ΔV Pt. 06

The arena where Lord Winsom would face his squire, Fireheart, in a duel that had been fought thousands upon thousands of times since the beginning of the Feylands and the start of the Tellings was the most remarkable structure that Lucas had ever set foot in. The fact that he was here at all was almost distracting him from the fact that a friend of his was about to fight a duel with a pissed off elf. And that he was standing on an alternate Earth.

"The difference is rather stark, isn't it?" Vidya murmured. The Indian xenogeologist was handling all of this with considerably more aplomb than Lucas felt he was showing. She was still reserved and focused and didn't look like she was about to collapse onto the ground in a faint. She was instead regarding the arena itself: The sweeping, curved, wooden walls that looked as if they had all been grown from a single piece of wood rather than cut and fitted, the ornate statuary that was worked directly into the walls. The floor was covered with a massive bed of flowers, each one a different color, forming into a complex set of patterns that the elves flowed through, the stems and petals parting around their thighs like water before the prows of jetskiis.

Helen stomped and muttered under her breath, leaving behind a track as wide as her shoulders. "Fuck, shit, fuck," she hissed in English.

Lucas glanced over at the marines. They had been allowed into the arena - the elves didn't seem to even think of asking them to give up their armored exoskeletons or heavy weapons. Lucas tapped at his collar, patching into their communication link. After he felt the tiny buzz that indicated the link was accepted, he whispered. "We have a plan B, right?"

"Yeah," one of the marines responded. "If it looks like she's about to die, we blow the alien away and exfiltrate at max speed."

"That would be extremely bad," Lucas whispered, his glance flitting over to Librarian, who was regarding him with a cool, detatched curiosity. "Also, uh, it, er, he can hear our thoughts."

Librarian's eyes were midnight black and lacked a pupil. Somehow, Lucas knew that he was rolling his eyes as hard as he could. Lucas' cheeks heated and the marines shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot - but before any conversation could continue, 'Lord Winsom' and 'his' squire reached the middle of the arena. The elves had arranged themselves in a pattern that seemed to be almost natural - one standing here, another there, another there. There was no organization that Lucas could see, and yet each elf seemed so comfortable and at ease in their position that it only underlined how out of place Helen was as she shuffled herself around, looking at the elves, then down at her wrist, then down at her feet.

"Lord Winsom," one of the elves said in a sing song voice. "What a merry day for the Hunt."

Helen looked down at her wrist again.

"Did she write the words on her wrist?" Lucas whispered.

"If the situation was not so dire..." Vidya said, covering her face with her hands to hide either her horrified expression or her giggles.

"Yes," Helen said, her voice distracted. "Merry day it is. And yet..." Her brow furrowed. "Why is my square-" She squinted. "Squire in such a break mood." She lowered her arm, looking right at Fireheart, as if the elven woman owed her something. The other elves' cheery expressions had become fixed, like the masks of rich socialites when their senile in-law brings home a genetically engineered gorilla. Lucas felt his stomach tumble over inside of him.

Fireheart put her hands on her hips and turned her back on Helen. "Bleak," she hissed over her shoulder.

"Huh?" Helen looked at her wrist. "Bleak! Bleak mood-"

Fireheart scowled and turned to face Helen. "Lord Winsom," she said, her voice pitched to carry throughout the arena. "I fear that your fascination with the Lady of the Brooks and your urge to woo her has left my training to languish, like the forest in winter. Why, we have not sparred in a fortnight."

Helen looked down at her wrist again. "Then...we shall spar now, my squa- squire." She grabbed at her hip, where the scabbard of her sword was resting. It took her a few tries to tug the rapier free and when she did, Lucas wanted to make a break for it immediately. The rapier was nothing like the fencing foil that he had used in college. It was a battlefield weapon from a different era, one where men and women really did try to kill each other with bladed chunks of metal. The balance was entirely different and the whole thing was clearly heavier than Helen expected, from the way the tip of the blade wavered in the air.

Fireheart's smirk was wicked.

"That's not good, is it?" Vidya whispered.

"Librarian," Lucas said, reaching out to tug on the squid-faced alien's sleeve, all disgust forgotten in the momentary panic. "What happens if Fireheart kills Lord Winsom in this battle?"

"She becomes Lord Winsom and the Telling starts again," the Librarian said, quietly.

