– Blake –
The next morning…
I came back to consciousness slowly, the way you do when nothing is actively trying to kill you, which is weird that I sometimes have to be that specific.
The first thing I registered was a ceiling that was not modern or my dorm room.
The second thing was the weight on my chest. Warm, soft, distinctly female, definitely naked.
I blinked a few times at the wood beams, my brain doing that morning-after inventory thing where it tries to figure out, in order, where you are, when it is, who you're with, and whether anything you remember actually happened or whether you dreamed all of it?
Okay. Let's see. Yesterday I was in New Mexico. With Natasha investigating something. Then I touched a mark burned on the ground and got yeeted across reality into a fantasy world. Met a goddess. Went to a dungeon. Insulted a werewolf. Had dinner. Got a Falna and apparently a level six rating, which is, apparently, a really big number. Got kissed by the Goddess...
Then…
The memory of what happened next came back in a slow warm wave that started at the top of my head and ended somewhere south of my belly button.
Right…
I glanced down.
Hestia was sprawled across my chest. Her cheek was squished flat against my pec, her arms were tucked up under her chin, and her enormous bare breasts were pressed against my ribs. Her twin tails were undone, her long black hair fanned out across my shoulder and arm. Her face, even in sleep, had this small soft satisfied curve to her mouth, like she was having a really good dream and was very pleased about it.
She was also entirely, completely, head to toe naked. I was also entirely, completely, head to toe naked.
Wow, I thought, with a kind of distant awe at my own life. That was, uh. That was quite a strange amount of events all in a row.
Hestia made a small noise against my chest, somewhere between a hum and a snuffle, and squirmed. The squirm did things to where her thigh was draped over mine. Things that suggested my body, which had apparently slept through the entire night just fine, was very much awake now.
Her eyelashes fluttered.
She cracked one blue eye open, focused fuzzily on my chin, and then, before I could say anything, she stretched up and pressed a slow soft kiss to my mouth. "Mmm. G'morning, Blake," she mumbled against my lips, the words half lost in a yawn.
"Morning, my goddess."
She made a happy little sound at that, lips still brushing mine, and started to settle back down on my chest maybe to go back to sleep.
She got about halfway.
Then her eyes shot open. Both of them. Wide, blue, very awake, and very, very aware of where she was, what she was wearing, which was nothing, and what we'd done last night.
She sat bolt upright on top of me.
The blanket gave up entirely and slid off the bed.
Hestia, sitting astride my stomach pressed both hands flat to her cheeks and squeaked: "Holy fuck, that all actually happened last night!?"
I couldn't help it. I laughed. It shook her where she was sitting on my abs and her hands flew from her cheeks to brace on my chest like she was on a small unsteady boat.
"Don't laugh!" she squeaked. "I am having a moment! I am having a significant divine moment and you are laughing at me!"
"Sorry, sorry," I said, and I was smiling like an idiot, I knew I was, and I couldn't stop. "I'm not laughing at you. Just. The face you made."
She huffed and gave me an absolutely furious little pout, which would have been intimidating if she were not also, in fact, naked on top of me with her hair a glorious mess and love marks all over her breasts, neck, and pretty much everywhere else actually...
She was beautiful.
Her eyes drifted down to my chest, and then over the rest of me, and then back up to my face, and her cheeks went from pink to red to a very impressive scarlet.
"I had sex," she announced, to the room at large, like she was making a public proclamation.
"You did," I confirmed.
"Sort of!"
"Sort of…" I agreed.
"I'm still technically a virgin," she said, pointing a small stern finger at the ceiling. "Technically. Because we used my butt. Which I would like the record to show was my idea, I am taking credit for that excellent decision, I have always been a creative thinker!"
I smirked up at her. "Noted."
