Auralla cooked, and I took the opportunity to talk with Avya. She was looking at the camping stool oddly, inspecting it, and that gave me the opportunity to see a faint pattern of twisting lines going from the base of her head up into her hair. Bent over like that, she was offering me quite the view, since these people didn't wear underwear and her quote dress unquote was mostly see-thru. If I got down to the right angle, I'd be able to see literally every bit of her.
Which I obviously didn't do, because I'm not a jackass.
I tried to pay attention to the girl and not her body. If she could read my mind, I was certainly about to be on the receiving end of a lightning bolt or a fire blast, and I would deserve it.
"Do you need help?" I asked. "It's just a chair."
She started, and peered up at me. "It's… the materials, the pieces. All of this is very odd."
I shrugged. "It's from another world."
"Could you make more of these? Or that folding table?"
"Uh… no." It would take a vast array of things I didn't have access to: a power plant, first off, factories full of machines I didn't know how to operate, much less build, workers for the factories, raw materials coming in from gods knew where… the list was endless.
"That's a shame."
"You're free to take it." I had another, didn't really need it, but what I did need was some goodwill.
She shook her head. "We make stools from tree stumps, and there is wood everywhere we travel. This is light, and it collapses, but it is not essential."
"My world is like 99% non-essential," I told her, not knowing what that meant exactly, or even why I said it. I wanted to impress her, because she was Auralla's friend. A fourth possibility came swimming to mind: she was here to give Auralla advice on whether or not to stay with me. In my experience, girls liked to get the opinions of trusted friends, if the guy had blindsided her with unexpected charm. The best friend could often cut through the bullshit and see aspects of the guy the original girl hadn't noticed.
"I'll go check on Auralla for a moment," I told her. "I'll be right back."
My white and rainbow-haired lover was hunkered down and turning the rotisserie. I really wanted to sneak a couple of nice gropes in, but thought better of it. In the light of the fire, against the deepening dusk, she appeared to be made of fire, and the glinting of her green eyes off the firelight was hypnotic.
I hunkered down, then leaned in and bumped my shoulder against hers. I got a dazzling smile in return, which again threw butterflies into my stomach. I wasn't used to this kind of treatment, especially not from a stunning ten like Auralla.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"Great! We'll be ready in a few minutes."
"Did everything go okay back in Sunspire, you know, after I left?" She'd had to stay for at least an hour, perhaps several, before setting out to meet me here. A lot could've happened.
She thought this over with another cute expression, before nodding. The nod wasn't convincing. Something bad had happened, or she was still chewing over the Domi's actions toward me. I hoped she wasn't hiding anything from me, but prying wouldn't get the answers I wanted.
She put on a blank face and shrugged. "It won't be a problem. We'll be together until we reach Surrek and I can head back after that."
Meaning she'd be away from Sunspire for quite some time.
But there was a lot more going on with that simple statement. I couldn't get into it now, but instead returned to where Avya was collapsing and opening the camp stool over and over.
"Such clever craftsmanship," she said absently.
Every time I talked with her, I made sure to hunker down so I was on her level. "Did you want to see more?"
She darted a glance towards Auralla, then back to me.
"I'll guarantee your safety." I didn't know if I had to do that; she could still be a tiny powerhouse here to keep me from hurting her friend, but the gesture was met with a smile.
"Thank you."
"The cab of my truck is pretty neat." It would be as weird to her as Paris was to me two years ago, on that two week trip for college.
Compared to Avya, the truck looked just humongous. I reached far above her and opened the door.
"Nothing in there can hurt you, I don't think." God, there was a bed in there, where Auralla and I had had a lot of fun. I didn't want Avya to get any of the wrong ideas. Although I hated walking on eggshells, I wanted everything to go right. "I'll stay out here until you're done looking around, or if you want, I can give you the nickel tour."
She climbed her way up into the cab like it was a mountain, and sat staring at the console first. While she explored and peered at every facet of objects (she spent a lot of time sniffing and trying to peer into the depths of an empty energy drink can), the notion that she was here as a spy for the Sunspire Domi diminished. She spent the remainder of our pre-dinner time asking what this was, and what that was, and what it was for, and how it worked. She slid a DVD out of the soft case and marveled at the rainbow pattern playing over the silvery disc.
