“Christoph!” Emilia’s light-hearted cry broke through the atmosphere as she wrapped her arms around him from behind. Rubbing her face against his back, she ignored the tearing of his shirt, letting her lower body slump over the fallen pillar as she relied on her former slave for support.

“Hey!” Dragged backwards by the cat-girl, Christoph twisted around in her grip, grabbing at her upper arms and pulling the furred woman to her feet. He’d let her sleep on his lap in order to confirm his phobia had truly disappeared, but he still hadn’t been totally sure. Sighing, he looked down at her innocently confused face. If he could endure such a smothering tackle, did that mean he could consider himself fully cured?

“Christoph!” Lunging forwards as soon as he released her arms, Emilia wrapped both her arms and legs around him this time. Wavering, he shifted her weight around and slumped down onto the pillar once more, letting her cling to him for a moment before he pushed her back by the shoulders.

“Calm down!” Christoph said, giving her a small shake. “Are you a monkey?”

“You’re here!” Emilia replied. Fingers clutching at his back, she embraced him with enough force to push back against his hands, kissing at his face as soon as it came within range.

“Let me go,” he muttered, squirming free as he pushed her off his lap and back onto the ground. Standing up, he saw Lucius disappear around a corner with the two siblings. Wiping saliva off his cheek, he narrowed his eyebrows at her once more.

“Aren’t you glad to see me?” Emilia asked, letting the target of her affections push her away. “Christoph?”

“Of course I…” Sighing at the sight of the retreating Saint, Christoph turned back to the woman in front of him, opening his arms wide. “Here, it’s fine.”

Letting her have this much shouldn’t be a problem, really. It’s not like there was anything left to say between him and Lucius in any case. Relaxing into Emilia’s arms, he stopped for a moment to really appreciate their reunion. He couldn’t truly say that his time in the village had been a fairy tale, but it had been better than most of his life in this world, or the other. Catching her hand as she reached for the front of his pants, Christoph gave the beast-woman a deadpan stare.

“Is that a no?” Emilia’s complaint was punctuated by the stamping of her right foot, but he didn’t release her hand, instead using it to pull her along as he began walking. “Oh, is your room nearby?”

“We don’t have time for that,” Christoph replied, picking up his pace. Diana would have to find her own way. “We have to leave the city.”

…

“This is what you meant when you said you had a transport?” Emilia asked, wrinkling her nose at the skimmer. The stable had been ransacked around it, but it seemed that there was no-one among the adventurers brave enough to try cart the ship away through the pirate territories. Such a demanding craft was hardly worth the effort anyway, after all.

“Don’t be fussy,” Christoph said, checking over the mostly emptied saddlebags. The bedroll and blankets had been left behind, but his jerky and medicinal supplies were missing, along with the rest of his provisions. “It’s faster than a horse or wagon, and more comfortable, too.”

“Eh.” The cat-girl scrunched her face up further as she inspected the elven craft. “I don’t like it.”

“Well I’m taking it, so unless you want me to leave you behind, then…” Christoph paused his motions to look up at where the beast-woman was pawing at the ship. “Are you sure you want to come with me, anyway?”

“Of course I am!” Crossing her arms, Emilia look down at him with an expression of indignation. “I won’t let you leave me behind this time.”

“Leila said you were under Bastias’ influence,” Christoph replied. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Leila should keep her mouth shut,” Emilia said, ears flicking as she frowned. Leaning down, she grabbed a fistful of his hair with her left hand, the fingers of her right spreading out to caress his face at the same time. “Bastias doesn’t make people do anything they didn’t already want to.”

If Bastias had a concept which he embodied, it would most likely be something like ‘desire’ or ‘satisfaction’. Not limited to matters of a sexual nature, the beast god acted on whimsy and sought instant gratification in all things they did. The beast-people would do what they wanted, even- no, especially under the influence of their god.Looking down at his companion, Christoph took a moment to wonder if the city’s god had a similar aspect to their existence.

“I get it,” he replied, tugging free from her grip. Stowing away his dwindling sack of crystals, he strapped the bags closed one by one. “That does explain why you’d follow me across the desert, but I can’t say I understand all of your circumstances. Was your life really so terrible that you would leave it behind to chase after your former slave of less than a month?”

“Did you really feel like I treated you like a slave?” Emilia asked. “Really?”

“Honestly? I guess not,” Christoph replied. Looking back up at the cat-girl, he saw her face change from a frown into a smile. Huh. She’d always brushed off the whole slave business with lines like ‘Of course you’re my slave’, or ‘It’s natural to take humans as slaves’. Shaking his head, he raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Don’t tell me you’re worrying about that now? Who was it that told me I should consider it an honor to serve her?”

“Do you feel honored?” Emilia asked, stepping forwards to press her body against his. Christoph felt his blood stir at her sudden closeness, his pants tightening as her arms circled around him. His own feelings? He doubted what he felt was love, actually he doubted that she felt love for him either but still, being in her company was… comforting, somehow.

“I do,” he said, pulling her into a single lengthy kiss before separating once again. “But we can’t waste time right now. Get on.”

“But-” The cat-girl sighed at his stern expression, ears falling with her shoulders. Gingerly, putting her feet onto the craft, she slowly crawled up into the two-person seat. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s go, then.”

“We still have more to talk about,” Christoph said, joining her at the front of the skimmer. Taking hold of the steering bars, he let his mana flow into the small ship, feeling Emilia’s hands dig into his skin as the craft began to rise. Ignoring her anxiety, he urged the transport out of the stables and towards the nearby gates. “Diana for one.”