Lucas looked back at Fireheart. The look in her eyes...he wasn't sure if he would call it avaricious or greedy. But it definitely had a hungry gleam, one that burned brighter and brighter the more worried Helen looked. The other elves were gliding smoothly backwards, leaving the two combatants their space. Fireheart's sword was a broader one, two edged and brutal looking. She gripped it in a two handed style and settled her stance into one that Lucas immediately recognized as a skilled combatant.

Helen frowned at her. "So, FH..." She said, quietly, her sword tip pointed at the ground. "I gots a question."

Lucas shot Librarian a look. Librarian shrugged and sent him a mental message - something that still creeped Lucas out: [There is supposed to be banter here - it is one of the portions of the Telling that changes, based on the Players. But...I don't think any Lord Winsom has ever referred to their squire as 'FH' before.]

"Ask," Fireheart growled.

"Why are you so pissed at me?" Helen asked, her voice growing quiet. "I just bumped off your next competitor in this fucked up LARP session. That's a reason for you to jump for friggin joy, not to get all stab happy."

Fireheart's eyebrow twitched. Her knuckles tightened on the hilt of her sword - and even from this distance, Lucas could hear the creaking of leather. Her gloves were growing taut against her knuckles and her eyes glittered with gathering rage. She tossed her head to get some of her tumbles of red hair back behind one pointed ear. "Shall we duel?" she snarled.

Helen narrowed her eyes. Then she swept her rapier up in a flourishing bow, then bent forward, bowing nice and low. Fireheart didn't take her eyes off Helen. Instead, she kept glaring at her. Then she sprinted forward just as Helen stood, screaming at the top of her lungs, the point of her sword leading the way. Helen swung her sword like a baseball bat and let go, sending her rapier whipping through the air. Fireheart's eyes widened and she lifted her sword, catching the rapier against it. The rapier clattered to the ground - but Helen was already charging forward with her own bellow.

She slammed into Fireheart's guts with a tackle that would have drawn a foul from the gridiron and both girls went down, Fireheart's longsword vanishing into the flowers.

The elves gaped at the two.

Fireheart and Helen rolled. Fireheart was on top, lifting her fist, her eyes flashing furiously. "Die!" She punched down into the flowers - but from the whump sound, she had clearly punched the ground. She hissed - and then she went rolling. Helen was on top next, her nose bleeding. She grabbed onto something in the flowers, then grunted as she lifted then slammed the something down. Panting, she snarled.

"Yield!"

"Fuck you-"

Helen slammed her head down with a grunt.

"Yield!" Helen shouted. "You stroppy bi-"

Fireheart surged upwards. Her nose was bleeding and she sank her teeth into Helen's neck. Helen's arms flailed and she tumbled backwards. The flowers continued to rustle. Then Fireheart jerked backwards. Her lips were bloody and her nose was bleeding more profusely. She stumbled to her feet - and then a foot planted itself right between her legs. Lucas felt a twinge in his gut, remembering what it felt to have a heel slam into that specific spot on his body. He knew that it was less pronounced with women...

But less pronounced didn't mean nothing.

Air rushed out of Fireheart's lungs and she bent forward, her eyes wide. A hand reached up from the flowers and grabbed onto her hair, then shoved her to the side. Helen stood, then planted her foot on something in the grass. Panting, she glared down at the ground. "Fucking yield already!"

The tableaux held for what felt like an eternity.

Then Fireheart snarled. "I...you win...Lord Winsom."

"Jesus Christ," Helen muttered, stepping back and away. Then she held out her hand to Fireheart. Another tableaux snapped in then. Lucas couldn't see Fireheart from where he stood. He could just see Helen's tired, battered expression, see her hand reaching down. Her hair had become mussed and rainbow spikes thrust into random directions from her scalp. Blood dripped from her chin despite her many heroic attempts to sniffle it up into her nose again.

Fireheart grabbed onto her hand and Helen hauled her to her feet.

"There," Helen said. "Got that outta your system?"

"No," Fireheart snarled.

Helen scowled. Then her eyes widened. "Were you..." She cocked her head. "Were you and he-" She leaned in close, her voice growing soft enough that Lucas couldn't hear from this distance. Whatever she said, Fireheart reacted with a hiss, a jerk, then a smack. Her hand slapped against Helen's cheek and as Helen stumbled to her knee, clutching her jaw, Fireheart turned and stalked off, her head raised high, her hands clenched into fists.

She walked past Lucas without so much as a glance in his direction.

