Obviously, the Gar was tempted to show her what she was missing out on. There were just a couple of problems. Her Libido of 5 ant that turning her on would be pretty hard. It was notable that she still had a Libido at all. That was likely more because she stayed in tune with her human (or whatever species she had been) side, not due to the latent nymphomania in won he was interested in. Second problem was that, and he had inquired about this in a respectful way, she did not have the necessary parts between her legs to penetrate. She probably wouldn’t be able to form more than a simple canal either. What would she know about the intricacies of sexual organs if she didn’t even know the pleasure of sex?
The only option the Gar had to ‘initiate’ her into the world of debauchery was to have her ingest his cum and that felt wrong on every level as a first ti. Even if he was willing to go that route, even if she was willing to try, then it was still a wholly inappropriate waste of their ti.
Instead, their conversation returned to the Iron Domain. With a cooperating Ironborn ca access to a wealth of knowledge from this world. Aclysia headed out to continue sweeping the nearby islands – and to give her Master the opportunity to flirt. An intention stated openly by the weaponized maid. One that the Gar did not fully share. Likely there was a way for Claire to co back with them, since her soul was an object that could be stored in his inventory. Even if it was, this was not the priority.
“You’re very odd,” the Gar told her, during one of the many side ventures their conversation took.
“Oh yeah,” the vampiric Ironborn agreed readily. “Never been part of a group that I fit in with. Either I was smarter, or stronger, or everyone wanted to stab , or all of that above.” She sounded so incredibly cheery about it, the Gar could not help but feel a sense of admiration. Optimism of that degree should not be possible to be embodied by a person in her situation.
“You know you are in for an eternity of tornt if I fail, right?” he reminded her.
“The fact that you exist ans that at so point soone else will challenge Arkeidos, and at so point, soone will have to succeed,” Claire responded. “So, at worst it will be uncountable millennia of tornt. I was headed there anyway. Silver-lining, you give the opportunity to deal damage to the Emperor.”
‘Bless her golden soul,’ the thought bounced around in Jack’s head for a little bit. The woman with the blood red hair tilted sideways, leaning even further when he looked directly at her again. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“I like the form of your jaw,” she told him. “You look so… clean. I’ve never seen a creature this undamaged. This body is a copy of your real one, right?”
“Yes. Do a favour and don’t use that word again.”
“Which one? Jaw? Is that an insult where you’re from?” Claire asked, deeply intrigued.
“Creature,” he responded. “Where I’m from, we call fellow sapient beings ‘people’. No difference between whether they’re made from tal or flesh.”
“That’s nice and would be an incredibly difficult switch.” The Archduchess laid her chest down on the table and drew little circles with her index finger. “Misery is the womb of the Ironborn. We’re all steeped in it.” She chuckled and looked at him with her red eyes. Behind her ceaseless optimism was a core of adamant will. “You’ll end that, right?”
“Yes,” Jack promised with the utmost conviction.
She straightened back up with the typical, soft smile. “I keep asking you that sa question in different words.” She laughed.
“I would do no different in your situation,” he told her. Following a whim, he got up. “Let’s keep talking outside. I want to stretch my legs.”
“Sure,” Claire agreed, and the two of them moved outside.
‘Aclysia, Beatrice, Claire, Delicia,’ the thought occurred as they moved out of the dark manor. ‘A-B-C-D… is that so sort of cosmic coincidence or did Gaia set up?’ Realizing what was implicit in that reasoning, he shook his head. ‘Here I am, already counting her AND Delicia as mine.’ As they walked his eyes were drawn to the flutter of her skirt. It was long, yet stretched around her waist with every step.
“You really keep looking at in that ‘sexual’ way,” Claire observed. “I wonder what that’s like.”
“If I had to guess, I would say it’s a more intense version of your fascination with my jawline,” he answered swiftly and opened the front door for her. “After you,” he said.
Claire stopped two paces before the door and stood there. Darting to him and back to the open door, she only resud movent slowly. “Feels weird to walk in front of a superior,” she explained herself, as he followed her outside.