“That whore.” The cat-girl seethed at the mention of the elf’s name, claws protruding to pricking into Christoph’s skin for a moment. “Bastias shouldn’t have bothered bringing her back.”

“Calm down,” he said. “She isn’t the same person from before, okay? Promise me you won’t just attack her next time we meet?”

“Fine,” Emilia said, “but don’t expect me to go easy on her if she does something funny.”

“No, what I’m saying is…” Christoph let his words fade, sighing as he guided the skimmer around the remains of a broken wagon. “Well, I can understand your feelings in this case. It’s not everyday someone stabs you in the back, changes into an elf, and steals your slave.”

“What else is there?” Emilia asked, patting at his abdomen.

“What else? Well, she did invade your village, but-”

“I mean what else is there to talk about!” Rising up in her seat, the beast-woman closed her teeth around the nape of his neck, biting down on the bundle of muscles in annoyance.

“Ow!” Christoph winced as her fangs dug into his flesh, twisting his body as she clung to him from behind. Besides the bite, her hands were drifting dangerously low over his stomach. “What else… where we’re going, for one!”

“Huh?” The cat-girl paused for a moment, tilting her head to the side. “Aren’t we going home?”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head in response. “We’re going west, for sure, but not to the beast forests.”

“The mountains?” Emilia’s face scrunched up again, and leaned around his torso to look up into his face. Jumping a little as the skimmer swayed, she frowned up at him. “Why the dwarven lands?”

“We were originally headed for the Sanguine Empire,” Christoph said, “but I’ve changed my mind after hearing Lucius’ little speech.”

Even if the Kingdom and the Church had declared him persona non grata, the neighbouring empire was a different place with a different religion. A country of humans and half-humans, it seemed an ideal place to flee. Now, though, his plans had changed. He was looking for monsters to defeat, and that meant the mountains.

“You were going to try crossing the orc lands?” Emilia hugged him from behind once more, limbs jerking as the skimmer swayed.

“That’s right,” he replied. That was another reason he’d changed destinations. The pirates and orcs would swarm in once they heard about the city, and the eastern stretch of the desert wouldn’t be safe for long, even after the gods had left. “Not anymore, obviously.”

“Hmmm…” The cat-girl buried her face in his back, rubbing her fur-like hair against him through his tattered shirt. “Is that it, then?”

“There’s one last thing,” Christoph said, turning to look back at her. “It’s about us. I want to say this clearly, but I’m no longer simply your slave.”

“I know that,” Emilia replied. “You’re an adventurer now too, and I won’t try to drag you back to the village if you don’t want to go. Just watch out for Leila, she might not think the same if she catches you somewhere on your own.”

“I’m still glad you’re coming with me,” he said, “I just wanted to be sure.”

“If you aren’t my slave, though, what does that make you?” Emilia asked.

“A companion?” Christoph replied. Glancing back, he saw her head shake at his suggestion. “A partner, then?”

“No way,” she said. “We’ve shared our bodies, so doesn’t that make us mates?”

“Do the beast clans take mates?” he asked. Liam had given him remarkably little information on the clans, probably to keep him away from them. “Well, just don’t expect as much mating as we did back in the village.”

“But-” Emilia began.

“No way.” Christoph wouldn’t back down on that point. “Do you know how much time we spent trying to satisfy your urges?”

“It’s not my fault I like it,” Emilia said. “All the beast clans do, that’s just how we are!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Christoph replied. “I suppose we can blame Bastias for that, too.”

…

“Fight me properly!” Manitas’ small fists beat at the beast god’s chest, ripples forming on his dark fur as shockwaves resounded over the plains.

“Fighting isn’t really my thing,” Bastias said, lounging her naked form on the sun-baked clay nearby.

“Ah!” Manitas landed a punch on Bastias’ stomach, pushing him away for a moment. Behind the beast god, several kilometers of desert were flattened by the blow, dust rising up in clouds that blocked out the sun.

“Hey.” Bastias waved her hand, clearing the evening sky once more. “How long are you going to throw this tantum?”

“Don’t look down on me,” Manitas replied. Had her body not been that of a late-blooming young woman, it might have almost been intimidating. “I can still take you!”

“You always say that,” Bastias said, absent-mindedly playing with her own breasts as her male counterpart grappled with the smaller god. “You always end up being the one who’s taken, though.”

“Just calm down!” Bastias said, wrapping his furred hands around Manitas’ slender wrists. “You’re going to destroy the whole desert.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Manitas replied, kicking her feet out to bounce uselessly from the larger god’s legs. “I want Leila!”

“Good!” Bastias ignored Manitas’ words and picked herself up from the ground. “Keep a hold of her, I’m going to see if Diana is still around here. She was quite nice, don’t you think?”

“You can’t have Diana!” Wrenching free of the beast god’s grip, Manitas turned to race off towards the remains of her city. Bastias was upon the smaller deity in an instant, two pairs of furred limbs wrapping around the plains god as the three figures crashed down to the earth.

“Gotcha,” the beast god whispered, nuzzling at Manitas’ smooth skin from both sides. “You always want the things you think you won’t get.”

“Such a flat chest! Is that why you wanted Leila?” Bastias’ voice echoed over the plains as her hands roamed over the small god’s body. “It’s not like you could have made proper use of her body, you know? She is fun to play with, though.”

“Let me go!” Legs thrashing, Manitas resisted their pull even as the trio began to fade away. “You can’t just come in here and take me like this!”

“I’ll take who I want,” Bastias said as the gods slowly disappeared. “I’ll come where I want, too.”

In the distance, the sun was slowly setting over the ruined walls of Manitas City.