Leander walked through the gleaming metal-and-glass building that housed his mother’s research centre for biocompatible technology, mood so buoyant he barely noticed the flashy displays previewing inventions that would likely revolutionize society in the decades to come. He had – mostly – managed to contain the foolish smile he had worn since his conversation with Arwyn, but his expression was lighter than it had been since he had been a child.

Walking to the staff elevator, Leander tapped his wrist cell against the access panel. Stepping inside, he selected the top floor.

Aware of his arrival, his mother was waiting when the elevators opened.

Dr. Alexandra Simmons was a tall, elegant woman with blue-gray eyes and straight, sable hair. Leander shared a clear familial resemblance, although his eyes tended towards a pure glacier blue and his body was more heavily muscled. Her expression tended towards the cool and rational, but she smiled at her son. “Leander.”

“Hi, mum.” Leander accepted and returned his mother’s hug.

“Come, I’ve made us tea.” She led the way towards a small sitting area, her pristine white lab coat flaring around her.

Leander glanced around as he followed. The layout of the laboratory was familiar to him but, as usual when he had not seen it for months, the visible equipment had been rearranged or replaced. His mother worked at a blinding pace, solving theoretical and technical barriers to machine-animal interfacing with such intuitive ease that she was credited with advancing the field by a century over the course of her career.

“So how is work?” he asked, accepting the cup of tea his mother poured for him. He listened with interest as his mother described the latest advancement she was working on, although some of the advanced theoretical concepts went over his head.

“That reminds me…” She picked up a black, unmarked box and opened it to reveal a pair of devices that looked like smaller versions of the wrist cell he wore. “These are for you. The paired devices allow for 3D image-building, and this should eliminate the weight imbalance you mentioned.”

Leander never had any doubt that his mother loved him. Although his childhood had been marked by her long work hours and frequent travel to scientific conferences, she had always personally ensured he had the best of everything he required to thrive and succeed in life. He thought that she was bewildered at having produced a child who, while bright, had nowhere near her level of blinding intellect, but she had never made him feel like a disappointment. Instead, she had encouraged him to take the path that suited his temperament and abilities, no matter that it veered so far from her own.

“Thanks, mum.” Leander immediately began the process of transferring his phone card and data to the new devices, aware that she had personally overseen the design and production of this single set. The devices he used were all from his mother’s lab; he’d call them prototypes except that they always functioned perfectly. He had learned to accept them as his mother’s way to care for him, and tried to give enough feedback to show he was interested without accidentally making a comment that would have her inventing and producing an entirely new technology to accommodate him – his phone’s ability to vibrate specific messages had come from an offhand comment that he wished he did not have to look at his screen. His mother had completely reworked the hardware on her previous devices to include a panel of separately oscillating points, then designed a language based on their vibration pattern that could clearly and quickly convey messages directly to his skin.

Data transfer complete. Leander slipped on the new devices. They fit perfectly.

“So what about you? You seem… happy.” For once, his mother seemed to be looking at him rather than being half in the abstract realm.

“Am I not always happy when I visit?”

She smiled. “You’ve always been a solemn boy, even as a child. Solemn and serious. Something has made you lighten up.”

Was it that obvious? “I met someone,” he admitted.

Her eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed with interest. “Someone from the company? You spend all your time on campus.”

“I met her in Fantasia,” he answered. Seeing his mother’s concerned expression, he added, “I have met her in real life as well. She is not some sort of scam artist, if that is what you are worried about.”

“Does she know about your place in the company?” she asked, still concerned.

Leander huffed in amusement. “Hardly. She thought I was an NPC until three days ago.”

His mother stared at him for a moment, then burst into laughter. “I can see how someone might make that mistake! Tell me more.”

Completely contrary to his dark mood upon waking up this day, Leander found himself humorously recounting the tale of his crash landing into a certain elf’s life.

