Everyday Life with Bubbles Ch. 18

As amazing as the gemstone was, Ruel despised the smithing jobs that came with them. Cohen had no magic skill, so all the enchanting jobs came her way, instead of his.

If you managed to crack a firestone, the damn things would explode.

They looked real pretty, but she had burnt herself on too many, too many times, to ever get excited about embedding firestones into a weapon or tool, like the rich customers always seemed to want.

Swords with warm hilts, for the lords who had to go on winter patrols. Warhammers that gave off miniature explosions when you landed against a target. They were useful. She hated smithing with them.

As they made their way up the Staircase, Ruel noticed that there were a lot more guards than usual. Not just one or two more, but three or four columns more. Huge groups, like had been out and about when the city was conquered by the new queen.

She looked nervously at Jessop and whispered, as her tail went between her legs, "You haven't... Heard a rumour... About this, have you?"

"It's fine. Relax." He replied and patted her on the head, "Heard all about it. The queen is... Gone. It's the funeral... You ever meet any of the royal family?"

"Kinda? Bubbles worked at the bi... Bisick... That weird wheel place." Ruel shrugged. "I've made a few things for them. Rolled steel. But it was too heavy for them. Bubbles did ask me if I thought I could make rolled stuff out of my new metal? Because it's super light! But Bubbles kinda fell on the ground laughing when she heard how much it would cost. Then she realised I was serious, and laughed even more."

"You met the queen? Damn." Jessop shook his head, "Well, there's a story I want to hear more about. But this, right now? She's gone. Not just run away from the palace, like usual. She's... Actually... Dead."

"Avician's nice." Ruel tried to distract from the thought, "She drinks ginger pop! She actually drank some, whilst I got plastered, at the same tavern we just left. I think she was mostly just trying to relax after the crazy of taking care of all the queen's wives. But she's fun!"

He nodded, "Yeah. I heard we had a visit from the bunny. One of the guys tried to flirt with her, didn't go over well."

"She swore to be a virgin, to her god. It's a whole thing." Ruel shrugged. "I think I bit the guy who flirted with her? Don't remember. Like I said, I was getting plastered."

"You're the dog who bit Frank!?" Jessop burst out laughing, "He left that out of the story. Void. You know Frank has, like, the biggest crush on you, right?"

Ruel blushed, "Uh... Yeah. Might have influenced drunk me, a bit. I can get possessive, and so... I felt a bit betrayed, when he said he wanted to fuck the bunny. Not that I wanted to screw him! It's an instinct thing."

"Wow." Jessop shook his head, "I am going to tease the shit out of him, next time I see him."

She rolled her eyes.

---

Lying on top of the bed, surrounded by what had started out as just being Bubbles' crown and had quickly devolved into nicking everything remotely related to the neko, was another catgirl, with a mess of hair that she didn't care about maintaining.

Ninaein was curled into a ball, the crown on her head, a firestone necklace around her neck. Her wedding knife was missing. Avician had taken it for repairs after Ninaein had used it to block a sneakthief and accidentally cracked the blade. She regretted not letting the bastard just cut her purse and run, now.

Notching her silver on his stupid skull wasn't worth it. Not when Bubbles was... Gone.

She'd been trying so hard to make up for everything. Giving her wife strawberries that she had carefully grown on a windowsill in the attic. She'd used a ton of magic, and bought so many different alchemical supplies, to keep those going. Screaming in frustration at every hint of the plague.

Ninaein had even managed to torture a priestess into admitting that the Green Goddess really was behind the plague, and was proud of it. The damned divine looking to destroy every hint of Toofy's empire, for the offence of stealing some halfelf bitch from her. Not that the once-thief gave a flying shit.

The catgirl knew she hadn't been a good wife, since Bubbles had come to power. She had always hated authority. She hadn't just stolen out of necessity, as a Coiner. She hadn't delivered threats or more violent messages, just to maintain her freedom from the status quo.

She was an anarchist, at heart.

Fuck the rules, and fuck the bastards who wrote them.

Then her wife got a goddess as a... Not exactly a lover. Certainly not a friend with benefits. The divine used Bubbles as a kind of curiosity. A sex toy, with the focus on the toy part of that design.

Had used her.

