Welldark B1 Ch. 08

"I appreciate being respected," Esther answered, her amber iris reflecting my gaze. Our eye contact stayed steady; our steps were well-coordinated. I felt her intent to move in the shifting of her muscles. She followed my lead, only nudged me into one direction or the other. "If you attract more ladies like Aclysia, being your Queen is a pleasant fate, my Karitas." She took a sudden step backwards. I easefully pulled along and then pulled her into a whirl. "Your dancing skills are acute, a pleasant surprise," she changed the topic. "Were you trained?"

"You could say that," I dodged a clear answer. She wouldn't have believed me anyhow, if I said the truth right now. "I haven't had a lot of experience dancing with women, however."

"Then let tonight be worth it, with a few steps," Esther whispered. The songstress made a short announcement, got everyone ready and then started singing over a slow waltz. They were simple lyrics about decency, wealth, obligations to loved ones and things that felt right.

It was soothing and surprisingly pure for incorporating the all-present fact that everyone around had or was part of a harem. It was a song about loving many in a world that allowed it to be so. Father almighty be thanked for that skewed gender ratio.

I didn't listen much, after the first few minutes. Once I was engulfed by the rhythm, I could follow it without paying attention. I was in a trance, sinking into Esther's eyes, as we went through simple steps and twirls. Nothing fancy, not tonight, not here. Secure steps. Simple steps. One - two - three - and we whirled around, just as everyone else did. A rush of dresses and black suits, spots in the background, partly hidden by her flying hair. Even now she was wearing that tricorne. It suited her so well.

The trance deepened. Esther broke our eye contact to place her head on my shoulder. My heartbeat skipped and my stomach filled with wonder. As cliché as those things were, they were also what happened. We were as close as two people dancing could be. I was the sole leader of the dance. Esther was trusting my steps completely.

I felt her breath against my neck. She was whispering something, but I couldn't hear it over the music. That was her intention, I was sure, to say something I couldn't quite hear yet. Otherwise, this lady of my love would not have hesitated voicing it directly. I carved the sensations of the moment into me, her warmth, the feeling of her body, the caress of her breaths on my neck. All of it was for me to keep in my mind forever.

The music slowly shifted, grew quieter, gently broke the lull we found ourselves in and finally dissipated it completely. Esther and I turned our dancing embrace into a proper hug. In the romantic quiet that had still taken hold of us, I placed a simple kiss on her forehead. She stiffened up for a moment, but relaxed quickly and smiled when we parted.

"You were right in coming here," the raven-haired woman said, taking her leave after a courtly bow. I looked at her, already longing for her closeness again. Halfway to the edge of the crowd, she passed another woman. My eyes jumped to the white-haired woman who had so patiently waited.

Aclysia stopped in front of me with a curtsy. "As we agreed then, Karitas," she said.

"As we agreed, Aclysia," I kept it simple and we quickly took the proper form. Outstandingly and stiffly proper. The half elf had been educated, unsurprisingly, but her movements were a bit mechanical. Her knowledge hadn't found much practical application yet, or so was my impression. Once more, the proper dance was preceded by a lull. This time around, we needed it.

Aclysia's steps were methodical, she didn't care for my lead, only for the rhythm she had learned. This caused a few inelegant disharmonies, broken eye contacts and moments of confusion. Slowly, however, I learned to go along with her clockwork-like expectations and she learned to pay more attention to my lead.

By the time the lyrics started again, we had it worked out. I noticed a change in the text. Decency and wealth were still main themes, but with it came a warning to pay attention to all one holds dear and to all love alive.

To those words, Aclysia and I danced. Our rhythm was the same and I gradually fell into a trance again. Our steps were never so secure that the half-elven maid could have come as close as Esther did, if she had even wanted to. However, the green of her eyes captivated me almost as well. Soon enough, I had forgotten all in the world but her. For those moments, we were all for each other.

