Adelle was kissing me with such wild enthusiasm that I started to get genuinely concerned she might actually eat my entire face.

"Mmph!" I protested as her rough tongue scraped against mine, sharp canines biting my lips and cheek.

Candace seemed to notice my discomfort and pulled the cheetah towards herself. "Oi, stop nomming him, you greedy cat!"

"Wurhh?" Adelle's upside down face turned to the fox. "I'll nom whomever I wanna. Hrm… You look nommable." She immediately redirected her attention from me to Candace.

The fox and cheetah began making out directly in front of my face. Their bodies pressed against me as they began pawing at each other, squashing me further into the bottom of the dimensional bag.

"Are you two serious right now?" Kristi demanded. From the sound of her voice, she was decidedly not impressed with the impromptu make-out session happening atop me.

Nessy's soft giggle came from somewhere near my right ear. "I think they're super serious."

"For Slayer's sake," Kristi huffed. She pulled out her phone, the screen's glow illuminating her scowling face in the dim confines of the bag. "Oh, great. Just great."

"What?" I asked, as someone's tail swatted my face. I couldn't even tell whose at this point and had to push the wiggling appendage aside.

"My damn sisters," she groaned, rapidly scrolling through messages.

"What'd they do now?" I asked.

"It's… complicated," Kristi sighed, putting her phone away. "Look, we need to get out of this bag. Now. I have stuff to deal with."

"But we're celebrrrrrating!" Candace protested, reluctantly detaching herself from Adelle.

"Celebrate outside the bag," Kristi ordered, smacking the prad nearest to her. "Come on, move! Shoo! Get your butt out of my face!"

A rather undignified and uncoordinated exodus began in earnest as the girls tried to depart from the overstuffed dimensional bag. Limbs tangled, tails got stepped on, and someone's knee somehow ended up in my stomach as we all tried to climb over each other in the bottleneck that the upside down Addie created.

"Ow, watch where you're steppin, you fox-faced menace!"

"Sorry! Your feathers are everywhere!"

"Who's standing on my tail?!"

"Everyone just... stop moving for a second!"

"One at a time damn it!"

After much struggling, cursing, and accidental or perhaps purposeful groping, we tumbled out onto the gymnasium floor in a heap of fur, feathers, and mild embarrassment.

I stood up and dusted myself off, taking in our surroundings. The gym seemed empty.

The quiet was suddenly broken by the sound of slow, deliberate applause.

We all turned to see Principal Kerberos standing in the doorway, his body silhouetted against the afternoon light streaming through the hallway windows behind him.

"My congratulations, Team Foster," he said. "It seems that you've defeated Professor Fern's simulation and got the treasure."

"Yep," I replied curtly, stepping slightly in front of my packmates.

The Principal smiled. "Resourcefulness like yours is a valuable trait in a delver." He stepped into the gym. "I believe I owe you an apology, Mr. Foster."

"Oh?" I kept my expression neutral, wary of our last interaction.

"I believe that we got off on the wrong foot this morning," he said, clasping his hands behind his back.

"I'm not interested in being recruited by Omnid corporations," I said flatly.

"So you've made clear," he nodded. "I was perhaps... overzealous in my assessment of your potential. It seems I underestimated your… Desire for independence."

"Cut to the chase, Principal, why are you here if not to sell me another shitty corpo contract with Charmchain magic?" I asked, making the girls behind me growl in disapproval.

"I'm here because I believe in rewarding talented students." He reached into his suit pocket and produced five golden tickets, each covered in intricate runework.

"Reward them how?" I asked.

"These," he said, holding them up, "are invitations, gate tickets to visit Omnithornia."

I started at the tickets.

"A field trip, if you will, supervised by Professor Fern."

"Omni-what now?" Adelle asked.

"Omnithornia," the Principal repeated. "A place of great beauty and magitek wonders.

"What?!" I laughed. "You actually want me to go there myself? You think me a rooster that'll just merrily walk himself into a den of foxes?!"

"Not alone, and not on a job contract, Mr. Foster. It isn't a one way trip. For your excellent performance I am rewarding your entire team with…. An educational opportunity to see the homeland of my ancestors from my mother's side. I believe it would be... illuminating for all of you."

"Omnithornia, huh? I've never heard of such a place," Candace said thoughtfully. "And I've studied pretty much every major geographical region and prad micro-nation as the Rhinehart Prima."

"It is not a place widely known to the general public," Kerberos admitted.

He extended the tickets toward me. I made no move to take them.

"Why would we want to go there?" I asked.

"Knowledge," he replied simply. "Understanding of the world beyond your limited experience. And perhaps..." His eyes flickered briefly. "Deep insights that might help your future as delvers."

I stiffened further at his words, not trusting the half-Omnid.

"Take some time to consider my offer," the Principal said, placing the tickets on a nearby bench when I still made no move to accept them. "An opportunity like this will not come again. Professor Fern will be in touch with the details as your trip overseer, should you decide to accept."

