“You know...I don’t know when we last took a break like this…” said Clancy.

“Baby, the answer is never...We’ve never taken a break like this. The last time I could leave the house for more than a few hours at a time, was before my mom met your dad. The last time we weren’t running away from something, or working to stay afloat on our medical costs, the bills, the mortgage and magi cultivation…was sometime before either of us graduated high school and I’m pretty sure we didn’t even have an actual honeymoon since our marriage was mostly for tax purposes, and to get our house on the cheap... We sort of just got hitched and then went back to doing what we were doing.” said Anne. Yawning contentedly.

“Ah...well, that’s something we’re going to have to fix. We need to do this more...Taking more time for ourselves and all that.” said Clancy.

Anne lay back, stretching, back arching, Her chest threatening to flow out from the bikini top that she wore.

“Mhm, That’d be nice, I think….I’m pretty sure we’ve just found something else to look forward to, for when we’re finally Sphere Stage and can put all our...you know...behind us.” said Anne.

“True...that really is something to look forward to. Still, I think living a little for the here and now, won’t do us ill either. ” said Clancy. Chuckling as he pulled two beers from the cooler that sat between his and Anne’s beach chairs.

Relishing the cold from the ice chips and frost that stuck to the bottles.

He handed Anne’s hers and took his, twisting the cap off, taking a small amount of pleasure in listening to the hiss of the gasp escaping. Tipping the open bottle towards his mouth before it could foam over.

It was hard to say whether what He and Anne were doing could technically be called vacationing.

Their watch status under the Prospero Foundation and UN Council made it hard for them to go on any impromptu trips. So even with one and a quarter million dollars to play with they hadn’t really been able to go anywhere nice, or at least they hadn’t really been able to go anywhere out of the country.

Which was a shame since the travel network said Tuscany was especially beautiful this year. With the fairies being out in force. Making the days into a butterfly fantasia and filling the nights with silent fireworks displays.

Not wanting to waste their one month off, Anne had come up with the bright idea of having Clancy take her to work with him. At first he’d balked, concerned for her safety, then he reminded her that technically their powers were at around the same level, even if their strengths were in separate areas.

Besides, they weren’t seriously going to go and work. They were using the trip as an excuse to go somewhere different, and see some pleasurable sights while also ducking some troublesome red tape.

*****

The couple was currently in a location known as Laestrygon, classified by foundation as a death world.

Which sounded exactly as ominous as it should sound, considering the vast number of hostile flora and fauna, and the marauding tribes of fifteen foot tall, woolly, cyclopes, that were native to this particular monochrome world.

The cyclopes were normally docile though, and the world turned out to be the ideal setting for their little get away, with its border-line tropical climate.

Making it into a beautiful world of endless night, one with glowing blue-green coasts and shores of fine white sand.

All that was needed was some literal domestic magic from Anne, and some figurative domestic magic from Clancy, for the two to make themselves a little hideaway. A little home away from home, to spend the last two weeks of their vacation.

A magical construct that was essentially an alchemically-constructed cabin. complete with magic-based utilities such as heating, electricity and running water.

With the actual work that they were supposed to be doing, being handled by a gender-targeted curse, that the two had cast. One that would kill three fifths of the locals cyclops male population and afflict the rest with either impotence, infertility, or drastically lowered reproductive rates.

The spell spreading like a virus to inflict others of the species that lay beyond their curse’s immediate range.

A cruel sounding measure, but one that was unfortunately very necessary. This world was one of those that had multiple hidden touch points within “real” world. The high number of gates to this world making it hard to police and control. A problem that was exacerbated by the gates’ tendency to shift around and move to different locations on earth.

A recent unexplained population explosion for the cyclopes left them with a five to one male to female ratio. As well as a change in bio chemistry that led to the creatures taking on a troubling a practice of going on rapacious feeding frenzies.

Raiding the “real” world for women and “food”, which here usually meant whoever happened to be standing next to the aforementioned women.

A close call at a high school summer program in Michigan being the trigger for the Foundation and Federal Authorities, looking into some more extreme measures to keep this particular worlds population down to a baseline minimum.

With multiple teams of Foundation Agents getting sent in to cull the cyclops population till their numbers were low enough for them to be rendered docile again.

****

The point being, that the couple was currently blissed out, like they’d not been in quite the while.

Relaxing, getting to know each other and themselves again. Getting re-familiarized amidst talk and sex and more talk, and more sex.

