I know, Teeth growled, and that’s getting really aggravating. How are we supposed to know how to act when we keep getting mixed signals?
I have no idea, I admitted. Which is why I want to be so careful.
The alternative, of course, was to just shut down the whole courtship altogether, and to reject whichever Satellite made the next advance.
But I wanted that even less.
For all the frustration, Stell was an amazing, beautiful, noble, smart, and kind woman who had spent almost her entire childhood trying to make millions or billions of lives better, every single day. She had given me hope when I had felt that I literally had no future, and that my mind and body were finished. She had called me ‘hero’ in a hundred different ways, at the time when everyone else just saw me as a ‘cripplehead’ or a dead pedophile’s brat.
The way she was treating me right now was annoying as hell, but when I thought about the rest of her personality—and bodies, frankly, because she hadn’t shown me a form I hadn’t liked—then I absolutely did not want to let her go. Not without a fight.
We’re not, I realized, feeling lighter immediately. We can’t figure it out until she makes her desires clear and consistent.
Doesn’t that make it not our problem then? Teeth asked, sounding unnaturally reasonable. Since we literally can’t control her behavior for her?
Yeah. I looked around for a moment, realizing I had been in this room for a while, and still hadn’t finished donning all my gear. I summoned my woad chain shirt next, inspecting the green links to make sure they were undamaged. I should figure out how they manage to make this armor so light, I thought briefly, before turning back to Teeth. You’re… right. If she suddenly changes what she’s comfortable with, it’s on her to let us know. But what we can figure out on our own, we’re responsible for. That’s why we need to be slow on the whole physical touch issue, and we need to keep any praise of her physical features to stuff like her eyes and hair.
But it’s not wrong to like the other stuff, right? Teeth persisted, as if he was determined to unravel the mysteries of the universe itself with this knowledge. I get that we shouldn’t talk about it to them, but it’s not wrong to privately like how Via looks in her new pants, or how Guineve looks in her blouse? Or how cute Breena looks when she’s human-sized?
That’s enough examples, I said quickly, but yeah. Don’t give it more than the occasional glance, and don’t let it distract us during battle, but… yeah, I repeated, letting another hidden burden go. We have to be aware of how much it affects us, but liking girls’ forms doesn’t automatically make us evil.
At the back of my mind, a broken recording of a half-dozen voices, each calling Wes Malcolm and his father sneaky perverts, over and over, was suddenly swept off the floor and thrown into the trash.
A corner of my soul reached up and pushed, but I didn’t undergo a Rise. Instead, my mindscreen flashed with a message saying more Right to Rule had been gained.
Huh, I thought, I guess mental health is an important part of being a king.
Indeed, the quiet voice said in my mind, so crown them all. And write love on their arms.
I summoned my metal coat of seashell-like scale mail next. It was much heavier than my padding or woad armor, but the weight didn’t bother me nearly as much as it had a few days ago.
Yeah, well, it shouldn’t, Teeth pointed out as I belted Breaker over my armor. We’ve gained the strength of like five to seven grown Earth-men since last week, on top of what we had before. Even some dragons would be impressed with our physical strength. Not all of them, though. We should probably eat a few more, just in case.
I didn’t bother replying to that as I walked out into the hall. I started to think of all the things I needed to do today, and realized that I was drawing a complete mental blank. There hadn’t been any sort of plan for this world beyond trying to stop it from ending.
I decided I should ask someone who could help me think of one, so I needed to find either Gabin, the Icon Mithra, Breena, or Via.
Gabin, as far as I could tell through the mindlink, was still asleep. I had no idea how to contact Mithra, and I figured that she was powerful enough to devise a way to contact me if she really had to, so I would just be interrupting whatever work she was already doing if I addressed her right now. Breena… probably needed some time, to get over all the accidental almost-nudity that had been happening all morning.
That left Via, who was already awake, judging by her earlier shout.
I used the mindlink to track her location, and realized that she was nowhere near the hall or any of the bedrooms.
Which meant that she was almost certainly dressed and ready for conversation. Probably.
I walked down the thousand-year-old, yet still plush, carpet, and followed the mindlink’s trail around the corner and down a flight of stairs. Then I went down another impressive hallway and up a second flight of stairs, a little irritated at how roundabout my path was becoming.
At one point, a small light floated over from another hallway and began speaking to me.
“Greetings, Planetary Lord,” it said in a friendly, automated tone. “You are awake before normal hours. How may Atlantis serve you?”
“Are you the light that led me to my room last night?” I asked, grateful that I had someone, or something, to ask for directions. “And what are you, exactly, and forgive my rudeness for asking.”
“I am not the same light that led you to your room last night, though I am very much part of the same intelligence,” the floating blue ball answered. “I am effectively a manifestation of Atlantis’—or the Sun-Jeweled Seas’, as this world is now called—planetary intelligence. For reference, you may compare me to the mists of Avalon. Be advised that no offense was taken in regards to your question by said intelligence, and that the Planetary Lord is unlikely to find anyone taking offense at his actions for the foreseeable future, in light of the fact that he has personally reversed multiple, planetary-wide apocalypses.”
That was a very nice sentiment, but I figured I should probably still keep my clothes on and not play music loudly at night. But the little Atlantis-light was still speaking, so I turned my attention back to him.
“Would the Planetary Lord like breakfast?” the little light said, and I noted that its speech patterns were slightly different than when Atlantis spoke directly to me. “No meals have been prepared at this hour, but the local Script magic rituals can be used to activate automated servants and commence cooking protocols.”
“Really? You have magic cooking robots?” I asked, before shaking my head. I was surprised that they had usable food at all, but then again, Atlantis seemed to have been in some weird form of stasis while under the influence of the Flood. “Um, no, actually. We can have breakfast at the normal hour. I was actually going to meet Via. The light-brown-skinned woman with curly hair, who has been stewarding this world in the absence of a planetary lord.”
“I can confirm that Atlantis has been made aware of Dame Via’s special role in managing it,” the little Atlantis light said. “I will be happy to direct the Lord to whatever room she is currently residing in.”
“Good,” I said, and waited for the light to show the way.
Which it did not do.
Because I had not told it which room Via was in, I realized.