The Harvester

“No, no, no, there are limits. I don’t think even my luck can take responsibility for all this,” Rakna said with a hand on his forehead. “Wait… am I actually a magnet for crazy stuff?”

“{Why do you sound like you have just gotten to that realization? You are late,}” Fray retorted with a deadpan voice. “{But well, Nyx was the Goddess of the Night before coming to the System, after all. We should give her the credit for her own absurdity.}”

“True, but a word of advice, don’t go around calling people absurd.”

“{Haha, I shall be careful. But Tiamat, eh?}” The storyteller mused. “{She is part of a classification rarely attributed to anything; an Originator. We use that name for beings that have given birth to significant facets of the world as we know it. She truly is a forgotten and ancient legend. You should have heard of her name before, right? A primordial goddess shares it. To be exact, she was named after Tiamat.}”

“Hm, the one from Mesopotamian religion?”

“{Well, if that is the name given to it on your home planet, yes. After all, as you know, mythology spreads throughout realities thanks to the Spiritual Tree, but the name of civilizations can change depending on local history.}”

“I see. What do you think will happen to Nyx, though? Sometimes, it feels like Paths involving these kinds of specific individuals are inheritances put forward by the original owner. What do you think the Crepuscule Queen wants to do by giving Nyx her power? She’s still alive, is she not?”

“{The most obvious answer would be that she is seeking a way out of her self-imprisonment and to revive her race. As for why she chose our common friend… oh!}” Fray exclaimed as if he realized something. 

“{Eternal Night! Nyx is most likely, in the whole of Existence, the person with the most affinity with Aeter aside from the creator himself. That is probably the key. Twilight creatures were a race that couldn’t live in a world where the concept of a ‘night that never passes’ did not exist. Eternal Night is realistically their most compatible conception.}”

“Aah… so Tiamat seeks a solution. She probably wasn’t capable of directly contacting my old man so she’s going for the next best thing that has just appeared; Nyx. Maybe she wants to create a new dimension or Realm for her kind.”

“{If that is the case, we ought to help her, don’t we?}”

“Perhaps, though it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye open,” Rakna said as he stopped walking through the streets of New Athens. He looked up at the next layer and star-flashed to it, appearing where he wanted to be.

“So, this is the Athens Arena,” he remarked, viewing the large building located near the border of one of the mid-layers of the aquatic city. It was built rather grandly; practically detached from the ground and being sustained in the air by a platform of dense water. There were also a few pillars supporting it from below attached to New Athens.

To give it a more concrete description, one could have compared the city to a large space station and the Arena to a smaller vessel docked to its outer hull.

“Hey, from what I gathered, this Arena is a sort of colosseum with numerous games, right?” The therian asked out loud whilst watching the stream of people going in and out of the building with different methods. The Arena itself was octagonal and made of steel and stone with spires on top like a medieval castle.

He inspected every nook and cranny of it, his eyes glowing golden. He gathered every single bit of obtainable information through Crystal Sight, which was capable of peering through the walls to some extent. The only thing that stopped him from being able to know everything inside was that the building itself seemed to be magically reinforced and expanded.

“{Yes,}” Fray eventually replied to his question. “{What of it?}

“Do you think Arena Zero, the supposed event in Plateau Zero, was based on this?”

“{Hm, well, now that I think about it, it could be. But if I had to guess, it is most likely far cruder as well. Don’t compare the Arenas in Athens to the underworld’s dealings.}”

“I’m not saying that. It’s just that I may have found the perfect cover…”

“{The perfect cover…? Oh, I understand. Indeed, that could work.}”

Rakna shrugged and then blinked, his pupils returning to normal. “Well, it’s an easy disguise and an inconspicuous one if I play my cards right,” he said and turned around. He weaved through the crowd; his presence almost nonexistent. The only reason he wasn’t being recognized at the moment was that he was using Stealth constantly.

In a public setting, this skill didn’t stop people from spotting him but they would fail to get a grasp of any of his features. It was akin to him wearing a cloak.

Rakna wanted to visit the library of Athens next. Atlantis was known as a place of high cultural concentration and evidently, home to plenty of artists, including writers. It was part of the reason why Fray had expected his successor to be here. A part of his group had also headed there as well while he was meeting with Eva.

But before the therian could get far, something caught his attention. Since he was still close to the outer edges of the city, he had a clear view of the lower layers, and he could also see the area where his group had appeared earlier.

That’s why, when he saw a pillar of blue flames emerge there, he got a bad feeling. The passersby around him also got curious and began to look at it from above, their whispers being caught by his ears all too well.

‘This presence…’ Rakna began to sweat nervously as the flames turned into a sphere. It then quickly shot up into the sky. ‘It’s heading here, isn’t it?’ He thought helplessly.

“{Indeed.}” 

[Correct.]

Fray and Ceres responded simultaneously, both obviously amused at his expense.

