[
"...Why do you keep drawing that stupid circle on the ground?"
"Because this shape is what the universe is made out of. Its important to recognize the properties of this shape."
"I don't get it."
"All objects are comprised of a few elementary particles, called atoms. If you want to break it down further, there are electrons, protons..."
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Aisha just gave a completely confused look.
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"Nevermind. What matters is that all objects have a "rotation." Even this solid ground is a mass of rapidly spinning, incredibly tiny objects.
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If you try to draw a straight line… you would find that it's never really perfectly straight. Even though it's possible, if you draw a line on the ground, unwavering, you would eventually just loop around the planet, and therefore it would not be a straight line.
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Therefore, you can say that there is a slight "rotation" to even the straightest trajectory. We can use this rotation to… improve your fighting capabilities.
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For example… if I… thrust my sword at this wall, I can sink it through. But if this wall is at an angle...
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My sword is deflected. Half of the force of my thrust is directed parallel to the wall. I can circumvent this by sending an attack at a curve, but even still, if I adjust the angle at the point of impact, I can "deflect" the attack. By deflecting an attack, instead of blocking, you can defend against an attack even if it is theoretically too strong to block.
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This also applies to magic. Magic is similarly comprised of...
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...Nevermind.
"
]
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Aisha knocked on the doors of the small little shop aggressively, covered in dirt and blood from her contract. She lugged in her hands both her bolt bag, and a dripping, bloody bag, filled with… something.
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When there was no response, Aisha knocked agai-
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"WHAT DO YOU WANT???" The door was wrenched open, and a furious man's voice echoed on the street. He stood in the cold air, covered only by a pair of underpants.
"These are the salamander hearts."
"Do you know what time it is??"
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Aisha looked up. It was not even sunrise yet, but she knew it had been a couple hours since midnight.
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"I dunno."
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The man angrily wrenched the sack out of her hands, and after a minute of angry rustling, a few coins were thrown in her face, and the door slammed shut. Aisha caught the few gold coins, stashing them away in her coin purse.
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Aisha reached into her pocket and pulled out her adventuring plate. She knew exactly what rank she was, but the sight of the little plate made her… anxious? Excited? Afraid?
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It didn't matter. She put the plate back into her pocket. It read the letters... IV.
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Aisha walked up to the counter of the guild hall, to see an unfamiliar face.
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"Who are you?" She asked.
"Um… I'm the clerk! Do you have a contract?"
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Aisha scrunched up her face at the sight of the young-looking girl, probably less than 18 years old. Her hair was a sunny blonde, her eyes were a warm brown, and she had an earnest expression, a very striking contrast from the sour, tired expression that Luan had.
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"You're not the usual guy who shows up." Aisha accused.
"I'm the night shift clerk. My name's Ciara!"
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Aisha just glared at the girl's unwavering, beaming smile. She opened her mouth, but she was interrupted by a familiar, smooth, velvety voice.
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"It's been a while."
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Aisha whipped around to see a familiar, dark-skinned face. Amir waved to the receptionist, giving a curt greeting, as he walked to the job board.
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"I haven't seen you in a while." Aisha remarked.
"I've been taking more night contracts. They pay better."
"It looks like you don't need all that much money."
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Aisha eyed Amir's new set of armor. It was black and glossy, and when she squinted a little bit, she could see diamond-shaped lines in the armor, dividing it like scales. Dragonhide. And a different set from his white one.
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"How long have you been adventuring?" Aisha asked.
"A long time. Better question is, how long have you been adventuring?" Amir asked offhandedly.
"A few weeks. Why?"
"Word spreads fast, of an adventurer who can't use magic, and is quickly on her way to platinum contract." Amir mused. "They've started coming up with nicknames."
"Like what?"
"The machine!" Amir held up his hands in sarcastic wonder. "The construct. The monster."
"...I don't get it."
"They're all things that don't have souls. Well, not hume souls."
"Oh."
