Pocket Dungeon, page 14
“You should elevate that,” I murmured, though it was more to myself than it was to her. I grabbed a throw pillow from the couch and set it on the coffee table in front of me. Then I gently grabbed Yasha’s leg and propped it up on the pillow.
“That feels better,” she said. She almost sounded surprised. “How do you know how to do this?”
“Do what?” I asked. I made sure to fluff the pillow up to try and make it a little more comfortable. It wasn’t exactly a great pillow.
“Tend to injuries,” she elaborated. “Do you harm or break many bones?”
“My sister broke bones a lot as a kid,” I explained. “I mean, I did, too, but she did more than me. We were rambunctious, according to my mother.”
“Rambunctious,” Yasha repeated the word slowly. I still wasn’t sure how the whole ‘she understands me’ somehow thing worked, but it certainly seemed like she had never heard the word before.
“We had a lot of energy and tended to get into trouble,” I elaborated. “So I got used to taking care of things like this.”
“I suffered many broken bones as a child as well,” Yasha said. “Injuries from training. But no one ever gave me pillows.”
I frowned. “Well, they should have.”
Something almost shy played on her lips, and she looked away from me to study the living room. Before she could say anything else that would give me a grudge against her homeworld, there was a knock on the door.
Her ears flicked toward the sound like a cat’s, and I bit back a grin. That would take some getting used to.
I stood up and made my way over to the front door. The delivery guy had simply left the pizzas sitting outside my front door, which while a great way to get my food fucking stolen, meant I didn’t run the risk of someone seeing Yasha and her ears and tail.
Logically, I knew they’d assume it was a sex thing and not that she was from another world, but still, better safe than sorry.
I grabbed the five practically steaming cardboard boxes and pulled them into my apartment. I used my foot to nudge the door closed before carrying the boxes over and setting them next to Yasha’s foot on the coffee table.
Her pupils had gone wide at the sight of the boxes, and she visibly sniffed the air.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Pizza,” I announced and opened the first box. Pepperoni. “Have you ever had it before?”
“No.” She looked like she might have been drooling as she leaned forward on the couch as much as she could with her leg propped up. “What is it made of?”
“It’s bread with a sauce made of tomatoes, cheese, and a bunch of different toppings,” I explained. “This one is pepperoni, which is a type of sausage.”
“Pepperoni,” she repeated the word like she had done with ‘rambunctious’. It sounded cute in her faint accent.
“I didn’t know what you would like,” I continued. “So I got a few different kinds. I figured you could try them out, and statistically, would have to like one of them.”
I began to pry open the lids of the other boxes, and the scents of sauce, meat, and Italian spices wafted up into the apartment.
I had also gotten a veggie pizza, one with pineapple, and a supreme. Paired with the large cheesy bread I’d ordered, we had quite the feast on our hands.
Yasha’s pupils were as wide as I’d ever seen them. She tentatively reached forward and snagged a piece of the pepperoni pizza. It pulled away from the box with a massive stretch of cheese that held her attention. It was clear she had never seen something like it before.
“Is it supposed to do this?” She cocked her head to the side like it was some sort of puzzle as she continued to tug on the piece of pizza only for more cheese to stretch off.
I laughed and reached down to pluck the cheese strand off and broke the tether to the rest of the pizza. Then I dropped it onto her piece for her.
“It is,” I assured her. “Go on, try a bite.”
Yasha stared at the piece in mild suspicion, but her curiosity, or her hunger, won out. She brought it up to her mouth and took a small, almost cautious bite.
“Oh,” she mumbled around the food in her mouth. Within seconds, the entire piece disappeared. Her lips were shiny with grease, and there was a speck of sauce in the corner of her mouth. Her tongue darted out to lick it clean, and I watched with a rapt fascination.
“How was it?” I joked.
“That was the best thing I have ever eaten,” she assured me with the utmost seriousness. “Can I have another?”
Her eyes darted back to the boxes on the table like she wasn’t sure she was allowed.
“You don’t have to ask!” I said. “I got this for me and you to eat. Have as much as you want. If we don’t finish it all, I can put it in the refrigerator, and then later we can eat it cold. Honestly, it’s even better cold.”
“It gets better than this?” She sounded like she didn’t believe me, which meant I was going to have to prove her wrong.
I grinned. “It does.”
The two of us began to eat in a ravenous silence. I hadn’t really realized just how hungry I had been, but I supposed it made sense. Fighting monsters in a dungeon was one hell of a workout.
It was around my fourth or fifth piece that I finally came up for air. Yasha was slowing down a bit, too.
“So,” I said. “You don’t actually know my language, English, do you? But you’re somehow speaking it.”
The question had been burning in the back of my mind for far too long to ignore it anymore. It just didn’t make sense that she would speak the same language as me, and I had questions.
Yasha shook her head. “No. And I do not suppose you are fluent in Vulpa.”
“No,” I laughed. “I’m definitely not.”
She gave a slow, inquisitive nod, like it was something she had suspected for a long while.
