Chương 47: Chapter 46: Nature, Rebirth, and Queenslace Leaves

As we walked calmly towards the inn, I felt... good. Very good, in fact. Tired, but good. The changing back and forth like that had been a lot - I could tell that my body was nearing its limits on that front, but... had I ever drank the world in like this before? It didn't feel like I ever had. The wolf was so close to the surface - so close to me, now. Rank B did more than it said it did - even if it did give me more of a description of its effects than any other skill ever normally did.

It seemed to bring my wolf closer to me... and myself, closer to the wolf. I'd expected this, but now it was much more marked a change. THIS IS GOOD wolf said, her voice clear as crystal in my head. I could see how pleased she was with how things were between us, how close we'd become, and I felt a surge of fellow feeling, knew that... this was how she felt as well.

WE ARE GETTING CLOSER EVERY DAY TO EACH OTHER She was thinking so clearly now, too - more than just an animal, she was starting to change, starting to think about the past and tomorrow, I thought. AND I UNDERSTAND YOU BETTER she replied. I hadn't even thought directly to her. I AM UNCERTAIN OUR THOUGHTS ARE SO DIFFERENT NOW she said, and mentally, I looked to her. What happens if we keep ranking up that skill? She had no idea, just tilted her head at me. I read her like a book at a glance.

In fact, I didn't even need to glance, I just... knew. We did eventually reach the inn, and I ducked through the doorway, carefully bringing the pantry inside. I debated putting it in the stone kitchen as the floor boards creaked under me, but... no, I didn't like the idea of sleeping near this thing, not if I could help it. So, I decided that the basement was the way to go. I briefly considered the trapdoor in the corner of the inn behind the counter, but dismissed it - no way this huge thing would fit down there.

So, plan B: The huge heckin' hole in the center of the room! I set the heavy thing down near an edge that looked like it wouldn't actually buckle, and picked my way into the wreckage in the center of the inn's room where the roof had also collapsed. Tiles slid and shifted under my feet, and my hide was pretty close to sharp spars of wood and a bit of a drop, but it's amazing how confident you can be when you could heal quickly from almost anything.

Even so, I carefully found solid footing and reached up to drag the Pantry in after me, taking its weight with little more than a grunt. Once again, the miracle of my physical strength struck home - this thing had to weigh hundreds of pounds and it was like I was merely carrying fifty or so. It almost definitely weighed more than I did!

"Need uh, any help with that ma'am?" the cook asked timidly, clearly feeling like he should at least offer a dainty flower such as myself help, and I smiled warmly up to him.

"No, not really - but if you two want to be helpful, I'd appreciate if you came down and helped find a clear spot for this." I grunted, and the skeleton, wrapped in his spectral form as he was, nodded as he looked around dubiously at the hole. Reading him, I said"There's a trap door and a ladder leading down behind the bar in the corner. I knocked most of the rust off the hinge last time I opened it so it shouldn't be too hard."

I said, and he nodded, disappearing from view as Gelidia manifested beside me on the stones below the pile of rubble. With a bit of guidance from her, I found steady footing and picked my way down to her. It was a little work to get a decent spot for the pantry because it really was big and fairly dangerous. It was about six feet tall, three feet deep, and four feet wide.

It was made of some kind of really heavy wood with shiny brass fittings that didn't seem to care how long they'd been there, and the carvings, while nothing to see in poor light like we were, were actually pretty fetching. Jolly, almost!

I found myself appreciating the gift as it sat in a remote part of the basement through a doorway that not only was as far from the dungeon's secret entrance as I could contrive, but once there actually WAS a door to this little musty room, it could be barred shut because after tonight.

"A fine spot for it." The cook observed"Honestly, we are all glad to see the back of the thing." he said, and I nodded, mopping a bit of sweat from my brow. I offered my hand to him, and he shook it. His hand felt cold, but roughened by work and gentle, his manifested flesh over his bones keeping me from touching the actual bones themselves.