"They all want you to succeed, you know. Even if they don't say it." Amir said, ripping a contract from the board, a small tear of paper being left on the board, pinned up by a thumbtack.
"Aren't you a platinum adventurer? Why would they cheer for me? "
"They want you to get to sapphire."
"How would they know-"
"Word gets around fast."
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Amir turned around with his contract, walking to the front desk and putting down his contract for activation.
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"I look forward to working with you." Amir said, walking out of the building. Aisha stared at his retreating form, blending into the night, as she walked to fill the space that Amir was blocking. She took a contract from the board absentmindedly and placed it on the counter.
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It was midday when Aisha returned to the guild, tired, sweaty, and sleepy. She held her side, bruised from the shock that she had taken from a large explosion.
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Aisha slumped down in a chair, breathing heavily, her chair making a loud screeching noise as her weight sent the chair skidding back. She closed her eyes.
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(Damn. I'm… getting slower. I have to rest....)
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For a minute she just sat there, as the adrenaline from her contract wore off, her laborious breathing slowing down, and the sweat drying from her face. She could feel the edges of sleep creeping up on her, but…
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(It's so cold...)
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Dammit. She still couldn't... sleep without the warmth of another body.
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Aisha bit her lip, still tired, but unable to drift into sleep. She settled with just closing her eyes, shivering slightly, as she futilely tried to get a bit of rest. Her eyebrows furrowed as she heard the sound of heels on wood growing closer.
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"Go away." She groaned. "My ears are real."
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Aisha felt a soft hand on top of her head, rubbing her ears affectionately. She cracked one eye open to see Celeste with a worried expression.
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Aisha was silent, prompting Celeste to start the conversation.
"I'm..." Celeste bit her lip. "I'm sorry. I was being stupid. I knew you didn't mean that you didn't care about me. I just got… mad that you didn't want to… settle with me. Come home. I miss you. And you look… terrible."
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Celeste's breathing hitched and her eyes widened. " I mean- I didn't mean you looked ugly or anything! I just-"
Aisha sighed. "Later."
"Later?" Celeste asked incredulously, still petting Aisha's ears. "What do you have to do right now?"
"I have to.... Zzzz..."
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Aisha felt her eyelids grow heavy, feeling the warmth from the headpats suffuse through her body. A warm, fluffy feeling coursed through her limbs.
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Celeste gave a light smile as Aisha's head lolled back in the chair in peaceful sleep. She attempted to lift the girl out of her chair, but her crossbow weighed her body down.
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Her hand glowed white, as a glyph appeared in front of their sleeping girl, and her body lifted into the air. Celeste walked back to her apartment, heads turning to watch the woman carry the unconscious fey girl out of the guild.
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Aisha woke up blearily, feeling incredibly warm. Her head was resting on something really soft… She felt like sinking into it. So she did, pressing down into the soft thing with her head.
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"Are you awake?" Asked a soft, concerned voice.
"No."
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Aisha heard a sigh from above her, and felt smooth, slender fingers caress her face and cheeks.
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"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have… tried to trick you into taking that amulet." Celeste apologized.
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Aisha's eyes were still closed, and her sleepy shuffling grew still.
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"That day, I got a..." Celeste bit her lip. "I got a message from him. He told me to make sure you got the stone. No matter what. I'm sorry."
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At Aisha's silence, Celeste grew desperate.
"What do you want from me?? I said sorry! I-"
"You tricked me, then got mad at me, leaving me in the streets, and then told me that there was nothing to be mad about." Aisha said in a flat tone. Her eyes bored into Celeste's.
"I-I'm sorry!" Celeste was on the verge of tears, trembling. "I-I-I-"
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Aisha just sighed and opened her eyes, looking at Celeste with a tired expression.
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"It's fine. I should have been more… cautious."
Celeste's voice came out in a hurt whisper. "Cautious of… me?"
"Yes."
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At the sight of the whimpering, pitiful, close-to-tears girl, Aisha felt a twinge of disdainful pity. She was nothing like her mistress. Her mistress would never...