The elven onlookers coughed and shuffled awkwardly. Helen, meanwhile, pinched her nose shut and winced as she looked at her wrist past her other wrist. "Uh, Librarian, wha'd fuck does 'repose with onlooker' mean?"

Librarian focused, and his facial tentacles twitched. Helen blinked. "Oh." She nodded, then started towards Lucas. When she got to him, he could see that several of her fingers were already starting to become puffy and inflamed. Her knuckles were scraped, and the collar of her uniform had a crescent shaped pattern of teeth marks, while her neck was dimpled with sluggishly bleeding bite marks. She grinned weakly. "Lucas, you're my pick. Come on."

"I...the...swords!?" Lucas spluttered as they walked out of the arena, flanked by the marines. An elf in a set of blue robes tried to get close, but the marines kept them at bay for the moment.

"Kinda figured I was fucked, so..." Helen shrugged. "Might as well try, right?"

One of the marines, his voice pitched so it would only carry over their comlink, muttered: "Sir, this guy claims he's a medic."

Helen nodded and gestured for the elf to get close. The elf in question, once they were near enough to see details, was dressed in the simplest, most unadorned robes that Lucas had seen yet on them. They were a simple, clear blue set that flowed down to their ankles, covering most of their body. Their hands were clad in blue gloves, and their hair was done into a high set of coils and curls that themselves were surrounded by a blue head scarf. She had ice blue eyes and blue painted lips, and when she stood before Helen, she shook her head.

"I've never seen the Duel of Lord Winsom and Fireheart go like that before," she said, her voice wry. "I think I rather liked it." She smirked. "You know, this does lend some credence to rumors we've heard about the old Lord Winsom."

"What...rumors?" Lucas asked as Helen's hand was drawn away from her nose by the blue clad elf - much to Helen's grumbling and the blue elf's amusement.

"Oh, you know," the elf said, and left it like that.

Lucas looked at Helen. Helen opened her mouth to speak - but before she could say anything, the elf spoke a word that did not translate itself into English. Blue energy flowed through her fingers and then touched Helen's nose. It flowed outwards along her skin, like a ripple flowing through a pond. But where the ripple of blue light passed, bruises and swelling faded, blood cleaned up in a haze of shimmering light, and left Helen blinking in confusion. The blue light vanished under her collar.

"Jesus Christ," one of the marines whispered.

"There we go," the blue clad elf said.

"How did you do that!?" Lucas whispered.

"A simple application of the aspect of water and wood, my dear human," the elf said, cooly. "Hydrosophy and nature magic, to be more specific. Water is mutable and changes form easily, and nature relates to the living body. And so, I merely needed to take that changeability and change our Lord Winsom to the point before she took her injuries." She clicked her tongue. "There were several strange things my spell noticed, though. You're sterile?"

Helen blinked at her. "Oh. Yeah. All astros get their tubes tied or snipped. I got ova stored back on Earth if I ever want to have some crotch dumplings."

The elf looked perplexed. "Why?"

"Rads, mostly," Helen said, shrugging. "Hey, you said you got water magic, right?" She asked - her hand reaching out to snag Lucas' hand again. Lucas blinked in confusion as the blue clad elf nodded her head in a pseudo-bow.

"Can I get a cup?" Helen asked. "I'm parched."

The elf nodded, then picked a blade of grass from the ground. She spoke the strange words again - and once again, her fingers glowed. The grass grew and grew and twisted, forming into a kind of grass-shaped flagon. It even had a handle to grip easily. She then passed her hand above it, whispering quietly as her palm glowed. When her hand had uncovered the top of the flagon, it was filled with water. Helen began to chug it down.

Lucas gaped.

Helen choked and spat the water. Her eyes were wide. Almost wild.

"Are you all right, Lord Winsom?"

"How much can you make?" Helen asked.

"How fast?" Lucas asked. Vidya was looking at them as they had both lost their minds. But Lucas knew that Helen was thinking the exact same thing, and it was burning inside of her with the excitement of a chunk of plutonium in someone's guts. "Does it tire you out? Does it take energy or something?"

The elf chuckled. "You haven't even asked my name, Lord Winsom, and you already seek to plumb my-"

Helen shook her head. "Listen, just answer the fucking questions, we can't cast magic, we're not going to put you out of business. We're actually about to dump a significant fucking chunk of the DOD's budget into your fucking pockets." She rubbed her fingers. "Moolah. Moolah on a scale you can't even fucking begin to imagine. So cut the crap."

"What on earth are you two talking about?" Vidy aasked.

