For a moment, August had almost managed to convince himself that he was back in his bed, warm, soft skin curled around him, the slow, steady shift of a chest rising and falling with each breath—and his face pressed into the brilliant curve of a woman’s neck, as her hair did everything it could to strangle him. Haiko made a barely there hum, and one of her hands slipped further under his hip, pulling him closer into the cage of arms, legs and skin encircling him.

His mind seemed to be stuck in a spiral, the flashes of everything that had happened between them in the dark pulling him in a million different directions, and August was left trying to figure out exactly how this had even happened. The immediate, guilty thought that seemed intent on revealing itself to him was that despite Haiko making a very direct—and embarrassingly effective—attempt to seduce him, it was August himself who had accidentally engineered the entire situation.

He’d understood how each of them had been treated during their previous lives within Gaian society. He’d seen each of them engage in a dozen different odd habits and too-charged responses to small praises, uses of their names, and other things that made up normal healthy human interaction. He’d come to know just how starved of positive attention each of them had been, and he’d even deliberately gone out of his way to provide it, all in an effort to erode the mess of influence their creators had tangled them in. But he couldn’t help but think that even his own motivation was tainted.

The larger, positive part of it was a sort of foundational desire to treat the Voithos like the people they were, but there was a fairly significant chunk of it that was driven by a desperate need to spite the Children of Gaia—and if he went deeper than even that, there was an undeniable sliver of himself that enjoyed seeing them react to the things he said to them, enjoyed being able to cause such visceral reactions. That was the part that had caused this, he was now certain, because after they had been left dazzled by the attention and enthralled by the genuine respect—he’d done absolutely nothing to intercept what had been an obvious response.

“Haiko,” August said, voice muffled by the skin of her neck. “Are you awake?”

“Undoubtedly,” Haiko said, the cage of limbs tightening around him. “I can’t help but notice that you are, as well.”

August fought not to shiver at the proximity of her mouth to his ear and the breath that was tickling his skin with each word; that alone was almost enough to destabilise his train of thought.

“I think I might have done something bad,” August said, clenching his hand around her wrist in an attempt to stop her from trying anything dangerous. “I’m going to get up.”

August managed to sit up to some extent, the cage she’d built around him slipping away enough to give him enough room to gather his thoughts relatively unmolested.

“You think you’ve done something bad,” Haiko said, drawing the words out. “Is it because we are of different species?”

“No, I think it’s pretty obvious that I don’t care about that,” August murmured, “Listen, it occurs to me now that by treating all of you like I treat everyone else in my life, I’ve been attacking you in a place where the Voithos are extremely vulnerable.”

Haiko let out a quiet hum at the words.

“A place where we are extremely vulnerable?” Haiko said, tilting her head. “Yes, I suppose you have been extraordinarily kind with us—although calling such a thing an attack seems inappropriate.”

There was a shiver up his spine as he realised just how quickly she had understood the exact nature of what he’d still been trying to figure out how to express. Either she had been actively thinking about it already, or the connection was outright obvious to her.

“Since I first arrived here, I’ve constantly been breaking Gaian social conventions and giving all of you far more positive attention than you have probably ever received,” August said, studying her render in the dark. “All of that has happened in a very, very short amount of time, and calling it an attack is completely appropriate—I’ve been doing it on purpose.”

“I find an intention to be particularly kind to still fall short of that definition,” Haiko said, humming. “Why do you consider it an attack?”

“The reason it is an attack is that I can see how drastically it affects all of you and that you don’t even realise it’s happening,” August said, “I knew it would influence your opinion of me, and I knew that—I should have tried to warn you about it before something like this happened.”

Haiko lifted a hand up, brushing her fingers across the inside of his ankle and then his calf—a shiver passed over his skin at the touch, but he remained still, attempting to remain unmoved by it.

“So I have fallen under the effects of your attack, and now I have done something I otherwise wouldn’t have, had I been aware of it,” Haiko said, “That is your concern.”

“Yes,” August muttured. “That’s exactly it.”

“An interesting observation, certainly, but I believe that there are several problems with it,” Haiko said, a second hand coming to rest on his ankle, her fingers curling around it. “The primary one, of course, is that you believe I had somehow failed to notice all of the positive attention you were lavishing on us.”

“Noticing the attention isn’t the same as being aware of its effects,” August said.

“That is true, but you are also making the assumption that I’ve never experienced any kind of positive attention,” Haiko said, tightening her grip on his ankle to the point where experience had taught him that he would be entirely unable to break free. “From that, you have decided that I would not have had the chance to understand how it may affect me.”

“You’re saying you have?” August said. “Everything I’ve learned about the Children of Gaia tells me that they’re incapable of something like that.”

“I believe I have already told you that some of my clients were very possessive,” Haiko said, “That was expressed in many ways, some small moments of kindness, albeit gifted in private, sometimes made an appearance.”

That kind of cut the legs out of his argument, but it wasn’t an unassailable point, and he wasn’t quite willing to let it go, either—not with his guilt driving him forward into an attempt at self-flagellation.

“Small amounts of kindness from someone who wanted to own you probably isn’t the same type or quantity that I’ve been dumping on everyone,” August said, “Even if you had some idea of what it was like, are you really going to tell me that it didn’t have any effect on you? Look at what just happened—”

Haiko managed to find his wrist in the dark and gave a sudden, playful attempt at pulling him towards her by the three points of contact. August managed to plant his still free hand on the ground between them as a sort of brace against it—but it pretty clear that the only reason it worked was that she had stopped pulling.

“I don’t think I was quite as prepared as I might have assumed,” Haiko said, “But even if you had forwarned me, or if I was better prepared, I am certain I would have made the same choice.”

“Even if you do know yourself that well,” August said, “I knew something like this was going to happen eventually, so I should have done something to discourage it—”

Haiko gave a quiet, sorrowful sigh that he was convinced she had affected purely in an attempt to convince him to give up his side of the argument entirely. The second attempt to pull him forward left him partially trapped in the cage—and he was starting to think he wasn’t doing a very good job of convincing her.

“Haiko—” August tried.

“If you had discouraged me from this course of action, I would most likely have taken it as a challenge,” Haiko said, “Now, I believe we have a rather busy day tomorrow, and you are rather selfishly keeping both of us from getting the rest we need—so come back to sleep.”

Even if he could have found the will to keep the argument alive, she had very quickly won the physical dispute that followed, and he found himself trapped against her once more.

“You said to come back to sleep,” August managed, “You liar.”

Day Eleven End