“We’re equal… in principle,” Jack told her, adding the second part only because Claire gave him a raised eyebrow. The obvious counterargunt could be made by soone who lived in this kind of world: that true equality was nothing but a pipedream. A lie, arguably noble, that people repeated to give it strength. In the Abyss, the forces that would test that myth were too powerful for it to withstand even a bit of probing. Absolute equality being a positive thing was highly questionable as well, since it would logically co with absolute expectations of equal rit. “It’s a complicated ss of a principle.”
“Sounds that way,” Claire agreed. Holding her hand up, she greeted a small animal that fluttered their way. A bat, shaped entirely from that sa red-rimd darkness that the vampiric Ironborn had used to create her spear earlier, landed on her hand. Pleasingly, it resembled a flying fox closer than the hideous, giant-nosed bats more commonly associated with vampires. A series of small noises between the two occurred before the vampiric Ironborn ordered her familiar to fly away again.
Aside from her status as an Ironborn, the red-haired woman fulfilled the criteria of vampire in practically every dinsion. She sucked vitality out of living things, using her extending canines. The energy she had on her own and that she absorbed, she channelled into various forms, all of them made from the crimson-enveloped black, so of them sentient in more or less rudintary ways.
“Any bad news?” the Gar asked. Those bats were currently being used as their scouts. A neat function, that allowed them to continue their conversation even with so Ironborn still afoot around the island.
“My familiars guided Aclysia to another one of my ‘subordinates’,” Claire told him. “So no, only good news. One less of my brethren to worry about.”
They walked onwards, towards a trio of people sitting on the road. All three were passing between them a can filled with the noxious green sludge that was known as ttle. The Gar threw Observe at all three of them and pressed his lips together. The debuffs they had from malnourishnt, detrints to physical Stats primarily, were diminished but their Intellect suffered from the effect of the substance.
“Ration it,” Jack barked at the trio in the sa tone he would use towards a panicked soldier. The tone made the three of them jump. Startled gazes, reminiscent of a dog caught on the couch, looked pleadingly at him. “Ration – it,” he ordered again, putting the strength of his emotional aura behind his words. Dull nods responded.
Claire tugged at his shoulder and gestured for him to step aside with a nod of her head. “Why did you do that?” she wanted to know. It was a genuinely curious question, not even a hint of accusation in it.
“ttle is a poison,” he explained to her. “It keeps people alive, but it greatly reduces their ntal capacity. These people are rotting their minds away.”
“Not like there is any alternative,” Claire responded.
“For now,” Jack said and rubbed his forehead. “I’m working on that.” He turned his attention to the ocean. Aclysia had spotted fish in it while wading through, another potential avenue for sustenance. Boats were entirely under control by the Ironborn though and the Gar had no idea where to find fibre strong enough to make a fishing net out of.
Movent in the edge of his vision made him turn and look straight at Claire again. The vampiric Ironborn stood close to him, bowed forwards while inspecting his face from a low angle. “Am I behaving oddly?” she asked, walking a semi-circle around him, without ever diverting her gaze from him.
“I don’t mind odd,” he assured. “I am an oddity myself.”
They continued on, coming across several dozen people who were partaking in the ttle. Stopping each ti he caught people overindulging, the Gar grew steadily more annoyed. That Claire got thankful waves, nods and even kowtows lifted his mood a little bit.
“You’ll make for an excellent leader of the rebuilding process,” Jack told the woman.
Claire let out a single loud, “Ha!” in response. Vehently disagreeing, she shook her head. “No, no, I’d just be another uncaring immortal,” she told him. “You told ttle is a poison and I still let you be the one to chide these creatures.”
“People,” Jack corrected her. Leaning against the wall of a ssily fashioned wooden shack, a woman with sunken eyes drooled onto herself. A twitch of her shoulders was the only sign she was even alive. “These… people.” He hated how much that display weakened his conviction. He hated this entire place.
