A hundred extra points in each stat.
A crazy power-up for all of us, more than doubling our power and, as a consequence, the size and depth of our shared mana pool.
It was time to experiment, and Elyra wanted to go first, using her observations on heat and light to make some sort of invisibility shield. Meanwhile, Zery tried to come to grips with a new form of magic, born of negotiation rather than imposition of will upon the universe, using the sensations of our empathic bond as a blueprint.
Vespera played with her wings, touching them and flexing their muscles, distracting all of us with the flood of sensations from the sensitive new limbs. She otherwise left us alone, pretending to ignore our annoyed looks while wearing a smug grin.
That left Calla and me to our own devices.
"I would like to tidy up the room a bit," she said. "It does look much better now that all the computers and junk are gone, but I don't know… it lacks something?"
I considered it. After cleaning the place up and giving it a thorough scrub with magic, we kind of left it as it was. There was even a length of chain dangling from the ceiling, left behind from when we freed Zery. Too much effort to break the nigh-indestructible links.
"Do you have any ideas in mind?" I asked the little dryad.
She did. It took her a moment to compose herself, the weight of my full attention making her shrink a little, but I gave her all the time she needed. "I can ask the tree to grow some furniture, and we could move it here!"
"Do we have to go all the way up?" I asked.
"No!" she said with a big smile. "It can grow what we need right in the room filled with roots."
"Just don't make it grow a homicidal bedframe or something. Got my fill of roots last time, literally," I blurted out.
Calla paled.
"Sol!" came a stern voice from the other side of the room, an angry angel. "What the fuck? Apologize!"
I swallowed and realized what I had just done. The poor girl felt guilty for what happened, and my careless words sent her back to that time when she was still Calyx and had been under the influence of the tree. When the root shot out of the wall and impaled me.
"I'm sorry, Calla mine," I said, walking close to her.
She let me, but didn't react.
"I don't know why I said that."
Her whole body was shaking. "It's okay. You have every right to be upset."
"I wasn't even upset at you! More like, at the tree!"
"It cannot hurt you now," she said in a small voice. "It is your slave now. But still… those memories…"
"I know. They hurt like hell."
She sniffled. "They do. How can you handle everything all the time, Sol?"
"What do you mean?" I asked her. I had moved closer while we spoke, and was now running a hand through her hair.
"You are so nonchalant about it. I could feel it, the cold and the despair. They are just memories but they feel so real, so scary. Do you just bury them inside?"
"No," I said. My fingers massaged her head, and she leaned into my hand. Pulling her close, so that our bodies touched and she could feel my heat, I began to stroke her back. "When those memories come to the surface, I just let them be. They don't hurt me. They don't affect me. You know why?"
She shook her head, eyes round and wide and wet.
"Because I feel all of you here with me, through the bond. But…" I shook my head. "Perhaps it does still affect me a little bit. I made a bad joke in an attempt to... I don't know?"
"You wanted it to hold less power over you," Zery said. "You wanted to assert your dominance, protect your pride over the fear of death and loss."
She was human again, so that she wouldn't have to bend in order to fit inside here. Her accent was almost completely gone, her mastery over the two forms growing quickly.
I nodded. "Maybe."
"How does joking about these things help with pride?" Calla asked. She wasn't trembling anymore, which was good.
"I do not claim to know about humans," Zery said, her accent once again stronger. She was, in a way, more dragon when she was human than when she was dragon, although I expected her Steps to slowly change that. "But I have seen the world through Sol's eyes enough to tell you this. When you make a bad joke about something like death, loss and pain, you feel like you have some manner of control back. It lets your mind pretend you are the master, that you are so far above it you can joke about it and be unfazed. It usually is a defense mechanism, hiding a deeper trauma."
"Well, I did almost die," I said nonchalantly.
"See what I mean?" the dragon-human said with a smirk.
Calla's eyes widened. "I think I do…"
I frowned. "I feel like you are reading too much into this."
