“They’re not ready… but how could they be?” Shasuryu asked, his mouth falling open and giving a somewhat sheepish sort of laugh as he looked up at the masked caster and down into the bright red eyes of his bodyguard.

“Then bring us in.” Ainz replied with as much dignity as he could muster. ‘I’ve gotten at least a little bit better about public appearances, but still, unless I treat this as a guild meeting I’m mostly lost… I should watch more of how Queen Draudillon acts under pressure, after all, who could be in greater difficulty than her?’

By the time he reached the crude little wooden gate, Ainz had managed to set aside his fears and focus on the matter at hand. Meanwhile his heart still pounded hard, he noted that the lizardmen had sharp eyes, sharp teeth, it was like being surrounded by little monsters. ‘Keep calm Ainz… keep calm, you should have known your humanity would assert itself now and that being surrounded would do this…’ He made another mental note to himself, ‘After this is all over, I’m going to have to expose myself to more nonhumans and people outside of Nazarick. All this power, I’ve even killed summons and undead, but being this close to a bunch of easily killable lizard people makes my skin crawl? That’s not okay.’

It almost felt like bigotry, even though he didn’t feel any hatred for them, there was an almost reflexive discomfort, like being surrounded by a large number of beasts of uncertain temperament.

He slowed his heart and slowed the rest of his body, cursing the sudden irrational reaction as absurd, he spread out his hands, holding his staff vertical to the ground to give himself space.

The lizardmen backed away, their women, children, elderly, responding to his gesture, and Shalltear fell in at his left side as Shasuryu put himself at the head of the body of demihumans. ‘The way he moves… I have heard a king is like a great chief… is this a king, am I seeing what it is to be a king?’ Shasuryu wondered and reflexively began to kneel as Ainz spoke.

‘Why are they kneeling, I just wanted some personal space?’ He wondered as he addressed them, “I am Ainz Ooal Gown, lord of the Kingdom of Nazarick. On my journey I discovered your chief,” he held out his gloved hand toward Shasuryu, “badly wounded, and restored him to life. He has asked me, ruler to ruler, to help his people… even offering to trade himself to me in exchange for help for you all.”

A rumbling of awe spread among the tribes, the Red Eye tribe looked at one another and at the chief of their rival tribe, ‘He offered to sacrifice himself for ‘us’, we’re not his tribe… why would he do that…?’ The thought occurred to many among their ranks. Still, their appreciative eyes were filled with gratitude for their neighbor, and Shasuryu’s standing rose.

‘Is there seriously something wrong with this world’s taste? That felt so… cheesy…!’ Ainz asked himself as he made his grandiose gesture and statements. “So for the sake of a chief who will trade himself away to protect his own, I accept his offer of submission and will extend my protection to all who call him their leader.”

Zaryusu led the tribes away, a small band of lizardmen following behind in order to act as a rear guard and to assist their more distant Razor Tail neighbor. Riding on Rororo with Crusch Lulu, if it were not for the line of lizardmen and their families behind them… ‘This might feel like an afternoon away with my mate…’ He thought, and raised a hand slightly to where Crusch could see it.

He curled his fingers forward a little, and the pale lizardwoman leaned forward. “After we win, after we’ve survived… let’s do this together. Go riding out around the great lake. Maybe further.”

“You were a traveler before all this, weren’t you? I’ve never traveled anywhere really, this is the farthest away from home that I’ve ever been.” Crusch replied, her bone white face looking far away, “I’ve always wondered how big the world really is. Is it really round like they say? How long would it take to go beyond it… if I hadn’t been born this way, I might have become a traveler and found out by now.”

Crusch didn’t seem like she was really talking ‘to’ him, more ‘around’ him. But Zaryusu answered her anyway by asking, “Why couldn’t you travel?”

“Because I am an albino lizardwoman, we’re born with powerful magic, that means I always had to stay with my tribe to help it, and then when I had to lead it… any thoughts of travel had to be put aside.” Crusch replied to him with a wistful voice.

“I can understand that, but it’s a shame. Yes, the world is round. I once traveled among the dwarves, they took me up on top of a high mountain… Not for long, it was far too cold for me, but for a brief glorious few minutes I felt like I was standing on top of the world… and I saw the distant curve. It really is round.” Zaryusu snorted at that, “I barely believed it myself.”

“What an amazing thing… how big it must be…” Crusch said with awe, “Alright, then it’s a bargain… we go back, we save our people, and everyone else who fights with us… then I’ll travel with you, just once at least, one time to see something other than the same walls and waters.”

“Really, you would really go with me?” Zaryusu asked, his hands tight around the reins of Rororo.

“Of course. One time at least. I wouldn’t risk myself if I were alone, but if my husband, the bearer of Frost Pain, is with me, I think we will be just fine.”

Despite himself, that made Zaryusu happy for the rest of the day’s journey. That night, they made camp, hiding beyond the tree line, well away from the water they preferred in order to minimize a frogmen threat, they made no fires. Instead they huddled together for comfort with some of their numbers keeping watch while others slept.

However, neither Zaryusu Sasha nor Crusch Lulu had any interest in sleeping, not really. Though each made the attempt, it was too much. Zaryusu felt his blood run hotter than a lizardman’s had any right to, and so after hours in the dark, he rose from where he lay. The buzzing and chirping of insects in the swampy woods was no stranger to him, it was a comfort, if anything.

Amidst the chirping and howling of creatures in the night, he moved through shadows to the place where Crusch Lulu lay stretched out, her red eyes were sharp and they pierced him like knives. “We can’t win, can we?” She asked him, and his scales brushed smoothly over her own, his body pressed close enough that she could hear his every breath.

The way he held her, he didn’t need to answer and she didn’t need him to either, she moved aside her loincloth, and he moved aside his own. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, his tail moved to entwine with hers, then she rested her head in the crook of his shoulder.

A moment later he was inside her, the ground beneath was cool, moist and squelched a little between the rustling noises of their slowly rocking bodies. Nobody seemed to know of the coupling that was taking place between the pair behind bushes covered by the shadow of a canopy that might as well have been as old as time. If they had noticed, at that moment neither Zaryusu nor Crusch would have given a damn.

His hardened hands held tight against her slender frame while her tail clenched to him as if afraid he might slip away if she let go. She kept her little gasps and moans quiet, giving the noises of her pleasure only to her lover, savoring the intimacy of the damned, and savoring one last burst of life before they were sure it would all come to an end.

It was not until hours of mating passed that either one of the pair was able to sleep, and neither slept at all, until they both did.

When they slept, neither frogmen, nor dreams, nor nightmares of the same, troubled them at all.