John Newman was inside a nice little house in the suburbs of New York City. Of course, ‘nice’, ‘little’, and ‘house’ truly stood for ‘sizable mansion that was almost as much glass as it was concrete’. The only reason why John, who valued having a safe retreat from the public eye imnsely, was fine with such a construction being his place of habitation was because it would be short lived. Even though the suburbs took the shape of a gated community of rich people’s sumr hos, the rest potential that soone could climb over the community gate, then over the wall of the estate, and finally hide themselves among the ticulously kept garden to look over the pool and through the oversized windows, separated only by the white walls of the mostly angular, three-floor building, was enough for John to hate the idea of sleeping in there.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to.
“Honestly, there were probably better houses to buy,” the Gar pointed out, as he walked about the place, making sure their preparations were in order. Since the sole reason they had acquired the estate was to back the lie he told his mundane parents, it looking entirely brand new would have been an issue. Beatrice had gotten a conceptual heart attack when John went about deliberately adding imperfections around the house. The only way the passive maid had survived had been by aggressively decorating the environnt with photos of the harem or other keepsakes, fake, replicas or real. “This just doesn’t feel like a place I would live in.”
“Believe it or not, ya nagging fuck, there’s not that many houses for billionaires on the market at any given ti.” Scarlett’s response was sharp, partly because this wasn’t the first ti John had raised the complaint. As the one who had bought the house for them, the technomancer was the one who had to defend that decision. “There’s not that many and the upkeep on these things if no one buys them is insane. You have to hire a gardener just to keep the damn lawn presentable, not to ntion the cleaners. There’s more than one building firm that went bankrupt because they decided they would cater to this niche market.”
“Right, right,” John conceded with a sigh. “Sorry to bring it up.”
“It’s an awful fucking house,” she agreed with him, while pouring herself a glass of wine. The matching bottle had actually co with the house and cost about as much as regular people’s monthly rent. “The entire place reeks of pretentious blandness and it sohow STILL has too few power sockets!”
“Ya can just will electricity into existence anyway, Red,” Rave pointed out, calling Scarlett one of her seldom used nicknas.
“I’m a technomancer, my trait is willing signals and frequencies into existence.”
“You’re the best around, though, nothing is gonna keep ya down.” Rave’s half humd counter caused half of the gathered room to groan. “Ya just hate cause ya ain’t !” Rave declared.
“Shut it before I burn your motherfucking pants off!” Salamander shouted across the room. The elental was, like the rest of the supernatural entities around, in her human disguise. Which made it difficult not to bend her over the boorishly white leather chair she was sitting in. The sa was true for Siena.
A human disguise for Gno ant just a change of clothing. For Sylph and Undine, they only had to have the colour of their eyes muted to a level of amber that was rare but not impossible. Technically speaking, the sli girl overhauled her entire appearance, but she did this on an almost daily basis, so that wasn’t a big event. Also, Sylph’s hair was a bit shorter, so that she could conceivably walk with it, but the difference was barely noticeable compared to the absence of the invisible breeze that seed to accompany it. Siena and Salamander disguising themselves always gave them a different kind of flair entirely.
The midnight elental had brown skin of the milk-chocolate variety, while her hair remained the usual silky black. Her eyes turned from their black sclera, to regular white, the silver of her irises went to a brilliant blue. For whatever reason, whenever Siena was ‘forced’ to use her disguise, she put on the sexy teacher look, lacking only the glasses and, because they were in ‘their ho’, the high heels. The rest of the harem wore casual clothes in the sa vein as yesterday.
Next to her, Salamander sat as a woman of a tanned, diterranean skin colour, almost matching Nathalia’s. Her buzz cut was muted from bright, flaming orange to a reasonable level of dark red. Her different coloured eyes were both replaced, one with a simple brown, the other with a mild green. Both of them were missing their tails.
Fundantally, the elentals’ appearance changes were available to them because of their Tier. What once had been entirely reliant on outside items had been sothing that beca unlocked as a natural ability at Tier 5. For that sa reason, Copernicus and Stirwin were present, each as a non-glowing variant of the animal they represented. In Stirwin’s case, this also ant his body was less long-limbed, so he could pass as a species that actually existed.
While they could pass without any further help from items, they still opted to use so. Salamander wore a choker, covering up her Lorylim scars. The network of jagged lines was an imprint on her magical body and thus visible through her inbuilt disguise. While they could pass as tattoos, their scope made Salamander appear a lot more delinquent than she ant to. Undine’s shapeshifting abilities were more advanced, so she could overco that hurdle. The items they needed for Copernicus and Stirwin were non-magical in nature, just a collar and a lockable, tal cage in the garden.
