“Do you think you are a weak person?” Chandrakanta asked Isaac after he’d fallen silent for another painful minute.
“I’ve just been trying to figure out why.”
“Why what?”
“Why I started dating Vardan. I just went along with things. Like I was swept up. Maybe I was weak and wanted to be connected to someone who wasn’t.”
“I think you were brave to try dating him. Trusting someone like that, trying something you’ve never done before. You made yourself vulnerable and that’s not something a weak person does.”
Isaac was going to say he didn’t consider being vulnerable or getting hurt but then Jin wouldn’t be blaming herself for things because she encouraged him to try in spite of his misgivings.
“Also, Star would not tolerate a weak man. Neither would Nell, not for this long anyway. Maybe you just haven’t discovered what makes you strong, Isaac. Right now you have more important things to be doing though.”
Isaac didn’t voice his question but he picked himself up enough to give the Megami a look as if to say, ‘What important things?’
Chandrakanta slipped the smaller male off of her lap and moved to stand in front of him. Her eyes were unveiled and the prismatic light reflecting off of them radiated the same warm kindness as her embrace. “Me. Star. Nell. You think we’re important, right? And we’ve been waiting over a year for you.” She gave Isaac a coquettish look. Her eyes vanished as she rewarded him standing up with a radiant smile. She gingerly took his hand in hers and lead him out of the flap opening and across the short stretch of steppe grass to Astoreth’s assembled yurt. The play of her lower back and rear hip muscles was exposed by her saree dress and emphasized by her intentional, energetic prancing steps and she frequently turned back to show him more laughing smiles. He could feel across the bond that her excitement was genuine. It felt like the joy was being conducted through their fingers and her giddiness was becoming infectious.
Jin’s small, dextrous fingers quickly slipped through gaps between the intersecting poles and other lengths of cord as she quickly tied the yurt’s wall covering in place. Elena was inside the structure as well putting on the finishing touches while Astoreth was staking down the roof cap. “How come I couldn’t make Isaac happy,” the young pokegirl asked.
Elena stopped tying and sighed after collecting her thoughts. “He would have been unhappier if you hadn’t been with him. I don’t really understand it myself. Chandrakanta is the best at dealing with these sorts of things. Me and Astoreth, well she winds up caring for us when we get the same way.”
“Mmmm…” The Witch from Edo’s eyes were dim as she pulled her last knot tight.
“I’m sure she’d help you come up with something you could do for Isaac next time if you asked her.”
Astoreth entered through the ornate, intricately carved and stained door with the frame of a colossal cot under one arm and a rolled up mattress pad under the other. Chandrakanta followed behind her, with Isaac trailing behind still pulled along by her delicate grip. The celestial finally let go of her male’s hand to take up the other end of Astoreth’s camping bed and extend the frame to its functional configuration. The long, wide, and flat cushion was stretched over top.
Jin went over to Isaac and hugged him from the side. Her face was a little brighter seeing that her tamer’s was as well. “I’m glad you feel better,” she said.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Sorry for worrying you.”
Chandrakanta scooped them both up in a hug. “No more feeling sorry for tonight. Come on, the bed’s made and we’ve got a couple of hours before we have to decide who gets to steal you away first.” They arranged themselves on the bed in a group cuddle, with Isaac sandwiched between Jin and Elena who in turn were sandwiched between Astoreth and Chandrakanta. The cot strained under the weight but it’d been built to endure greater forces than the combined mass of the five of them.
-
“Dude, how do you think Markiyan got all of those older pokegirls? I still can’t get an accurate scan on that infernal so I bet she’s a really rare breed. You don’t get Youma blocking pokedex scans. She’s friends with a Megami though so that means she’s not evil, right? That Megami too, I mean… damn. The Grandelf is a pokewoman so-”
Ostap grit his teeth in response to Symon’s comments. “I don’t care how Markiyan was picked up by those pokegirls, and that’s what it is. Come on, some wimpy orphan with three rare and powerful breeds having an interest in him?