With a final nod, he turned and left the gymnasium, his shadow stretching unnaturally long behind him.

"Welp, that wasn't suspicious at all," Candace muttered once he was gone, poking the tickets with a white claw, her eyes flashing with silver. "Identify!"

Adelle snorted. "I've seen enough horror movies to know you don't accept mysterious golden tickets from creepy old men."

Nessy approached the bench, sniffing the tickets. "They feel... strange," she said, her nose twitching. "Like they're vibrating at a frequency I can almost hear. Unique… resonance. Like a dream of another place and time."

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Candace pocketed the tickets. "It's nothing dangerous." She explained. "They're basic data tags. I'll figure them out later."

"Uggh. I need to go," Kristi announced abruptly, still glaring at her phone. "My father is expecting me at our family's restaurant."

"Everything okay?" I asked, concerned by her exasperated expression.

"No. My sisters have been spinning tales about me," she said, her feathers ruffling with agitation. "I need to set things straight with my dad before this shit gets out of hand."

"Want me to come with you?" I offered.

She hesitated, then shook her head. "No. This is something I need to handle myself. Family politics. I'll… Introduce you to my father later, once I clarify things to him."

"Alright," I agreed. "Keep in touch via text, yeah?"

"Yeah." She quickly stepped towards me, leaned down and gave me a tight hug, nuzzling against my side. "See you later."

I hugged her back.

After Kristi hurried away to deal with her family drama, we headed back to the Moonshard Inn. The dragonheart laurel got relocated from Adelle to Candace's head to reload her Binder skills, the dimensional bag carried by me.

"I'm starving," Adelle announced as we walked through the hotel lobby.

"Already?" Candace laughed.

"Beatin' dungeons really works up an appetite."

"You mostly just shadowstep around and punch peeps," Candace pointed out "While I did all the hard work."

"Pfft," Adelle waved the fox off. "Details, details."

The suite looked exactly as we'd left it that morning, though housekeeping had tidied up the beds and removed the remnants of our dinner feast.

"Shower time!" Candace announced. She bounded toward the bathroom, leaving muddy pawprints on the fancy wooden floor.

"Not if I get there first!" Adelle shouted, disappearing in a blur of orange as she shadow-stepped directly into the bathroom. The door slammed, followed by the sound of running water and Adelle's triumphant laughter.

"Oi, that's cheating!" Candace pounded on the door, her silver tail bristling indignantly. "Darn cheetah. Unbind lock!"

Having unlocked the door she slipped inside.

I heard their giggling and pawing from within the shower as they left the door wide open.

Nessy sat down beside me on the edge of the bed, captivatingly blue eyes flicking between me and the bathroom door. She fidgeted with her paws, opening and closing her mouth a few times like she wanted to say something but couldn't quite find the words.

"You can join them if you want," I offered, noticing her hesitation.

"I..." she started, her ears flattening slightly as she blushed. "I was actually thinking maybe you might want to... um..."

Her tail thumped nervously against the bed.

"Shower?" I supplied, trying not to smile at her adorable awkwardness.

"Yeah," she said, not quite meeting my eyes. "Shower… with me… washing you."

I stared at Nessy, my mind momentarily short-circuiting. The sounds of Adelle and Candace's playful splashing and giggling from the shower faded into a distant hum. All I could focus on was her earnest expression.

"Are you... sure?" I finally managed.

"Yes," she voiced. "I mean, we're both covered in mud and grime from the dungeon sim. It's… efficient. And... I want to take care of you. And you trust me not to push you into anything inappropriate… right? Just… pack bonding."

Her words hung in the air. It wasn't a flirtatious challenge like Candace would throw, or a bold demand like Adelle might make. It was just… Nessy. Honest and adorably shy.

"Okay," I said, my heart doing a little flip-flop in my chest. "Okay. Sure. Let's... be efficient."

Her smile was blinding. She stood up and offered me her paw, leading me toward the bathroom.

The bathroom was filled with a cloud of steam. Adelle had Candace pinned against the shower wall, playfully scrubbing her sides with a loofah while the fox shrieked with laughter, suds flying everywhere. They were so engrossed in their game that they didn't even notice us enter.

Nessy led me past the wrestling cheetah and fox. The walk-in shower was palatial, with multiple shower heads set into the tiled walls.

"Hey, no cutting in line!" Candace yelled over the spray of water.

"What line?" Nessy blinked.

"I dunno, it sounded funnier in my head," Candace snickered. "Wait… you actually got him in here? Consider me impressed, dawg!"

"Shhh," Adelle hissed, shoving a washcloth into the fox's face. "You'll scare him off!" She began scrubbing the fox's face with the same vigor she applied to punching things, drowning Candace in bubbles.

"Gah! Not the face! You'll ruin my perfect vulpine complexion!" the fox spluttered, batting at Adelle's hands.