"No, Sol." Now it was she who took my hands, delicately, running her digits over the back of my hands and kneading the skin and flesh there. "I can see your fears now. It is as you say, you are always wide open to us. It is to yourself that you are the most closed."
I wanted to scoff and chuckle and make jokes. This was absurd! "What are you talking about?"
"Your mind is so loud," she said gently. "And yet your thoughts go in circles. Sometimes, I feel them skirt the edges of something."
"Like ships being pulled into a maelstrom," Zery said gravely. "But then you run away, Sol. You don't go and see what's inside there. You are scared the abyss will swallow you whole, aren't you?"
My mouth was dry. "I don't want to spiral, that's all."
"I do not think you should hide from your fears, Sol," Calla said. "You told Zery she was wrong for thinking her own fears were stupid and for keeping them all to herself. Yet here you are, doing the same. Sol," she said, looking at me in the eye. She was so gorgeous, so tiny and fragile and precious, yet at that moment she looked so proud and strong. "I love you. More than anything. I never thought I could feel such things for someone, yet here I am. Please."
I met her gaze. Fuck me, I met her gaze and held my eyes there. I wanted to look away. To deflect. I wanted to fidget and joke around and… shit, I wanted to flee. But I felt her love and care and worry.
"I am scared I'll lose you," I said. "This fucking world, it's danger everywhere."
"But," she said softly. "There is a but, is there not?"
I grimaced. "Do you remember when you were Calyx?"
She nodded, cocking her head for a moment before she made the connection. Now she could decode what was on my mind, why those ships ran in circles around the singularity point of the maelstrom, why I feared the black hole from which not even light could escape.
The concept of a black hole made her tense and freeze for a moment, the behemoth that ate space and time triggering a primal fear in her. Then she did what I told them all to do, but didn't do myself. She used the bond as an anchor, and her mind stayed here rather than spiraling.
Now she understood, at least. I was scared of the dangers of this world, but I had also seen her memories as Calyx. The lure of safety and stagnation. We could be safe, behind the dryadic shield. All we needed to do was feed the battery with cores when needed, and we could watch the world pass us by. We even had the Green to buy ourselves an eternity.
Was this really living, though?
"You know," Zery said all of a sudden. "I have this flash of memory. When I was a dragonling, I wanted to explore the world."
I saw the memory as she spoke. Those peaks surrounded by clouds. She was a water dragon, and the white fluffy clouds were water vapor that made little droplets of condensation roll down her skin, wetting her and bathing her with her element.
"I wanted to see the world below the clouds," she said. "To see the valleys and forests, and to feel the sun on my scales. I was a full dragon, back then, before I took this form."
Curiously, her Steps would bring her back to that draconic form, closing the circle. She smiled. She knew all too well, and she had been scared of exactly that. But now she had conquered this fear, and she was all the stronger for it.
"But the sun," she said. "It was not my element. The earth below was dangerous. There were creatures, monsters, and sentients. People who wanted to hunt us down. We were at war with the ancestral dryads. I retreated to our lands, squashing my lust for wandering the world under my clawed feet."
"Do you regret it?" Calla asked.
"No," Zery said. "But only because the memory came to me now, at a moment when I am happier than I have ever been."
"Kinda missed the point there, dragon!" Vespera called from the other side of the room.
"What can I do? Not my fault my story has a good ending!" Zery shot back.
"It's not the end yet, Zery," the demon said. "That's the point, isn't it? Anyway, you were cute when you were a little dragon. Kinda makes me want to tickle you."
"That's it. I cannot stand this. I am going to punish you now." With that, Zery went to banter with Vespera.
"Well," I said, looking at Calla. "It's the age-old question." I thought about what Vespera said. This is not the end of the story, but this is the happiest we have ever been. Do we try to preserve this state, worried that in seeking out further happiness and fulfillment, we might instead achieve the opposite?