“H-hey, it’s just me, or is it getting closer?” One person spoke up and everyone else began to notice it as well. Quickly, a small panic spread as the blue flames became closer and closer.

The crowd scattered and only Rakna stayed still with a straight face. Then, the flames landed near him and briefly swallowed the area without hurting him in the slightest. Immediately after, a pair of hands landed on the therian’s shoulders and a panting vixen glared at him.

“…why are you so out of breath? Did you fight an army to get here or something?” Rakna meant it as nothing more than a jest but she narrowed her eyes in even further irritation.

“Yes.”

“…oh.”

“I was killing those wyverns and salamanders, feeling pretty good about myself, then mom called me and messed it all up. She bragged about how you brushed her tails all smugly.”

“…ah.”

“Then I had to rush out of that Dungeon; I almost broke it! That Boss was annoying too! What the hell is a Magma Wyrm?! Why did it have so much physical and magical resistance?!”

“…eh.”

“Don’t give me that ‘oh’ ‘ah’ ‘eh’ shit! And that last one sounded more like a laugh!” She grumbled and the therian pursed his lips. “You know what you have to do, don’t you?” She added with eyes that promised endless pain.

“…”

* * *

“Hehehe…” Kaelith chuckled giddily, her ears twitching animatedly as she sat on the bench of an aquatic park in the middle of New Athens. You had to give it to this city for having public parks with reverse waterfalls and corals the size of trees mixed in with the vegetation.

Meanwhile, Rakna sighed as he brushed the vixen’s tails, taking a spot behind her with an armchair he had made with his magic. “Please don’t turn me into your family's exclusive hairdresser.”

“Oh, good idea! Brush my hair too, will you?”

“…right.”

“You’re oddly good at this, by the way. Did you get this good by doing it once?”

“Not really. I had a pet once,” Rakna said casually. “A dog, actually. Before my life became the mess it was, of course. I really liked brushing his fur while he sat on my lap.”

“I see… Well, if that’s the case,” she let out a small smile and suddenly moved from her seat. In the blink of an eye, she hopped from the bench right onto the therian’s lap.

Rakna blinked at the sudden change. It was actually terrifyingly fast; he almost couldn’t react. He was obviously forced to stop brushing her tails, her frame taking most of his personal space. “I’m not sure you thought this one through, foxy. It’s a bit awkward to brush you in this position,” he said with a small hint of mirth.

“Heh, and what? If I had to choose, being on your lap is better than you brushing me. Also, it’s not fair that you get a comfy armchair while I settle for a bench. You’re surprisingly a luxury seeker.”

“Who doesn’t like being comfortable? Why would I not when I can basically conjure any furniture you could possibly think of,” he said with a snicker and eventually just slipped his arms across her waist to continue brushing her tails above her own lap.

Both of them enjoyed a restful silence surrounded by the sound of water. Their surroundings had been wholly vacated in another show of authority from the Nine-Tailed heiress. The enforcers that had come to welcome her after her flashy arrival had been forced to make a perimeter for nothing more than their privacy.

Kaelith sighed and fully leaned into him when he finished taking care of her tails. She rested her head, snuggling in his shoulder. She closed her eyes for a moment before speaking up, “Hey… are you ever going to do anything about it?” She asked softly.

“About ‘it’, huh?” Rakna smiled faintly. “Whatever do you mean, I wonder?”

“Don’t tease me,” she grumbled quietly. “I believe we are far past the stage of throwing subtle hints at each other, don’t you think?”

“Skipped it, rather.”

“Well, of course! I had to. As if I could count on you for that. What’s the damn point if you can smell it anyway? You’re cheating, as always. That’s a rare aptitude even among full-fledged Nine-Tailed Wolves, you know? Honestly, it doesn’t even surprise me you have it. And I’m not going to let you change the topic so easily, wolfy.”

“For shame.”

“Now you’re just being cheeky,” she said with a chortle and opened her eyes. She turned around halfway and wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs going over the armrest. She closed in on his face until their foreheads were almost touching, her tails leisurely flailing around them.

“…a seated bridal carry?” Rakna let out calmly, his eyes fixed on hers. “I hope you’re not expecting me to carry you off somewhere.”

“Tch, if that was something you’d do, this whole thing would be much simpler,” she pouted. “Why do you think I’m sitting here, right now?”

The therian tilted his head with an eyebrow raised. “Appeal?”

She groaned. “It’s… not like… that’s… wrong? Wait, that’s not it! Look at you! Even after this, you’re still not moving. Come on, I didn’t fall for a piece of woo--!” Her words were cut off, muffled by the lips that pressed on hers. Her eyes widened in shock and her mind shut down for a second.

When she registered what was going on, her grip tightened and she silently pushed back, closing her eyes as a sole tear trailed down her cheek. They gradually reciprocated stronger and stronger until they were lost in it.

The fiery and frosty tails blended together, intermittently covering their figure as if to isolate them from the world while they relished the moment for as long as they could.