When Albino came home, a butterfly rested on his bed. It was a large creature for its type, each wing about the size of a human head. This form of Quionne was less focused on blending into the environment or hiding from prying eyes in the treetops. “Enough nonsense, Quionne. I want to see your true form.”
A moment later, the butterfly was gone, and a beautiful woman with butterfly wings sat in its place. She couldn’t hold a candle to Agathe, a deity of beauty. Still among mortals, Albino would judge her a 10/10 regardless, perhaps even higher. Rather than Agathe’s mellow brown wings, Quionne’s shone in striking colors of blue and white. She also had two antennae sprouting from her forehead and a magnificent pair of compound eyes that took up more space on her face than human eyes would. She wore robes like a traditional shrine maiden, floating in the windless air as she did a welcoming pirouette. “This lowly Albi-Onna, Quionne, welcomes thee to Queensland, my master.”
Albino tried to act professional, but it had been so long. Already, he had her in his arms, hugging Quionne with all his might. She seemed to have a similar idea, embracing him back with a reserved grace the Albi-Onnas took great pride in. She was cute in her ways, nuzzling into his neck and circling the area between his shoulder blades, where a butterflyfolk’s wings would be, with her slender fingers.
“Call yourself lowly again, and I will get angry,” he warned, though his tone couldn’t have been less threatening.
Quionne chuckled. “Compared to my master, even the greatest Albi-Onna is a mere speck of dust in the wind.”
Albino huffed at her proud insistence. “You are incorrigible.”
“Incorrigibly in love with my master, I’m afraid. For far too long, I have suffered alone from these withdrawal symptoms, but at last, my dreadful journey of pain and patience has come to an end! All will understand your magnificence, but this lowly- Ouch!”
The almighty finger-flick of doom. “No need to go that far. You are a great woman. Really. Oh, and great job playing Lancel for all these years. I hope it was not too unpleasant?”
“A-ah! I am unworthy. I am unworthy… My great and honorable master descends and, in one day, acquires his first of many engagements! In the meantime, I spent years standing in the background without actively furthering your cause- ah?!”
Albino took her hands when she got too far off-topic. The Albi-Onnas were like a cult of the Albiverse, sprouting on worlds after a few rotations and overseeing them in the name of prosperity. Their memories didn’t reset over the many cycles of a single world. Instead, their minds carried over until the eventual death of their home, which also saw the Albi-Onnas perish along with all other mortals and their one deity. Albino, as the highest being in the Albiverse, acknowledged and endorsed by it, was a figure of great reverence in their ranks. If only that didn’t come with this absurd degree of self-deprecation.
“I am thankful for the part you played, Quionne. I would rather conquer a harem on my own than take over the harem someone else built. It… would not feel right for me and them, would you not agree?”
“Of course, my master. Of course.” She still looked dazed at having her hands held by the man she loved. While not nearly as long-lived as the deities, Albi-Onnas shared some of their attitudes towards the passing of time. Since they were part of a mortal world where time was a resource to be used wisely, Albino allowed her an hour of hand-holding before he ended the moment… with a kiss on her forehead, breaking one stimulus with another.
While Quionne dealt with her racing emotions, Albino felt inward for the ever-familiar life-fire running through separate vessels under his skin. In his current state, Albino could use life-fire only on himself or through himself as an intermediary and never for active effects. Buffing his walking speed or lifting strength, buffing the force needed to break through his skin, adding a regenerative effect to his limbs, adding an effect to his handshake that gave a bonus to luck in the next few hours, etc. The options were endless as long as the effect was permanent and passive, and he had only a couple years to lay the groundwork. Albino expected this night to bleed far into the next day, so he refined his maximum traveling speed in light of future separations.
<< Maximum traveling speed: Level 1. >>
<< Current bonus per level (0/27): +0 meters/hour. >>
<< Current total bonus: +0 meters/hour. >>
Unless he refined the current bonus per level to +1 (which would take 27 days), all the levels in the world wouldn’t help him… But they weren’t useless. It was a linear progression, which differed from some of the more overpowered powers in the Albiverse that boasted exponential growth. An Albion could theoretically live for eternity and thus outscale even the most broken beings to otherwise exist.
“What is the situation?” he asked.
Quionne sat perfectly still, averting her gaze. “U-uhm… About earlier, my master… I’m sorry. They usually leave me alone at this time of day. I wanted to tell you about everything before they came, but-“
“Already forgiven. Never a problem in the first place. You did well, and I do not want to hear another word of failure or self-deprecation, alright? Agathe told me you were eager to spend more time with me, so do not fall into random depressions every sentence!” Albino noticed at once that Quionne showed no confidence in staying positive, so he made an executive decision and seated her on his lap, facing each other. “Now, this is a pleasant feeling for sore mortals.”