“But that’s not what matters, anyway. What matters is we’re out here hunting and Markiyan isn’t holding us back today but you keep coming over here to keep telling me how jealous you are that he’s being groomed by a Grandelf older than your great-great grandmother and her two wine friends.” Ostap stopped ranting to breathe deeply for a while. “Can you please just focus, we still haven’t caught any plant types I can send home and I want to spend break in Olepo rather than my dad’s cabbage fields.”
Symon lifted his hands up in a gesture of surrender and trotted back to his waiting Ladyba twins. It was late in the morning after the big sisters had intruded on the camp and now they were out hunting with Isaac for his birthday.
Elena clicked her tongue as she watched Jin fire off another wild Ray of Frost at the Buttitsfree fleeing into the skies. “She’s still overcharging everything.” Elena and Astoreth were guarding Isaac while Chandrakanta cooperated with Jin in the active hunting. The Megami wasn’t engaging offensively but would position to cut off escapes or corral ferals towards Jin’s waiting ambushes.
“I know and I bring it up every time I notice. She still keeps doing it.” Isaac remarked as he watched the enthusiastic magic type shake the cold out of her fingers.
“She was a handful to teach even when I had an entire ranch keeping an eye on her. Our Jin’s problem is that she’s a natural and, at least I think, she learned that she hated being weak. On top of that she got better at suppressing pain to spite Albina and quickly discovered how potent healing cycles are at restoring damage she suffers. They’re always a little different, but she’s not an uncommon sort.
“Her spellcraft is an absolute mess of mixed disciplines she’s encountered and adopted by filling in the functional gaps with intuition. She had at least three completely different methods of casting Mana Bolt when I was teaching her at the ranch and she’s only stolen even more magic without fully understanding it since she’s been out of my reach.”
“Is that bad?” Isaac asked the magical instructor. It sounded bad to him.
She shook her head and pushed a strand of hair behind her ears. “‘Bad,’ or ‘good’ as well, is too simple of a way to look at the issue. She has remarkable potential but as you’ve seen, it also makes her likely to experience accidents. Right now those accidents are easy to recover from, even if you’re not used to the amount of damage she can suffer. Although higher level spells will be much more dangerous when they backfire. Getting her to change her habits also butts up against her ego and I’ve never taught a prodigy that didn’t hate relearning their methods when they believe they’re already good enough.”
“She told me she has to overcharge her spells or they don’t work.”
Elena nodded. “That’s true the way she’s casting them. She’s compensating for her rush job by giving them more power to maintain their integrity. If she stops overcharging she’d lose almost half of her effective range with most spells and some she couldn’t cast successfully at all.”
Isaac nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve got a paper on how spell magnitude was derived and its effects on spellcraft. I’m supposed to present it to the magic fundamentals class once we’re done hunting. I picked the topic thinking maybe Jin would glean better fundamentals off of my research.”
“Oh?” Elena stopped watching Jin and her expression relaxed as she turned her attention to her other pupil. “Would you mind if I looked it over for you?”
“Wouldn’t that be unfair?”
Elena scoffed. “I’m not teaching the class so I don’t have to care about what’s fair. I don’t expect to find much I object to. Really I’m just curious about what you’ve read.”
-
Chandrakanta approached Jin as the Witch pulled her ponytail out to pull all of her hair back into one semi-tamed mass. The emotionally perceptive Megami noticed the flicker of discontentment before Jin put on a mostly convincing replication of her usual wild smile. The unhappiness was still plain to see in what most pokegirls simply referred to as the aura. A dark cloud polluting the vital and spiritual medium that was as intrinsic to Chandrakanta’s identification of Jin as the nose on her face. “Is everything alright?”
Jin’s aura experienced a flicker of rusty orange-red light in the gloomy nimbus. Chandrakanta’s question had sparked a surge of alarm and now the pocket of sadness was churning into a storm as worry and suspicion mixed in. The young magic type fixed her smile even firmer, robbing it of a little more genuine quality. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Candi-nee, Nell-nee, Star-nee are all here. We’re hunting for Isaac’s birthday and I get to be on full offense. Everything is,” she lost faith in her lie being accepted as she watched the concern only growing on the Megami’s face. “...great.” She sighed and the small cell began to interact and diffuse with the rest of her emotional energies. “How come you could cheer up Isaac and I couldn’t?