"And it felt amazing," she went on, in a slightly different voice, and her eyes got that distant glassy look people's eyes get when they're vividly remembering something they had a really good time with the night before. "Like, amazing. I had no idea. Nobody told me. Nobody. Thousands of years and not one of those little cherub bastards thought to mention oh hey Hestia, by the way, the back door can feel just as good if you don't want to use the front!"
"Hey… So um…" I tried to say but was cut off because she was still in her own head a bit.
"Mm? Mmmmnnnghhh, oh gods, the way you, when you, mmm, and I made that noise, I made this noise and it was so embarrassing but it just kept coming out and you were so, uhn!" She was grinding very faintly against my stomach without seeming to know she was doing it. Her lips were parted, her eyes were closed, and the small breathy little sounds she was starting to make in the back of her throat were going to be a serious problem in about thirty seconds.
I reached up, took a small fold of her side just above her hip between my thumb and finger, and pinched.
"Eep!"Her eyes flew open. She slapped a hand over the spot.
"You pinched me!"
"You were getting yourself off on my abs..." I told her.
She turned a color of red I hadn't previously thought possible. Her mouth opened and closed. "...maybe a little," she muttered, and dropped her face into her hands. Her hair fell forward in a curtain.
I laughed again, more gently this time, and ran my hand up her thigh and rested it on her hip, just holding her there. Her skin was so warm. "Hey," I said, softer.
She peeked at me through her fingers. "Yeah?"
"You good?"
She lowered her hands. The pout was back, but smaller now, more thoughtful. She fidgeted with her hair and tucked some of it behind her ear, and when she spoke her voice had gone quiet and a little uncertain in a way I hadn't heard from her yet. "Blake," she said. "Um. What... what happens now?" She stayed sitting on me. Naked. Blushing. Looking down at me with those big blue eyes, and her hands resting flat and small on my chest, and her teeth worrying at her lower lip.
The bubbly bouncing goddess from yesterday, who had loudly invited me to a hotel in front of an entire restaurant, was suddenly looking at me like she didn't know if I was going to laugh, or leave, or what, and the fact that she was nervous about me hurting her squeezed something in my chest hard.
I sat up a little, propping myself on the pillows, which put her sitting in my lap. I rested both hands on her hips, gently, and gave her a smile I hoped felt as warm as it did. "We've got a couple of things to figure out, I guess," I said. "Want to walk through them?"
She nodded quickly.
"Alright. First, the practical stuff. We need a place to stay. Do we keep this room while we figure things out, or do we go look for somewhere more permanent right away? You know this city, I don't, so this one's mostly your call."
"Um." She thought, eyes flicking sideways. "This room for a few more nights, I think. While we hunt for a real home. I, um. I don't actually have any savings, so..."
"That's fine. Money's not a problem."
"Blake, we used most of yesterday's stones on dinner."
"I'm going back into the dungeon today," I said. "I'll get more."
She bit her lip. "You really aren't worried about that, are you?"
"Not a bit." I was fully confident in myself!
She sighed. "Right. Level six. I forgot for a second that the brand new captain of my familia is a monster." Some of her bounce was coming back. She poked my chest. "We are going to have words about that, mister."
"Later." I smiled. "Second thing. The bigger thing." I rubbed my thumb along the curve of her hip, slowly, and watched her cheeks pink up again. "Do you want to be my girlfriend?"
She froze. Her mouth opened. "You. Buh. Wuh. What?"
"Girlfriend," I repeated, gently. "I mean, last night was, you know." I gestured vaguely at the entirety of the rumpled bed. "And I want to be honest with you. I really like you, Hestia. Like, an embarrassing amount, given that I met you yesterday afternoon. I told you about the others. Tsunade, Shizune, Pepper, Jean, Emma...Rias and maybe Akeno as well. I'm not going to leave them. They're not going to leave me. So if I'm asking you to be with me, I'm asking you to be one of mine. With them." I watched her eyes get big and round. "I'm not assuming. I want to ask. Do you want that?"
