The Birth of the New World

The following day, two days since Lain left for the front with her Demons. My day starts with a hearty breakfast of a stack of pancakes with butter, scrambled eggs seasoned with paprika, a plate of sausage links made from ground up and seasoned monster meat, and a hot cup of tea.

“Mmm, when you see dad, can you thank him for me again, for making these sausages? They are really good~”

Anna just looks over at me as I continue to eat my delicious food that smells like happiness and tastes like heaven. Her own plate doesn’t have any monster meat on it because she isn’t comfortable with eating the stuff, no matter how tasty it is. She didn’t have work yesterday or today, so she had stayed the night here. Regretfully, I had too much work to do yesterday, so I wasn’t able to spend much time with her, but I fully intend to spend as much time with her today as I can. Thanks to Lain, I have a family again, and I fully intend to enjoy my time with them as much as I can.

“You really love food, huh?”

“Of course I do. Before this, I lived off of whatever I could get my hands on. Have you ever tried eating a Goblin before?”

“No?”

“Well, don’t. I had a stomachache for weeks after that. I thought I was going to die back then. Absolutely horrible, hahaha!” I tell her with a laugh.

Her face doesn’t look like she found that to be very funny though, looking more like pity? Did I mess up with the humor or something?

“Sky I’m so sorry you had to live like that…”

Oh, that’s what it is! Had me worried there…

“Mhm, don’t worry about it. It doesn’t bother me any. Instead, it just makes everything now so much better. Being able to compare my current life to how it used to be, it makes me happy, like I accomplished something great.” I say with a smile as I pop a forkful of buttery pancakes into my mouth, my face lighting up with bliss from the sweetness dancing on my tongue and filling my cheeks with buttery goodness.

So tasty!

Anna seems to do some thinking and quickly hides the sad look, bringing the subject back on course.

“So, have your people managed to learn how to make sausages to? Dad was helping them with that, right?”

“Yes! That made for a very fun afternoon. I never would have thought to stuff deer and boar intestines with ground up meat for storage. Normally, my people just eat whatever meat we can get our hands on, but with all the monster corpses we have been harvesting, we were starting to run into an issue of what to do with all the excess meat. I mean, obviously we don’t want it to go to waste, but they can only eat so much of it before they are close to bursting, hahaha! Though they certainly try.”

“Some of your guy’s pups were looking like bowling balls, they were so round.”

“Hahaha, I have no idea what a bowling ball is, but yes. Mmmm, it’s good to see them looking so happy…”

I remember going out on foraging missions before, back in the village after we came to this world. When my group found a half-eaten deer carcass and dragged it back home with us. The village was still getting built back then, and I was sharing a hut with She Who Plays with Many Legged Friends and some of the other females. The look on everyone’s faces as we brought it in, how we all worked together to scrape every last bit of meat off of those bones. Everyone got a piece, and I felt like a hero that day, even though it wasn’t even me that found it, but just because I was in the group and helped to drag it back. That was a good day… That reminds me, I kept a bone from that deer as a reminder of that day in our hut along with all my other stuff. Mhmmm, all my stuff probably got stolen after I got banished… That sucks, but it is what it is. I have better stuff now.

Letting myself get caught up in my thoughts as I munch on my breakfast, I reach over for my teacup, only to end up getting zapped again.

“Ouch!” Waving my hand, trying to shake out the fuzziness in my finger.

My maid looks up but doesn’t say anything, already used to me zapping myself after yesterday. Anna on the other hand, looks over worriedly and asks, “What’s wrong, did you cut yourself?”

“No, no I’m alright. I just keep getting zapped is all. Probably just static electricity, though I don’t know why it keeps happening.”

“You ‘keep’ getting shocked?” Is it your clothes? I don’t think they are the kind to cause that though… Maybe your tail? It is really fluffy.” She says with a smile as she peeks under the table at my tail, that is indeed very fluffy, the fluffiest you might say.

“I’m not sure about my clothes, but I doubt it is my tail. I brush it very often, and that should keep anything like that from happening… hah, yes, Anna you can play with my tail later.” I say with a sigh as I see her watching my tail.

“Yay! Let me brush your hair to? I want to braid it. You just have so much of it!”