Ninaein sobbed, burying her head and caterwauling into the blankets. Feeling pain in her heart, like she hadn't. This hurt more than the jealousy of watching Bubbles fool around with Edric. Worse than listening from behind the door as she flirted with the fucking salamander. It was more painful than not being able to help at all, when her wife broke her tail.

A razor blade appeared in her hand as the neko sat up, breathing hard. She looked at the reflection of her golden eyes in the blade, noting her bright red veins in the bright orbs. Seeing the depth of emotion there, the breaking.

Bubbles had even accepted that Ninaein liked to pretend to be a kitsune. She hadn't kept that bedroom secret as hidden as she would have preferred, but she had been revolted and boxed her around the ears. Her wife had loved her, all the same.

That was Bubbles.

She accepted everyone, faults and all. She had welcomed everyone as a friend. Given anyone a chance to be by her side, because of some inherent belief that everyone deserved it. A naive thought that Ninaein could never embrace.

Most of the world deserved to die.

People were selfish monsters, more than happy to ruin the lives of everyone who wasn't in their line of sight. Toofy had abolished slavery, and the world had tried its best just to rename it. Do the bare minimum to look like they cared, whilst trying to force out intergenerational degradation, control and generalised evil. Waiting until the empress was gone, to slap on the chains, again.

Not that Ninaein, herself, was anything but a monster. She didn't see herself as something that wasn't evil. She was as bad as the rest of them, but at least she could admit it. She knew she was a selfish git, just out to take what she wanted, at the expense of everyone else. She would take what was hers, protect what was hers.

Except now... What as the point?

She looked at the eyes in the blade, and she didn't see one. She saw no point to life, without the other cat by her side. Bubbles had taken her, and made her... Better. Now the queen was gone, the princess was an empty lie. She could no longer live with having no tomorrow.

The world was a horrible place, filled with horrible people, doing horrible things to each other. Without Bubbles around to make it worthwhile, then what was the point of it all?

Ninaein blinked and tucked away the blade.

Her tail slowly rose, as a smile spread across her face.

She knew exactly how to cope with her wife being gone. How to deal with a world that was as empty and pointless as she thought it was.

The neko turned and began to arrange the bed.

So that she could start a fire.

And burn it all down.

---

The two of them arrived at the gate to the upper quarter. It wasn't exactly the highest part of the city. That would be the fortress that the queen had lived in. However, lots of titled people owned estates in the upper quarter, which meant that the guards were always nervous about who they let in.

Ruel knew for a fact, that even the hired whores tended to carry around letters for when the guards would inevitably tell them to take a hike. You required a lot of luck, not to have the guards give you a talking to, if you were an exotic.

She reached down her top and pulled out her identification papers. The guard looked them over, and then to her, and slowly handed them back. "What lord is your sponsor, exotic?"

"None." She replied and resisted biting the hand as she took her papers and tucked them away. "I'm Ruel. Just Ruel. I have no title, and none of my friends are titled. But we're all special! So... Fuck you."

Jessop blinked and looked at her in surprise.

The other guard smiled and shook his head, "Well, I'm not certain that you can call yourself, `Just Ruel', for much longer. Way I hear it, Cohen's Steelworks might be the best blacksmith in the city. He repaired my breastplate. You're his apprentice, aren't you?"

Ruel grinned, "Oh! Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't recognise you. Your breastplate was an easy one! Just a big ol' age crack. I just needed to make it all glow and hot, and then I could patch in the new steel. Make it look all shiny and pretty."

"Doggirls." The other one chuckled, "Sorry for holding you up, head on in."

Her face fell, again, and she let out a small growl, "You know you can't stop anyone walking around in the upper quarter, right? Our queen was an exotic, asshole. Grow the fuck up."

"She's got you there." The one she'd met once before laughed at the other. As if he wasn't also a racist prick who she would happily bite the dick off.

Jessop wisely said nothing, and the two of them moved by them. However, the fun mood had pretty much disappeared after that particular exchange, and she felt like he deserved an explanation.

"I... Don't like guards. Don't get along with them." Ruel began.

He shrugged, "Me neither. I'm lower quarter, Ru. No need to explain."

"It's... Let me put it this way. The guards have a calendar in their barracks that tracks the cycles of the doggirls in the city, for all the ones that they meet." She said through clenched teeth, "Including mine."

"That... Is so fucked up." Jessop sounded like he wanted to hurl.