“Am I not… heavy- What I want to say is, do I feel… good?”
“Incredibly so,” Albino admitted, connecting their foreheads. Quionne’s antennae twitched in tune with her heart, which was beating at rapid speeds. Doubly so when Albino briefly connected their lips, drawing aroused gasps from Quionne’s lips. Her legs were soft and thin, her bust modest yet squishy, and her hands gentle in how they affectionately held onto his scratchy shirt. “Good girls who do not needlessly insult themselves might even earn more of those rewards. Now, who is my target? Where am I? Geographically and culturally, who surrounds us? What trouble can I expect, and with whom? Tell me about this Lord Marciel and the Empire of Hooh he is fighting. About this village, Verq Bavas, which looks too small to be called a village or a hamlet. Traditions and names and other details. Make it like this… Tell me what Lancel would know. Then tell me what Lancel should know. Finally, tell me anything else you find important. I need to know if I have some leeway or if I have to prepare for a soon-coming calamity.”
Quionne donned a concentrated expression, zoning in on the promised reward she could earn. She began with all the things the fictional peasant Lancel should know, like the names of every villager, how he allegedly arrived here, some personality beats of the villagers, stories about the few people who traveled here, what little there was to tell about the villagers who had left or died since Lancel arrived, and about the tasks he was in charge of, as well as the things he was known for doing in the village.
That last point was the most intriguing to Albino. “Why would you build this shack all by yourself? Surely they offered to help you?”
Quionne pouted. “Why would you stubbornly announce that you would build a new house for you and your fiancee by yourself? Surely they offered to help you with your living problem as well? In fact, I know they did. I listened to that entire exchange. Do not underestimate this low- This Albi-Onna’s understanding of her master!”
“Good save,” Albino praised, petting her head. “You are not wrong about my resolve, of course. No offense to them, but the experience gap between me and any mortal craftsman is too immense. I would rather use this opportunity to make an impression. Speaking of which, what is Lancel’s backstory? Where was he before coming here?”
Quionne shrugged. “Something traumatic, I suppose. I always dodged the topic with a hard expression and a distant look. They stopped asking me about it after that.”
“In other words, I can fill that part in as I please? Very well.”
“Hehe. Oh, there’s something else. Weddings in the Verq villages require both parties to exchange rings made from the vampire slingtree. That’s what they call it, at least. You must carve a ring yourself and feed it with your blood, thus becoming one with your partner when they put it on, and the ring begins to feed off them in turn. It grows into their skin and remains there until their death. Romantic, isn’t it?”
“So that is what that was,” Albino said. He had spotted a weird protrusion on the village chief’s hand, but to think it was a ring. Mortals had such fun ideas about marking their partners… Though Agathe had done the same by marking him. To Albino, she might as well be just another mortal, though any mortal would heavily dispute that notion. “What about having multiple partners, then? What do you think Brenda and her father will do when I introduce you to them as my wife?”
“A-already?”
“You do not want to?”
“That’s not what I said! Please make me yours!”
“With pleasure.” He kissed her, exchanging light pecks for a few hours. It was late at night by the time they stopped. “That was not your reward, by the way. Call it a proof of our engagement or a preliminary of the fun to come. So, about polygamy?”
“Accepted but rare. Some widows of fallen soldiers marry again, and some soldiers bring outsiders back with them after service. Those cases became increasingly rare since Lord Marciel rose to power, though. Putting a vampire slingtree ring on someone already married to another basically unifies the new partner with their husband or wife AND the other partner or partners of their husband or wife. You have to accept being wed to not just one but two or more people in life and death, and few humans in these parts have love enough to spare for such a big family. It’s sad, really. With how few men return from service, you’d expect it to become a widely spread practice, no?”
Albino smiled. Quionne played with him, urging him to explain his cause and make her spine tingle. He couldn’t deny Quionne when those expectant, upturned eyes were directed at him. She was too cute. Seriously. “Most peasant workers barely get by just raising one family. Imagine raising several. Yes, many women can take turns looking after the kids, which is also possible if the community looks after the next generation together, as Verq Bavas already does. They need more kids to replace the dying villagers, so one man breeding only one woman decreases the chance of everything falling apart when that single man falls ill. Keeping the families small and manageable leads to more kids and, thus, more villagers in the long run… So much for the theory that ignores disease, famine, war, and the ever-present bleeding out of the countryside into the great towns and cities of the world. Well, enough people would call you selfish for taking multiple partners from a limited pool, and it does not help how intimately connected you are to your dead partner, should they perish. It is just one more reason for my house-building project and my insistence to do it alone. I need to prove my worth in many ways. Am I a worthy husband to one wife, or can I be trusted with multiple? Speaking of being worthy, you did well.”
