The Cave

Raiden shuffled back a little after seeing her uncomfortable reaction to him.
"Ah, okay, I see. I was just wondering. Thanks for that clarification," he said, before turning to the hole in the side of the cave. In Raiden fashion, he yeeted over there and found himself out on a beach of some sorts.
"Huh. Interesting."

He didn't look alright, but Reyes wasn't going to ask anymore questions. It seemed like what he really needed was Kendrik, and Kendrik was currently right next to him. Thus the situation became awkward all over again - Kendrik and Jaron were undeniably close, while Reyes was...well, he was Reyes, and he didn't exactly have a close set of friends here or even away from this weird cave.

He thought for a moment. He needed a conversation starter, something that might lead to them discovering a similarity between them. It seemed like they were from completely different areas - the prosthetic alone was a good indicator of that - so he would have to come up with something universal. Something that was possible even where they would have come from.

He looked over at them, then at the area around them in a search for something that would give him an idea of what to say. Something similar. Something similar. Something similar-

"Are you two dating?" he blurted out.

Nice one, Orrin. With your luck they're not and this entire thing is going to get very, very awkward quickly.



Kartiel sniffed the air. "Someone's magical here, though. Really magical. They're stinking up the entire cave and I don't even think they're in the cave anymore," he said, covering his nose with his hand.


He took a deep breath. "Many thousands of years," he said. He kept looking down at his lap. "It's been so long that I've lost count. But I'm not-I'm not like you. It makes sense that it would take so long for someone like me."

“...Forgive me for not understanding, but I don’t think you’ve ever said much that would explain why it would take longer for you,” James said, also resorting to looking down and away. “But I understand if it feels... like too much to explain. I know I only have a little more than two decades of personal history to unpack. I can’t imagine what it’s like with thousands.”

Kendrik turned his head around to look up at Reyes. As Jaron rested his head on the hound's shoulder and closed his eyes, Kendrik blinked. "Ain't that kinda obvious?" Kendrik said. "Yeah. I love this guy."

Adeline tilted her head and thought for a moment.

"I have a few suspicions to who that might be."

She shifted on her spot on the rock and her thigh scraped against a sharp part. She winced at the screech.

"Not the best place for my skin..." she murmured.

Maahes looked over at him. "I'm not human, James. I know that's probably obvious from how I've been around so long, but it's also the reason for all of my problems. I'm what you would call a demon. When I'm summoned by someone, I have to do everything they command me to." He stared back down at his lap. "So I had to wait for someone to give me a kind order...and most people don't summon a demon unless they're desperate."



He let out a quiet sigh of relief. "Thank God," he muttered, grateful that he hadn't made the conversation even more awkward than it had already been.

He sat down and crossed his legs. "It's not usually a conversation starter, but this isn't a usual situation. I can't think of anything else we have in common. I, er, like guys too. I'm not sure if that's considered normal where you guys come from, but people here are a little iffy about falling in love with someone that's the same gender as you." He thought for a second. "And sounded weird, didn't it? I apologize. I'm just struggling to find something we can talk about and the queer people in the area where I'm from tend to see others like them as sort of a family, if that makes any sense."

He sighed again. That probably had just made things even more awkward.


Kartiel raised an eyebrow.

"Who were you thinking of?" he asked.

He spits at Lucifer's feet and snaps back in harsh German. "F*** you, Lucifer, I wouldn't give or tell you anything come Hell and high God d***** water."

~

The Viper watches the exchange in silence, leaning against the wall and glancing in the direction of where Raiden went.

"'s fine," Kendrik said. "We don't talk much." He set his head over Jaron's and sighed. "'s not a weird thing where I come from. 'Cept for royalty, 'cause they have to have kids and all. Why's it a problem over there?"

He paused, thinking about Reyes's last comment. "Don't got much family, either. His didn't like him; I lost mine. We don't have lots of friends, straight or not. Ya've probably learned more about us than most."

"One of the men outside, for starters." She inclined her head, "though it's hard to tell if the smell you mentioned is coming from him. He definitely isn't human."
She looked off into the distance of the cave, focusing on a darkened cavern of to the side.
"You know," she said suddenly, "this place reminds me a lot of my home."

He looked over at Adeline and gave her a smile of sorts. Not exactly one, because the memory was bittersweet. But certainly close to one; he was very fond of what it reminded him of. "It reminds me of the cave I used to sneak off to when I was a little kid," he said. "Dad used to get so mad at me for doing it. He always said it was dangerous, but I never believed him."