"Thanks for your help." I said with a nod, and he smiled.

"My name is Emily Goldtail the Twice-Cursed, Hound of Lambstock. What's your name, friend?" I asked, and he searched my face a moment before replying.

"... Well met, Hound." he said"... Gehrman - Alfredo Gehrman." he said. Alfredo? Freakin' ALFREDO? What was with this world and names! But, then, my world had names like that too, names that seemed way too on the money or strange to be real. After a moment to blink at him stupidly, I grinned.

"Well met! Please, call me Emily." I said cheerily,"You've met my Lady already I think, but she is Gelidia Windbinder, Scion of the House of Windbinder. I am her consort." and made my way back towards the trap door. I had my back to the man, but I could see his expression of shock and his glance at Gelidia's back as I took the woman's hand in my own, linking fingers as we walked through the dark basement together.

"You can call me Alfie - most people do when they're not calling me YOU or calling me a Donkey." he said dryly, and I giggled a little at that as Gelidia smiled.

"Cook is quite a character, isn't he?" I asked, and the man smiled a bit as Gelidia kept mum on the subject. Even so, he replied carefully. It didn't do to insult your employer after all.

"That he is. A fine cook with much to recommend him." He said.

"... And such a vocabulary of interesting words, as well. I sometimes feel privileged to work with him, except when he is turning that tongue in my direction." he said, and I could sense some anger in him.

"Does he seriously call you a donkey?" I asked, and he nodded.

"Oh yes. And other barnyard animals." he replied, and I frowned a little.

"It can be quite colorful at times" he said as we reached the ladder. I let go of Gelidia's hand, and climbed my way upward. She simply phased upward through the floor after me. Alfie came up a beat later.

"Well, you don't need to put up with that. Why don't you come work in the inn? The innkeeper fled and I suspect this place could use an experienced hand." I said, and he looked dubiously around the ruin.

"... bit of a fixer-upper, no?" He said, with undisguised trepidation.

"Sure, but I'm here too and the place is big - once its running again, it'll be very important to Lambstock, I figure." I said, and the man Hmmm'ed thoughtfully.

"I will ruminate on this. It would be a real heel to lose the benefits of working for the---" and he hesitated, then seemed to sag.

"... Oh. The keep, the family, they are - no offense, my Lady - defunct. I suspect there is no employment in a dungeon of all places." he said. We walked in quiet for a bit as we made our way to the door of the inn and out the town gate.

"Even if my plan goes a'right, and I succeed my parents as the new Duchess... I suspect the keep will remain a dungeon hereafter. There is little I might do against that fact - I will not be a corebreaker, even for the sake of my ancestral home." she sighed, and I took her hand again. She squeezed it gently, and I could see how sad she was about it. Then, she seemed to remember herself. She turned her face to me and explained herself.

"A dungeon's core is..." she paused, searching for words.

"... Actually quite fragile. It is the source of the magic that powers it, and it is... wrong to break it, sacrilege against the World Tree and Her Will." she explained.

"More than that, it is the source of life for many of the shades within who have not subsumed and broken free. It would do more damage than their deaths to break it - much, much more." she explained, and I nodded at her, rubbing the back of her hand with my thumb.

"Understood - so we protect it, right?" I said, and she nodded.

"Yes. Though most people would never, ever even think of it - it's... abominable, heretical. The most wicked villains in all the songs and stories, in plays and operas, are corebreakers - it's unthinkably wicked and cruel. But." she said, and Alfie cut in.

"There's always some idiot or some zealot or some greedy guts who might just be dumb enough." he said, and a soft growl escaped my lips. Yeah no, that wasn't happening. I was distracted from my musing by a pungent, earthy scent that drew my attention. Oh! Sage! Taking out my ceramic knife, I started cutting clippings of the plant and setting them into the basket Gelidia held. It didn't take much work to find more, and Queenslace was easy to find as well as we made our way into the woods.

