Aftermath of the Monster Congregation

I slowly wake up. "Huh… Ctothis didn't speak with me this time?" I accidentally say out loud.

"Guys, she's awake!" I hear Aubrey yell.

I'm a bit confused at first, but that confusion is swiftly replaced with surprise as I suddenly feel Kiaran hugging me.

"Azariah! I'm so sorry! I swear I'll make it up to you!" Um! Um! Um! What do I do here?! I mean, it's nice enough, I'm even getting kind of excited! Oh thank God I'm not a boy… Of course, thinking about a boy getting hard from a hug from another boy is only getting me even more excited…

"Stop that, Kiaran. You know how Azariah is…"

"Oh, yeah, right, sorry…"

Kiaran slowly lets go of me. No, come back! You said you'd make something up to me! You can start by continuing to hug me! Who is it that told him to stop?! I'll kill you! I tone that down a bit when I realize that the one who said that was Aubrey.

I realize my surroundings now. I'm laying on a blanket on top of a grassy hill, near what appears to be an encampment of adventures. I'm underneath another white blanket and my clothes are torn pretty much everywhere. Aubrey, Kiaran, Cesre, and Freware are all sitting next to me on the grass. Inell's nowhere to be seen.

As I start remembering what all happened before I fell asleep, it gets stranger and strange as I realize that I feel no pain. I finish sitting up and throw the blanket off of me. I hold out my right arm, and it's… still attached somehow? I start moving it in all sorts of ways just to make sure that my eyes aren't tricking me.

"Are you OK, Azariah? Do you feel any pain?¨ Aubrey asks me.

I have to do a double take just to make sure. "No, this is all very strange to me as well…"

As I say that, Freware and Cesre look confused, and Kiaran and Aubrey look at me with "oh no" written all over their faces. This is all making me very nervous, so I desperately try to figure out what I did wrong.

"Azariah, I'm sorry, but… what did you just say?"

This is making me really nervous. I said that in english, is there something wrong with my translation orb? It's been so long since I've had to think about that. I go to turn it on, but it refuses to activate. Normally when I turn it on or off I feel a small, soothing bit of energy go through my vocal cords, but now every time I try to turn it on, I feel as if I'm getting closer to losing my voice.

I try my best to adjust quickly and form a sentence in the native language as fast as I can. Damn it, it's been too long since I've done this. I should have been practicing with it off, but I've only been using my knowledge of the native language to read books!

"I'm very sorry…" I begin, trying to take as formal a tone as possible. "I'm still very out of it." That should have gotten my point across? Please? Don't just stand there Aubrey and Kiaran! Help me out here!

"Yeah, after a fight like that, it's understandable you'd be like that." Freware starts. "Cesre and I were knocked out the whole time, and Kiaran won't tell us a thing. All we know is that you took out __ by yourself and nearly killed yourself in the process, if Aubrey's description was anything to go by."

"You fell unconscious the moment we got there. Inell acted quickly and flew off with your body to a healer faster than Kiaran or I could react." Aubrey says.

I try to cast the realization that my communication orb is no longer working out of my head to the best of my ability, and look down at my arm. I had cut it off completely, could a healer really do this?

"That's not the last of it either! Remember how we sent __ out to get help? Well, he wound up grouping up with some reinforcements from the castle, which happened to include Cherilyn, the best healer in the entire country…" Freware tells me.

Cherilyn came over here?! She was the one who healed me?! I notice Kiaran put his finger over his lips. I'm assuming that means they didn't figure out we knew Cherilyn so I should stay quiet.

"Man, I can't even reattach limbs, and then she goes and waves her hand and a whole new arm appears…" Freware's pride appears to be hurt a bit.

Cesre appears to be fine as well. Kiaran too. Aubrey seemed to be worse for wear when I saw him for that brief second but he seems fine now too. I assume that Cherilyn got to all of them too.

"What's more, Arcana Iryis was also included in the reinforcements. He pretty much took care of the whole situation by himself. People have been saying he turned entire fields to ash, and brought down meteors… What's worse is that it doesn't even seem like an exaggeration, given just how bad it was…" Cesre tells me.

Huh?! Seriously?! I wanted to see that!

"So, yeah, that's basically it. Freware healed pretty much everyone here, and even revived some of the dead (apparently there's a short time limit for how long that's possible), and Iryis pretty much killed everything that moved. The mages just dealt with any stragglers. It's over now." Aubrey says.

"I see." I say. I'll try to stick to basic phrases for now. I just hope that since I didn't talk much normally, it won't be noticeable. I'd rather not talk at all, but there's a question I need to ask.

"Um, so… where's Inell?" Everybody tenses up when I ask this.

