful when considering the normal realities of the world. You'd just keep them as large as possible and sell them individually. However, since we are immune to the concept of waste gems, it becomes an ideal selling strategy. The maximum value for our gems, while remaining plausible to onlookers. Wed hopes to harvest two thousand five hundred gold from this sale.

"I'm told you're very interested in Sapphire and Jet. Lady Hanamaya..." he looks to the side, then straightens back up, "was insistent that we support your project, whatever it is. At her discretion, we purchased several low-value gemworks of those two types, in addition to all the rough and dust we could negotiate on short notice. We've placed the gems collected today in front of your cart."

Me, "Oh, thank goodness. I wanted about twenty more birds." I have Sentral lift the box towards me. "This should fuel about... 12 more. Thank you! More birds, huzzah!" I put it down. There'll be time for gemcrafting later. "Is there anything you or the Crew needs from me?"

Fre, "Not at this time. We will let you know if we have other opportunities."

Me, "Okay. Sounds good. Oh, I'm sure Hana has informed you already, but tomorrow is date night for me and the girls. Contact me in case of emergency as always, but I'd prefer us to be left alone if possible."

Fre, "We have been made aware. Lady Hanamaya has insisted that tomorrow there will be only one person minding this campsite, and that person will discreetly leave once you three come back."

Me, "That sounds perfect. I hope it's not too much of an inconvenience."

Fre, "I assure you that our accommodations in town are adequate. We do not plan to come here very often except to pick up or drop off. While it is a plus that this leaves you with greater privacy with your women, the real reason is we'd prefer to sleep in a bed instead of on the ground."

Me, "Ah. That's pretty obvious in hindsight."

Fre, "About the lookout tomorrow. Wed would like to station someone as a lookout while nobody is at camp. You can banish them to town as needed, preferably with a time on when to return. If you feel strongly that Sentral will handle it, we won't push the issue."

Me, "Sure. That's not a problem at all. Anyway, It is a bit late so I probably will not be going to town today. You need not leave a sentry tonight. I also really want to make some birds, so I'll be minding the camp until tomorrow morning."

Fre, "Very well. If that's all, we will take our leave. The lookout will stop by tomorrow morning. We should be able to get in before the gates close for the night."

Me, "See you later, Fre."

He stands, salutes, and leaves.

I finish my chicken. I gotta get more of this at some point.

I look around and don't see the girls. I flick a peek at Sentral's... No, let's not intrude on their privacy. I ask Sentral ¬where are Ringara and Hanamaya£¬

¬Ringara and Hanamaya are inside of Ringara's cart)¬

¬thanks)¬ and I disconnect.

I levitate over Fre's box of new gems again, and clean off all the rough. I fuse like gems to like. Keeping the Jet, Sapphire and the small amount of Emerald, I request additional Emerald, Rhodonite, and some Diamond. I call out my blindfold again and call a few birds to me. It occurs to me that I should have done this with the crab. Hmm. Actually... I sieze a completed bird and look through its eyes, as well as the 5 on my arm. Comparable eyesight. But what if I twist here?... No. I yank it back, and force it a different way..... ... Wait, they might get startled again. I call a biped to stand in front of their cart and kneel, then a bird to stand on its arm. Good. They'll understand what that means; making birds. Okay, back to birds. What was I.. eyesight, yes. I go back to pushing it's eyes around making them all sorts of sizes until I find one with better eyesight. I can see more details like this! Good! I squish all of their eyes like that. Wait, why does this bird have three eyes? I remove the middle one. They, and thus I, can see much better now. This is even better than my own eyesight. I'll poke out my own eye and replace them?? Nah, that'd hurt. With my now superior eyesight, I focus on new birds. First I need to replace the sapphire in my gutted one. Welcome back, bird 11. I chuck it behind me. Sentral, deal with the new birds. Recharge them too, it's too dark for them. Yes. Okay good. Number twelve, Jet top, Emerald bottom for flapping power, enough Sapphire to telepathy. Testing. It responds. Flap off little birdie. Medium sized birdie... They're about as large as eagles, I think, I've never actually seen an eagle before. They stand at two feet right? Ish? Well mine do, so whatever. Bird 13 gets tossed behind me as start on 14. What's the difference between an eagle and a hawk anyway? Shape? Height? Wingspan? Is it one of those "Can't interbreed, so different species" deals? I pose the question to 14 after it responds to my telepathy, but there is no response. Stupid bird. I punch it out of my hand. It picks itself up and flies off. 15...16... Oh, this is a good chance to see the sea isn't it? Wait, it's a little dark... Well whatever. I send up 13 birds, leaving only two on my arm. While they fly I make 17. Up and up they go. I'm a little distracted. I accidentally put its wing on backwards. I'm half done before I notice. Whoops. I rip it off and tear the different gems from each other, before mushing like and like together and reforming the wing. 17 done. On to 18. This one's legal. I laugh at my unfunny joke. I wonder if I should care about their gem quality? They'd probably fly better, but trying to clean up this many gems would take days... and I really just don't care that much. It's just looking over every detail, and then trying to correct them. I wonder if I would get faster with practice? Well, I'll find out some other time, I've got.. something planned tomorrow, the entire day is booked. I'll practice another time. I've got birds to make. 19 gets tossed aside, but walks back and hops onto my arm. I'm rudely interrupted. ¬Grey your golem is blocking the door# please move it)¬ whoops. I make some sort of apology and command the biped to take a few steps back. Where was I... 19? No, 20. Maybe I should carve an enumeration into them. I reach to the top bird, and carve a small 1 into the back of its neck. I don't think that's the first bird I made, but whatever. I enumerate the next highest bird as well, 2. Repeat for all of them. The half formed bird in my hand gets a 20. What are the girls doing?