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"Don't… worry about it." Aisha muttered. "I'm sorry… too."
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That seemed to quell Celeste's tears, if only a little bit, but she still looked like she would burst into tears at any moment, which was… undesirable. Aisha sighed and got up, rummaging around at her side. She winced as she put on the onyx amulet, it's chaotic magics coursing through her body.
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"There. I'm wearing it for you, ok? Stop crying." She said coarsely.
"I-I'm- *hic*-I'm not crying!"
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Celeste hugged Aisha tightly, her tears wetting Aisha's black training uniform.
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Soon Celeste had cried out all of her tears, and despite her profuse apologies, she did not accompany Aisha on her next contract.
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Aisha stared down at her plate. Only one more contract. And then she would see if she could even reach platinum, or if she would have to...
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She didn't want to think about the other possibility. It filled her with a sense of dread.
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Her thoughts were cut short as she reached her destination, a large store with a huge bow mounted on the front. She pulled her hood tighter over her head. It was a reflex by now. She had to in order to go to any public location.
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She was instantly hit with the smell of wood and alcoholic curing solution. The store was dimly lit, and bows of all shapes and sized lined the walls, some ornate with massive assortments of multicolored jewels, others sleek and wooden. Aisha, however, was not here to buy a bow…
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The clerk at the front was a young man with spiky brown hair. Aisha looked at his hands as he talked to another customer, rough, but not calloused enough to be the man who actually made the bows. Aisha waited impatiently, waiting for her turn to talk to the boy.
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"Hey." Aisha said, lugging around the dryad's gift. "I need to talk to the man who makes the bows."
"Um… I don't know if I can do that man."
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Aisha's eye twitched at the boy's lazy, disrespectful tone, but she supposed that she couldn't really judge him.
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"Why not. I need to place a special order." She said firmly.
"Uhh…. he told me that he couldn't see anybody." The clerk said, brushing some hair out of his eye.
"Why not?" Aisha pressed.
"I don't know, man. I don't ask any… questions dude. That tends to get people fired."
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Aisha gave the tall clerk boy a deathly glare, but the guy wasn't even looking at her, instead looking at a wall poster, of a man in ornate, blue-tinted armor. She looked around, checking for anybody watching her, and then vaulted over the counter with her chunk of wood, ignoring the lazy "hey" of protest from behind her.
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She opened the door to the back, entering a hallway full of doors. She walked through it, peering into the doorways lining the hallway, seeing a supply closet, filled with wooden planks, a curing room, full of the stench of alcohol… some bedchambers…
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She wrenched open a door at the end of the hallway, where a figure sat in the dark, silhouetted by a dim light. As it heard the sound of the door opening, and footsteps, it turned towards the hooded figure in the doorframe.
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"Dammit boy!" Aisha heard a raspy, almost unhuman voice. "I told you not to let anybody in here!"
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Aisha turned behind her, but she didn't even see the clerk. He didn't follow her. She reached around her for a lamp, turning it on and illuminating the man.
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"You're an Eyu." She said.
"And you not supposed to be here." The man growled. Aisha could see the way the man's scaly, reptilian mouth opened, showing rows of sharp, dripping teeth. His slitted eyes darted back and forth between her and the door.
"I'm here for-"
"What you going to do, girl?" The man snarled. "Call guard? I should call guard, I here legally! You intruding! Damn racists take your side even still, I sure, but-"
"I'm here for-"
"All you humes the same!"
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Aisha's eye twitched. She pulled down her hood to reveal her ears, but the man wasn't even looking at her, rambling on an on about humes and arrests and... other obscenities.
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She tried to grab the man's neck, but it was too big and too slippery for her to properly choke him, so she decided on forcing the man's mouth shut.
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"I'm just here for a special order." Aisha said in a low voice. "Please shut up."
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She carefully let go of the man's mouth.
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"Oh. Sorry. What you need?"