"Which one?" Helen muttered, while the elf shook her head.

"Well, Lord Winsom," she said, her voice prim. "I, Isabella of the Hydrophist Guild, can create up to five gallons with a single cast of the spell. I have refined it so as to require nothing but ambient mana, so I could theoretically cast it every second of the day without blinking. Save that that would be extremely dull and disinteresting."

Helen spun to Lucas, whispering. "The DV tanks on the Enterprise are-"

"Fifteen thousand tons," Lucas said. "At five...did you say per...how fast could you cast it? Exactly?"

"I'm a combat mage," Isabella said, lifting her chin smugly. "We pride ourselves on a single second of casting time." She snapped her fingers.

Lucas clicked his tongue. He shook his head. "It'd take her a year and a half."

Helen glared at Isabella. "How many people are in your...Hydrosophist guild?" she asked.

"Well, three," Isabella said, sounding affronted.

Helen groaned. "It's still-" she started.

"She means all members," Librarian said, having glided up silently behind Lucas, which made Lucas scream a very tiny amount before he clamped down. "Including non-elves."

"Oh, several thousand," Isabella said. "In this chapter. There are more in the other chapters across the Sunset Kingdoms and the old world. More in the Dragon Empire and the Rus and Vedas and such." She shrugged. "And there are spells that could create more in terms of raw amounts of water - but those are primarily attack spells, not fit for creating water that you can drink."

Helen squealed in excitement. She grabbed Lucas' hands and started to do a little dance.

Vidya had finally gotten it. "Oh god..." she whispered. Her hand went to her face. Her eyes were wide as saucers. "Oh god, every ship in the Indian fleet is a teakettle..."

Librarian's facial tentacles flowed in a way that Lucas was growing increasingly certain meant that he was frowning. "What exactly has you so excited Lord Winsom?"

Helen smirked. "Okay, Librarian," she crooned. "What do you know about ΔV?"

"I..." He blinked. "I have never heard of such a thing."

"Then we'll need to explain that first," Helen crooned, looking at Lucas. Her eyes glittered with eagerness. "We just got fucking infinite ΔV. And to think, I thought that finally getting to fuck you was going to be the highlight of my day."

Lucas laughed and nodded.

Then he blinked. "I beg your what?"

"Oh, yeah," Helen said, then squeezed his hand, grinning. "That's what 'repose with an onlooker' means." She smirked, slowly, her eyes glittering. "Lord Winsom is cheating on his wife with basically everything that moves, so, after getting all horned up with their friendly duel, he fucks someone silly in the Telling. Who doesn't really matter and I'll be screwed if I go all Kirk on this." She tugged him forward and Lucas gaped at her as he stumbled after her. In what felt like a blur of trees and narrow pathways and distant homes lit by glittering lanterns. Then the manor house of Lord Winsom swelled before him, Helen striding forward with a determined, ground eating stride. The front doors opened and the rasp of wood on wood on tile was close enough to something that Lucas actually recognized that it snapped his brain out of the confused fugue and started his mouth working.

"W-Whoa, wait, wait, is this appropriate?" he asked.

Helen shrugged. "Prolly not."

"I...what?" Lucas blinked slightly as they came to the stairs, heading up. Helen took them three at a time, and Lucas kept tripping over his own feet.

"Listen, Lucas, I've been shot at, I've been teleported, I've been fucked around with elven politics, and I've probably completely torpedoed my career," she said. "But just for once in my fucking life, I can ride some cock and actually say that it is a requirement of the service." She stopped before an ornate looking door and turned to face him. Her eyes smoldered as she grinned wryly. "Besides. I'm not a bag of chopped meat or anything, right?"

Lucas gaped at her. Helen, in her field uniform, was a woman who radiated confident sexuality. And nothing was quite as terrifying as that. Lucas gulped, slightly, then smiled at her. "You wouldn't take no for an answer anyway?" he asked, his voice soft. Very soft.

Helen snorted, then opened the door behind him.

"Of course I would," she said, dragging him forward into the bedroom. Lucas walked in after her. He didn't trust his own words, he didn't trust his own sense of what was reasonable. He just trusted the look in Helen's eyes and the hammering in his chest. Lucas could count the months between the last time he had gotten laid on his fingers and his toes. The fact it was more than one hand was enough to tickle a deep part of him, a part of him that was driven more by hormones than by logic or sensibilities. The door swung shut behind him as Helen stepped close and kissed him.