The other girls in the harem that needed item assistance were Eliana, due to her sowhat ghoulish appearance; Rave, who still hadn’t figured out if it was even possible to hide her feline features; Scarlett, due to her red eyes; and Lydia, due to her colour-shifting eyes. There were also John’s own Lorylim scars and blindness. Further compromises that had been made were the three artificial maids shifting their white hair to black for the duration of the visit and the hiding of any and all Lover’s Will marks. John didn’t think his parents would tell him it was improper that they all got matching tattoos, but it would be weird.
It would have been a lot easier to hide several of the girls, and the two animals definitely, from his parents. However, John had decided that he would be as truthful with his parents as he could be. There were so necessary fronts, like the house or his contact lenses, in order to avoid particularly large questions. None of the won in his life needed to be shut out any longer.
Out of John’s harem, his parents had only t Rave, Lydia, tra, Aclysia, Beatrice and (then) Eliza. The entire rest hadn’t been in contact yet. Of course, John had periodically been in contact with his parents, updating them on his life situation in this way or another. One of the details he could share, and that his parents were always eager to hear about for reasons of, no doubt, grandparenthood, was his harem life and the size thereof. That he was banging an older woman he hadn’t seen in a while was one thing, that she was a ten millennia old dragon goddess that was being abstinent after fucking three tis a day for the majority of those ten millennia another.
“Alright, final rehearsal,” John said, looking around the exceedingly spacious, white-walled, white-furnitured, light-wooden-floored living room. It had so much less personality than his actual apartnt, but the group picture above the TV was at least reasonably charming. They had taken it just a few days ago.
“Do we have toooooo?” Sylph moaned, in the non-sexy way. “I feel like we have repeated the story so often that my brain is starting to delete mories of fun tis to make room for it.”
“Well, as our resident airhead, if you can repeat to the entirety of our story, I’ll drop the rest of the rehearsal,” John told her, if only because the rest of the harem already looked tuned out. His desire to keep things in perfect order competed against wanting to keep his won content and, in this instance like most others, the latter was dominant.
“Okaaaayyyy, so: you’re really rich because you started a software developnt company, which Lydia helped get off the ground, called NewWares, which is a so-so na, but it wasn’t licensed, so we went with that. The company is doing pretty well, it’s getting sub-contracted by bigger stuffs like Apple and Microsoft, but the reason why you personally are so rich is actually because you divested your worth and now have your fingers in a lot of pies. As does Scarlett, who you know because of shareholder eting stuff. Nathalia also cos from the business world. Gno, Sally, Undine, Siena and I, we aren’t actually called that but we were part of an elental-thed, kinda witchy sorority and it kinda stuck after we dropped out and-slash-or graduated, so we prefer those nas now. You know us from a disco evening Jane dragged you to one ti and we really, really, really started to like you – even if Siena wanted to stab you for a bit.”
“I was sceptical,” the midnight elental put a considerably less worrying wording into the room.
“But then you stabbed her with your dick and it was fine!” the cheery, green-haired woman continued. “Anyway, tra, you picked up at a bar. Lee here, you t through League of Legends, which you both will insist is the only good thing that ever ca out of that ga, ever, forever, ever, ever. Aclysia and Beatrice are twins… Jewish, for so reason...”
‘The reason is that we didn’t properly think things through last ti,’ the Gar thought. ‘Could have gone with Japanese or sothing else that fits their Asian looks, but no, Jewish… just to dodge the question of why they won’t eat with us one ti… absolutely genius.’
“…and Momo is a Korean girl that moved over after an exchange sester. Oh, also Nia is the house ghost.”
There were so chuckles in response to that, while the pariah blankly stared as she was prone to do. John noticed that she wasn’t focused on anybody in the process, only drilled a hole into the air with her gaze. That part was actually unusual. “Everything alright, Nia?” he asked, a tad worried.
Her blue eyes wandered over to him. After about thirty seconds, she answered, “Generally speaking, yes.”
That had John furrow his eyebrows. Usually, when Nia’s answers were confusing, it was because they ca incredibly delayed or jumped between topics. That the formulation was vague, that barely happened, especially in recent tis. “And specifically speaking?” he went a little bit deeper. Nia tensed up where she stood and went back to staring into the air.
“…Nia?” Rave echoed her boyfriend’s worry. “Are ya not feeling well?”
“I am fine,” the pariah responded.
Momo stood up and walked over to where they had left their phones. The habit of putting all their handheld devices into one place for when they were called was maintained even if they wore clothes.
“You don’t sound fine,” Sylph was the third to voice worry, “is this about the ghost joke? Was that insensitive? It was, wasn’t it? Sorry, I just like to babble, you can scold during the next harem gathering if you want…”
“It’s not the joke that’s the problem,” Nia responded.
