The bath after the fight was almost worth the fight itself; the water around them turned gray for nearly a minute as their group scrubbed and washed, forming a semicircle around the group of children, who stayed in the shallows of the river. Clothes were washed and hung up on lines, and then they settled around a small fire, eating manna soup and laughing quietly amongst themselves. The sun set, and stars began dotting the sky.

“So, now that we're out of that nightmare, what'd all ya'll pick, anyones?” Evan looked around. When nobody immediately responded, he smiled, looking somewhat awkward. “Ruling family and sailor. Thought th'combination sounded funny. Then Smith's line, because … well, can't remember. Then glory and honor, a'cuz those matter.” His smile changed in a way Thomas couldn't quite read. “Then lust and, uh, prudence.”

“You too?” Amanda spoke up, her voice chipper, almost sing-song. Then she looked around at their group, whose attention had settled on her. She looked like she might want to shrink for a moment, but continued anyways. “Country nobility and dockhand. Farmer's line. Uh, spreading joy, love, and, um, lust and passion.” Her voice got increasingly quiet as she proceeded, then she looked at Evan once more, cheeks reddening, even as she asked. “Do you … feel like a teenager again? Like, it's … annoying, and too much, and all the time?” Evan looked at her for a second, then barked out a laugh.

“I'dve had'ta stop feelin' that way to start.” He paused, though, then shook his head. “Might be worse, now, though.”

“I definitely feel mine.” John's strange formal accent broke in. “Capital slums, sailor, Bluebrim. Find purpose, mind, diligence, perseverance.” His head tilted on way, then the other, his eyes shifting up and to the right. “I cannot remember much at all, but I do know I had trouble concentrating on things, I remember thinking that when I picked those things. I was always doing anything except what I set out to do, and I do not have that problem any longer.”

“Magus, Quest For Immortality.” Carson smiled, reaching up to rub at his bald spot. “I was hoping it would fix this. I picked Capital Merchant District, thought maybe I'd be rich, instead of turning up in a cave carrying nothing but my suit jacket. Chose sailor, thought that sounded kind of neat, my grandfather was … ” He trailed off, then shook his head. “Anyways, went merchant's line, same explanation there, overcoming weakness, well.” He patted his belly. “Then knowledge, because knowledge is of course power, and mirth, because I love to laugh, and peacefulness, because I'm a lover, not a fighter.

“Assassin, freelancer.” Allison's soft voice was next. “Sailor, vexbeard. Strength increases melee damage. Justice. Money. Humility. Prudence.” Thomas studied her; she seemed more relaxed, now.

“I just tried to describe myself.” Nathan grinned around at their group. “Life of the party, right? Capital court, my dad was, an, um, anyways, sailor, I really know how to sail, and Mariner, same deal. Entertainment and friendship, and, like, sloth and diligence, because the best thing is to do it right the first time so you have to do less work in the end, right?” He looked around to nods and quiet smiles.

“City Craft District.” Madelaine paused, staring off into space, then moved her hand as if to swipe at something; she must have pulled up her dialogue to refresh her memory, Thomas realized. “Thief, Tegrile, Guardian, Mind, Sloth,” and she paused to high-five the air in Nathan's direction, “and Honesty. I might have min-maxed a little.” This last with a nod to Allison, who nodded in response.

“Min-max?” Anne broke in. “What is that?” Thomas found himself replying

“Picking your statistics to be most beneficial to what you do, as opposed to trying to be good at everything. Sort of. Uh, bandit party, messenger, Bluebrim.” He searched through screens for a few seconds before finding the other pieces; he remembered stoic and lust, but not the other pieces. “The Buddha, logic, stoicism.” He took a breath, glancing to Evan and Amanda. “Lust. Yeah. It's … challenging.”

“Guess that leaves me.” The sing-song, constantly rising tones of Faith came in. “Capital Nobility, Sailor, Fiern. Also The Buddha, also love, and peacefulness, and, uh, wrath.” She frowned into the distance. “I can't remember any of my reasons why. They felt very important to me at the time.” There was a silence, then. Thomas didn't probe the empty places in his memories, but he was aware of them.

“Have you all … huh … have ya'll leveled up from your traits yet?” Madelaine, again, looking around with a grin. Thomas' stomach lurched at the reminder.

“What do you mean?” Amanda frowned, looking from Nathan to Madelaine. Norris started to answer, but Madelaine got there first.

“If you understand what your trait means, maybe just to yourself, you can get stuff for it. I got four levels just by mentally reciting what honesty and sloth meant to me.”

“Is that what happened?” Nathan looked over at her. “I thought maybe … huh.”