***

After a sleepy day at work due to her poor rest the previous night, Arwyn found herself getting more and more keyed up at the prospect of logging into Fantasia for the first time in three days. (There was an entire day of our heroine being a lifeless zombie at home that was skipped because it was boring and lame.)

Leandriel is going to be there. Leandriel, who is played by Leander, who is a [mental swearing] real person.

“Duck,” Arwyn swore (she actually swore that time), trying to contain the uneasy blend of excitement and anxiety that churned in her gut.

But no, that was not accurate. She did not feel uneasy about Leander; she simply was not used to experiencing this level of emotion, positive or negative. It made her feel unsteady and out of control, triggering the instinctive urge to pull back, put up barriers until she once again had the absolute control she was used to.

Instinct or no instinct, there was no pulling back from this.

Arywn’s life had always been based around logic, convenience, and ease. She had never had a burning passion pull her towards a goal, an incentive to persevere through truly challenging hardships or push herself out of her comfort zone.

For once in her life, she had found something, someone, she wanted. She was not about to sabotage herself by not going after it, discomfort be damned.

She glanced at the clock: 8pm. Too early, but she thought she could log into Fantasia early just this once.

***

◊◊◊

Leandriel was surprised to see Fey log in several hours before her usual time. Was it because of him?

He tried not to be overconfident as he sent his usual greeting.

He blinked. That certainly differed from the “Hi!” he had received over a hundred times in a row.

Leandriel waited for Fey to ask him what his job was – he was under a confidentiality agreement to not divulge his role as a beta tester – but the question never came.

As Leandriel had been loitering suspiciously around the Skyhaven teleportation gate, he was nearly there.

The gate brightened in its usual activation sequence, then, in a flash, he was surrounded by forest.

By this point in the game, teleportation gates were in frequent usage, and the area was bustling with players. Nonetheless, Leandriel almost immediately spotted Fey; this was more because of the giant iron boar clearing space around her than any special connection they might have.

He smiled; when she ducked her head in embarrassment, he was surprised but oddly charmed. Over the past months, he had always felt like the only one stumbling over himself with nerves, but now it seemed it was Fey’s turn to be flustered.

“Hello,” he said once within speaking distance. Magic hopped off his shoulder to ride on Boris with his friends.

“Hi.” Fey led the way out of the crowd, using the action to avoid looking at him.

Leandriel followed quietly until they were alone amongst the trees. “So, where are we going?” he asked, more to make conversation than because he cared where the destination was, as long as he was in Fey’s company.

“Um, I thought we could visit my… secret tree fort.” Fey’s lips twitched as her natural sense of fun seemed to overcome her nerves.

Leandriel caught on. “You have been practicing Tree-singing?”

“Yup. It’s a bit of a run to where it is.”

“Lead on.”

Fey took off down the trail, steps swift and almost silent. In contrast, Boris thundered along behind her at a gallop. Leandriel’s stealth fell somewhere between the two, but he kept up easily, mainly focusing on keeping his wings tucked in as tightly as possible to avoid getting caught on a tree.

Fey slowed to a walk. “We’re here.”

A few more steps brought them into a small clearing marked by the presence of a mana tree sapling. In its immature form, it resembled a typical deciduous[i] tree, and would not manifest obviously magical properties until its first mana blossom bloomed.

“Is this the result of the seed you planted for your advancement quest?” Leandriel asked, looking up at the sapling, which already extended past his height.

“Yup.”

“For it to be this large, you must have been pouring mana into it every day,” he speculated, estimating its growth compared to how much it would have matured without outside intervention.

Fey laughed. “Yeah, I’ve been singing to it for a couple of hours a day, and tapping Amethyst’s mana stores to help.

Amethyst squeaked. (“I have a lot of mana!”)

“Yes, you’re a very helpful slime,” Fey crooned to her pet.

Leandriel raised his eyebrows. He had imagined that Fey had been pouring enchanted water or some other indirect mana source onto the tree. If Fey had been infusing directly with her own mana… “Are you bonded to the tree?”