“Hey, Scarlett, can you co over here really quick?” Momo, with one of the phones in hand, asked for the technomancer. Taking that opportunity to leave the emotional conversation imdiately, Scarlett stood up from the couch and walked over. When it ca to emotional conversations in the harem, the redhead was always happy to bow out – not because she didn’t care, but because she did care and had no idea how to be of help.
In the anti, the feline Lightbearer continued on with the blank in the room, “So there is a problem.”
There was prolonged silence, during which Nia opened and then closed her mouth several tis. “Yes.” That was all that finally left her, her face a cold mask, still beyond her common expressionlessness.
“Fucking hell, you creepy blonde cunt,” Eliana blurted out, “can you please just take a page out of my book and have a fucking emotional breakdown so we can comfort you?!” It didn’t take a single disapproving gaze, although there were several, for the currently brunette woman to realize that she stepped way out of the acceptable discourse. “Oh fucking shit… I… fuck, sorry, I’m just being a selfish cunt...”
Putting a hand on Eliana’s head, the blonde patted her gently. “I forgive you.”
“…That’s fairly easy…” Scarlett murmured in the background.
“Co on, Nia,” now it was Undine who exerted so, reasonable, pressure, “it’s about John’s parents, isn’t it?”
Nia went rigid again. Without a word or sound, John gestured for her to approach. Once she was close enough, he pulled her into his embrace and kissed the back of her neck. “You can tell us everything.”
“Not what I don’t know how to tell, darling.” It was almost chiding, in a sweet way, as if she was gently telling a kid to back off. A tone she certainly hadn’t ant to use. John had to guess that her appreciation for his love was mixing with her attempt to report the truth as best she could, and that created so issues.
“I’ll take sothing vague. We can work things out together from there,” John promised, swinging softly left to right with her slender body between his arms. When she wasn’t able to tell him anything even after a full minute passed, he asked, “Are you afraid you’ll be left out today? Because my parents can’t sense you?”
“No… I…” the corners of Nia’s mouth dropped, her eyes were downcast and John’s heart fell upon seeing her miserable. He wished to kiss her better, but that alone wouldn’t do it. Waiting patiently, he heard her explanation. “I want them to know . I never cared for mundane people. Being unnoticed is normal for . They’re your parents and I love you. I just wish… it was different this one ti.”
The Gar gently caressed her shoulders and looked over to Momo and Scarlett. Returning to the couch, the two brought the phone back with them. The artificial support presented it to Nia. “Look, it might not be the genuine thing but Scarlett put a voice recording function in the Fusion communication app. If you leave a ssage, John could play it to them later.”
‘Does that work?’ John asked Momo ntally.
‘Are you asking if I would seriously suggest sothing that then doesn’t work and break Nia’s heart? What kind of monster do you think I am?’ Momo shot back with a level of genuine offense.
‘No, I’m just wary… you can’t record pariah’s normally. They don’t even appear on caras to mundanes.’
“Does that work?” Nia echoed the question, several seconds later.
“Technically speaking, no,” Scarlett answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “We still have no idea how it cos about that mundanes can’t perceive anything about pariahs no matter the circumstances, so it’s not like I can just cut that out of the waveform. Research on the matter is…” realizing that she was drifting off, the technomancer swallowed and changed to the emotional topics, “…not important. What I can do for you is take what is recorded and reconstruct it as a deepfake voice. It’ll take a bit to process, especially so early in the program, so don’t expect to hold a conversation, but you can at least send them a ssage.”
“And then you can listen to their response,” John promised. “It’s not the sa, I know…”
“It’s a miracle,” Nia whispered and took the phone. Her smile was as bright as the sumr sun and almost as golden as her hair. “I love you. Thank you. You’re the greatest.”
Scarlett scratched her chin in a clearly discomforted fashion. “Just record your damn ssage,” she bashfully grumbled and went to sit back down.
Without delay, Nia went ahead. The room was silent, more out of respect than practicality. “Hello. My na is Nia Fae. I’m terribly sorry that I… that we can’t et.” Taking a pause, letting out an audible breath, Nia continued in a terribly weak tone. “Your son always speaks of you in high regards and…” She quivered. Rapidly, she blinked, her smile contested by less jovial emotions. “…and he makes so happy. I wish I could et you… I truly do. Instead, all I can do is wish you… a happy Christmas and thank you… thank you for raising the one who allowed to find love, true love… thank you so much…”
Without hesitation, Nia pressed the end ssage button. For about a minute, it wasn’t quite clear whether she would start crying or not. In the end, she managed to blink back the tears and continue smiling.
“You are gorgeous,” John whispered into her ear.
Half an hour later, the door rang.
User Comments
0 comments from readers