Hana, "What do you mean? You're being weird."

Rin, "No. He's performing the bird creation ritual again. May we watch?"

Yeah sure whatever I'm good with that. Rin sits on her feet again about 5 feet away, hands on her knees, looking at me intently. I wonder why I don't feel self conscious. But making birds is fun so I don't mind the small things. I jam my hand into the Sapphire putty and drag some out. Too much. I pick more and more out of the mass until I can't connect anymore, then restore it that last step. I push it against the incomplete stomach and smear it around. It hardens/was already hard/forms in place on the underside of the bird, then I repeat the process for the Emerald, sealing it up and. Done. I lift Rin over to my side a bit, ignore her yelp, and attach the new bird to her arm. I give her another one take off my own arm too. Good. I like this viewpoint. Oh, I can see better now. Something deepens. The viewpoints on Rin lurch as she collapses. I can't see when you do that, sit up straight again. I ignore the echoes of queasiness. I've got enough birds to investigate that curse but I want more jay aye see... 21 here we go. Jet for top and eyes. Sapphire and Emerald bottom. Diamond coat. 21 gets tossed behind me before alighting and settling on Rin. Oh right. The birds should be ready by now? Oh wow they're up pretty high. I shift the view up. I get several viewpoints of the ocean from high up. The port city is in view too. I like the way the light sparkles on the ocean as the sun gets close to setting. Nice. Wed would like this. I'll bother him about it later. Sentral bring them back down. Find a perch for them somewhere. 22 on its way, hmm getting low on Sapphire. I craft it, nothing unusual here. More viewpoints add themselves in as birds come down. 23rd, this'll be the last I can do today. So much for 20 pounds of gems today. Wed you're fired. I'll find a new criminal syndicate. Hmm. Can I...? For this last bird I try mixing Sapphire and Emerald like I did for my sunglasses. I fail to connect. The Sapphire isn't continuous enough, I guess. It takes a minute to separate them. For this one I make the left lower half emerald, and the right lower half sapphire. Well, I use more Emerald than Sapphire, so it's not quite that clear cut, but it's close. And done. Man, 22 viewpoints is rough. Why are so many of them at my side? What are they perched on?

Uhg... What...

I remove my blindfold, and 8 birds fall off of me. What the hell? Again? I look around groggily, and someone at my side is covered in birds. "Rin...?"

Rin, "Um. Yes?"

What the hell is... no, let's extract her. I start picking up one bird after another off of her. They're perched all over her arms and shoulders. She's looking at me with a serious expression. When I free her, she bows her head. "I'm glad I could be of use for your ritual. Thank you for allowing me to participate."

...

Huh??

Hana gives an exaggerated sigh. "Just say you're welcome."

Me, "You're, um, welcome.."

Rin brings her head up and stares at me. I wonder what that's about.

Hana speaks, so I turn to her. "Anyway. It's about night time. We're going clothes shopping tomorrow, and we need a lot of clothes. Let's be up bright and early okay? Wed says the gates open around dawn."

Rin, "I'd like to sleep beside you tonight, if that's okay."

Hana, "I'll allow it! Since I'm such a considerate person." She hugs me. "Make her feel loved, okay?"

Me, "I will. But Hanamaya, don't forget that you're mine."

She squeezes me tighter, then let's go. "I'm sleepy. Good night!" She turns, disconnects, and heads to her cart.

Rin, "I'll grab my things. Meet you there?"