“Working on it. About 25 percent,” Fey confirmed.

“Interesting,” Leandriel murmured. “I would have thought infusing the tree directly with mana would be limited to mages, but Tree-singing would work, although it is obviously quite time-intensive. And a lot of singing, outside of the time requirement,” he added.

Fey shrugged and smiled. “It’s kind of fun. Besides, I imagine being bonded with a mana tree comes with some great bonuses.”

Leandriel nodded. “I forget the specifics, but you gain some extremely powerful proximity bonuses.”

A thought occurred to him. “Be careful who you show this spot. Immature mana trees are vulnerable to harm, and if your tree died, you would lose all the work you put into it as well as taking some damage based on the degree of your bond.”

“You’re the only one I’ve brought here,” Fey admitted.

There was a note in her voice that told him she was not just talking about a tree in a game. He fell silent, unable to find the right words to honour the vulnerability she was allowing him to see.

Silence was worse. He found some words that would do, even if they were not quite right. “Fey. Arwyn.” He waited until she met his eyes. “I… will not disappoint the trust you have shown me.”

***

Fey did not know whether to squeal, faint, laugh, or cry when Leandriel picked up on the subtle undertone to her words and turned a perfectly innocuous conversation into a moment that put the typical romance novel to shame.

“I’m not – I’m not worried about trusting you,” Fey tried to explain. Leandriel was Leandriel, honest and courteous, unable to speak contractions, terrifyingly competent, and, inexplicably, interested in her. “I just – Argh!” she growled in frustration. “I wish we could skip to the end.”

A pause. “Skip… dating?” Leandriel ventured.

“No!” Fey yelled, terrified by the lack of disagreement in his tone. “Skip… all the awkwardness.”

Leandriel did not quite shrug, but the intent was there. “I am certainly willing to skip any awkwardness on both our parts.”

Oh, are you? Fey thought in her most sarcastic tone. “That is not how it works,” she said. The only correct term she could think of to describe her emotional state was ‘riled’.

“Okay,” Leandriel said (overly agreeably). “How does it work?”

Fey pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You, stop it.”

The perfect bastard had the temerity to grin at her.

“Argh! No! I refuse!” Fey yelled. She stomped off to her tree fort, sang three angry notes to reveal the ramp, and stomped her way up to the spacious platform she had created near the first fork in the trunk before seating herself like an angry cat.

Leandriel followed at a slower pace, expression contrite. “Fey. I apologize for my behaviour.”

Oh. He thinks I’m actually mad at him, Fey realized. Her expression sobered. Everyone else she felt comfortable expressing the volatile side of her emotions with was aware not to take her too seriously.

“Hey, don’t apologize,” Fey said softly. “We were just playing around. I am somewhat overexcited right now, but I’ll calm down. Whenever I’m truly angry, I go cold. This is just… turbulence.”

Leandriel’s expression did not change. “I went too far.”

With a flash of insight, Fey realized that if she did not handle this carefully, Leandriel would readily bury all of his playful tendencies in fear of upsetting her. It would stunt an aspect of his personality that she loved to see on the rare occasions it manifested.

She walked up to him and held his face in her hands. “Leandriel. On a normal day, that would be the perfect level of teasing. It’s only because I’m already wound up from all of this that it was a bit too much. However, I am perfectly capable of disengaging when I need to if I am overexcited. Please don’t ever stop playing around with me.”

Leandriel’s expression slowly relaxed. “Okay. But what should I do if you become overexcited?”

That, Fey had an answer for. She tugged Leandriel down until he sat, then made a space for herself to lean against his chest, feeling the warmth of his body next to hers. She closed her eyes and just breathed.

***

Leandriel was pleasantly surprised to discover that Fey enjoyed cuddling.

Footnotes:

[i] Deciduous trees and plants are characterized by the shedding of leaves annually during the cold months. The adjective can also be applied to animals in terms of horns and teeth that are shed, such as the horns of a deer or baby (deciduous) teeth.