“Yeah. I think you get a level for understanding what makes them good, and another level for understanding what can make them bad.” The conversation grew dense. Thomas stood up, and moved away from the fire, and the quiet lull of conversation, to walk up the nearest incline. On the top of the hill, he laid down in the tall grass, crossing his arms beneath his head, trying to stop his thoughts, trying to focus on just being. The air smelled of night and grass and water.

He might have dozed off, Thomas wasn't sure. He came to awareness, to a southern accent; Thomas sat up, looking around. Evan and a pale woman, bare skin surprisingly bright in the moonlight, were walking up the hill towards him, hand in hand and conversing quietly, voices but not words carrying to him; he recognized Amanda only by the flash of light across her glasses. Thomas ran his hand through the grass at his side absent-mindedly, just sensing the texture of it, as they walked towards him. They moved closer together, until their sides were nearly touching; Amanda slipped her hand from Evan's, and slid it across his thigh.

“Hey Thomas.” He jumped, when Evan addressed him, feeling like he'd just woken up from a dream he hadn't realized he'd been in. His eyes were still on Amanda's hand, which had slipped further over, to stroke flaccid flesh. They stopped somewhat short of him, at the edge of the relatively flat portion of the hill that was the crest; far enough to be polite, if not for Amanda's hand stroking Evan to interest. Thomas swallowed, trying to pull his eyes away. When he succeeded, Amanda was smiling at him, in a manner that was entirely warm.

“Evan. Amanda.” His voice cracked as he responded, and Thomas swallowed again, his mouth dry. He … they … Thomas would have to stand to look down to where the others were, the hill obscuring them. This was private, or as private as they were likely to get. Amanda's attention shifted, lightly petting Evan's testicles beneath a firm erection. They were just looking at him; he was increasingly aware of his own penis, pulsing with his heartbeat; it took six heartbeats before the skin felt painfully tight. Thomas thought.

“Look, you don't … ” Amanda hesitated, looking at him, then at Evan. “I thought it might help us understand.” Evan released a gasp; Amanda raised her hand, looking over the wet; Evan, for his part, stepped away, and started to raise his hand, before lowering it again. He was staring at something.

“I, um, got a coupl'a points. Um. Sorry. You're, um, the first girl, I mean woman, to … and, um, being watched, and … ” The thin man trailed off, looking thoroughly embarrassed, not meeting either Amanda or Thomas' gaze. Amanda was just looking at her hand, a curious expression, then, somewhat to Thomas' surprise, smiled at Evan.

“I think it's kind of sweet. Huuuh. And that's a point, that's just weird.” She looked at Thomas, who was entirely uncertain how he felt about his … was he participating in this? He kind of was. “Do you want to?”

“I … ” Thoughts. Memories. He looked at her, at Evan, who was trying not to meet either of their gazes. And … he had to agree with Amanda, against all his intuitions. Evan's reaction to being touched had been sweet, in a way he didn't think he would have been able to understand, if their places had been swapped, particularly with his reaction. It was soft, and vulnerable, and … and Thomas found himself wanting to do this. “Yes.” He surprised himself with the firmness of that response. Evan turned back, and Amanda smiled. “I want to talk about it first. I want each of us to know what we want out of this.” He hesitated, looking between them, then settled his attention on Evan. “I guess … I guess first, do you want … do you like men, too?”

“Not s'posed to. Not sure if, if, new. But yes.” Evan's replies were directed at the ground. Thomas slowly nodded, taking that in. “Prefer if, uh, Amanda tells me t'do it.” And that was almost a whisper. Amanda pulled Evan back closer to her, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Whatever makes you comfortable.” Those words felt … like home, in a way Thomas hadn't realized had been missing from his interactions. He found himself nodding. “Now go suck that cock.” Thomas' nodding stopped in a jolt of shock. That … okay, uh. Evan looked up, at Amanda, then Thomas, and hesitantly moved towards him.

“Hold up.” Thomas raised a hand. “Er, sorry. You can s-, erm, we can do that in a moment.” To Evan; Thomas couldn't quite bring himself to say it out loud, which … he took a breath. “Sorry. You can suck my cock in a moment.” The words felt strange and alien in his mouth, but he needed to say them. “I am serious about the conversation. I have limits, I want to know both of yours.” Evan looked uncomfortable, but Amanda, after several long seconds, nodded.

“Okay. Sorry, you said that, and then I … ” She looked between them, then her shoulders sunk slightly. “No, that's entirely fair. But, um, not too long? Please?” He looked at her, slowly becoming aware of her eyes, which were … hungry. Carnal. Dilated, the logical part of his mind, unwilling to be silenced by his own desire, insisted.