I nod, and she walks off. Man, her ass is beautiful. I meant to get my fill last time we had sex, but I barely touched it. That of course reminds me how incredible her lips felt earlier....

I shake my head and head to the cart. Today's objectives, such as they are, are complete. I have enough birds to investigate the curse. I have the crab complete, so it can search for underwater shipwrecks.

The door opens by itself.

Again...

I pause, then walk in. It closes itself behind me.

I connect to Sentral. ¬are you opening and closing the door for me£¬

¬yes)¬

¬thank you for doing that# why are you doing so£)¬

There is no reply.

¬what are the conditions for you to open a door for someone£)¬

¬I open the door to your cart when you approach it from outside# I close the door after you walk through)¬

¬that is good thank you# continue to do that if you wish# just be cautious to not harm anybody by doing this)¬

¬yes)¬

I disconnect.

Sentral reconnects.

Silence.

¬do you want something Sentral£)¬

¬I want Amethyst)¬

¬why£)¬

¬to observe motion)¬

¬of people£)¬

¬motion)¬

¬I will see what I can do# please be patient for a while)¬

¬yes)¬

I disconnect.

....

Sentral doesn't reconnect.

Hopefully this is all it asks for. I was hoping to avoid getting to this point where it might start to ask for things and even potentially rebel. I'm hoping, essentially, that it's still too stupid to do that.

I wonder if buying and flying flags would be good? I'll see about Amethyst. There wasn't any in today's haul. If flags will keep it happy, then so be it. If it asks for Sapphire we're going to have problems.

I'll follow up on that tomorrow during shopping. For now, I get ready for bed.

Rin joins me after I finish. She puts tomorrow's outfit on the table. "You know we're still connected right...?"

¬ah# so we are)¬ "Why?"

Rin, "You can touch my rump if you want. While we're alone... I'm okay with it."

Me, "Ah, sorry about that. I would like to, though. Would you please bend over the bed?"

She does. I run my hands over her pants. Her bottocks have some squish, but are tight below that. I sometimes forget how toned her body is, and her firm rear is a pleasant reminder of that. I pull her pants down, and enjoy the smooth texture of her flesh, as well as the volume..

Rin, "Most men stare at my breasts, instead of my rump... you're a strange one."

I push my fingers deeper.. "Don't get me wrong, you have a fine pair. I want to play with them sometime. I'll save it for another day though." I pull her pants back up. "Hana wants us to go to bed. Unless you have a burning desire to have another go, I think we should."

Rin, "Sure. Would you hold me tonight?"

I smile, and take off my shirt and pants. "Absolutely."

I walk towards the bed. She makes a request though. "Would you do me a favor?"

I stop. "Anything. What is it?"

She meets my eyes. "When we go to sleep together, would you please be naked?"

I remove my underwear. "Not a problem."

Rin, "And, um... This is embarrassing to ask... the next time we have sex, if you could undress me, I'd really like that."

I take a slow step towards her, smiling. "Would you like me to remove your clothes now?"

Rin gets a bit flustered. "No.. Um..." A few images cross her mind. Images of me treating her roughly. Excitement.

Shit. For now, I pretend not to notice.

I smile instead and touch her arm. "Let's go to bed. You can tell me all about the things you'd like when we're both feeling the urge. Okay?"

She shakes her head, takes a breath, and smiles at me. "Yes. That sounds like a good idea."

I get into bed and lay on my side, on a pillow. I feel her slide up in front of me, long hair pulled across her front. I drape my arm around her side and stomach. Her breasts... I try not to think about them, I'd rather not get hard right now. I bother Sentral to turn off the lights. Maybe I should invest in enough Sapphire to make my cart receive telepathy... We're suddenly in pitch black.

I feel Rin on my stomach and chest. I love her so much. And she loves me. I can't stop thinking about it. "Rin. I'm so glad I found you. You make my life better. I love you."

Rin shakes her head, nestled on my arm. "You silly... You blow into my life like a hurricane, make me fall in love with you, and act like I did you a favor. I love you. I want to stay with you forever.. I'm so happy..."

I hold her for a bit. She drifts off before long, and I disconnect.

I lose my smile and good feeling. What I saw before... I'm pretty sure Rin wants me to rape her. A fantasy, sure, but I... I'm uncomfortable with the idea. I'm far more comfortable with lovey-dovey, I

really

enjoy that. Hmm. I'm willing to sacrifice my unease if it's what she really wants to try it, but... I wonder if I should just ask her, or if surprising her would be the way to go? Damnit, I need an FAQ. Maybe I can ask Hana about it. At the very least, unless Rin drops more hints, I won't spring it on her.