Then the music began to fade again and our dancing steps slowed. Following the same instinct as I had done earlier, Aclysia now leaned up to me. Her pink lips were on the path to mine. They were incredibly alluring. As much as I wanted to keep my lips off other women until Esther was mine, be it only to respect her, at that moment my weakness to gorgeous women and Aclysia in particular was all-encompassing. I didn't lean in, but neither did I try anything to dissuade her.

Aclysia changed her course at the last second. It was clearly not the originally intended destination, but she kissed me on the cheek. "That must be enough for today, my hopeful future Master," she whispered in my ear. Her tone was teasing and mildly impatient.

"It will be. Thank you," I whispered back. I thanked her for controlling herself where I couldn't, for trusting in me like that and for calling me something that was half a promise to do things I loved. I was a simple and honest man after all.

We left the dance floor together in the interim. While others stayed, mostly those with more than two Anomalia members or dates present, I had gotten the dances I had come to have and found no one else to dance with. I felt no need to dilute the original experiences with repeats.

Instead, we headed back and took further advantage of the free food.

"A pleasing surprise," Esther picked up the chatting, halfway through her next meal, "that you kept your hands to the appropriate areas, Karitas."

"There's no real need to make a dance more intimate than it already is," I replied quickly. "Two bodies that close, moving in elegant unison -- it's basically one step below sex. Not quite as intense or pleasurable, but emotionally gratifying nonetheless." There was no disagreement on the table and that was the last we said about it.

I didn't ask anything regarding the things that had been said, whether I had heard them or not, and they didn't bring anything else up. We took our memories of those moments and kept them to our hearts.

Instead, we pivoted to another topic entirely. Aclysia led the charge there by asking, "What is your future aim, Karitas?"

"Hmm," I hummed and carefully chewed a slice of apple to get some time formulating my thoughts properly. "I can't give you a definitive answer. After I graduate from here, I want to just go out into the worlds and have adventures. Sounds pretty basic, I know, but I don't really have any greater plan. I just want to go see places and do what's right. Maybe that will make me a hero of some description." I smirked and raised my hands in a grabby fashion. "Although I don't think I'm the traditional knight in shining armour type."

"You would leave the situation better than before, albeit I do not dare to anticipate the margin," Esther gave me an absolutely ringing endorsement. "I do predict a degradation of public morals in areas you choose to influence."

"You could help me guide my efforts and maximize that margin of betterment," I proposed with a smile.

"That would be a side-effect of my company, be it only to see you better yourself," the raven-haired lady continued.

"I see value in such a path," Aclysia got back into the conversation. "My father is famous for aiding worlds in trouble. It would be my foremost goal to one day honour being his prodigy."

"After you graduate, I guess?" I asked.

"Until my graduation, good performance is my highest priority," Aclysia answered with a confirming nod. "Paralleled with the search for an Anomalia that suits me."

Esther, having eaten almost everything that was on her plate, placed her fork down for a moment. "You are doing well on both of your goals," she commented, with the usual certainty.

"So, it appears," the maidly woman responded with a small smile at both of us. "I will take the little victory I had over you in the entrance exam, at least."

"I made a single error in the political theories segment," Esther shook her head. "A mistake on my part, but not one I can rectify. Your perfect score is impressive."

"Thank you for the compliment," Aclysia smiled. Talking about her achievement made her sit straighter, although she remained the smallest person at the table. Esther was just always sitting as straight as humanoidly possible and I was tall enough that a slight slump in my posture didn't matter that much. "I will continue to challenge you in future tests."

"Everyone should strive for the best they can," Esther nodded approvingly. Then they both turned to me.

Although the question wasn't raised, I understood what they wondered about. "I got 70 percent of questions right," I answered in a careless fashion. This caused Aclysia to move her head back in a surprised motion and Esther's forehead to become wrinkly. Not a good look on either of them.

"You are more intelligent than that," Esther factually stated. "Did you not prepare?"

"No." My simple reply only caused a deepening of their surprised expressions. "What?" I asked with a yawn, the topic of written tests already bored me. Suddenly I was sympathetic to Erik's behaviour. "It's not like the entrance exam really matters. All it does is make sure you have enough prerequisite knowledge to pull along with the more advanced stuff they teach here." I made a swatting gesture. "All that matters is if you pass. Nobody cares by what margin."