“I tried talking to him, I tried wrestling with him, I tried to play a game with him, I tried to have sex with him. None of it worked. Does he like you more? Is it because you’re prettier? Was it your Megami magic? Do I just not have big enough boobs? And then I’m mad at you for helping him but if you weren’t here then Isaac would be miserable still so I’m just an awful pokegirl.”
Chandrakanta pulled the little Witch into a hug. “I didn’t really do anything; I certainly didn’t cheer Isaac up, Jin. I was just there for him as he worked through this depression, the same as you were before we got here. I am a Megami and I do have a delta bond with him so it’s easier for me to understand what’s bothering him, but he’s the only one that can really deal with these things. Blaming yourself for not being able to make him happy or beating yourself up because you feel jealous won’t help either of you.
“Isaac knows he falls into these states every once in a while. This one was bad because he was very disappointed but just keep him safe and let him know you care. He wants to be happy for you too, Jin.”
Jin made a series of pitiful, grumbling whining sounds into the silk covering Chandrakanta’s torso. “I wish I had bigger boobs…”
The Megami laughed. “You’re still young and you’re probably going to evolve once or twice, Jin. Wait to see how you develop and if you’re still unhappy, well getting bigger breasts isn’t very difficult for us pokegirls. I will warn you though, they’re not all they’re made out to be.” She let the little spell caster go and turned to present her side. “See how I have to stand to keep my balance? It really tires out my back sometimes.”
-
Symon’s face was an expression of bliss as he chewed the bit of lamb shank. “This is amazing.”
Astoreth smiled just enough to acknowledge the young tamer’s compliment. “Thank you. I’ve always enjoyed eating what I kill so I guess outdoor cooking was a natural interest for me to discover.” They had happened upon a herd of KATTLE and when asked, Isaac said he was sure if he hadn’t eaten spit roast lamb before. So Astoreth had killed, butchered, and cooked up one of the young super-sheep. She dispatched it with a single Shadow Shot, a weaker attack than Jin would have considered, from a range the Witch and other younger pokegirls hadn’t considered possible to engage from.
Symon looked to the others hoping to see some indication that they found the infernal’s comment as odd and slightly unsettling as he did, but none of them seemed to mind. “Well, thanks for inviting us to eat too.”
“You’re welcome. We’re celebrating Isaac’s birthday so the more the merrier, as they say.” Astoreth nodded as she responded in a tone that wasn’t quite soft enough to put the young cadet at ease. While she wasn’t trying to be intimidating, her nature and self-presentation usually caused her to be so anyway. It didn’t help that she also enjoyed being the subject of fear from strangers, which she still considered the rest of the humans to be. He scuttled off to sit with his pokegirls and after one last nervous glance towards the giant blue demon woman tucked into the meal with gusto.
Elena had foraged up some wild vegetables and Chandrakanta had boiled rice, which was exceptionally ordinary rice that she still sought a great deal of praise for. Nell and Star refused to humor her for this but Isaac was willing to offer his appreciation. “I just like rice,” was really the only thing he felt he needed to say.
“Me too. Although real rice needs a cooker, boiled is good too.” Jin stuck out the metal camping dish she had emptied right before agreeing with Isaac. “More please!”
Isaac looked over to where Vardan, Andreea, and Sabina were sitting together. He stopped eating because of the pang of confused sadness but a touch from Elena brought him back to his personal group. “What did you like about him, anyway?” Astoreth had asked the question bluntly and Chandrakanta’s eyes popped open for a split second.
“Star!”
“No, it’s fine. He actually sort of reminded me of you,” Isaac told the infernal.
“Oh, is he the dominant type as well?” Elena asked with the corners of her lips curling up in gently wicked delight. Isaac blushed deeply but what surprised the other three present was that Astoreth briefly flushed as well.
Isaac had stopped using words derived from ‘dominate’ to describe the massive infernal. A few more incidents like the one in the shower had taught them both they did not have the same fundamental definition behind the word. Isaac was less enthusiastic about Astoreth’s interpretation than his own.