She nodded angrily, tail bristling, "I think I heard that maybe Ninaein or Kaia might have heard about it. But I don't think that another exotic can fix those fucking bastards. Even if they are trying, it'll take years. Guards like to hate us exotics."

"Um... Because that conversation is just going to end up with both of us angry and having a beer and ranting... Any clues as to just how big your collection is?"

Ruel's face split into a huge grin, "Oh, it's big! I have sixty two aquamarine crystals? They're not what I have the most of. My favourite, favourite, gem is obviously firestones. That's why I bought the necklace! I don't have many of those. Just nine. Quartz is what I have the most of. I don't even know how many of those I have! Purple and red and white and yellow! I own sixteen types of quartz!"

Jessop gave a small laugh, "I didn't even know that there was that many types of quartz."

"Oh, and there's a real special one." Ruel smiled sideways at him, "See, there's this kind of quartz that is common. It's milky quartz. Just a boring white stone. Not shiny at all. Even polishing it doesn't really make it shiny, because it's just white."

"Huh."

She nodded, "I have a bit of milky quartz, but it's boring. Mostly have it so I can say I have every kind of quartz. But I also have a kind of milky quartz that has natural magic."

He stumbled for a second and then stared at her, "Milky? Like... The Milky Cove? You've actually got a gemstone, with magical energy, that looks like it belongs to that myth?"

"Aha." She nodded seriously, "Um... Up this street. We're nearly home. I've done all the tests. It didn't become magical by enchanting or alchemy. It's a real, natural, piece of magical milky quartz. It's the closest proof that the Cove exists, that I know of!"

Jessop smiled, "So... What's the magic... Do?"

"Nothing. It's boring and just one of those natural reserves. Magic-well crap." She said with a little disappointment, "You can drain the magic from it, and then it'll recharge by itself over a few days, from the air. So it looks boring. And it's abilities are boring. But it's worth about two or three platinum bricks, not coins, or tiles, but bricks! To any Cove collector."

"Holy shit." Jessop coughed, "Eh... You ever valued your collection, Ru?"

She giggled and hugged his arm, "I was wondering when you'd ask me that. I've been spending all my spare coins on shinies since I was a pup! I've got the biggest collection of sparklies in the entire city. So... I don't wanna value it. Because then someone might want to take my sparklies! I can't have anyone hear about it. All mine!"

"How much did the Cove quartz cost you?" He asked curiously.

"Nothing." She shrugged, "I actually found it. I heard a story about a mine that dug into the Cove, like the rumour you mentioned. Except, in that story, they closed in the mine. Collapsed it, on purpose, to seal the Cove away!"

Jessop scratched his chin, "Dreichard's Mine? In the Tangles?"

"That's the one!" She said with a bounce in her step, "I took four weeks off working, to go and dig around in the mine. I found a lot of small shinies. Little bits of silver ore! A lot of jasper, too. That's a really pretty quartz. But, I also found that milky piece! Didn't notice it was magical, until I got it home and was sorting out my new shinies."

He gave a small laugh, "I thought the arachne forbid people digging around in the mine."

"She... Might have." Ruel said innocently, remembering the woman's anger.

Before he could point out the enormous risk that she had taken, they arrived at the towering building that housed her apartment. She was on the ninth floor, and that was enough to shut Jessop up with a groan.

She didn't necessarily disagree.

---

It was irritating and distasteful, but Erientyara was forced to admit that the hunt was going faster with the assistance of the paladin.

Faster, but less to her own way of doing things.

The bunneko was quick to react when Erientyara determined the location of one of the tiny fools who dared to desecrate the proclamations of their queen's death. Those tiny-brained, tiny-hearted, morsels that would turn sour in the salamander's mouth, if she had the chance.

Unfortunately, the paladin was always there first, once alerted. She would fine them, or slap them in irons and assign them some low duty like cleaning under the guidance of the guards for a few weeks. None of them ever got a chance to run.

Erientyara couldn't even come swooping in out of the sky, to land and intimidate, before the bunneko sorted it. She could draw her sword and cut the facial hair from their faces, and resheathe her blade, before most people could so much as blink.

They'd found two street gangs, who had simply tagged over the government notices without caring what they were, and also an old man who hated exotics more than he liked to keep his heart beating. All of them had been dealt with swiftly by Avician's considerate but unbending rule of law.