She turned an utterly astonished look my way that made me grin.
"That's yours," I told her.
"
Really
?"
"Yes, really. I have eighteen more just like it, and it looks like you enjoy it. Take it. Take several back to your friends in the village."
***
In no time at all, my relationship rank with Avya had grown a second star. I was now only one star away from being Bronze with her, and we hadn't… done. It.
I was coming to believe, as our conversation about Mack and about my life went on, that she wasn't here to spy for the Domi, she wasn't here to destroy me if I tried anything with Auralla. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was that convinced me, but I felt like anyone who was a spy couldn't pull off the feats of acting necessary to pull off all her reactions.
The way her eyes grew like saucers, the total naiveté, and the chirping voice all told me she wasn't a spy, and though I hated to admit it, those three aspects also told me she wasn't a super powerful wizard who could summon a meteor from space to kill me where I stood. Or turn me into a sheep.
We ate, and the meat was spiced with something Auralla carried around in her storage bracelet. It was delicious, and I sat around the fire wondering if this was life now. Was it just rotisseries and firelight, hunting and getting some fun time in when the sun set?
And teleporting, and summoning cat beasts? I needed to realign my definition of 'just' now that magic had entered the picture.
Everything had gotten exponentially more complicated with the addition of Avya, though it didn't seem so outwardly. The two of them chatted about the reactions of their friends back in Sunspire, about how those friends had been jealous, mystified, and then accusatory toward Auralla for having had relations with a male.
So why had Auralla brought her along?
I mentally slapped myself. Of course, she was planning to take me as far as the city, turn around, and head back to Sunspire. It was a journey that she explained might take weeks, which meant she'd want somebody along for it.
No agenda. No weird plan to get the nellwyn to sleep with me so Avya could have the magic tattoo also. Just friendship and security.
I needed to get my head straight.
The night deepened, and I offered,
"You two can use of Mack to bed down more comfortably. Doors closed, no jiddara issue. I can recline the bucket, put my feet up on the dash, and hit the hay. You could probably fit on the sleeper together, if you don't mind sleeping together. I've got enough blankets for two."
The two of them shared a look and had one of those facial expression telepathic conversations women seem capable of, and with Auralla's shrug, they agreed.
I got them set up, and again they marveled at the things I'd taken for granted: the overhead lights, the pillow, the blanket, and the mattress. I was silently bummed out that I couldn't enjoy more of my time with Auralla how I'd hoped. Avya was very cute, sexy if I overlooked the height and weight difference, but Auralla was my OG.
"Original Goddess," I breathed.
"What's that?" She asked.
"I talk to myself sometimes," I responded hastily. "When you're riding sixteen hours…"
"What?" Avya asked, with a mischievous glint I hadn't seen before.
I broke into song, doing a rendition of Bob Seger's
Turn the Page
that would've gotten me booed off the stage at any karaoke, but there wasn't one here. I even played the air sax, wiggling in the bucket seat with a smile plastered on my face. I sang my heart out and the two of them watched, grinning, sharing looks.
As I finished, embarrassment immediately took hold and I stared off. Why had I done that?
The girls were giggling in a knowing way. Had Avya done something to me? I strongly suspected, and when I narrowed my eyes at the two of them, it only made them howl with laughter all the more.
If the next week was going to be like this, I'd learn a whole lot about their world while being once more celibate.
And apparently I'd be singing the worst versions of every song I knew.
It was a hit I'd take willingly, if it kept Auralla happy.
***
I wanted to review the day mentally, but I fell immediately to sleep. Traveling doesn't normally do that to me, but it was the social situations that had really drained me.
This wasn't me. I wasn't a people person. I mean, it was possible to have fun conversations at parties, but after a couple of hours I'd be drained and ready to call it a night.
I woke early though, and had plenty of time to review the previous day while I changed up in silence, said hello to Jerry for the second time ever, and got down to the business of scaring up some breakfast.