“I do not know for certain, but I have suspected that the crystals act like translators,” she mused. “My father told me many stories about his time in the dungeon, and the people he met there, and many of them seemed to be from other worlds. I always wondered about the languages.”
“It makes sense in a weird sort of way,” I said. “That the crystals would translate. They can already spawn monsters like some sort of video game. Why not translate between the people inside.”
She nodded in agreement, even though I could tell my mention of video games confused her. “It would also seem that once the crystal has translated for you in a dungeon, you gain an understanding of the language.”
“Sort of like a real-time translation,” I added. “This is fascinating. I presume that if I had come with you to Arcadio and not the other way around, I would be speaking Vulpa right now.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” she said with an eager smile. “Because I know I am not speaking my native tongue. In my mind, the words I need somehow just… correct themselves to… English?”
“English,” I confirmed.
I was glad Yasha seemed to understand my thoughts. It was always nice to meet someone who was so easily able to jump onto the same page without issue.
“There are many strange, wonderful things about this world and the crystals,” she mused. “I would like to find out more about it.”
I grinned. “I would like you to find out more about it, too, especially if it means you get to hang out with me more.”
Yasha’s lips quirked at the edges, and a slow grin began to form on her face. “I would like that very much, I think.”
“Good. Are you finished eating? I can put the pizza away, and then I can show you where the bedroom is?” I realized what my words might have sounded like as soon as they were out of my mouth, and I quickly cleared my throat. “You can take my bed for the night. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
Something glinted in Yasha’s eye, and I was struck with the realization that she didn’t seem all that upset at the original implication of the sentence.
The thought sent a thrilled little shiver down my spine under her intense gaze, but I pushed that notion away for the moment.
We may have slain a dragon together, but we hardly knew each other.
“Thank you, Wes,” she said.
“You can get a good night’s rest, it’s nearly midnight, and then in the morning, we can head out and get your leg looked at now that you’ve had some time to adjust to being on Earth.”
I started to pack up the pizzas and combined the remaining slices into one box just to give my hands something to do. It was hard to think of anything else while I felt Yasha’s golden eyes boring into my back like she was trying to see straight through me.
She was fucking intense.
When she didn’t respond after a few moments, I looked back at her over my shoulder.
“Is that alright?” I asked, but instead of answering, Yasha simply threw herself at me.
Chapter 10
Yasha wrapped her arms around my shoulders and buried her face in the crook of my neck. The motion sent her foot skittering off the coffee table and knocked the pillow to the ground, but she clearly didn’t seem to mind.
I gave a grunt of surprise as the force of the gesture pushed me back against the arm of the sofa. I was half-sprawled out on the cushions now with a very sexy fox-woman draped over me, and holy fucking shit, what had my life become?
I curled my arms around her waist because what the fuck else was I supposed to do? The soft fur of her tail brushed my hand, and I felt the intense urge to stroke it.
So I did.
Yasha practically purred into my skin, and I felt a heat coil in the pit of my stomach at the sound. I stilled my hand, because as much as I wanted to see just how far this thing would progress, and I really, really wanted to see how far this thing would go, she was still hurt.
I leaned back and put some distance between us. Her eyes were bright as they stared deeply into my own, and I felt some sort of spark between us. It was hard to look away and break her hypnotic gaze.
“You’re hurt,” I finally said. It was just about all I could muster in the way of an explanation considering most of my blood was not rushing to my brain at that exact moment in time.
“Yes,” she said, like it was obvious and not a factor that needed to be considered in anything.
This woman was going to fucking kill me, I decided. She was actually going to fucking kill me. I was not brought up to withstand the utterly hot combo of cute, sexy, and lethal with a katana.
“It’s not smart to risk hurting yourself further,” I pressed. I wasn’t going to fight her too hard on the subject, because to be fair, I’d been in a dry spell, and I had a very sexy woman on top of me.
I wasn’t a fucking idiot.
A small flash of understanding crossed Yasha’s face, but instead of moving off of me, she leaned down and brushed her plush lips against mine.
The kiss was slow and exploratory, and it felt a whole hell of a lot like a promise. When she pulled away, she licked her lips and finally began to push herself up and off of me.
“You are a good man, Wes.” She said it like it was an obvious fact. I wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything that was happening, but I supposed I would take the compliment.
It took me a moment to gather myself enough to sit up.
“Come on,” I said as I pulled myself off the couch. “Let’s go get you settled for the night.”
Together, Yasha and I made our way to my bedroom where I helped the fox-woman clamber into my bed. She made herself at home almost immediately amongst my comforter and meager two pillows.
I made a move to go, but her hand darted out from under the covers faster than I could see and curled around my wrist. It was a silent request, and it was one I didn’t intend to ignore.
“I’m going to put the food away and then take a shower of my own,” I told her. “But if you want me to come back and stay here with you, I will.”
“Good,” she said. It was more than enough of an answer.
I turned out the light in the bedroom and quickly made my way back into the living room to finish cleaning up. Once the pizzas were safely tucked into my practically empty fridge, I ducked into the bathroom and took a quick run through the shower.