“If you want to.” I consent, because having someone help with my hair every now and then is pretty nice. Usually it’s Lain that helps me, but that typically ends with us getting frisky and messing up my hair again.

Maybe I should do it like the nobles in my books and have a team of maids that tend to my needs? That could be interesting, but then I would have much less privacy… Plus, I don’t want them waking me up early in the morning if I want to sleep in… and they would be fussing over me all the time… Hmm, maybe I’ll wait until later to get more maids.

“Can I play with your ears?” She asks excitedly, hope shining in her eyes.

I just give her a smile back. “Nope. Only Lain gets to play with my ears.”

“Ah, worth a try.”

Laughing under my breath at her usual weirdness, I get back to eating and finish up my meal. Once we are done, we head to my room, and I let Anna play with my hair as we chat about different things.

With Anna looking satisfied and my hair braided into a long tail, we set out from the mansion in our winter clothes, bundled up in thick layers of sweaters and jackets. Despite the cold, I opt to wear a long skirt instead of pants like Anna is. With how thick the base of my tail is, jeans don’t work as well for me as they do for Lain and her much thinner tail. While I do have a couple of pairs that have been modified to fit me, I don’t wear them very often. Besides, I like skirts. I think they are cute.

It would be nice if Lain wore her skirts more often, she looks so good in them. But she says she can’t really fight in them, because she is worried about flashing people or whatever, so she only wears them when she is relaxing with family. It seems like she is always waiting for a fight to happen, and is dressed so she can respond at a moment’s notice… Hmm, maybe after she gets back, the two of us can take some time away from work and just relax. I’m proud of her, and thankful for everything she is doing, but she is spending all her time on training and her missions. Even when she is at home, she spends all her time, that isn’t with me, on meditation and magic practice…

It is very nice that she always makes time for me though. But I just wish that she could have some time to relax away from work and her responsibilities for a little while. Mmm, I’ll have to think of something fun that we can do together besides just sex. I know she loves it – I do too – but there has to be something else we can do… On our dates, it always feels like she is protecting me from everyone that looks at me, which I love, but that doesn’t seem very relaxing for her… There’s watching movies and reading together, but we already do that normally. Needs to be something new…

I look over to Anna, Lain’s sister, the person who should know lots of things about her. I can just ask her.

“Anna, any recommendations on how I can help Lain relax?”

She looks over at me as we walk down the freshly plowed road, my honor guards, representative warriors from each tribe, escorting us as we walk. Raising an eyebrow curiously, she asks, “What do you mean?”

“Well, it always seems like she is stressed about things, or focused on her work. She has a lot going on, and I want to help her be able to relax more. Do you have an idea of things that she likes to do?”

“Mmm… Well, before the world ended, Lain usually spent her time playing video games, reading, watching anime and movies… Sometimes, she would go out hunting with dad… Uhm, let’s see, hanging out with me, I guess… She liked going to the mall, but those obviously don’t exist anymore… Does any of that help?”

“Mhm, not really, we basically already do all of that…”

“… She always wanted to go to the beach and see the ocean?”

“How would we get there?”

“Yeah… Well, you could always just ask her? Honestly, she’s not that complicated of a person. If you ask her what she wants to do, she will just tell you outright. How about when she gets back, you guys go on a nice date or something?”

“Our dates are nice, but I don’t feel like they are very relaxing for her. I often catch her glaring at anyone that looks at me. Which I love by the way. I know that her therapist is trying to help her with her possessiveness, but for my people, and me especially, that kind of behavior is really attractive. It makes us feel like a piece of treasure in our mate’s hoard. I love it, hmhmhm~ But, again, I can’t really think of it as being very relaxing for her…”

“Hmm, Sky, honestly, the best advice I can give for this is to have her spend a couple of days at home doing what she likes. You don’t need to go anywhere. Whenever she had a bad day at school or was exhausted from work, she would just lock herself in her room for a few hours and sleep, or do whatever else she wanted. She not complicated. The best way for her to relax, is just to relax…”

“But she can’t sleep… It’s been months, but she can’t…”

“She told me that she enjoys watching you sleep.” Anna tells me as she looks down at me, a smile on her face.

I can’t help but blush at this. Lain had told me as much before, but to hear it from someone else is a bit embarrassing and nice.