"After Cherilyn healed all of us, he said that he needed to head home, and flew away without any more explanation. Please don't worry about it too much though. Given everything that's been happening it's surprising he hasn't headed home earlier." Aubrey says.

Ah, so Inell's gone then? I mean, he said he was going back home earlier, but he also said he'd consider bringing me with him. I guess he decided not to… and to leave without even saying goodbye… We had just met up after so long too…

"Look on the bright side. You defeated a follower of Vincent Boreas. It turns out he had killed a whole lot of people during this whole thing. The adventurer's guild is planning on handing you a huge bounty for it."

What? No! That's totally unfair! I desperately try and string my words together as fast as possible to get that point across.

"That isn't right. I don't deserve it. The others… did so much more… than I did." I say. That was really complex, but I think I did a good enough job getting it across.

Everybody seems surprised. Crap, did I do something wrong? Was it my pronunciation? Wait no, if that was the case Kiaran and Aubrey wouldn't be surprised.

"I'm afraid I can't allow you to do that Azariah." Aubrey says. "You put in so much effort, to continue fighting through such awful injuries… it would be unfair if you didn't take the whole bounty."

"I agree with Aubrey, here." Freware says. "I owe you my life. As a warrior, to have someone defend my unconscious body with such ferocity… well, I owe you my highest grace. Giving you my reward money is the least I can do."

"Me too, my apprentice. I was out of the fight after a single punch, and you kept on fighting in such a condition… I may be more skilled with magic than you, but in terms of applying that skill in a combat setting, you clearly eclipse me in every way. Please, take my reward money. You have truly earned it."

"Sorry Azariah, but I'm with everyone else. You're taking the money I earn from this whether you like it or not." Kiaran says.

I want to protest more, but I'm afraid I'll mess up my speech in some way. I guess I'm taking all of Olen's bounty then…

><><><><

After that, Kiaran left for some reason, but refused to specify. Freware and Cesre spent a bit of catching up with me. I wish I could have told them about some of the thing's I ran into down there, but I try to keep my talking to a bare minimum.

After that, Aubrey asked the two of them to leave him alone with me, and they obliged. I'm sitting down in this open field, with no one anywhere near me except for Aubrey. He looks expressionless.

"So… I take it your communication orb isn't working anymore?" He says.

"No… everytime I try to turn it on it sends a bit of pain through my throat and nothing changes."

"I'm sorry. Cherilyn tried to tell Kiaran and me privately about that. She said that it looked like it took damage during your fight with Olen. She said she wasn't sure if was going to work anymore, so to look for that."

The implications of that statement are clear. "What else did she say?" I ask.

"That it wasn't something she knew how to fix, and that we wouldn't be able to get anyone to fix it with our connections right now. How confident are you in speaking their language?"

"I can hold a conversation well enough, but I'm not too confident that I won't make mistakes. I'd prefer to avoid talking for now."

"Alright, I understand. If you ever need help with anything, please don't hesitate to ask me or Kiaran. I'll stay with you here as long as you like, or would you rather be left alone?"

"Thanks, I'll be sure to. I would rather be left alone for now though. I've really wanted to look at the sky for the past week."

"OK. We'll be leaving tomorrow morning. Make sure you're up by then." Aubrey says, before leaving.

Time passes, and I pretty much just look at the sky. I want to start flying again, but not nearly enough mana has returned to me for me to try that.

I realize that they didn't change me out of my ripped clothes, so I should probably go find something to change into. I reach into one of my pockets, and sure enough, the gems that I had taken from that crystal cave are still there.

All my injuries are gone, a look into a bucket of water reveals to me that even my scars have healed completely, but everything that happened down there actually happened. My clothes are still torn, I still have these gems, and the spells that I put on my soul with Ctothis' connection are still there, ready to be activated.

All of that happened. I'm still traumatized by that heat, I still killed that wyvern, I still used "Thrill on Death's Edge," I still killed Olen. Even if no reminders are left on my body, I did things down there that I can't do over ever again. There's how I handled the wyvern of course, but there's also… Olen…

Cesre and Freware say that they were unconscious the whole time, and Aubrey only got there after the battle was over. Kiaran though saw the whole thing, and by the time I was done he looked terrified.

He left me before everyone else, and said the least out of everybody. Did seeing me like that scare him? I couldn't blame him, who wouldn't be scared of a display like that?

I had a whole speech about how people should fear and respect me too. Ahhh, that was so stupid… why did I say that? I hope that he chalks it up to a whole bunch of my emotions being suppressed, and not something I would normally say or think…

The issue is I didn't say anything there that I particularly disagree with, even now that I'm in the "right state of mind"… The only thing that really disgusts me about that is how much sadistic joy I was having killing Olen. I'm honestly scared of myself. Knowing me, if he was more my type there would still be some horrible part of me delighting in just how scared he was.