“Alright. Let's be quick, then.” Thomas took a breath, as he struggled to force the words out of his mouth. “I'm okay with oral anything. Not really comfortable with, um, anal stuff, either way, at least not right now. Um.” He wracked his mind; he was pretty sure he could have named a lot of things he wasn't comfortable with, but right at the moment, it was hard to come up with anything else. “I guess anything else I'll let you know?” Amanda and Thomas's attention shifted to Ethan.

“Um. She tells me what to do.” He paused. “It wasn't bad when you said it, exactly, but, um.” Thomas just nodded.

“Sorry, didn't mean to … sorry.”

“S'ok.”

“Amanda?” She looked from Evan back to Thomas, biting her lip.

“Let's just get started, please?” It took Thomas a moment to suppress annoyance, which she might have noticed. “Look, I'll say something. I just, two?” He nodded, reluctantly. “And … mm. Evan, get down there and start licking.” Her hand moved between her legs as Evan moved to Thomas. Thomas, for his part, tried to relax, and enjoy the experience, which was interrupted by regular flashes of regret, and shame, and powerlessness, and violation.

But he did enjoy the experience, although he had trouble 'losing himself' in anything. The invasive emotions were part of it, but on another level, he also felt a little bit distant; like he was watching somebody else do those things. He'd felt this way before, when he'd been in pain, and it made the pain feel remote and unreal; it did something the same thing to the pleasure, and he found himself focusing on making Evan and Amanda feel good, because their visceral reactions felt more real to him than his own experience.

Amanda joined Evan for a time, before having him lick her hand clean and then lick her, while Thomas' tongue and mouth brought Evan back to an unsteady state of arousal; Thomas almost started tried replaying his fantasy, pinning Evan down, but restrained himself; Evan might not want that.

They'd shifted around some; Amanda apparently had a list of very specific things she wanted to try. Some of it was easy; some required conversation that felt like it should be more awkward than it actually was to arrange, the conversation oddly casual as they moved around one another to try different positions. She probably woke the others, when they were both inside her, and Thomas found himself grinning dumbly at the experience of, well, helping her feel that way; for his part, Evan finished then, and Thomas felt that through her, even as Evan had made a noise more like a growl than a sound of pleasure.

After that, she'd had Thomas switch to his larger sizes, taken a look, and then shook her head and had him switch back. He wasn't entirely certain how he felt about that, but he'd obliged. She wanted him to switch to his largest size to finish, for reasons he could guess at but hadn't asked about, but for his part, Thomas did not end up orgasming; anytime he got too close, emotion would disrupt the experience, and he was perhaps too much in his head for the entirety of it, feeling like he was watching somebody else. They had both turned to trying to please Thomas, but he was eventually, guiltily, forced to tell them it wasn't going to happen. He'd internally winced at the hurt reactions, but had struggled to come up with an explanation that would satisfy them, and instead asked for them to lay with him. He didn't want to relive that, now; Amanda's presence at his back, between him and Evan, helped.

Apart from the guilt at the end, he'd actually enjoyed himself; the experience had been ... intimate, which was obvious, but he wasn't sure he had really ever understood what that word actually meant before. Watching the face of somebody as you gave them pleasure, made them feel good? Because that's what this had felt like. It hadn't felt like shame and violation, even as those things had assailed him, even as he'd expected it to; it had felt like sharing something with someone. An experience, sensation, knowledge.

The guilt had been its own weird awakening for him; he'd enjoyed making them feel good, and it had given him an appreciation that they would have enjoyed doing that for him; they hadn't gotten that with him, in return. It was an odd little thing, to realize that somebody could be disappointed that they couldn't do something nice for you, to not be able to share that with them, in turn. It was the dark spot on his night, for reasons entirely different than he would have expected, had he thought about what it might be like before; but also, it was strange, warm, and reassuring, that they wanted to.

The three lay, sticky and thoroughly spent, for some time. Then they bathed once more in the river under the starlight, returning to rejoin the others by the fire, and laid beside each other to find sleep. They cuddled into one another, Amanda once more positioning herself between Thomas and Evan; he found their company in sleep strange, the press of warm flesh welcome and oddly wholesome in a way he didn't realize he'd been missing; the touch of another human being. And Thomas looked at the message that slowly formed before him, feeling … relieved. Relieved that it came now, rather than before. Relieved that it came, for this, for them, for that experience.

Trait: Lust satisfied. You have finally accepted your nature as a lustful person, and moved beyond it. You have earned eight customization points. You've reached class level 14!

Lust, he reflected as he began to drift off to sleep, was perhaps unfairly maligned, by himself if none other. That had been ... sweet. Weird and biological and sometimes awkward, but sweet. The warmth carried him into sleep.