Ignorance was bliss.
Yvain took an unconscious Roesia to bed, wishing he was the one currently comatose. He carefully maneuvered her body sideways so that her massive stomach wouldn't crush her as she slept. Putting on the covers, it looked as if a whole human being was hiding next to the sorceress.
What went through their heads when they saw such a scene?
he asked himself. Bad enough to find them having sex, Roesia's body looked as if she was about to blow up.
There was no use thinking about it.
Yvain washed his body with the now lukewarm water and put his clothes back on before exiting the bedroom. No one was waiting for him, but several voices were coming from downstairs. Some which he didn't recognize.
Trying to not make a sound, he made his way down the hallway.
"How did that thing even get in here?" one rough voice said.
"This whole dungeon is a mess," said a sensual, melodious voice. The horned woman. Who was she talking to? "Leave it to fate to fuck us over at the least opportune moment."
"This has nothing to do with her," a deep, but eloquent sounding man said. "Regardless, he's already on his way to deal with it."
There was a whole party in the house and the horned woman seemed to know the other two. What if they were another group of people set on winning this dungeon's prize? Whatever it was. Though how did they get in here in the first place?
Yvain made his way down slowly, intent on gathering as much information as possible and asserting Nora's and Elly's whereabouts.
"Feel better?" the horned woman popped her head out from the wall next to the stairs with a wide smile.
Yvain's body seized as he jumped in fright. Then, giving a defeated sigh, said, "I guess."
"Stars, you're all weakness, aren't you?" she said with a sigh of her own. "Come, Nora and Elly are here."
The horned woman disappeared, and with no other alternative Yvain followed a familiar path toward the dining room.
A long shinny-brown table apt for hosting dozens of people, chairs with comfortable backrests and seat cushions, tall windows showing a luscious garden. The group was sitting around the place where Yvain had had many-a-meals growing up.
Nora beamed a smile at him and rushed off her chair, but Yvain's attention was occupied by the two men he hadn't seen before. One of Nora's people and...he couldn't name the other, but both were of the beast races and equipped for war.
Seated close to the head of the table, they looked back at him with impassive faces while the horned woman sat next to them.
The goddess jumped into his arms.
"I'm so glad you're both okay!" she said, rubbing cheeks with him.
"Relatively so," Yvain said dazedly.
"Nelimir isn't here yet, but I'm told he'll arrive soon," she said.
"By these people?" Yvain used his chin to point toward the unusual trio.
"We're right here you know," the horned woman interjected.
Nora eyed her but only got an amicable smile.
"Yes," the goddess said, looking back at him, "How's Roesia?"
She showed no hidden hostility, only worry for her friend.
"She's...fine. Well, no."
Nora took a step back, still holding onto his shoulders and Yvain explained the overall situation with the sorceress, skipping over what she and Elly saw and the carnal details that led up to it.
"Did she try to at least absorb it?" the goddess asked.
"I'm not sure, but she was badly torn up about the whole thing. Barely cared about her...leg."
"I need to see her," Nora said and sped off past him.
"Wait!" Yvain said. Was she just going to run in there? After what transpired?
He looked back at his master, but Elly was rooted on her seat, simply staring into space. Did she even hear that Roesia couldn't use starlight anymore?
The thud of Nora's shoes on wood running up the stairs cut his rumination short, urging him go after her with a small grunt of complaint.
Hand on doorknob, the goddess was already turning the lock when he reached her, every turn of the contraption tightening his chest.
"About what happened," he began, but Nora rushed into the bedroom, ignoring his words.
Roesia was mercifully still asleep, yet her stomach remained the same size as before.
The goddess stood next to her before putting her hand on a sweaty forehead and closed her eyes.
It took not even a second.
"No..." she said quietly, pulling back. "I've ruined her."
"We still don't know if she can't be healed," Yvain said.
The goddess helplessly looked at him.
"There is no healing this. Her Galaxia has been destroyed." Nora put a tender hand over Roesia's head. "She shouldn't even be alive right now."