I wasn't scared to get on my hands and knees, and Alfie wasn't either. Working in companionable quiet as Gelidia kept her eyes up and carried a basket for us, we made our way around the woods immediately around gateway, then deeper.

"The road is gone - I couldn't even tell where it was if I did not know already. So much has changed in these woods I grew up in." Alfie said, frowning, and I nodded.

"It makes sense. You've been dead for decades. The old kingdom is dead too." and we started going over the changes - how the Republic of Deplia picked itself up from the ruins of the Kingdom of Stormwrack, how the continent of Kalailas was changed as far as we knew from the Wayfinders, and the man sighed. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"Fallen Forest - a fine name. When the greater demon's army attacked, when his poison stones rained down, we all thought it was the end of the world." he said, and his hands cupped a Queenslace plant in his fingers, looking it over thoughtfully for purple spots as I'd instructed him.

"For us... I suppose it was. Nature isn't so easily deterred." he said softly.

"What a bittersweet ending."

"Not an ending at all." Gelidia said, and he looked up at her, blinking.

"A new beginning. You don't need to take this... lying down, if you forgive the expression." she said softly, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"None of us do. There is a way, if you are brave enough." she said. The cook looked between her and I as I squat on the ground and grinned a little, not showing my teeth.

"... And what is that? I am a monster. My family are either dead or monsters as well - we are dungeon creatures the lot of us." he said, and Gelidia shook her head. I resumed my work as she quietly talked to him, and explained what she, what I, what most of the townspeople and even Sir Little had done, and what her plan, our plan, was. The man went from horrified to shocked to... thoughtful as she spoke, pausing in his work to look at his hands, bones and spectral flesh and all.

Then, he looked up to the sun and seemed to fully realize that... undead though he was, he was in full daylight. He wasn't coming apart or burning or anything - he hadn't even noticed.

"How is this possible...?" he breathed.

"I am stable... and in my presence as your rightful Lady, you are more of your old self than you were when you were just a dungeon creature, Alfredo. And you can be that way always - if you do as we have done." she said. There was a short pause, and she continued, a little pained as the man hesitated, but he needed to know the truth too.

"You are free to refuse, to choose not to - I have no hold over you now, not anymore. You gave your life for me - I would not dare ask for more. You can even be laid to rest if that's what you want, nobody can make you do this... but if you like, there is a second chance waiting for you in the wings. A new life, after death. And you will not be alone in it, nor subject to the will of another OR the dungeon any longer." And he chose.

Just as I'd seen before, he sparkled as he closed his hands and his mouth firmed into a line. I could hear his teeth grind together, and he seemed to become... more, his skin going opaque as he manifested at the same time.

"I intend to stay, for as long as it still holds branch and bough, as long as there is hope." he said, entirely too dramatically for some battered kitchen cook. His thin face and strong hands, his pale eyes and rosy manifested cheeks flushed with something approaching life from the other side of death. He turned his featureless eyes to Gelidia, and got back to work, picking up his knife and cutting from the queenslace plants, leaving some to regrow as I'd shown him.

"And I will remain your willing servant, Lady. As ever. The Staff are loyal to the house of Windbinder, as our fathers and mothers before us." he said firmly. I smiled a little as we worked - people in this world sure did love dramatic gestures, and I thought it was neat. The sky was blue - there were only so many ways you could say that, after all! It made sense people would be a little extra in this world sometimes - magic was magic. And he'd just made a seriously important decision for himself.

"But if I can leave that kitchen, I surely will." he said with serious firmness that got a chuckle from Gelidia.

"There was this librarian in town - darling girl, I wonder if she chose the same as I?" he said, and smiled a little as he worked to fill the baskets we'd brought with. New vitality, new vigor, filled him as we worked with a will.