He leaned back up against the wall. "So what's your home like, besides being like this cave?"



Reyes shrugged. "I admit I don't know why the prejudice started. It's just been like that for as long as I can remember. It's gotten better since my childhood, but there still are some people who would kick their kids out if they came out to them as gay." He shifted uncomfortably. "I work in entertainment, so I never really bring my sexuality up. It's hard to tell what exactly my viewers are like and I can't risk losing ratings over who I like. It's not worth it."

He gave an awkward smile.

"But, anyways, I'm glad you trust me enough to let me know more about you than most people do," he said. "It really means a lot to me."


He wiped the spit off of his foot with his other sneaker. Taking a deep breath, he looked Kratzer in the eye one last time. "Okay," he said, his voice shaking even as he tried to hold it steady. "I'll-I'll stop bothering you now."

He turned around, made sure to walk a good distance away, and promptly started to frantically wipe away the tears that had only just begun to fall. He had been waiting for an answer for so long; it should have been sign that it wasn't going to be what he wanted. Even more so, he had dealt with people like Kratzer before. People who hated him for being a person he had never asked to be, and people who hated him because he had somehow inadvertently messed their lives up.

Adeline studied Kartiel's face, trying to work out his facial expressions.

"Well, for starters, I grew up in the cooled chambers of an active volcanoe." She shrugged. "It was close to where I was born."

Her gaze grew distant as she thought of her kin. The fading, happy memories and the most recent one of their melting forms and agonizing cries. She shuddered and pushed that particular thought back.

"I didn't live there very long compared to other places, but it's still the first thing that comes to mind when I think of home. What about you? What is your... kingdom like?

"Ya only saw so much 'cause we couldn't hide it," Kendrik said, "But ya were with Jaron, and he says he trusts ya, and I trust him." He rubbed one of Jaron's ears; the fox tried to stifle a laugh. "It don't sound like a good world, whatever that "entertainment" and "ratings" stuff is. Not like ours's much better, but at least I've got Jaron."

James knew his knee-jerk reaction wouldn't be helpful, which was essentially: who made up those sh*tty rules.

He didn't know how that worked. He didn't know how things worked outside of Nye.

"I figured you weren't human soon as you changed forms," he noted. "But that sounds awful, to have your free will stripped from you. Robbed of your own autonomy." At least all of his choices had been his own.

He stopped there, not wanting to drag on for fear of sounding insincere. Maahes's situation was one he wasn't entirely familiar with, but he did desire to understand - especially since, in all of their time together, Maahes had done the same for him. Or at least tried to.

He tried to think of a good way to describe it to Jaron and Kendrik. It wasn't easy, considering that they didn't even know what he meant when he said entertainment. But he eventually settled on something that might give them even the most basic understanding of what he was talking about. After all, weren't stories universal?

"The entertainment industry does performances," he explained. "Some people sing. Others tell stories, just not in the way that you're used to. I'm one of the people who tells stories. But in order for me to keep my job, I have get good ratings - basically, people need to watch what I'm doing, and they needed to like it. If they don't, I don't get to tell that story anymore."


He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out.

"I admit I don't know if it's mine anymore," he said. "There wasn't-there wasn't anybody else in line for the throne, and I was killed by an opposing power. They've probably taken it over in the time that I've been gone...But back when it was mine, it was one of the coolest places in all of Minecraftia. It had a big open sky, with beautiful spires coming out of the ground. We had ships that could travel through the skies, too, and I spent most of my childhood hiding in them or in the rest of the kingdom. And when that got boring, I'd get to ride on the dragon. It was a pretty cool place."


"It is," Maahes agreed. "It's been...it's been hard. You don't get to choose who you end up with. The only time I really feel free is when I'm back in my real home, but it's been so long since I've gotten a good chance to stay there that it doesn't feel like home anymore. I've just been summoned so many times, and for so long. The last time, I hadn't gone back for thousands of years. This time has only been a handful of years, but it's still been far too long."

"So," said Kendrik. "Like a bard or somethin'?" He pulled himself and Jaron up; he would've loved to stay here, but the goosebumps on his skin told him this wasn't a safe place. Besides, his legs had started to fall asleep. "Don't sound like much fun if yer dependin' on others to keep tellin' stories. People ain't all that great." He stretched his legs, wincing at the pinpricks that shot up them. Kendrik tried to ignore it by looking across the rest of the beach. His eyes widened. "Hey, 's there anything beyond the beach? 'Cause it looks like there's more cave back there."