With Jerry securing my six, I skulked through the grasses and the copses of trees, trusting that I could hunt up some game. Boy was I wrong. Thirty minutes turned into an hour, turned into ninety, at which point I just said fuck it and let Jerry go. He immediately bounded off and had something caught within a good thirty minutes. Made me feel pathetic comparatively, but my Sly and Fierce got a teensy bit of experience and that was a decent enough consolation prize.
Now that I possessed the cooking skill at rank one, it was time to sear the shit out of some meat. And wouldn't you know it, but I had a bunch of frying pans in the back of the truck. After gutting the thing like Auralla had shown me, I tried to peel off the skin (very gross and difficult) and then hack it into chunks with my lock blade knife. From there, I lit up a quick campfire in the place we'd already used, and using some nearby rocks, made a place for the frying pan to sit.
"Seasoning," I muttered to myself, and crept into the cab to go after the teensy box of seasoning I had for meals on the go. There I checked on the ladies, and found Avya staring at me in the morning stillness. I tried for a harmless and cheerful smile, but I couldn't see below her nose due to how far she'd pulled up the blanket. Ah well.
I snatched up my tiny spice collection. You'd be surprised how far a bag of boneless skinless chicken breasts, broccoli and a bottle of Miracle Blend seasoning can take you. From there it was just a matter of poking everything to make sure it didn't get too badly blackened.
Avya and Auralla emerged some time later, stretching and showing off all their womanly charms without meaning to, or caring about my reaction. We settled in to a quick breakfast, and I felt a surge of pride from the sounds they both made.
"How far is it to this Surrek place?" I asked finally.
They didn't seem to want to talk about Surrek, but finally acknowledged it was about ten days' leisurely walk out of the veldt, over those hills south, and through the outlying farming villages. We could make it to the hills taking it easy in just a few hours in the truck, so I suggested we take a day or two just relaxing and enjoying the weird new world I now inhabited.
As for Avya, I resolved to just leave it. If they wanted to discuss exactly what the little giant was doing here, that was on them. I was going to take this new life extremely easy. This also meant resigning myself to a sex-free existence until I reached Surrek (and probably after) but Auralla had gotten what she wanted out of the deal. She wasn't looking to be my girlfriend… I just wished they weren't constantly flaunting what I couldn't have.
Avya brightened. "We can take a ride on the doluss if you want," she announced.
"Ride… those mountains of hair?" I couldn't believe it at first, but then remembered Auralla was a Beastmaster.
"You're not scared, are you Evvie?" she asked.
"Pff," I waved her off, and smoothly lied, "I was a rodeo clown all summer after graduating high school."
Avya and Auralla shared a confused look before bursting into laughter.
"Your Drifter nonsense words are most amusing," Auralla said.
"I shall have you know that Rodeo clown is a position of high honor on my world," I protested, with mock affront.
They just laughed harder.
It turned out doluss wrangling and riding was Avya's specialty as well. We spotted a herd of the hairy beasts just a bit further north, and we headed straight for them. Jerry and Truffy monitored our flanks, Truffy noisily nearby, and Jerry slinking around in the distance.
Avya's head barely came to the top of the waving grass, and just as I was about to suggest she ride on my shoulders, Auralla scooped her up in a piggyback ride.
I watched the two with their easy rapport and friendship, and felt a pit of jealousy begin to open. I hadn't had many friends since I'd started driving long hours. It had been months since I had a day to myself, let alone with a friend… or god forbid, a date.
I pushed it back down and focused. I reminded myself the number one goal was to stay alive in this world, figure out what the hell I needed to do in order to thrive, and and these two were the only source I had for that kind of instruction. Instead I was out here playing adolescent games in the middle of the wilderness.
And I was thoroughly enjoying it.
The two of them were whispering to one another, and finally began to drift closer to me, and soon enough I felt a hand pinch my butt.
"You wear strange clothes," Avya mentioned.
I shrugged. "I come from a strange place. You probably prefer it over the other idiot males in this land." I couldn't wait to meet one, and find out if they lived up to the hype.
"He has a point," Auralla said. She sped up in front of me, reached back a hand, and groped me shamelessly without dropping Avya. My frustrated cock was not pleased, and forced me to pinch both her lower cheeks, followed by a quick, feather light tickle on Avya's backside, since it was now within reach.