The pockets of my jeans were still bulging with gold, and I made a mental note to deal with that at some point the next day. I knew it wouldn’t be feasible to go back to the same gold dealer I’d seen the day before, especially considering he’d told me that he wouldn’t be able to buy more off of me until next week. I could stop at the pawnshop again, but it also seemed like shipping the gold out was a good plan. I’d just have to wait to see how much money I actually got for the coins I shipped out.
I dumped the pockets of the jeans out in the living room and quickly set about counting them, just so I would have an idea what I was working with. It turned out that my initial count the first time had been correct, and I had one hundred and fifty-three gold pieces from the second dungeon.
I didn’t have anywhere else to put all the coins, so I tucked them back into the jeans’ pocket before I bundled the pants in my arms and grabbed the crystal from the end table by the couch.
Then I finally made my way back into my bedroom and set my gold-laden jeans and the crystal on my dresser.
Yasha was still comfortably nestled in the blanket, and when I pulled back the comforter to slip inside next to her, she pressed herself close to me without any sort of hesitation.
I was sort of surprised at the willingness she had to be close to me, but then again, it didn’t seem like she’d ever had anyone take care of her before. I couldn’t exactly blame her for enjoying the kindness.
I drifted off to sleep with the woman curled against my shoulder, and her tail draped over my side.
When I woke the next morning, it was to a thin stream of light cutting through my shitty blinds. It didn’t matter how I oriented the panels on the blinds, the sunlight always managed to hit me directly in the eyes. It was like some sort of curse.
“Ugh,” I grunted.
Yasha shifted and stirred under the blankets.
She pressed in closer to me, as if that could keep the light away. I was more comfortable than I had been in a very long time, and her presence next to me made a rather compelling argument for staying in bed.
But we really did need to get her foot looked at, and as much as I wanted to stay in bed, I wasn’t going to prioritize something like that over her wellbeing.
“Yasha,” I gently shook her to wake her up. “Come on. We’ve got to get your foot looked at.”
The woman gave a muffled yawn into my side, and instead of getting up, she curled closer into me. She made a very, very good argument without any words at all for staying in bed. I huffed out a laugh.
Then I allowed myself to bask in the gentle way her chest pressed into me with each of her soft breaths for a moment. Only a couple minutes later, I found myself fighting the urge to stroke her tail again. It was curled up so it draped over her hip and rested on my crotch, and I could have sworn it was slowly shifting to make featherlight circles on me. Around the time I realized how sexy this was, I knew we definitely needed to get out of this bed.
“Come on,” I urged her.
After a few more seconds of trying and failing to persuade her to actually get out of bed, Yasha sat up and stretched her arms above her. She let out a large yawn and rolled her spine. For someone who wasn’t part cat, she did have some very cat-like mannerisms.
It took a little more poking and prodding, but Yasha did eventually manage to pull herself up from bed. She sat on the edge of my mattress looking adorably frumpled and disheveled with her hair and the fur on her ears standing up on end.
“Do you want to wear what you had on yesterday?” I asked as I clambered out of bed. “I’m not sure what all I have, but I’m sure I could find something else to fit you. My sister probably left some of her stuff here.”
“That would be nice,” Yasha said. “Thank you.”
It took a bit of searching, but just like I suspected, Carrie had in fact left behind what seemed like an entire closet. I had no idea how my sister functioned as a human being, but it had at least worked in my favor this time.
I brought back the haul of clothing to Yasha and set it on the edge of the bed. The woman hadn’t managed to fully pull herself out of bed yet, but her legs dangled off the edge of the mattress as she rubbed tiredly at her eyes.
“Here,” I said. “Any of this should fit you a little more comfortably than my clothes. I can’t help with shoes, but you’ve got your boots still, and hopefully after we get your ankle looked at, the doctors can give you something to help with the pain.”
“Thank you, Wes.” Yasha gave me a half-asleep little smile that nearly melted my organs.
I quickly grabbed a fresh pair of jeans and a clean shirt from my drawer. “I’ll give you some space to get dressed.”
I disappeared from my room before she could do something like undress in front of me again. I wasn’t sure if I could handle it a second time without doing something about it. The rumpled, sleepy fox-girl look was doing all sorts of things to my blood flow.
It only took me a few minutes to change out of my own pajamas and into the clothing I’d grabbed. I ran my fingers through my hair and brushed my teeth, and then I made my way into the kitchen to grab a cold piece of pizza from the fridge. I scarfed it down as I waited for Yasha.
A few minutes later, the fox-woman emerged from my bedroom in a sweater, beanie, and a long skirt. She looked substantially softer than she did in her own clothing. For an outfit she’d thrown together from the random things my sister had forgotten over the last year every time she’d come to visit, it was a surprisingly cute outfit.
“I thought I should hide my ears and tail,” she explained. “You said you have never met someone with a tail, so I presume the rest of your race have not, either…”
“That’s probably smart,” I agreed. “While I like them, I think they might draw some attention.”
Yasha’s lips quirked at one side. “You like them?”
I grinned and made a point of ignoring her teasing comment. “Come get something to eat. There’s plenty of pizza left from last night. Grab a slice, and then we can get going.”