I'm definitely more of a sub. I'm much more of a masochist than I am a sadist, so I really hope that this isn't unlocking a sadistic streak in me…

The sun set a while ago, so I'm sitting on top of a hill in the middle of the night looking up at the stars. I mean… in the grand scheme of things, we don't really matter, so it surely shouldn't matter if I enjoy watching other people in pain? No, no… that's such a dangerous thought to have.

I'm going to go to bed now, so that I stop thinking about this. I just hope that I don't wind up having a nightmare because of it. I wonder if it would be OK if I hurt other people in my dreams? No, of course not. I'll speak about this to Ctothis when I get the chance. It's probably been well over 10,000 years since she's heard me speak to her.

Most of the adventurers have left already, and left the tents behind. I'll just sleep in a tent that doesn't have any stuff in it. I'm not in the mood to talk to anybody, and even if I was, since my communication orb is broken, that narrows my audience down to Kiaran and Aubrey. I never talk to Aubrey, and Kiaran's probably avoiding me right now.

I try my best to cast all of that out of my head and get to sleep. We're leaving tomorrow morning, after all. I lay down on the blanket under the tent. It's spring so it's not too cold and I've gotten used to sleeping without a pillow.

><><><><

"Azariah? Azariah, there you are." I'm about to finally get to sleep as I hear Kiaran's voice.

I sit up and he's walked into my tent with a lantern, he hasn't changed clothes since earlier today. I haven't actually seen him since I first woke up. I don't think he's said anything to me since.

"Sorry, did I wake you up?"

"No."

"Do you mind if I speak with you for a bit?"

"No." I want to say yes, but I'm too embarrassed to, and I get the feeling that this is really important.

"Right, good." Kiaran places the lantern on the ground and sits down next to me. "First of all, I wanted to say that I'm sorry."

Alright, I'm already confused. "Sorry? What for?"

Kiaran looks confused. "It's just that you saved all of our lives back there. You told me that "Thrill on Death's Edge" got rid of every emotion except for, um… thrill, and yet when I saw you fighting for us, to save our lives I was genuinely scared…"

Oh, so he was scared of me. I mean, he is apologizing for it, but he really shouldn't. "Don't worry about it, seriously. With just how much fun I was having and some of the things I had said, it's perfectly reasonable for you to be scared of me. I'm also scared of myself because of that, honestly."

Kiaran looks noticeably upset when I say that. "You shouldn't! That wasn't you, that was a different version of you. You shouldn't be scared of yourself because of what "Thrill on Death's Edge" Azariah did."

Different version of me? No, that's stupid. If I was in a state where I couldn't feel any emotions and I were to commit a crime I wouldn't normally do, I would and should still be held responsible. If I was clouded by lust and wound up doing it to something illegal, I would still be a criminal.

That's my thought process, but I'm not good enough at talking to actually get any of that across. So I just don't say anything.

"Listen Azariah, you really saved us back there, but in order to do it I had to do something terrible to you. I want to say that I'm sorry about that as well. And well… I wanted to make it up to you."

Make it up to me? Is this the same thing that he was talking about when he hugged me earlier today? "Um… you can keep saying that but… I still don't know what you're talking about."

Kiaran just looks surprised, then confused. "What? When I sliced you open in order to activate "Thrill on Death's Edge!" That must have hurt you so much!"

Oh, that's what he was talking about. Well, he was going on about how I saved all their lives, but I was only able to do that because Kiaran activated that spell. I know I wouldn't have had the willpower to do something similar. As for pain… well that was the worst thing I've ever experienced to that point, but it got toppled really quickly once I felt the spell's recoil.

I do my best to relay all that to Kiaran, but I'm not very good with words so I'm unsure how well I managed to get that across.

"All of that doesn't change the fact that I nearly killed you. You say all the injuries you racked up hurt more than my attack, but you only got those injuries in the first place because I attacked you."

OK, now I really have no idea what Kiaran's talking about. "I injured myself. I fought myself. I nearly died myself. You offered to let me run away. I stayed in a place I could die, and nearly died. You did nothing wrong."

"But you still saved all of our lives! You stayed behind despite seeing Freware and Cesre get swiped away, I still owe you."

Kiaran really wants to be in my debt for some reason. "I couldn't run away. My conscience wouldn't let me, remember?"

"I still owe you my life." Honestly, I'm this close to just telling him to leave. "Please tell me something that I can do for you. Like you, my conscience won't just let me leave."