She made a small sound. A tiny meep. Her hands came up and pressed against her cheeks, and she rocked a little on my lap. "Y, I, um, girlfriend, that's, Blake, you can't just say it like that, you have to give me a warning, oh my gosh."
"That a yes?" I asked with a soft smile.
"Y, yes! Yes, obviously yes, you absolute, oh my gosh, of course I want to be one of your girlfriends, you giant menace of a man, yes!"
I felt a stupidly big grin spread across my face. "Alright, then. Third thing." I sobered a little. "I'm not going to be in this world all the time. I have school. I have my family. I've got people back home. I can come back here a lot, and once I've done it a few times the portal gets easier to open, but there will be stretches where I'm gone. Days. Maybe weeks at first." I held her eyes. "I don't want to leave you alone here, my goddess. So. Whenever I'm gone, when you want to, you can come back to my world with me. Meet my mom. Meet the others. Stay with us until I come back here. I just don't want you on your own!"
Her eyes were enormous. They started to shine a little. "Y, you'd take me with you?" she whispered.
"Yeah. As often as you want to come."
She sniffled, and then pretended she hadn't, and lifted her chin in this brave little way that made my heart do a stupid thing.
"I would really like that," she said. "I would really, really like that, Blake." She fidgeted with my collarbone, drawing little circles on my chest with her fingertip. "But, um. I can't always come. I don't want to live there, I mean. Eventually."
I tilted my head. "Yeah?"
She nodded firmly. The bounce came back into her voice, a little watery but real. "My dream is to build a big familia in Orario," she said. "A real one. With kids. Lots of them. A big home with everyone safe, and warm, and fed. That's what I'm for. That's what I want. I love your world, I haven't even seen it yet but if it has you in it—so I already love it! but Orario is where I'm planting my hearth. Okay…?" she asked nervously, like that would make me disappointed.
Maybe a little…
I leaned up and kissed her forehead. "Then we do both," I said. "I keep coming back here. We will build your famila in Orario. And whenever I have to leave, you come with me as much as you want, and when I'm here, I'm yours."
She made a very small noise. A wobbly happy little, "nnn." Then she dove down and hugged me, hard, around the neck, smushing her face into the side of my neck. Her whole little body pressed against mine.
I wrapped my arms around her and held her back, just held her, and felt her breathe hard for a few seconds against my skin before she pulled back, sniffed once aggressively, swiped under her eyes with the back of her hand, and beamed at me like she'd just won something. "Okay," she announced briskly. "We need a bath. I need a long bath. I am, ah, sticky in a few places I have never been sticky before in my divine life, and I would like to look like a respectable goddess again before I leave this room."
I nodded at her, loosening my hold on her a bit. My fingertips still moved gently over her naked back though, making her shiver. "That's a fair plan."
She nodded proudly. "You go down and pay the nice innkeeper for a few more nights while I clean up, okay? My legs are jelly. Jelly. You did this to me. You broke a goddess. You should be very proud!"
"I am extremely proud."
"You should be. Tehehe."
I laughed and kissed her one more time, slow this time, just because I could now and she was mine and that was a thing in the world.
When she pulled back her eyes were soft. "Go," she murmured. "Before I do something I am supposed to be too dignified to do at this hour of the morning."
"Yes, my goddess."
"Don't call me that, you know what it does to me."
"Yes, my goddess."
She squeaked indignantly and shoved my shoulder, and I rolled out of bed laughing, found my pants, found my shirt, and took my time getting dressed because she was sitting cross legged on the rumpled mattress with the morning sun on her bare skin and there was no rush in this world or any other to look away from that.
The innkeeper was at the front desk again when I came down the stairs, like she'd never left, although she was wearing a different apron now and there was a fresh mug of tea steaming next to her ledger. She looked up, saw me, and her face did that thing again, that lit up oh, it's the romance couple face, only this time it had an extra layer to it, like she had read three more chapters in her head while I was upstairs.