“I hate the Iron Domain.” Claire’s tone sounded casual, but sothing was unnerving about it. She continued talking, head lowered, staring just a tre in front of her feet, as they paced along the most prosperous shambles in the entirety of this Kingdom. “I hate Arkeidos and his won, his monarchs and his nobles. I hate everything and everyone in this empire.” Violent urges trembled in her form. She smirked and grabbed his arm, as they passed closely by a passed-out man. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” the Gar responded. “But I see more in you than vengeance.”
“There’s the giant void where my heart used to be.” Claire chuckled, each sound lacking in amusent. “All I want to make clear is that I do not want to lead anything. I want to see Arkeidos’ soul shredded and scattered into the winds of nothingness. I want to break every stone of the Eternal Fortress. I want to tear open teora’s face. I want to drink Ell’s essence and listen to her shrieks as I tear every last bit of lifeforce out of that banshee’s rotten core! I want to…!” She suddenly stopped and cleared her throat. “Excuse .”
“It’s fine,” he assured her.
A twitch of annoyance travelled over her face. Reflected in her red eyes, Jack saw his own sorry expression. “Do you deem weak, conqueror?” she asked.
“Confused,” he responded honestly.
“I am very confused,” Claire agreed and waved off, burying her embarrassnt in self-deprecation. “Don’t know when I last wasn’t confused. I said I was smart, but I was clearly wrong about that. Takes a special kind of idiot to be as confused as I am. Maybe I should get so more sunlight.”
The Gar considered whether he wanted to give her an out or to keep peeling back her façade. Her optimism was genuine and so was her deep-seated hatred for the world around her. A combination as fascinating as it was awful. His choice was made when Jack said, “Perhaps I can take you with , after all of this is done.”
Wide-eyed, Claire turned to him. For the first ti, her veneer of confident amusent was entirely wiped away. “What do you an?”
“I an that I can give you a future,” he told her. “Help end the Iron Domain and I will take you to a fresh start. A world that you don’t have to hate.” He offered her his hand. “I ca to this Kingdom seeking the cure to an ailnt. A task I took on primarily to prove to my world that I could do what no one else can. I did it because of pride. I am dismantling the Iron Domain because it is the right thing to do. A path started because of selfish desires can still lead to a better order.” He brought his hand a little closer to her. “Do you want to make the end of this road your end, or the beginning of sothing else?”
Claire remained frozen for almost a minute. Then her body started to tremble. She trembled more and more intensely until she threw her head back and laughed loudly. Waiting patiently for her to calm down, Jack kept his hand raised. She kept on laughing. It was remarkably girlish and liberated, as if she was reacting to an entire clown show playing out in a matter of seconds. For a mont it even looked like she would fall over.
Ghoulish chuckles echoed from the ttle addicted crowd around them. Without understanding what was going on, these people started to roar louder and louder. The infectious glee of the Archduchess tickled their instincts, made their horribly exhausted and discordant cackles cut through the silence of the night.
Quickly, Claire’s laughter died down and the crowd followed her example. “I don’t deserve that,” she finally stated and turned her shoulder to him. “What I want is death, John. Death to Arkeidos. Nothing more.”
Sighing, the Gar lowered his hand. He knew when to let go of a topic. “The offer remains,” he assured her, to keep it on the table. This was their first day and their mutual Charisma and overlapping goals had brought them far further than was normal already. For now he returned to more leisurely topics. “Why do you avoid the sun anyway?” he asked. “I have my theories, but I’d like to know.”
“The sun is too bright. I had super sensitive skin when I was a fleshbag,” Claire answered simply, her head still raised to the sky. “Nowadays, I just don’t want to see his world.”
“It’s not his world,” Jack responded. “People can own soil, they can own oceans, they can even own other people, but no one can ever own a world. The heavenly blue of the sky belongs to everyone who witnesses it.”
“That sounds so naïve.”
“You’ll understand I’m right,” Jack answered with joking smugness. “Eventually.”
They returned to the manor.
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