Then came the time for rewards. A soft glow already painted the world in its (very) early morning light when they were done pressing their lips together. Only some light alternation of pressure and intensity had taken place. With how long-lived they were, just this much gave the pair all the satisfaction they needed.
“How long until Lancel usually begins his day?” Albino asked the panting Quionne, who stared dreamily into his eyes.
Reluctantly, she followed his gaze outside. “…Just three more hours or so… I-I will feel lonely.”
“Until tonight, when we repeat our talk. There is much to do and so little time to accomplish it! Makes you feel excited, does it not?”
Albino needed no air, sleep, water, or food. He could do all these things, but he didn’t need to. His metabolism worked on albiversal energy, abundantly available everywhere in the Albiverse. Consequently, he also skipped out on sweating, urinating, shitting, and all those other nasties. Albiversal energy entered him, his body took what it needed, and the leftover energy was recycled and released. Same when he decided to eat or drink or anything else. His body turned that matter into energy and released the leftovers into the world. Easy, simple, clean. Being him had its perks.
The last few hours of their morning, Albino and Quionne spent on the bed, tightly embracing each other. Occasionally, they connected their lips or foreheads, content with being together.
It was worth noting that Queensland-time was different from other worlds. Every world has its unique rhythm, and Queensland was no exception. They had seconds, but these seconds lasted slightly longer than, for example, Earth-seconds. Then came minutes, each consisting of twenty-seven Queensland-seconds, and the medians, each containing sixteen Queensland-minutes. Ten medians made up one Queensland-hour, and a Queensland-day took twenty-seven Queensland-hours for one cycle. There was also a unit as long as a third of a Queensland-day called treon, though few people used it. A day in this time system was about twice as long as a day on Earth.
The Ecknathroq Kingdom, to which Verq Bavas belonged, didn’t recognize the concept of weeks, but they counted their years in months. Sixteen months in total for every year, each consisting of twenty-seven days. Compared to Earth-years, the years on Queensland lasted about 2,4 times as long, meaning ten years on Queensland lasted as long as twenty-four on Earth. Due to several influences of elementals, magic, and other power systems, the races of Queensland saw a slower growth rate than their equivalents on purely physics-based worlds. Humans reached full physical maturity at about fourteen Queensland-years old (almost thirty-four Earth-years), which was the age when Lord Marciel’s great-grandfather used to demand his subjects’ sons join the military. Too many of those sons died before finishing their service, however. The starting age of military service was raised to sixteen years after a grueling period of peasant protests. This way, the young men could work on starting a family and have at least a few kids before they were drafted.
Albino’s Lancel persona would turn fourteen in late autumn, and Brenda would follow suit in early winter. From there, they had two years, or about five Earth-years, to start a family and prepare for the long period of Albino’s absence. Albino was both excited and worried about the challenges ahead.
“What are you thinking about?” Quionne asked. She wanted to be a part of his life, even in its most trivial incarnations.
Albino grinned. “Just wondering if I should marry you ahead of Brenda. You know, since there is affection between us already. Having the marriage between the first wife and the family husband be made for loveless reasons sounds like the beginning scene of a classic tragedy play. I wish for health, not drama!”
“I… would like that,” Quionne admitted through her intense blush.
Albino nodded and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. “You would like that, but you have a good reason not to go first?”
“Yes. Considering Brenda’s perspective, which I wanted to tell you about before… A-anyway! She will fall in love with you soon enough, but we can’t force her into the position of second wife. That’s not what she expects from this engagement, so if we overrule her like that… She will not only be negatively predisposed towards me but also you and the entire concept of polygamy. But… thank you for offering.”
“First and second matters very little with what we’re planning,” Albino assured Quionne, hugging her tight. “I vow to treat every single one of you like deities for all eternity.”
The Albi-Onna nodded, fluttering her wings in quick, excited bursts. “I know you will, my master. My darling. My everything!”
“Look at you, my seductive smooth-talker, you!”
They made out until the sun rose above the horizon and painted the world orange. This was when Lancel began his day, so Albino would do the same. Quionne was reluctant to let go, but when Albino spotted Brenda on the approach, Quionne hurried to transform back into her tiny butterfly form. Albino invested his daily life-fire into his traveling speed and greeted his new fiancee with a smile.
<< Maximum traveling speed: Level 2. >>
<< Current bonus per level (0/27): +0 meters/hour. >>
<< Current total bonus: +0 meters/hour. >>
Greetings and salutations! You have earned my eternal gratitude for reading this humble mortal’s story. If you enjoyed yourself, I will have done my job well. If not… well, there is always room for improvement.
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