"Well, good morning, dear!" she said warmly. "You're up bright and early!"
"Morning," I said. "I, ah. I'd like to keep the room. For a few more nights, if it's available?"
Her eyebrows climbed. "Oh, would you, now…?"
"Yes, ma'am…"
She picked up her tea, took a slow appreciative sip, and looked at me over the rim of the cup with the mischievous gleam of a woman who had been working an inn for thirty years and had, in that time, perfected the precise expression required for this exact situation. "My, my," she said. "You and that lovely girl of yours must have really taken to that room, hmm? Wanting to settle in for a few more nights already." She tilted her head. "Was the bed comfortable, dear?"
I felt the back of my neck go hot.I cleared my throat. "...real comfortable, yeah."
"Mmhmm," she said, in the tone of a woman who knew. "That's wonderful."
"Yep."
"And your sweet little girl, is she alright this morning? She seemed very eager last night."
Oh my god. "She's, ah, she's having a bath. She's fine…"
"That's good, dear. A nice long soak fixes a lot of things…"
I stared at the ledger. "How much do I owe you for the extra nights, ma'am?"
She named a price. I dug through my coin purse, paid her, signed where she pointed, and accepted the renewed key like a man accepting a sentence he'd earned.
"You enjoy your day, dear," she called as I made for the door. "Send my best to that pretty thing of yours!"
"Will do," I croaked, and made my escape.
Outside, the morning air of Orario was crisp and cool and full of the smell of fresh bread from a bakery somewhere down the street. Adventurers in light armor were moving in twos and threes toward the Tower of Babel, which speared up into the pale blue sky in the distance, impossibly tall, impossibly there. A merchant was setting out crates of apples on a wooden stand. A pair of cat eared kids chased each other past me, laughing. Bells were ringing somewhere, soft and bright.
I started walking toward the Guild.
Alright. New day. Hestia's safe, fed, getting clean, and I'm officially her boyfriend now, which means I need to make sure that she's taken care of...
I rolled my shoulders as I walked, feeling the small pleasant ache in my back from the night before, and the comforting answering hum of the Falna script under my skin that I could feel every time I moved.
Plan for the day. Hit the dungeon. Go deeper this time. She's not as worried about me anymore now that she saw the level six thing. According to her, being Level 6 is a big deal…
I started walking toward the Tower.
…The Guild was a different building in the morning.
Last night when Hestia and I had come through, the place had been packed. Adventurers in muddy gear cashing in stones at the exchange counters, the noise of about forty conversations stacked on top of each other and bouncing off the high vaulted ceiling.
This morning, it was almost empty.
A janitor was mopping in slow tired lines along the far wall. Two scribes I didn't recognize were murmuring over a ledger at one of the exchange counters with their heads bent close together. An older male Guild employee with a clipboard was pinning a notice to the bulletin board near the front entrance, working his way down a list of pins with the methodical patience of a guy who'd done this every morning for twenty years.
Sunlight came down through the tall narrow windows in slanting bars, catching dust motes drifting lazily through the air. I crossed the floor toward the back counters, my shoes tapping in the kind of quiet that made me feel like I was sneaking, and angled toward Eina's station.
She was already there.
She was alone behind her counter, head bent over an open ledger, a pencil in one hand and a steaming porcelain cup of what smelled like strong black tea in the other. Her brown hair was in the same pretty bob cut from yesterday, with a few strands escaped near her temples that she clearly hadn't noticed yet. She was wearing a clean white blouse buttoned to the throat with her green Guild vest over it, sleeves crisp, glasses sitting low on her nose so she could read over them. The pen was scratching softly as she made notes in a careful even hand.
I stopped at the edge of her counter and waited a second so I wouldn't startle her.
She glanced up. Her pencil hand froze. Her shoulders dropped about an inch in what looked like genuine, audible relief, and she let out a long breath. "Oh, thank the gods," Eina said in relief. "You are actually alive..."