His first reaction was to deny her words. But who was he, to contradict someone with more experience and knowledge than him?
"Please," Yvain began, "don't tell her any of this when she wakes up."
"What am I supposed to say?"
"Anything. Just don't rid her of the little hope I managed to kindle. You should have seen her Nora. The thought of being unable to use starlight anymore nearly broke her."
The goddess kept her eyes on the unconscious sorceress; slitted pupils shifting erratically.
"Okay," she finally said, allowing him to release a breath of relief.
Nora wasn't happy withholding information, that much was obvious. But she hadn't seen the despair in Roesia's eyes. It had scared him.
"Do you love her?" the goddess abruptly changed the topic, knocking the wind out of his lungs.
Yvain stayed upright by sheer force of will. And not knowing what to do with himself, played with his hands while eyeing the goddess.
"I can explain," he said and prepared for an attack or insult.
None came.
"Well?" Nora asked.
"...It was for her own good, I mean, she needed my help."
How in the brightest stars does fucking her like that equal she needing help!?
Yvain screamed in his head. How did he begin to explain?
An amicable hand landed on his shoulder and Yvain's head snapped toward the goddess like a startled deer.
"Calm down my love, I'm not angry," Nora said.
"You're...not?"
She shook her head, smiling.
Did she trust him enough to think there was a good reason? No, she asked him if he loved Roesia. What was her aim then? Why would that even be a question?
Yvain was completely off-balance; the absurdity of Nora's question and reaction sweeping his legs from under him.
Now struggling for steadiness, he could only clear his throat and launch into a step-by-step recounting of what happened between them. Filling in the blanks left behind on the first explanation.
Nora never brought up his initial omission.
"I wonder why she did it," she said at the end.
"Who?"
"The succubus, I wonder why she would play such a trick on you and Roesia."
"Succubus?" Yvain asked, attempting to bring up the word from his mental vocabulary and failing.
"Oh," Nora said, "the woman downstairs. It's one of the many different type of demons in the mainland. Succubi specialize in anything regarding sex."
"What does that have to do with poison though?" Yvain asked.
"Most likely poison was never involved. She simply used her abilities on Roesia and made her extremely horny."
Not the craziest thing he had heard or seen at this point, but...
"How did Roesia," Yvain tried to find the right words but only managed to wave his hand toward the sorceress's belly, "How did she become like this?"
Looking at the inflated stomach, Nora spoke, "I'm not an expert on demons, but if I had to guess, it's also related to her."
Yvain harshly rubbed his face, "Fuck me."
"She doesn't seem to have had malicious intentions though," the goddess said and then in a quieter voice, "Maybe she had a much clearer view of what I glimpsed and decided to act."
Yvain peeked from between his hands with a questioning gaze.
The goddess raised an eyebrow, "You haven't answered my question. The second time wasn't for her benefit, was it?"
'Do you love her?' The words revibrated through the soft ball of tissue in his head. It had an answer following behind it right from its conception.
"No, it wasn't," he said. "And not in the way that I love you, at least." As Yvain spoke, an urge to touch Roesia, which he didn't act on, suffused his hands. "It feels more like the time you and I met. Hearing her tell it, I think she is going through the same thing we did. Not only with me, but with you."
"Me?" Nora asked, genuinely taken aback for the first time since they began this line of conversation.
"That's what she said," Yvain shrugged his shoulders.
"Has it always been like this?"
He shook his head. "It began after she changed. She--"
"You're just going to tell her everything I said in confidence, aren't you?" Roesia said.
Both Yvain and Nora froze.
"How much did you hear?" he asked in as normal a voice as possible. Did she listen in on them talking about her condition?
"I woke up around 'I can explain'," she said groggily, her back still facing them and her bloated stomach resting on its side. "I was prepared to come to your defense, but you did pretty well for yourself."
"I...I'm sorry."
It hadn't been his intention to expose the sorceress. He just didn't even conceive holding back the information from Nora.
Roesia waved him off from her awkward position.
"I broke her trust first. I don't have the right to complain."
The goddess audibly sighed.