Well, I can understand that but I really don't think he owes me anything. There isn't really anything I want from Kiaran either. Well, other than his body but I couldn't possibly ask for that.

"I don't think that you have anything that I want. I'm not sure what to tell you."

"Well I want to help you wherever I can. I want to save you like you saved me. For instance, I haven't really calmed you down about just how scared you are of yourself have I?"

"I'm surprised you could tell that much. My feelings towards myself go back way farther than that, it isn't anything you can help with."

"That just worries me even more! Come on, tell me what's wrong. Listening to you is the least that I can do."

I mean that's certainly appealing, but I really don't want to tell Kiaran all that much. It's embarrassing but much worse than that Kiaran thinks that "Thrill on Death's Edge" Azariah is a different version of me. Just how terrified is he going to be of me if he sees that side of myself.

Inell saw that side of myself though, and he never said anything. Is it really OK to reveal it to Kiaran?

"Kiaran… if I open up about myself… you won't be scared of me, right?"

"What? No! Of course not! What kind of horrible person would I be if I was scared of the person that saved my life?"

"Do you really promise?"

"I swear." Kiaran looks at me straight in the eyes as he says this as resolutely as possible. I mean… I guess I can trust that?

"Well… this is extremely embarrassing… so give me a moment…"

"Take however long you need."

"Well… it's just that I have some interests that most people find weird… or disgusting. I also can't really control myself in having those interests so I've hated myself for a long time because of that."

Kiaran keeps on listening even though I'm being really vague. I want to tell him what those interests are but I can't figure out how to.

"Um, Kiaran… you looked at memes in your past life, right?"

"I'm 15, of course I did." He didn't even ask what that has to do with anything.

"Well have you ever seen those memes where a girl does something really trivial to a guy like complimenting him or brushing against his hand, and then the guy goes off on wild fantasies about getting married with that girl, having kids and stuff?"

Kiaran's about to look confused, but he manages to catch his expression and switch back into a listening one. I can tell he's really wondering where I'm going with this though.

"I can't say I've seen anything like that, but I've definitely had that feeling."

"Yeah, well I get like that. A lot."

Kiaran tilts his head a bit. "And you hate yourself because of that?"

"Well, it's just that… it gets… really really physical… Imagining people in situations they really shouldn't be in… I mean… well I've… I've had a worryingly large amount of fantasies of… of, well… pulling your pants down and getting on top of you while you were sleeping… I'm really really sorry…" I'm practically whispering at that point, but Kiaran listens to me regardless.

"Well, that's a bit surprising… I'm assuming that's not it though?"

I breathe in and out. After this there's no going back. I have no magic that can erase memories. Once he knows, he knows.

"When I first saw you, one of my first thoughts was having your kids. When I first saw Cherilyn I first thought about how sexy I thought she was. When I first met my boss, she grabbed my face once during the interview and I got aroused. When I first met Jody, I got so excited knowing he was a boy, all because of a fetish I have."

Kiaran's about to open his mouth, but I don't stop.

"One of my friends in Kari's cult… she's short and flat chested, so I had hoped so much that she was actually a boy, because of the same fetish. There were those fantasies about you… Jody also offered to be my boyfriend once. He said he was already having sex with another girl, and didn't plan on stopping if we got together but that only made me even more excited!"

"Well… I'm not really sure what to say to that, but that definitely doesn't make me scared of or disgusted by you."

"What? I just told you I had thought about raping you… multiple times…"

"Well the whole vibe is definitely different when you put it that way. But you're 17. I think that having a couple of fantasies like that is normal."

"You're a 15 year old boy, have you had any fantasies like mine?"

"Well… I have, but not as many as you and definitely not as… intense…"

"See! There's clearly something wrong with me! I mean, imagine if I was a boy. Would everything I think about be OK then? No, of course not. Everyone would be looking at me like a potential sex offender…"

"Alright, I think I get it now. I don't think it's anything worth hating yourself over though. I mean, you'd never do anything without someone's consent, right? Your disgust proves that."

"What if I was worried that wasn't the case?"

"I'm listening."

"When I was killing Olen, a thought came to me. I thought that if he was a girl, or if he was cuter I could wind up getting aroused hurting him and seeing him scared of me. I've always been a bit of a masochist, but I'm worried I might have a sadistic streak coming in."

"Masochist? I've never gotten that vibe from you?"

"I've had fantasies of being sexually assaulted by strangers, I've read erotica I found online about women being traficked and enjoying it, I had joined a rp server about men enslaving women and women fighting for their basic right to not be sex toys and failing miserably. I've gotten good at hiding all that…"

Kiaran blinks in surprise and readjusts himself surprisingly quickly. "I've noticed you wanted to pick out some revealing clothing before, but I never would have found out if you hadn't told me."