Aisha raised an eyebrow at that. "You're just ok with me walking in here?"
"Non-humes have to stick together, girl. Otherwise, who will?"
"We're not even the same race."
"Bah. Doesn't matter. What you want?"
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Aisha was mildly surprised, but she decided to not pursue the matter further, instead pulling out the dryads gift.
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"I want you to make a crossbow out of this. The biggest one you can."
"A crossbow? That..."
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Aisha could see the man's eyes judging her. So much for sticking together.
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"I can do that. Come pick up in a day."
"How much is it?" Aisha asked, rummaging through her coin purse.
"For you, it free."
"Don't give me that stick together bull-"
"Not everyday I get to work with rare materials. I got enough money anyway."
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Aisha swore as she was hit in the side of the head by a flailing fist, courtesy of the giant monkey-like beast she was hunting. The contractor called it a Guadape, or something. She grunted and cradled the side of her face, wincing in pain.
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Aisha turned to the side. "Hey! Are you going to do anything?"
"Sorry, but you're too close!"
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Aisha sidestepped a wild swing from the beast and narrowed her eyes. Fei was useless. The ranger girl was just sitting on a fallen log, humming to herself.
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Eventually Aisha grew tired, and she caught both the animal's fists, gritting her teeth as her boots were forced deep into the dirt. Aisha saw the beast's mouth open, and before the monster could cast any magic at her, she threw it to the ground, quickly burying her sword in the its chest.
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"Woo! Good job, Aisha" Fei clapped. Aisha gave her a dirty look.
"Hey, don't look at me!" Fei said, raising her hands defensively. "You picked a bad type of contract for my class."
"It's not as if these monsters are brought to us!" Aisha retorted. "Don't you run into these things on other types of contracts??"
Fei swayed side to side on her log. "Wellll… We usually just run."
"What if you can't run?"
Fei put her finger up to her lip. "Ummm…"
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Aisha just rolled her eyes, sawing through the Guadape's neck for a trophy. At the sound of a "blech!" she turned, to see Fei sticking her tongue out in disgust.
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"Got a problem?" Aisha asked.
"Don't you?" Fei asked. "That's… a living creature!"
"So? All creatures kill each other."
"Yeah… but..." Fei looked… apprehensive. "Not all creatures saw off other creature's necks for trophies."
"It's for the contract." Aisha said, not even looking away.
"Don't fey have… some special connection with nature?" Fei asked.
"Don't humans?" Aisha asked, grimacing as blood gushed onto her face.
"Uh… what?"
"Nature is an arbitrary term. My tribe..." Aisha waved her sword around. "Happens to worship a giant tree. The humans here… worship some guy. Humes also come from nature, don't they?"
"Are you... talking about Ifrit?"
"Yes."
"I… uh… I'm not going to… um."
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Aisha ripped off the ape's head, shoving her bloody sword into her sheath and getting blood everywhere. Hefting the head in her hand, and her crossbow in the other. she turned around.
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"Let's go."
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Fei skipped along next to Aisha, as they made their way downhill towards the town.
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"So… what happened with Celeste?" Fei asked.
"You're going to have to be more specific than that."
"She's been… um… she kind of looks… sad. Kind of."
"..."
"Did you two have a fight?"
"No. I just… made an error in judgement."
"About Celeste? She's a nice girl!"
"She's not what I'm looking for. It's my fault. I slept with her… based on her looks."
"What are you going to do?" Fei asked, hopping up onto a rock.
"Break up."
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Fei frowned and sighed,
"Don't you care about her feelings? She obviously likes you a lot! "
"I don't. And I'm not going to get caught up in this… teenage relationship garbage. I have other things to worry about."
"Yikes. Le-"
"Yikes?" Aisha interjected, giving Fei a strange look.
"..."
"Nevermind."
"Let's just say you get to diamond. Then what?"
"Then I..."
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Aisha shut her mouth. Fei smirked mischievously.