“When she gets back from her mission, and everything with this Goblin business is taken care of, the two of you should just lock yourselves away in home and do nothing stressful for a couple of days.”

“… That is good advice. So, it’s not like we need to do anything different, we just need time so she can properly relax. Maybe I should go to the Tailor again and get some more outfits to surprise her with? That worked pretty well last time. The last time I dressed up as a soldier for her and she pretended to be a monster that captured me and was going to eat me up against my will. The outfit didn’t survive the night~”

Anna doesn’t comment on that, her face a crimson flush.

Ah, she is so easy to embarrass. I can see why Lain and mom like to mess with her, it’s fun. Sidenote, I still need to get that outfit repaired. I looked good in it

I giggle to myself as I let her stew in her embarrassment, the two of us strolling along beneath snow covered trees. It takes a while to reach our destination, our route taking us north-east past the center of base, taking us past homes and businesses that have closed up for the winter, it being far too cold for most people to want to bother.

Further on, we walk past snow covered fields and forests full of laborers cutting down trees and pulling them away with trucks to get processed. Up in the trees, some of the men are cutting off some of the biggest branches and tying ropes.

Hm, maybe I should try and get my people some work helping here? We have no problem climbing trees. Don’t even need all these lines and safety harnesses. Huh, I wonder why humans don’t have claws like us? Even Lain has claws. They are just so useful.

…

Our journey takes us to the northern wall, and Anna has to take a break to rest her legs after the long walk, sitting on a sandbag beside one of the Army’s massive guns emplacements.

“How are you still standing. Hah… You’re not tired after all that walking?”

“I’ve had to do a lot of walking in life. Plus, I have strong legs.”

…

Finally arriving at the walls themselves, we climb up under the watch of the nearby guards and soldiers, curiously watching two girls being escorted by a troop of armored and spear wielding Kobolds.

Ignoring the onlookers, we look out over the field beyond the walls.

Out there, working in the cold, teams of men are swinging pickaxes to break frozen ground, and shoveling snow away to plant landmines and make an ungodly number of traps for as far as I can see, even going as far as to booby-trap the woods in the distance.

Along the wall, they are reinforcing everything with sheets of layered metal and extra layers of barbed, razor wire. Rain barrels are placed periodically along the wall along with fire extinguishers. Lain taught me about them and how to use one, it was fun. Aside from those, there are nests of belt-fed guns guarded by short walls of sandbags. They even have long spears available for people to grab and stab at anything that tries to climb the wall. Along the wall, more towers are being constructed, more of those belt-fed guns being set up with in them so soldiers can rain death over the wall from on high.

“To think that those Goblins will be attacking here soon. I hope that they all die horribly to the human’s weapons…”

“So, we really are getting attacked soon, huh? And Lain is out there already fighting…”

“Yes.”

“I hope she is safe out there.”

“I do too. But she is strong, and we’ll be here waiting for her to come home. As her family, that is all we can do.” I reassure her.

“Mhm...”

This place will soon become a battlefield. A field of death and fire where tens-of-thousands will die…

“Mrmm-“ My hand goes to my abdomen, a pang aching in my gut.

Anna rushes over. “Sky, what’s wrong?” She asks as places her hand on my shoulder. A little spark arches from my horn and strikes her hand as she touches me. “Ouch! What the hell was that!?”

“I… I don’t know? For some reason I feel really… buzzy?” I say as I raise my hands up and bring two fingers together, feeling some kind of energy building up within them.

With utter shock and surprise, a literal shock zaps between my fingers, a short arch of electricity connecting my fingers and glowing with an iridescent blue light.

“Uhm, Sky… Does this mean what I think it means?”

“Yes, I think it does… I, I think I have magic now. What should we do!?”

“Uhm, maybe we should go see a doctor?”

“Yes, yes, let’s go and see Dr. Doe please. Oh, my goodness, this, this is so exciting! I can’t wait to tell Lain; she will be so happy!” I exclaim as I ignore the pain in my gut and move to hug her.

She quickly backs up and says, “Woah, woah! Uhm, maybe no hugs right now…”

“Oh, right. Yeah, I don’t want to shock you again, hahaha!”

Ah, I can’t wait for Lain to get home!