"Mousy girl, glasses, a little absent minded?" I asked, thinking of the girl I'd seen walk through a wall forgetting her books wouldn't follow her, and described what I could remember to Alfie. He lit up, and laughed a little!

"The very same, I believe so! After we bring these back to the dungeon, after tonight's work, I shall call upon her!" he said. Gelidia shook her head a little.

"You actually... should not return to the dungeon, Alfredo." She said, and put a hand on his shoulder to draw his eyes to her.

"You are no longer a creature of it - the moment I leave the floor, the moment they are outside my influence... the staff will still belong to the dungeon itself, and will try to harm you." she explained, and the man blinked... then grinned like an idiot, letting out a laugh like someone who learned they would not actually need to go to work today and found themselves free!

"Well then at least let me fill these with you, and then... I suppose I shall see about getting the inn cleaned up!" he said"Your inn, you mean!" I said, and Alfredo blinked stupidly at me.

"Your inn!" Gelidia confirmed, and clapped his shoulder.

"If you wish it! My Emily seems alright with it""So long as I can keep staying there, I'm happy to let it be yours - I don't want to manage an inn." I admitted freely.

"... I know not what duties you have as Hound, nor how we will shape the arrangement, but... I will need a cook if we are to be an Inn! Interested, Emily?" he said, and I grinned a bit. I loved cooking.

"Sure, unless other duties need doing. I don't know what my responsibilities will be, yet." I said as I dropped some mint into the basket. He nodded, placing mint of his own that he'd cut in as well.

"That seems fair. Is... the werewolf thing, is that... a problem?" he asked uncertainly, and I shook my head.

"I retain myself - just like you, I am stable. I do not lose myself, and honestly, my Wolf is not so bad. It is like having my own dog inside my head." Wolf snorted at that, but didn't object - just waggled her tail a bit inside me. WE LIKE DOGS. Dogs are the best people. We're not a dog really, but we're similar I thought in reply. Then, our baskets were full. It took us a couple hours, but the work was done and I clapped my hands across one another a couple times, sticky with sap and juices.

I'd even grabbed a couple handfuls of ramps for good measure, because I loved how they tasted, even if they did stink.

"What are these? They smell foul!" Alfie asked, shielding his nose with his arm for the good it did him. I chuckled.

"Ramps - think of them like a cross between wild onion and garlic! They have a lovely taste when cooked up. I figure Cook could find some use for them, for sure!" I said. and Alfie nodded. We left him waving us off at the inn, and I took his basket easily. Gelidia was struggling with hers, so... I took that one too, one on each shoulder as she laughed. These were no strain at all to me - even if they had to weigh at least forty pounds each with all we'd picked!

Gelidia touched my tummy as we walked, and I felt her fingertips brush over my firm belly under the fabric. Then, with my arms fully occupied, she smiled up at me... and tugged my tunic-dress thing tight against my form, admiring my curves and fit body. I looked too - I was... well, I was healthy now. In just a week, I'd gone from almost skeletal to... this. I had no doubt in my mind that changing shape, running as a wolf, and eating home cooked meals as I had had done wonders for my figure.

I was in better shape now than I'd ever been in my life, and once again, I marveled at how good I felt. More than that, I was amazed how nice it was... to be admired, to be desired and touched by somebody who wanted me. A soft, animal rumble escaped my throat, a kind of lupine purr that felt entirely natural in my throat, and she again checked my face to see my reaction with smoldering eyes.

In the distance, as we left him behind, I could hear the cook let out a cry as he realized he'd STILL have to deal with'THAT BLOODY PANTRY'. I ignored it, grinning a little.

"... your beauty never fails to capture me, Emily." Gelidia purred softly.

"Come... let's linger no longer - I cannot stand it, and those look heavy!" she said, and we made our way back up the street. I paused, setting down my burdens at the fountain, and... quite unconcerned, pulled off my dress! Gelidia squeaked and looked away as I grinned at her turned back and shocked gasp!