"No," the dryad said, squeezing my fingers. "You can't make even the mightiest of trees live forever. Change is inevitable. In trying to preserve things, you make them die and rot instead. Or end up empty husks, desiccated mummies devoid of meaning, living a colorless, grey life forever. I would know."
I smiled tenderly. "Alright. I guess you got me this time."
She leaned in, and gave me a little kiss on the lips before retreating, her face on fire. She looked behind her shoulder, where a dark tunnel led back to the room with the roots, before taking my hand and sprinting towards it, dragging me. There was a wide smile on her face, and giggles filled the place, until we arrived and she pushed me inside, to see a huge bed grown out of wood, already furnished with sheets and more pillows than I could count.
I looked at her, raising an eyebrow. "Is this how it is?"
She fidgeted, somehow unable to take the last step.
I picked her up, making her yip in surprise.
"I love you so much, little dryad," I said. "You have been a very good girl, and I have been very naughty, hiding my feelings from you. No more. Are you ready, Calla mine? Because I'm going to show you just what it means when I say you are mine, just how much I love you, and I am going to do it right here, at the heart of your tree."
"You're not scared of the roots?" she asked, panting already.
"I was never scared OF the roots. I was scared of what they represented. And you are going to help me conquer that fear, aren't you?"
"Y-yes!" she said excitedly as I threw her on the bed. Opening her arms wide, she invited me in, and I climbed onto the bed right on top of her. "Make me yours, my love. Forever."
I pulled back, playfully teasing her. "Didn't we say we shouldn't try to preserve things as they are? Shouldn't we embrace change?"
She blushed. "I can… I can think of a change I would very much want."
"Oh?" I asked, leaning in to whisper in her ear. "And what would this change be?"
She grabbed my face, pulling me in. "Make me yours, Sol. My untouched body, claim it. And yes, I am a hypocrite! I want to be yours forever! Forever! Who cares if we don't want an eternity of immutability??? I don't want to imagine a life without you, without the others, without the bond…"
I kissed her neck, biting her and making her squirm.
"I don't care if it doesn't make sense!" she moaned. "I don't want to be stuck in a dull life, but I don't want to lose you either! Life is like this, isn't it? Many forces pulling us everywhere, and we are like leaves in the… nngh.. Wind. Leaves in the…"
I undid her clothes, made of vines and leaves, exposing her breasts, which I attacked immediately.
"Leaves in the wind…" she trailed off. "Change is… mmmh, inevitable… but we can try to… only have good changes… can't we? Change me, Sol, my love. Make me into a naughty girl. Your naughty girl."
NSFW PREVIEW
Calla's boobs were tiny, little buds that I could easily squeeze with two fingers, with small nubs that poked out in the middle. Standing at attention, her engorged nipples were mounds of sensitive skin with an inviting, round tip that just begged for my lips.
I took my time, though, kissing the little dryad's neck while pressing my body against hers, pinning her to the bed. My left hand was behind her head, pulling her to me as I gently sucked and nibbled at her skin, while my other hand roamed down in search of those crazy cute tits.
"Mmmyes," the girl moaned in my ear, arching her back. "Make me your naughty girl, my love."
I sucked harder, pulling her blood towards the skin. I was going to mark her, change her, like she asked. Today it was going to be this. In the future, who knows? I think all the girls had shared fetishes somewhat, but Calla? She was getting off at the thought of bearing permanent marks of me.
I kneaded the flesh with my tongue, biting and suckling, and when I finally let go, there was a small patch of dark green that was slowly spreading there.
"There," I said proudly. "Marked you as mine."
"You gave me a hickey!" she said, blushing.
Despite her green blood and green mark on her neck, her blush was very red.
"Yes I did," I said. "Told you I'd be turning you into a naughty girl."
"I mmmh—" she began, only to be stopped when I dove back in, on the other side of her neck. She arched her back again, grinding against my growing erection. "I did ask to be ohgods! I nngh, I asked to be changed, my love. I didn't think it would be… like this!"
I moved away, a trail of saliva still connecting us, and sealed her lips with mine.
Continues