Chapter 85 - The Weaver's Map V

Raising her arms overhead and extending her tail as far as it would go, Claire stretched out her spine and prepared herself for the day to come. Bit by bit, the night’s shadows were receding. Though the labyrinth’s walls kept the sun hidden, she could see its light slowly creeping overhead, shining above the towering prison like a beacon of hope and warmth.

Though still not at her best, the previous night’s lucid dream had left her feeling much better. She had enjoyed it so much, in fact, that she was tempted to go right back to sleep so she could continue experiencing the curtain-raiser for herself. The series was of a much higher production value than anything she had seen outside her dreams, with the actors going as far as allowing their guts to be sliced open in the name of art. It was truly an impressive work ethic, but as much as the halfbreed admired their diligence, she had no intention of ever replicating their fervour—not that she had a choice. Escaping the labyrinth was going to be just as gut-opening an experience. That, she knew for a fact.

Where’s Sylvia?

Looking around, Claire found that the fox was nowhere to be seen. She knew that she was somewhere nearby. She could hear the fuzzy critter breathing, but her ears seemed to be sending mixed messages. One said she was to the left, while the other was confident that she was everywhere at once. All the audio cues seemed to testify that the fox was directly overhead, but her weight was nonpresent. The strange combination of sensations left the halfbreed raising her brow and flicking her tongue in confusion.

With a sneaking suspicion in mind, she placed a hand on her forehead and slowly combed through her hair. She didn’t stop until caught off guard by the combination of an unexpected warm object and a sudden “eep!” Both had come from right on top of one of her ears. Nearly jumping out of her skin, Claire pulled her hand back to her chest and blinked rapidly before casting her gaze on the true ice shard and looking at her reflection.

There, she found a second pair of ears sticking out from between her silvery blue locks. The fluffers were so tiny that she likely wouldn’t have noticed them had their colours not been so different from her own; the oranges and blacks clearly belonged to a foreign entity. A tail soon rose up from between the blue-white weeds, accompanied by a humanoid with a bright red face.

“What are you doing?”

“I was sleeping,” squeaked the supposed fox, as she yawned and stretched.

“That doesn’t mean you should be naked in other people’s hair.”

“I’m not naked! Look!”

Puffing out her cheeks, the pixie floated out of the lyrkress’ mane and hovered right in front of her face. Surely enough, she was wearing a simple dress weaved from the leaves of a palm tree.

Now that she no longer had to avert her eyes to the other girl’s nudity, Claire realised that Sylvia carried a fair number of elven features. For one, her body was almost disproportionately slender for its height. She wasn’t so thin that she looked unhealthy, but she was skinny enough for the blueblood to think that she was doing her utmost to manage her weight, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Her face was almost completely akin to that of an elf’s, with the only remarkable differences being the tiny fangs that poked out from under her lips and the claw-like markings under her eyes. But the most distinguishing feature of all was her second set of ears, the pointed tips of which peaked out from under a head of fluffy, waist-length hair. From afar, the orange, black, and white colouration made it almost impossible to tell where her locks ended and where her tail began.

“That hardly makes it any better,” said Claire. Is she… a few years older than me? That can’t be right.

“Yes it does! It means I wasn’t naked!”

“It’s still lewd. Those aren't real clothes.”

“Ugh, you’re way too mean for your own good.” Sylvia put her hands on her hips. “I’ll have you know that it’s cold at night and the tent wasn’t cutting it on its own. The fire was already dead, so you were the warmest thing around.”

“Next time, I’ll have to do this all night.” Closing her eyes, she emitted an ice-cold aura and chilled the air around her.

The fairy grabbed her shoulders and immediately started to shiver. “I won’t be able to sleep if you do that!”

Log Entry 1867

Thermodynamic Regulation has reached level 5.

“I know.” Claire took a deep breath. “I don’t like people touching my ears.”

“But you let me do it during the day all the time!”

“I’m not asleep during the day.”

“What’s the difference?”

Claire rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. You tell me. What is the difference between getting groped during the day and getting groped at night?”

“Oh, come on! They’re just ears!”

“Centaurs are attracted to ears.”

“I’m not a centaur!”

“Well I am.”

“Only half!”

Claire sighed and took a moment to sift through her knowledge of elves before replying. “How would you feel if I drooled all over your thighs while you were asleep?”

“Ummm… pretty weirded out, I guess.”

“Exactly.”

“Ohhh… I think I’m starting to get it no—hey! Wait a second! I wasn’t drooling!”

Rolling her eyes, the lyrkress created a bolt of ice, forged it into something that loosely resembled a mirror, and held it up to the fox-elf. “You were saying?”

Sylvia averted her eyes as she noticed the stream of a line of saliva running down the corner of her mouth. “Oops.”

After flicking the fairy on the forehead and sending her flying into the tent, Claire placed her hands on her ears and rinsed them off them with streams of stale water. “You can sleep on my head, but only if you stay away from my ears.”

“But they’re so soft and comfy! They’re basically like perfect, fairy-sized beds!”

“I’m already making a compromise,” grumbled the snake. “What you want is like me asking to sleep on your th—”

“You can sleep on my thighs if I get to sleep on your ears.” Sylvia cut her off before she could finish. It was a decisive statement, made with nothing but absolute certainty.

There was a moment of silence.

A long, awkward pause.

Both their faces were deadpan. But not for the same reason.

“No,” said Claire.

“Awwww! Why not?”

“No means no.”