"Yes, isn't it disgusting? Do you see me any different now?"

"I mean… I'm mostly just surprised to be honest. Again, I don't think you want any of that to actually happen in reality, so you haven't done anything wrong."

"What if I do in the future though? I've killed a person and I enjoyed it. It was a murderer I killed, and it was in self defense, but what if it isn't the next time?"

"I think I'm finally starting to understand why you're so scared. I don't get why you found yourself disgusting up until now, but I understand why you feel afraid you'll do something awful. You saved my life though, so I want to be there for you if you ever do something like that. If you need reassurance that you're not a bad person, I'll tell you as many times as you like."

"Are you really going to listen to everything I'm worried I might do?"

"For as long as I live."

"And you'll really never be disgusted by me?"

"No matter what."

"You really need to stop that, or else I might fall in love with you… You know what that entails, right?"

"Being the source of a whole bunch of your fantasies? Of course. I'll give you my consent now. No matter how deranged or degenerate it may be, feel free to imagine me in any situation you want."

"Really?"

"Of course."

Oh no, I'm starting to get excited. I can imagine Kiaran doing anything? Oh I'm going to run with that so much. Him pushing me down and telling me to give him a daughter, him undressing next to me, him groping me whenever he wants, him stealing my underwear, him putting me in a collar and showing off his new toy to his friends…

The list goes on and on, it's getting me really excited! The best part is I actually have his permission. I can imagine whatever I want about him, no matter how bad of a light I paint him in.

"Kiaran… you know how much I'm going to take advantage of that, right?"

"I know."

"I'm imagining you doing all sorts of awful things to me, things that you'd never do."

"I'm OK with that."

"It's making me really wet…"

"Seriously? I thought it took a whole lot for women to get like that."

"I doubt I could be considered "normal" when talking about women's sex drive."

"Well, I guess that's true. Yours is probably higher than even mine."

"Hey Kiaran?"

"Yes Azariah?"

"Have you ever had any fantasies about me?"

"Of course not."

The words hit me like a truck. Of course not? Of course not?! Why not?! Haven't you at least thought about forcing me down with your superior strength at least once?! You're a 15 year old boy! Why aren't you acting like one! Act your age! Fantasize about me!

"Eh? You're disappointed? Sorry, did you want the answer to be yes?"

"Of course I did! I had a whole spiel about being a huge masochist, why wouldn't I want a cute boy I'm interested in to want to do all sorts of unsavory things to me?!"

"That's… that's not a sentence I ever thought I'd hear an actual woman say…"

"Right… right… with things like this, I can't really be compared to normal women…"

"Sorry, I shouldn't have phrased it like that. Do you want me to start thinking about you like that then?"

"Of course. It'll be an equal exchange. I think whatever I want about you and you think whatever you want about me. Make me the source of your sexual fantasies! Honestly, just knowing a guy is going to masturbate to me is getting me excited again…"

"Huh… well, alright then. I'll do my best. Not that that's really difficult."

A pang of pleasure runs through my body. Ahh, not really difficult! It's that easy for him to jack off to me. I'm loving this…

"That made you happy? Well alright then. What about thinking about getting on top of you while you're asleep, like you do to me?"

"Aha… Oh as long as no one else was in there, you cleaned up after yourself, and you didn't wake me up, I really wouldn't mind you getting rid of your morning wood on top of me…" Ahh, just imagining that is making me feel warm…

"Um! OK…"

Kiaran's response took me right out of that though. "Oh, I'm sorry. I said that without thinking… um… if you really wanted to though… I really wouldn't mind that… as long as you want to do that, that is…"

"If that will make you happy, I'll do it."

I shiver again. Ahh, Kiaran's actually going to masturbate over my defenseless, sleeping body. Aha… I'm so excited…

"Well, that clearly made you happy."

I realize that Kiaran's willing to do anything to make me happy. He still thinks he owes me for some reason, that's why he's doing all this for me. Jody offered it to me, but I turned him down because I'm an idiot. Maybe I can get it now, since Kiaran thinks he owes me? No, that's really scummy.

"Azariah, what's wrong?"

"Kiaran, you think you owe me right?"

"I don't think I owe you, I do owe you."

"Yeah, right, anyway… if you don't want this, please turn me down, but… well… are you interested in my body?"

"Um…" Kiaran starts to blush, he probably already realized where I'm going with this. "Well, I thought you looked amazing when I first met you, but that's probably not what you mean, is it?"

"Kiaran… what do you think of my body?"