The final one who had desecrated the notice of Bubbles' memorial was just now beneath her, and the dragon was considering not alerting the woman. Avician had claimed all rights of vengeance, and she had done nothing more than meditate in Bubbles' presence.

Hot tears filled Erientyara's eyes, and she dropped like a stone.

She was still feeling the pain of Bubbles' rejection. The neko had actually thought about taking her, and then hadn't. She'd turned down Erientyara, despite comprehending the cultural situation, despite knowing just how deeply the dragon had come to love her.

In fact, she'd turned her down, because of that romance. Bubbles had known that she could not return the emotion, and so had made it so that she wouldn't have to. That they wouldn't walk that awkward path.

Her king was dead.

The red salamander stood up slowly from the ruins of the road, black smoke pouring out from beneath her scales and filling the entire street. Hiding and consuming everything in sight.

She snarled into it, "Do you know why it is, that I have sought you out, tiny creature?"

"M-me!?" The human male squeaked in terror.

"You were the one who painted over the signs of the queen's death." Erientyara carefully enunciated each syllable of the common tongue. "You declared her to be a useless whore. That the world is better, for her absence."

"Wh-hat!? That's what this is about!?" The man yelled, "They sent a fucking dragon to kill me, just for that? The fuck is wrong with you people!?"

"She... Was... My... King." Erientyara spelled it out for him. "No one has sent me. No one would dare to. I am not some assassin, sent by a fool who would dare to suggest he now has the power of my king's crown. None may claim her throne. None will take her throne, until justice is done. And justice... Requires... You die."

"Not death, dragon!" Avician arrived, not even out of breath as she skidded to a stop, in full armour. She drew her sword and whipped it to the side, clearing the smoke in a single movement. "You may... Injure him. But I cannot allow you to take his life."

Her black eyes whipped to the dark-skinned woman, "I will eat you, if you dare to tell me what I am allowed to do, bitch."

"It is not for law, I say this. Not for justice, or even what is right." The paladin replied, "It is for the memory of the one we have lost. She would not wish it."

"The king would not tell me how to take my vengeance! She would just tell me to be careful." Erientyara glowered, flames beginning to lick across her flesh.

Avician pointed her blade without turning her head, "Not another step, human. You do not wish for either of us to have to hunt you down, again. I may not arrive in time to save your useless hide."

"I lost my king. What did you lose? Someone you knew for a few weeks? Pray to your goddess. Maybe she'll give you another." Erientyara poured black smoke from her mouth, "Or maybe she'll go back to being useless, and doing nothing for anyone, because the gods only fucking care about themselves!"

The bunneko sheathed her sword, "Report to the barracks, human. If you wish to live. I have something to do, here."

The man sprinted, and Erientyara went to take off. Her wings sprung wide, when one of them was seized by a calloused hand. The bunneko looked at her with eyes of blurred and swirling colours, and quietly shook her head.

Avician whispered, "You... Are right."

"Huh?" Erientyara was blindsided into emitting a puff of white smoke.

The paladin reached behind herself and undid her breastplate. The piece of armour dropped to the ground, and she put her leather boot on top of it, and ground it into the dirt. "My goddess... Is not... Worthy."

Her jaw dropped open, and she stared at the smaller figure. The salamander nodded very slowly, "You... Weren't trying to protect these idiots, were you? Not from me. You went to them before I could... Because you hate them."

"I was selfish." Avician inclined her head a little, "I wished to see them... Punished. I may not have had the courage, to do as you, Lady Eri'en'ty'ara. I still have my sensibilities that prevent me from acting beyond the kindness that our king would have shown. But... You are not... The only one... Hurting."

The salamander looked at the rogue warrior, partially in disgust, and partially in appreciation. She did not like the feeling that she could comprehend this idiot, and where they were coming from. She did not want to admit that they might possibly have anything in common.

"Our king." Erientyara took a moment to realise, "You call her that. As a soldier, trained by the temple, you know the precise meaning of that terminology, do you not?"

Avician sighed heavily, "I may have sworn an oath of celibacy to the Silver Neko, but I had been considering breaking it. I found it... Difficult... To stand by that oath, whilst Bubbles openly flirted with me. Being a soldier does not make me incapable of making mistakes. Having now lost my faith... I find myself also without what I would have risked it for."