Not doing much of anything,... constructive with their time and loving it. Enjoying not feeling like they had to achieve something for once. Enjoying a brief escape of living their lives without the sensation that whole world and even time itself, was stepping on their necks, reminding that, all that they had could unravel all so very easily.

What’s more, whether she’d intended it or not, -...and Clancy was smart enough to suspect the former more than the latter-......she’d convinced him. Shifting his thoughts on a certain matter he’d been mulling over, in a way she’d always been especially good at.

Anne’s presence at his side and the ease with which they’d completed what would have normally been a protracted and tedious mission, had him convinced that perhaps he really should go through with that plan of hers.

*****

The worst portion of their little get away came two days before the trip's end. They were walking through the wilderness of Laestrygon, doing a survey of how effective the curse had been. And how much damage it had done to the local populace.

They passed bodies that were still, furry heaps that lay keeled over, as if they’d fallen to sleep where they’d been standing.

The task took the better half of an afternoon and Clancy spent a lot of the time that they were there fretting.

“Watch your, step.”

“Are you tired? Tell me if you’re tired, hon. We can stop and take break any time.”

“Are you hungry, hon? Thirsty? I brought juice and snacks.”

He’d say things that made it hard for his girlfriend to decide whether he was treating her as if she were pregnant, five years old, made of glass or all the above.

It was enough to get on anyone’s nerves but she forgave the silly man, because he knew he meant well by it. It even gave her an amusing window into what the man would be like it when they’d gotten everything settled, and they really could have kids.

The man could be immortal, untouchable for either sickness or time, and still somehow manage to worry himself gray.

It was part of the reason why the two of them couldn’t work together, and part of why the man’s choice of work was such a headache for her.

When it came to other people, Clancy wasn’t trusting enough to regularly give others his back. Which meant he generally worked alone, and thusly risked more harm coming to himself.

When it came to her, he’d fret so much that he couldn’t focus. Which could sometimes lead to him making mistakes….and thusly risked more harm coming to himself.

Mid-way through, they ended up running into a crowd of living cyclops. Clancy probably would have sensed them if he hadn’t splitting so much of his focus to be attentive to Anne.

Anne probably would have sensed it she hadn’t been distracted by a subtle shift that was going on inside her body.

They ran into the group of cyclops, their fur spiked and matted, their turgid members standing stiff, sinister rods that jutted out from behind their loincloths.

The beast’s roared, frenzied at the sight of meat and a potential mate and Clancy prepared to blow them all away with a well timed concussive spell.

Neither party was prepared for what actually happened. When a red eyed blur through itself into the midst of the crowd. Wrapping its, her, legs around the neck of the tallest of the group and sinking her teeth into the creature’s neck. The cyclops’ hot lust and fury being replaced by cold pain and fear.

The creature’s packmates tried to help it, only to knocked back, off their feet and into the air. Rebuffed by blasts of psychic force and painful blows from the red-eyed monster’s, surprisingly stalwart, slender limbs.

In the end Anne would kill them all, giving into the hunger that always lived inside of her. Her vice of gluttony and greed.

“Anne? Anne, are you okay?” said Clancy. Kneeling at his girlfriend's side. Staring into her eyes, as he watched her dilated pupils slow return to normal.

“Huh? Er...y-, yeah. I’m fine.” said Anne. Rising to her feet. Lying as she rolled her shoulder and worked to let a collar bone that had been broken in the ensuing struggle snap back into place.

There were many reasons that Anne Ambrose, couldn’t leave her home for more than a few hours at a time. That she had a harder time dealing with her extreme hunger than Clancy did, dealing with his extreme lust, was just another one of them.

Even knowing this, she couldn’t help feeling a little embarrassed, realizing that she’d been too relaxed. Letting her guard down. She felt a chill as she imagined what might have happened had they not run into the cyclopes and the first warm bodies she’d run into after leaving this place, had been human.

As if he’d looked into her mind and seen her troubled thoughts, Clancy slung his arm around the young woman’s newly healed shoulder and pulled her towards him.

“It’s fine...We still have that last dose of Amrita-9. We’ll get you properly fed before we get out of here and then you’ll be good again for another few weeks.”

Anne nodded. Feeling numb. Sighing as she was reminded of exactly how much work the two of them had ahead of them. This incident confirming the necessity of the steps she was about to take to get them to their goals faster.