Nessy didn't acknowledge the fox-cheetah shenanigans. She guided me under an unoccupied shower head and turned the knob. Warm water cascaded down, rinsing my armor and sluicing the mud from my hexamesh undersuit.

With gentle and intense focus, Nessy began to help me out of the armor and then the skintight suit. Her paws were methodical, unzipping the back and carefully peeling the damp fabric from my shoulders and arms. I felt a blush creep up my neck as I stood bare before her, my body a roadmap of old and new scars from a life of being a low-level human in a high-level world.

"Alec," she let out. "Isn't your reconstitution at a hundred percent now? Why don't you heal all of these?"

"Hrmm," I considered her words. "I suppose that I could. I'm too used to it sitting at zero, I guess? Afraid that I might run out and then… I'll be useless."

"Alec, you're not useless. Stop doubting yourself. At least fix up your insides," she said warmly.

"How do you know about my insides?" I asked.

"I can smell all the empty, dead spaces in your head," she said. "It's worrying me."

"I was hoping that the bracelet we made would fix it," I shrugged, glancing at the orange-violet Revitalizing Wyvern-Heart Bracelet glittering on my wrist.

"It can't heal something that died so long ago Alec," Nessy said, pulling the bracelet off me and putting it on a side shelf. "It's a medium quality artifact. You don't need to suffer alone anymore… now that I found you."

She took a bottle of shampoo, squeezed a generous amount into her palm, and began to work it into my hair. Her fingers were strong and sure, massaging my scalp with a practiced ease that made my eyes flutter closed. A low, unconscious hum started in her throat, a soft, melodic sound that vibrated through her touch, soothing away the last vestiges of tension from my body.

"Ooh, look at that technique," Candace's voice danced from the other side of the shower. "You taking notes, Ads? See? Das how you wash someone you love, not whatever half-assery you're performing on my poor fox self."

"I'm washing you like I'd wash a muddy rug," Adelle rumbled. "Be grateful I'm using soap, you loaf."

"A very precious n' rare, lemon-scented loaf, thank you very much!" Candace retorted.

I felt my ears burn, but Nessy just chuckled softly, her fingers kneading my hair.

Nessy rinsed the shampoo from my hair, her paws carding through the strands to make sure every bit of soap was gone. Then she moved to my back, her pink paw pads creating a pleasant friction against my skin as she lathered soap across my shoulders and down my spine.

"You okay?" she murmured.

"Yeah," I breathed out, leaning my forehead against the cool tile of the shower wall. "More than okay. This is nice. Thanks."

This was so far removed from anything I'd ever experienced.

Care, in my life, had always been transactional or a matter of gruff, occasional necessity. This gentle, unhurried attention was something new, something that felt dangerously good. Yet for some inexplicable reason, I didn't feel nervous with Nessy, trusting her wholeheartedly. as if we'd done this before, long ago. Just me and her. In another place and time.

I helped rinse off and remove her muddy delver armor.

"Awww, so romantic," Candace commented. "Are you two going to recreate that scene from *Ghost* with the pottery wheel, but with soap? Because I am so here for that."

I ignored her, my attention entirely on Nessy as she moved to stand in front of me. She worked the soapy washcloth over my chest and arms, her eyes focused on her task, a small smile played on her lips. The simple, domestic act felt more intimate than any of Candace's over-the-top advances. It was an act of service, of quiet affection.

Our faces were suddenly inches apart as she rinsed me. The fox and cheetah noises seemed to fade into the background. In the swirling steam, it felt like we were the only two people in the world. I could see the individual droplets of water clinging to her black eyelashes, the way her eyes grew wide under my gaze.

I leaned in, and she suddenly met me halfway, our lips colliding in a kiss that was soft, warm, and tasted of warm water cascading over both of us.

For a split second the universe around us seemed to grind to a halt, an ocean of violet starry constellations spiraling all around.

The kiss was gentle, questioning, and ended far too soon. When we pulled apart, she was smiling, a genuine, heart-stopping smile that lit up her entire face.

"WHOO! GET SOME, ALPHA!" Adelle roared, breaking the spell. She punctuated her cheer by playfully smacking Candace on the butt with the wet washcloth.

"Ow! Uncalled for!" Candace yelped, then grinned. "But I agree with the sentiment! Go, Ness! I thought we were going to have to sit through another five episodes of unresolved romantic tension! Kiss him again! For science!"

Nessy just laughed, her eyes sparkling as she looked at me. "Later," she promised in a whisper seemingly meant only for me, before turning to grab a bottle of conditioner. "If you… behave."

"Behave how?" I asked.

"Fix yourself," she ordered.

I frowned.

"Please?"

"I did great at the sim. What if I get horribly mauled and…" I began.

"None of that," she shook her wet mane. "We won't let you get mauled. You did great, yes, but I want you to do even better. Okay?"

"Fine," I said, activating and focusing Reconstitution on my old injuries, letting it revive neurons and connections that have long been destroyed.

"Good boy." She smiled. "Now hold still. It's conditioner time."

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