>>5976779“Honestly, it’s not that big a deal. I mean, my parents are going to have a FIT I’m sure.”
“You haven’t told them?” you ask, surprised.
“I haven’t SEEN them,” Testa explains. “right after we were done making that belt and doing that funny dancing ritual, I was right back to work. My master is SUUUUCH a slaver.”
“Where is your master, anyway?” you say, remembering the faintly-intimidating Mistress Gartner, with her larger-than-life presence, shrewd and hungry expression, abundance of enchanted furs.
“Attending some trade… Thing… Down south, I guess?”
In the SOUTHLANDS? Well Hawksong’s domains aren’t not FORMALLY at war, and she has to get exotic hides and furs SOMEWHERE you suppose… But you wonder how legitimate that trade is, legally-speaking, on EITHER side of the ephemeral ‘border’ between civilizations.
“I wish I had a master more like yours,” Testa sighs wistfully. “You just go wherever and DO whatever you want, don’t you?”
“My apprenticeship has its own baggage,” you note darkly.
“I thought we weren’t walking about YOUR problems anymore?”
“Right, sorry.”
“AND you have a spot close to Hawksong…”Testa continues, tilting her head sideways and sighing again.
“You miss Hawksong?”
Testa’s expression shifts slightly, a shadow passing over it. You give her a look, and she blurts it out: what’s bothering her.
“Okay, so, the BODY is fine,” she says, gesturing to her petite and (admittedly) shapely-yet-spritely form. “But there HAVE been these, uh… Other changes.”
“Other changes?” you ask, worriedly.
“Well, you mentioned that you and Izirina and Costella are all… Tangled-up, spiritually and magically, right?”
You stare.
“You and Zith-Zi are—”
“NOT the same way,” testa is quick to insist. “I am NOT into other girls like that! That would be—”
She stops, reading our expression.
“W-well, not that there’s anything WRONG with that. But… I sometimes dream I’m there. That I’m HER… or one of them, anyway. The… The other Zith-Zi, too. Carazzi or whatever. And sometimes I get this little niggling feeling in the back of my head, or a little tug at my heart, like someone’s… Well, it sounds hysterical, I know, but sometimes I just think about pestering you and your personal portal-producer there to zap me back to just, you know, check in on my fellow nilbogs.”
“…Nilbogs?”
“Like, reverse goblins, get it?” she asks. “G-O-B-L-I-N, right? N-I-L-B—”
“I get it,” you say, glaring at Testa’s affected cutesy innocence, only to cave with actual concern. “Is it… Bad? When I was apart from Izirina and Costella, the longing got to me after a while.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s because you’re also kissing and canoodling,” Testa points out. “No, it’s not AWFUL.”
“You could come back with me,” you suggest.
Testa’s face scrunches up and she shakes her head rapidly.