"Hey!"
***
Riding the doluss was terrifying and exhilarating, at first. Later it was frustrating and painful.
I knew these things could trample me to death, but Avya walked right up to one of them with a hand outstretched, and the gigantic bison-like thing with six legs and horns bigger than Avya made a gentle grunting sound. Then it lowered its entire body and raised up a leg so she could climb aboard.
Auralla was already swinging up onto a second doluss, towering over me a good twelve feet easy. She gave me a casual smile and leaned way over.
"You're going to have to work harder than this if you want to share essence with Avya," she muttered, then leaned a little farther down and gave me a big sloppy kiss. The doluss was an ungainly creature, meaning her kiss started on my mouth and ended with her sucking on my nose. She rode away laughing.
So Avya
was
here for the third option. Amazing. I stared open-mouthed at Auralla and wondered how in the hell she'd managed that.
I didn't have long to contemplate.
Several of the huge creatures were grazing nearby and perked up at my sudden movements. The one huge male raised its head and made a '
prf
' sound I didn't much care for.
Avya muttered a curse. "Get up here before you get trampled to death,
male
."
Her doluss again lowered itself, and I scrambled up until I was seated behind the nellwyn with the lavender hair.
I couldn't help but straddle the thing, and that also meant I couldn't help but end up spread eagle right behind the nearly-naked little person who smelled like some perfume I'd never smelled in the past.
Once we got moving though, all the discomfort vanished, and aside from a slightly musty smell of animal fur, it was really fun to view the world like this. It was like driving Mack, but if Mack was a convertible, and also a boat. The creature slowly rocked back and forth, driving me up into Avya.
I also got… a bit uncomfortable.
Now that I knew I was supposed to have carnal relations with this little person, I was viewing the whole situation in a very different light. Her dress showed off her body, which I had pointedly not paid attention to before. I hadn't wanted to appear creepy.
Now I was rapidly growing horny instead.
Her butt crack showed. She'd taken my hands and placed them to either side of her and in the thick fur of the creature. That way I could keep the both of us from tipping over. Also, and more importantly, I wasn't sure it was my imagination when I felt her butt grinding up against my crotch.
I tried to enjoy the savannah and the stands of tall trees dotting the landscape, or consider what everything meant.
The girl I'd sexed several times had brought her friend along for the same treatment. Okay, that almost certainly meant Avya was in it for the power sharing. Teleporting seemed like an immensely useful magical ability. Of course she would want her friend to get in on the teleporting action.
All Avya had to do was allow me to get all up in her. The smile Auralla had given me was wicked, too, meaning she knew the sort of treatment that lay in store for Avya when it came to 'sharing essence'. I didn't do sex half way; I'd do my very best to drive her wild with lust on her first ever experience.
This line of thinking left me hard enough for it to be painful in my jeans, with my legs spread like that. Thinking about her naked and spread before me wasn't helping. Thinking that this entire activity was for that purpose also wasn't helping.
I had to shift uncomfortably.
"What are you doing?" she asked, amusement thick in her voice.
"I've got… I'm being pinched. It's my bizarre Drifter pants," I responded, and hoped she'd leave it at that.
She steered the doluss around in a circle and back toward Mack. I couldn't see her expression, but suddenly felt anxious. Just because she probably couldn't strike me down with a lightning bolt didn't meant she couldn't read my thoughts.
Well, I reasoned, if she did it was her own fault for snooping.
***
I was thankful to get off the creature and pretend to have a cramp in my side so I could get my demanding dick to stop angrily demanding me to touch a girl right in front of her best friend and damn the consequences. I had a little sit down and closed my eyes to think non-dirty thoughts, but it was hard, pun intended.
My relationship with Auralla was much slower to grow now that it was Bronze. The notifications were coming: I'd played well with her best friend, I'd cooked breakfast for them, I'd left them alone while they slept, and I'd respected her best friend's journey into a stark unknown.
My relationship meter apparently wasn't limited to gaining stars like the rest of my attributes (interesting information to learn) but the first star was only about halfway full.
I wondered if my relationship with Auralla would get experience for me nailing her best friend. I shook my head and just marveled at how strange the whole situation really was.