“Please?”

“It makes me uncomfortable.”

“Oh…” Sylvia’s ears drooped.

Another moment of silence.

Taking several deep breaths, Claire ran a finger across her spike before continuing in a silent whisper, barely audible, even to the half elf floating just a few inches from her face. “Especially after what happened with the statue.”

“Sorry…” Her tail followed her ears, flopping over completely as she hovered to the ground and turned back into a fox. “I should’ve known better.” She started to pad one of the tent’s corners with some of the spare leaves. “I think I can make something that’s kinda comfy if I use some of my fur. It’ll grow back really quickly, even if I pull it out.”

Great. Now you’re making me feel bad. Claire clenched her jaws and flicked her tongue against the back of her teeth. The action was repeated roughly a dozen times before she finally opened her mouth. “You can use my tail.”

“Huh?” The fox turned around and blinked.

“My tail,” repeated the horse snake. “It’s fuzzier than my hair.”

Sylvia’s eyes lit up, only to narrow less than half a second later. “Isn’t that even more lewd?”

“Tails aren't lewd,” said the snake girl.

“Yes they are!” shouted the fox. “Ugh, whatever! Is your tail warm?”

“Dunno.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“I knew that! But I mean… arghhh! You’re so difficult!”

Sylvia clamped her jaws down on one of the half-snake’s flippers, but to no avail. Her teeth couldn’t get through the odd bony appendage, so she gnawed on it a few extra times just to send a message. The half-hearted attack was akin to a pinch, something that would inflict a tiny bit of pain without inducing any real harm.

“I’m not being difficult. …At least not this time.” Claire frowned as she scooped the furball up with her prehensile paint brush. “I really can’t tell. It just feels… normal.”

“It feels warm to me, and it’s really soft too, softer than your hair.”

“Good. Now stay away from my ears. Pervert.”

“I’m not a pervert!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well I’m not!”

Kneading the bridge of her nose and setting the vixen back down, the lyrkress stepped out of the tent, warped her nightgown into a bright red dress, and summoned a plate of bread. Filling her lungs with the morning air freshened her mind and led her to recall a tool from the land of dreams. Seeing as how she would have nothing to do until her breakfast was ready, she decided to sit down and try her hand at forging it.

She started by producing a large bolt of ice. The magical creation was chiselled and shrunk until it transformed into a 15 centimeter long fragment that could easily be held between her thumb and middle finger. Having gotten it to roughly the right size, she focused her manipulation on the blade’s tip, sharpening it as finely as she could. She continued to refine it, making it thinner and thinner, stopping only as the bread basket popped itself into existence. Stars in her eyes, the rogue bit her lips, picked up a piece of bread with her tail, and immediately put the blade to the test.

There was a distinctive crunch, the sound of the bread being crushed, followed by an even more distinctive crack. Claire could feel all the energy drain from her body as she closed her eyes and slowly reopened them. The blade she had spent nearly ten minutes refining was broken, snapped right down the middle.

Logically, she understood that it was a foregone conclusion. The tiny knife wasn’t sharp enough to do what she wanted it to do, nor was it robust enough to survive the process. Further belittling her attempt was the sun’s presence. It was melting the already thin ice and weakening the integrity of its brittle structure.

Claire’s disappointment was immeasurable and her day was ruined, but she realised, as she took a bite out of a piece of bread, that not all hope was lost. The concept—crafting a weapon from a block of ice—could still be salvaged, even if inapplicable to the precision instrument she had literally taken out of a dream.

“Do you want any?” Claire lifted a morsel from the basket and looked behind her, at the fox with the tip of a leaf sticking out from between her jaws.

“No thanks. I just ate,” said Sylvia, as she swallowed.

“I thought foxes were supposed to eat meat.”

“We are! But that’s not all we eat. I have just as much fruit and eggs.”

“Are you sure you won’t get a stomachache from eating leaves?”

“I don’t think so? I eat leaves all the time.”

“But this is your first time trying palm, isn’t it?”

“Oh no…” Her eyes shot open as her stomach rumbled, as if on cue. “I ummm… think I’m going to go to the bathroom…” An uncomfortable grimace on her face, the fox dashed towards the closest rock and hid herself behind it.

Shaking her head and laughing, the snake girl shot a series of ice bolts into the sand in front of her. Melding them together allowed her to create a large spear shaped almost exactly like the one the basement-dwelling rotblood had used against her. It seemed fairly sturdy at first, but she soon found that not even the massive chunk was immune to the power of the sun. Beads of water dribbled down its shaft as she held it and there was a small splash every time she swung it through the air.

She wouldn’t have minded if it was at least durable enough to last her through a fight, but it broke whenever she smacked it against the wall. Because unlike the blade in her chest, the weapon she forged was not made of true ice. Claire knew that the shard was capable of producing the less-brittle substance, or at least endowing regular ice with its properties, but she had no idea how she was supposed to do it. The ice she produced from her chest was hardly any different from the ice she produced from her hands, no matter how hard she focused. Grumbling, she shelved the experiment for the time being and got back to eating. There was still a whole basket of bread to be consumed, and her stomach wasn’t going to fill itself.

Sylvia returned from behind a large rock shortly afterwards. Refusing to make eye contact, she walked over to the basket, picked up a piece of bread, and nibbled away without a word.

Claire didn’t openly claim victory, but she certainly did go through a few cycles worth of internal gloating. One of them had made a horrible mistake. And for once, it wasn’t her.