I couldn't help the smile that pulled at my mouth. "Morning, Eina."
She set the pencil down with a small definite click, pulled her glasses off, and started polishing them on a corner of her vest, which I was pretty sure was something she did when she needed her hands to be busy. Her cheeks had a faint pink color across the bridge of her nose. "I was, ah, I was just doing the morning casualty list," she said, gesturing at the ledger without looking up. "First thing I do every shift. I was, um. Looking for your name. On it. Which is, you know, standard. Procedure. We do it for every new adventurer. So. I am very glad to not be needing to write you down today."
"Oh yeah?" I leaned my elbow on the counter and rested my chin in my hand. "You worried about me, Eina?"
Her ears, which were pointed and very expressive, twitched. "I was not worried," she said firmly, sliding her glasses back on with a little more force than was necessary. "I was performing my professional duties."
"Mhm."
"I worry about all of my registered adventurers."
"Right. Sure."
"I would have done it for anyone."
"Of course."
"Stop smiling at me like that!"
I tried—very hard—not to smile at her like that. I failed. Eina huffed and pulled her ledger an inch closer to her chest like she was protecting it from my unprofessional charm. "Did you get your Falna?" she asked finally.
"I did." I nodded my head.
"Good. That's good. That's a relief, actually. So you're properly registered now in every sense, which means going forward you need—"
I cut her off. "Eina."
She looked confused. "Hm?"
I gave her a sincere grin. "Thanks for worrying about me."
She made a small choked sound and looked very intently at her ledger. "I was not worri—"
"I appreciate it," I said quietly. "Really."
There was a pause. She set the pencil down very carefully and adjusted it so it lined up exactly parallel with the top edge of the ledger. "...you're welcome," she muttered, ears very pink.
I cleared my throat. "So, also," I said, "I'm here to report a level up. Apparently that's the law or something? Hestia said I had to come tell you guys."
Eina's pencil rolled slowly off her ledger and pinged onto the wooden counter. She blinked at me. "I'm sorry," she said. "What?"
"I leveled up." I repeated.
She stared at me. "Blake," she said slowly, in the careful tone of someone explaining something to a small child, "leveling up in one day is impossible. That isn't a thing. That is not a thing that has ever happened!"
"Mm." I shrugged. "It happened anyway. My goddess can vouch for me, if you need her to?"
She picked her pencil back up. She put it down. She picked it up again. Her ears were doing this rapid little flutter that I was starting to recognize meant her brain was overheating. "Are you joking with me right now," she said, flat, not really a question.
"Nope..."
"Blake—urgh!" She pinched the bridge of her nose under her glasses. "There is no way you are level two," she said, in the tone of someone trying to talk reality back into being reasonable. "Stop joking. This is a serious office. We do not joke here. Especially not before I have finished my tea."
I gave her my most patient smile and just nodded. "I'm not level two, Eina."
She paused. "I'm sorry…?"
"I'm level six."
She just stared at me. Her glasses had slipped down her nose a little and her green eyes looked enormous behind them. Her lips parted slightly. The tip of one pointed ear gave a single small twitch, and then,
Her eyes rolled back into her head.
"Oh shit," I said, and I was already moving.
She tipped backwards off her stool. I planted one hand on the counter, vaulted my upper body across it in a smooth lean and got my arm under her shoulders just as her head was about to introduce itself to the floor. Her glasses slid the rest of the way down her nose and I caught those with my other hand on instinct, between two fingers, the way you catch a falling book.
I lowered her gently the rest of the way, supporting her head, and crouched awkwardly half over the counter with one foot still on my side and the other braced against the wood paneling of hers.
"Eina, hey," I said softly. "Eina."
She was out cold.
Oh my god, I broke the half-elf…
There was a sudden flurry of footsteps from across the Guild floor.
"What's wrong! What happened!"
"Eina!"