"Looks like you're also hiding a secret."
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Aisha walked away from the small apartment, hands bloody but free of the Guadape head. With her bloody hands, she took out her adventuring plate, smearing red all over her clothes. Aisha watched as the IV on her plate slowly faded away, and an angry red V etched onto the plate, leaving a trail of plasma-etched metal.
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Fei looked over Aisha's shoulders and clapped. "Wow! You're almost plat! Great work!"
"Mmh." Aisha said, not stopping to celebrate.
"Um… where are you going?" Fei asked nervously.
"To the guild."
"Right… now?"
"...Yes?"
"Um… don't you want to… uh... shower and rest first?"
"I'm good."
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Fei panicked at the sight of Aisha walking towards the guild. She knew that the girl was going to go on a platinum contract, and she was sure that Celeste would get angry at her if she let her go so soon.
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Fei walked in front of Aisha. "Ah-um. Uhh… shouldn't you visit Celeste? I think?"
Aisha narrowed her eyes. "Why are you trying to stop me from going to the guild? Did everybody get together without me and decide that I have to be supervised everywhere I go?"
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Aisha followed a bead of sweat as it dripped down Fei's forehead, disappearing under her chin.
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"I-I-I-uh..." She stammered. "Don't you want to visit my apartment? You visited all the other girls, right?"
"Not really. You're not soft enough to sleep with."
"Hey! I'm... I mean… do you want to… um... "
Fei reached out weakly as Aisha turned to leave. "I got… food." She offered weakly.
Aisha's ears twitched. "Food?"
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Aisha sat at Fei's dining table, drumming her fingers on the hardwood as Fei fussed about in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables and stirring pots.
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"Carrots… onions..." She muttered to herself. "Did I already boil the potatoes?"
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Aisha took a look around Fei's apartment. Compared to Kua's very practical-looking apartment, with neat cupboards, racks and shelves for all her equipment, and living materials, Fei's apartment was cluttered with tons of empty bottles and splintered arrows, set aside in random corners of the room. Aisha nudged a plastic bag under Fei's dining table with her foot, looking at her sofa, which had pillows and fluffy stuffed animals thrown haphazardly on top of the backrests and floor.
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She pulled her chair back carefully and walked over to the couch, taking a fluffy little bear in her hands. She pressed her nose into the fur, taking a deep whiff of the scent.
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Aisha scrunched her nose. "It's really… musty."
"A-ah!" Fei blushed red. "You might not want to… touch that."
"Hm?"
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Aisha set the bear aside, picking up a red slime plus-
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"What the fuck! This is a real slime!"
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The slime gurgled happily in Aisha's hands, sliming up her gloves and the crotch of her pants. Aisha dropped the slime in surprise, scowling at the small thing.
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"Oh! Jumby!" Fei exclaimed, pulling the slime into her hands and nuzzling it affectionately.
"Jumby?" Aisha asked incredulously.
"Yeah!"
"You keep that thing as a pet? Why?"
"It's cute and squishy! And it cleans the apartment well."
Aisha took a look around. "Clearly not good enough."
"Hey!" Fei hugged the slime close to her. "Jumby's trying his hardest."
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Aisha just grimaced and moved off the sofa.
"Is the food ready?" She asked.
"Oh, yeah, of course."
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Aisha dug in ravenously into her plate of food, getting sauce all over her face. Fei watched her happily, propping up her head on the table with two hands.
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"So… Aisha. What's your type?"
Aisha swallowed a bite of food.. "My type?"
"What kind of girl do you like? Or guy, I guess."
"....You go first." Aisha said slowly, taking another bite.
"Um… ok. I guess… I want a tall girl… energetic…. and loves to cuddle!" She finished with a smile.
Aisha's eyes lit up. "Really? I guess I like the same type of girl."
"Yeah." Fei sighed dreamily. "Just a nice, soft girl to take care of me and warm up with."
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Aisha bit her lip.
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"Yeah."