I had a bunch of other points that came with this topic. For a start, I wasn't a fan of standardized tests, especially of the written variety. The only areas I could somewhat see them as justified were math and grammar. Everywhere else, looking for correct, purely memorized answers over practical application and creative thinking struck me as dumbing down people to think like factory machines instead of sapient creatures. Even for math, I didn't get why one would have to memorize every single formula. That was like sending out someone to harvest crops without a scythe or other tools. Nobody in the real world would ever do complicated calculations without the necessary utensils at hand.

More to the point of Cosmic Universities, it was deliberately impossible to get rejected by all of them. Sure, more elite ones, of which Welldark was a lax member (but a member nevertheless) made sure they got the better 'raw materials' to work with, but everyone who had knowledge of the Dimensional Truth was channelled into these institutions in some fashion. Everyone had a vested interest that no strays were out there, ill-equipped to deal with and poorly informed about the happenings of the wider universe.

If I had failed the entrance to Welldark, the results would have simply been sent to some lower level University that was more on the level of my knowledge. Although Cosmic Universities weren't necessarily friendly towards each other, they still had common cause. Furthermore, because there was no clause about the students having a maximum age in most places, there were rare cases of people slowly ascending up the graduation vine.

Very, very rare cases. If someone wasn't smart enough or too unenthusiastic about learning to get access to their university of choice, they were unlikely to bother applying for it after they got their education elsewhere.

Personally, I had always been bored to death by book learning. My concentration drifted to more interesting topics than those I was supposed to read up on. Which was one of the reasons I had amassed my large catalogue of trivia knowledge. While my studying motivation was, admittedly, abysmal, my memory was pretty good.

I had vested interest in entering Welldark, thanks to performing a divination ritual and knowing that my closest friends were going to this school as well. I was taking the former a lot more seriously than I perhaps should have. Divination was notoriously inaccurate, for a lot of reasons. Other users, inability to narrow the revelations received, and general vagueness, to name only a few. A list for another day, I wanted to take a class on it in higher grades to broaden my relatively basic knowledge.

Anyway, I knew I had enough in my head to pass the exam, so that was all I cared for.

The girls obviously disagreed with my approach. "That is unacceptable," Esther simply stated.

"Garnering high points in the exams is of extreme importance," Aclysia underlined. "Being the highest garners you a mansion for your first year at Welldark."

"Okay, first off, that's only for the first one, so there is technically no difference between being the second place and the last place in this race," I pointed out, counting the points on my fingers. "Second off, the rooms in the first-year dormitories are pretty good regardless. Third off, you don't get to keep the mansion beyond that. Fourth off, I still got one, by fighting, which is the primary sorting mechanism after the first year anyway." I placed my hands down and leaned back. "Welldark is not a place for theorists. The entrance exam is just an intellectual 'you must be this tall to enter', generalized because of a wide spread of applicants. It's a concession to necessity, not a piece of design I imagine anybody is particularly proud of."

Neither Aclysia nor Esther seemed happy with my stance or explanation. Eventually, the raven-haired lady of my desires stated, "Concession or not, one should excel in all walks of life presented."

"I think my energy is better wasted reading up on things that interest me than memorizing things that I can forget immediately after the test is done," I stated and shrugged, not seeing that this debate could lead anywhere productive. Generally, things that were only theoretically sound made me grumpy. Lots of time was wasted on bureaucratic point systems that didn't adhere to reality. I was very happy that only a few courses in Welldark had written tests at the end of the semester. Even those tests only existed to gauge if you had earned access to the more advanced classes.

The girls noticed my apathy to this topic and turned towards each other to talk to someone they agreed with. I couldn't blame them for that behaviour, it was only human to seek out support of one's opinion. However, it meant that I was horribly bored at the table during the course of that conversation. Nothing I found alarming. Even with the greatest of lovers, there would be moments of personal disagreement. It was an unavoidable result of being different people with different interests. Sharing a life didn't mean sharing a mind. That would have brought its own set of issues anyway.