"Oh gods, did she trip, what—"
Three Guild employees came skidding around the row of counters, women all in the green vests, all looking alarmed. The youngest one, a slim brunette with her hair in a high ponytail, dropped to her knees on the staff side and put a hand to Eina's forehead. The older woman, who had tight curls of grey through her brown hair and the no nonsense face of somebody who had been doing this job since before any of us were born, took one look at the situation and put her hands on her hips.
"What did you do, young man," she said, in a voice that had clearly disciplined many, many adventurers.
"I am so sorry," I said quickly. "She just, I was reporting in, and she fainted on me, ma'am. Just kind of, boop, eyes back, and she was gone. I caught her though..."
"What did you say to her?"
I rubbed the back of my neck with my free hand and gave her my best charming sheepish smile. "...I just told her I hit level six?"
The Guild floor was suddenly very, very quiet.
The mopping janitor had stopped mopping and was openly staring. The two scribes at the exchange counter had stopped pretending to read their ledger. The notice board guy with the clipboard had turned around and was watching with his pen frozen halfway through a stroke.
I gently set Eina the rest of the way down on the floor on her side, the way you're supposed to, and slipped a folded jacket someone had tossed over the staff bench under her head as a pillow. I tucked her glasses neatly into her vest pocket where they wouldn't get stepped on. She was breathing steadily, color coming back into her face. She was just out.
I straightened up and dusted off my hands, awkward.
When I looked up, the three Guild women were all staring at me.
The older woman's expression had shifted from disciplinarian to something that was halfway between we need to file an emergency report and we need to file a different kind of report. She was looking at me like I was a logistics problem.
The brunette in the ponytail had her hand pressed flat against her own chest and was looking at me like I was, instead, an entirely different kind of problem. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes had gone a little glassy. Her mouth was slightly open and she wasn't blinking enough.
The redhead with the freckles had a look on her face that I had, in my short and recently exciting romantic career, learned to recognize on sight. It was the look that said I am, right this very second, considering whether I am the kind of girl who pounce on this guy in front of witnesses. Her lips curved into a slow smile that had absolutely nothing to do with Guild business.
I am in danger. I cleared my throat. The sound came out a little squeaky. I cleared it again, lower this time. "Sooo," I said. "I am, ah. I am going to leave Eina in your, um. Capable. Hands. Ladies. I'm sure you'll, you know. Take great care of her. Get her some water. Smelling salts. Maybe a blanket. Yeah..."
The redhead took half a step closer to the counter. "You don't have to run off, big guy," she said, and her voice had gotten a couple of degrees lower than it had been thirty seconds ago. "We'd love to hear all about your amazing tales as an adventurer. A level 6 is a big deal after all… Do you have an official guild envoy? I'm available, anytime you need me."
"Me too!" The brunette in the ponytail nodded vigorously. "By the way, are you single. Actually I don't care if you are or not. My name is Clarisse!"
"…" The older woman just looked at both girls with a look of pure disappointment and exasperation at the same time.
"...I am off to the dungeon," I announced. "Eina has my paperwork. Okay? Okay. Bye." I turned. I walked, very calmly, very normally, very much not like someone running, toward the front doors of the Guild.
The Tower of Babel rose up into the morning sky in front of me, impossibly tall, the top of it lost in a thin layer of cloud. The streets were starting to come alive properly now. More adventurers were heading in, gear slung over their shoulders, parties chatting and arguing and laughing as they walked. A horse drawn cart rumbled past loaded with crates of bread.
A few minutes later, I was standing in the same spot Hestia had stood with me yesterday, at the great archway of the dungeon entrance.
The downward staircase yawned in front of me, lit by the soft glow of the embedded crystals, the cool damp scent rising up from below.
I rolled my neck. I rolled my shoulders. I cracked my knuckles. I stared down into the depths.
So, I thought, how deep do we go this time?
I started down the steps.
XXX