For her part, Astoreth did not enjoy sexually dominating Isaac in the way she understood the idea either. Leaving him embarrassed, hot, and bothered was the most benevolent thing she could think to do. She’d even, in a moment of privacy ensured through paranoid vigilance, shared the guilt she felt in shifting to her larger form to grab hold of Isaac. It was something she did impulsively when he had provoked her competitiveness with Chandrakanta. Isaac understood, thanks to the delta bond, that even though it hadn’t bothered him the act was a violation of Astoreth’s personal code of conduct and it had caused her a surprising amount of emotional turmoil.
“No, he isn’t dom- He’s not. Star isn’t either they’re just-” Isaac gave up on finding the right word again. “They’re both strong. Or something.”
“It’s okay, I’m just teasing. Both of you,” the Grandelf added while offering her sourfaced infernal rival a smug look. Elena smoothed her face back to stoic tranquility. “So what did you think of hunting with us today?”
“It was awesome!” Jin exclaimed even though Elena had directed the question towards Isaac.
“Yeah,” Isaac agreed. “Having you three really helped open up what we could do tactically, even though Jin still did most of the fighting.”
Elena’s acknowledging nod was curt and professorial. “I’m glad you think so. We’ve been a little concerned that, with the winter trimester approaching, you and Jin might get cold with only two bodies in your tent at night.”
“Oh, are you going to come out more often? I don’t think my tent’s big enough for Candi and Star to fit comfortably.”
Elena smiled patiently. “Well, we could but no, we weren’t necessarily planning on helping you like this terribly often.”
“Ooh! What if you taught me a climate control spell? I could keep the tent warm easy.”
Elena fought to maintain her smile and quietly laughed so she didn’t betray her growing irritation at Jin and Isaac’s cluelessness in this matter. “No Jin. You two have built up a really solid rapport but you need more pokegirls, Isaac.”
“Oh.” Isaac’s flat response was not encouraging.
“Isaac doesn’t like being a tamer.” Jin offered.
“I don’t like being a slaver, I just don’t think I’m a very good tamer…” Isaac corrected. “And Luba is a good girl, but she’s still afraid of Jin from the fight they had. She also is really… simple. So I haven’t kept any of the ferals we caught because… I don’t want to deal with that.”
“I’m not afraid of her and she hurt me worse than I hurt her. Just because she thinks it was me that beat her unconscious instead of Ivka…”
“It would help if you stopped casting Shocking Grasp when you notice she’s looking.”
“But it’s funny!”
“Isaac, sometimes we have to do things we don’t like and this isn’t as kind of a world as the one you grew up in. You don’t treat Jin like a slave, you don’t even treat the pokegirls belonging to other people like slaves. You’re so focused on the evil of the idea that you don’t realize how good you are and would be for them.” Chandrakanta had been internally rehearsing this rough message.
Isaac looked to Astoreth to see if she would side with him. “What’s wrong with slavery,” she asked. Isaac imagined he wouldn’t be receiving any rhetorical aid from Astoreth.
“Urgh,” Isaac growled as he tried to choose the right words to explain himself. “It… It’s just too easy to waste human potential with that much control. It’s too easy to screw things up for the people you have power over. I’m not really good at decision making sometimes. I get overwhelmed, I just don’t want to do things. I-”
“Isaac, stop.” Elena’s correction was firm but expressed with loving weariness. “We all have our flaws but you at least are aware of your own. You will be a great tamer and your worry about being a good tamer for your girls is part of why you will. Be honest Jin, did you think you’d be getting a master as good as Isaac?”
“No way! Isaac’s like a dream come true. I was worried about getting a tamer who wouldn’t let me learn magic, Isaac helps teach me new spells.”
Elena nodded. “And if you aren’t comfortable with taming ferals, then keep your eyes open for other aware girls that need help. Jin isn’t the only one dreaming about you.” The Grandelf’s insides turned a little when she remembered what Chandrakanta had shared about the mentally infirm experiencing troubling dreams correlated to Isaac’s manifestation and later alteration. That was not what she had meant to imply. Isaac looked at her questioningly and she hastily stated, “Not now,” while purposely fixing her gaze on the other three cadets nearby.
“Alright. Okay, I’ll keep my eyes open but… well,” Isaac couldn’t think of an argument that wasn’t essentially further manifestations of his own lacking sense of self-worth. So he took his dish and utensils over to the wash basin instead.