While they chatted away about the entrance exam and the benefits of written tests, I slowly rose. "I'll go take a breather," I announced, pointing at the balcony. I hadn't explored it yet and I wanted to do something more interesting. Just looking over the railing would probably do it.

"We will change topics by the time you return," Esther assured me. That was really all I could ask for. Me telling them to talk about something else would have been selfish. Them ignoring me would have been inconsiderate. That I backed off momentarily to let them have their talk and we continued with another topic once I came back was the best arrangement for all of us.

I made my way across the hall and stepped through the crystal glass door. The summer night greeted me with a pleasant breeze. Time had passed and the sky had taken the dark blue of thinned ink. The moon and the stars were my company.

Whether it was my timing or people just generally avoided the balcony for some reason, I was the only one present. A moment of quiet was much appreciated. Even I needed some time to refill my social batteries, so to say. I would classify myself as an extrovert, but gatherings like this wore me down. Mostly due to the glitter.

'Still, I expected at least some people to be smoking or something,' I thought. Since Astral Bodies were easily healed, cancer wasn't an issue, and tobacco was quite popular. Even developing a physical dependence was muted quite heavily. That being said, certain desires or addictions were hardcoded into some species. Succubi came to mind. Even with them, they could survive without any semen intake. They just really, really wanted it and would gradually become more needy. Dedicated succubi, such as Arlethia, could overcome even that much. It only took about ten self-induced orgasms a day, by my friend's carefree admission.

'I doubt that number has gone down since she and Willt got together,' I thought and yawned. Perhaps it was the nightly breeze, but I suddenly realized how long we had been at the ball already. I was certainly getting tired and there were still classes to attend tomorrow. I looked up at the moon. 'It sure looks bigger here than on Earth.'

The time I had spent on humanity's cradle was limited, but I still remembered the sky there. It must have been a field somewhere in the French countryside, as far away from the cities and their light smog as possible. That had been an impressive sky, with the milky way plainly visible above. It beat Welldark's sky, where some silver dots decorated the midnight blue. At least this large moon gave it something interesting. It certainly beat the dark red, empty sky of Hell.

In the corner of my vision, I noticed movement. I looked down from the moon and onto the roof below. The roofs, plural, as it was better put. The segmented nature of things was much more intricate than I had thought from afar. Bridges, arches and stairs connected the different layers with each other, decorative towers and normally positioned rooms. It was a bit labyrinthine in its first impression, but that was purely because of the scope. Everything had an ordered design to it.

I looked around, my eyes darting around between the gothic arches. Another hushed movement narrowed my spying eyes to one area. I saw a streak of blonde in the silver light. Whoever the silhouette belonged to, they had quite long hair. I kept my eyes on that area. No further movement. Perhaps she (I assumed it was a she because of the hair) had noticed me watching and was hoping I would lose interest.

Scratching the back of my head, I considered my options. I had no idea who this was. In the case she was a thief, or something like that, it would be my duty as a respectable person to step in and stop her. If not, I only got a conversation out of it. 'Guess my trip to the balcony will be a bit longer than I thought,' I mentally resigned myself and put one hand on the marble of the railing.

I hopped over and landed on the narrow slope of a decorative arch. Having no choice but to follow the downwards trajectory, I concentrated on keeping my balance and fluidly carried the momentum into my sprint. Along the ridge of the roof, one layer under the balcony, I ran, then jumped over a little gap. My feet connected audibly with the slightly slanted tiles of the next segment, when I landed.

That was the signal my target took to spy out behind her arch. I saw ears perk up, pointy and as blonde as her hair. Only the silhouette of her face was visible in the darkness. I spied the elegant swing of female curves, along with the slightly creepy way her eyes reflected light. 'A cat girl,' I thought.

We were separated by more than 20 metres, decorative ornaments, and the segmented nature of the building. To get to her position, I would have needed to get around or through a large courtyard and then back onto the roof. The blonde was hiding among decorative spires.