"EMILY!" She squeaked, and I chuckled, a lupine rumble lacing my words as I said" What? I need to clean up. I'm covered in blood under my clothes and I feel gross." I said, and the cold water of the fountain in the center of town on the empty, sleeping streets of lambstock made me gasp and huff several times as they stole away any lingering lust in my body! Okay! Cold! Freakin' Cold!

I slipped in anyhow, pitiless to my own discomfort, and started to cleanse away the blood and stuff from my body, turning the water briefly pink as before. As I washed, she came to sit beside me on the edge, resolutely not looking, but present just the same.

"... I don't think I like dungeon diving very much. I'm prepared to give it another try after this dungeon, because this one is 'Extra', but... I don't think I like it." I said eventually. Gelidia nodded.

"That is understandable. You need never enter one again, should you decide that - so long as we do not stagnate, the World smiles upon us." she said.

"So... how do people avoid stagnation?" I asked.

"A few ways" Gelidia said, turning so her legs slipped into the cool waters.

"Mostly, people who believe in the World Tree's tenets, they change it up, try to learn new things, to grow, even change their occupation several times in their lives, but there is a tradition." she said, and began to run her fingers through my hair as I relaxed, de-tangling me and undoing my braids. I let her work up to her point, listening intently as her touch to my scalp, her gentle fingers undoing bindings and tangles feeling... quite pleasant, sending little involuntary shivers through me.

"Journeys - people sometimes... just get wanderlust, and go out into the world, go for a Journey. Much like Sir Little did - it's a tradition that when you decide to Journey, usually when you come of age or when your life is half spent and you become restless but at any time, your family and friends will give you gifts and wish you well in hopes of your safe return." she said.

"Such a Journey-" she said, pronouncing the capital letter"-brings new ideas and new ways home with you, and so stirs the world together. It is viewed... as a kind of pilgrimage, a sacred thing, even if that person goes on a hundred Journeys in their lifetime and becomes an adventurer before returning home to roost at the last." she said, and I could see her smile with my Wolf-Ren."... And once the town is situated, once things are in order... perhaps I would like to do so as well." she said.

"Like Sir Little, I want to see how my homeland has changed." she explained. I grinned, and nodded up at her!

"Heck yeah! Can I come too?" I asked, and she blinked at me, before laughing!

"Of course you can!" she chuckled"I don't know if I even COULD leave you behind at this point, my sweet Hound! For one, you are ostensibly cursed with my presence in your life! For another..." and she bent down to brush her lips to mine. I rumbled and melted into her kiss as she pet hair from my face and embraced my head. Her body was like a spring breeze against me, her lips like spring water as they brushed over mine. Cold, but not at all unpleasantly so. The kiss lingered, and I felt it said...

everything I needed to hear, but she spoke anyhow.

"... For another, I think that my heart might just shatter if I tried." she said softly, voice trembling. I nuzzled into her hand, and captured her wrist, kissing the inside of it as I nestled between her thighs. OURS. OUR MATE. Wolf's thought was firm, protective, and adoring. She Loved Gelidia dearly. Ours. I confirmed, and shared a smile with my inner creature. We'd die to protect her. WITHOUT HESITATION. IT WOULD BE A GOOD DEATH. I rumbled again, and nodded.

"Me too. I'm afraid you're stuck with me. I'll follow you like a dog forever, probably." I said"There is no escape." Gelidia giggled quite a bit at that, and shook her head"Your world must be a very strange, that this is how you would say you love me!" she laughed!

"It sounds as a threat! An ominous foreboding tale of doom!" she said, and I kissed her again.

"Well, I am cursed as anything, and a literal monster. Some might think that doom-y, to be told they'll be forever pursued by such a one!" I said, petting her cheek.

"Woe is me." She purred happily. Once I was braided and dressed again, I picked up my burdens once more and we made our way back up the street and towards the Windbinder Keep. We had a dungeon to finish, and a town to save.