“It’s wonderful!” She turns, allowing FeeTwix to clasp the chain with the small silver circlet around her neck.
With that, the goblin clomps right past Ryuk with a tray full of steaming dragon wings and plops down onto the nearest bed.
“Ahem.” Jim straightens the front of his black tuxedo. “And for the rest of you?”
“I’ll have some tea,” Tamana tells him, “something with mink’s willow to restore my MP.”
“Do you have any macaroons?” Zaena asks. FeeTwix nudges her with his elbow. “What?” Her high cheekbones flush red, which provides an interesting contrast to her orange bob and her green tint. “Not those type of macaroons!” She playfully slaps him with her ghost limb.
Ryuk laughs and the pressure he’s felt for the last hour dissipates. His group, his newfound friends, have a way of lightening the dark corners of his life. The fact that Tamana is there only makes the feeling that much better, adding a true sense of familiarity to the group.
Hiccup interrupts his little moment by beating his chest with his fist. “Damn generic healing potions and my fickin’ heartburn. Jim, get me a couple of Hopkins’ Holistic Healing Nostrums and make it snappy. Well, it doesn’t need to be snappy, but when you come back, bring some and bill the guild.” He gives Ryuk a shit-eating grin. “The helm that Dirty Dave gave me really hooked us the fick up.”
He spreads his grubby hands in front of him and a pile of rupees fall to the floor; he snaps his mechanical fingers and they disappear.
FeeTwix plunks down next to Hiccup and puts his arm around the goblin’s shoulder. “You are one crazy mitherficker,” he tells Hiccup, his eyes still black. “You have an actual fan group now; just thought you’d like to know that.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-thousand. They are calling themselves ‘The Fickers.’ They love how OP you are.”
“What?” Hiccup points at FeeTwix’s black eyes. “Listen, Fickers, if you want my love, if you really want my respect, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want. I want to see thirty-three thousand members by tomorrow morning. Also, um, FeeTwix, what are you currently hawking?”
The Swede’s eyes flash blue. “The Old Banana Navy Gap Republic is having an epic sale on women’s jewelry for Valentine’s Day. Sixty percent off all jewelry with the mention of #FeeTwixRox online or in retail stores.” His eyes turn black again.
Hiccup grins. “Also, I want you all to get your asses to Old … ” he gives FeeTwix a confused look. “What the fick was it?”
“The Old Banana Navy Gap Republic.”
“Whatever the fick he just said. Go there, and buy some of that shit and wear it.”
“It’s jewelry for women.”
“Great! Strike a blow for gender neutrality or something! Buy fick-tons of it, and tell them Uncle Goblin sent you!”
“The discount code is #FeeTwixRox.”
“Fick this, I give up.” Hiccup throws his hands up in the air and returns to his dragon wings.
(0)__(0)
As the others eat, and as FeeTwix tries several times to explain to Hiccup how to correctly market and live-sell a product, Tamana moves towards Ryuk and motions him to the door. They step out into the lobby and take a seat in on a green sofa that, like most of the decor in this place, doesn’t quite fit the fantasy parameters.
“Tell me what happened out there.” She lifts a strand of white hair out of her face and tucks it into the braid on the side. “I know you, Ryuk, I know something happened.”
His thoughts regarding RPCs and their “realness” come to him and he pushes them far away. She’s here, and that’s what matters.
“As I told you before I logged out – my brother stopped by.”
“And?”
“He threatened Hajime with a weapon that shuts down humandroids.”
“Really?” She places her hand over her mouth; the concern on her face is one of the more genuine things he has seen in a while, even if it is fake, he reminds himself.
“He came at me and … ” Ryuk relives the experience, the sound of the shattering table, the blood. “I pushed him into my coffee table and he broke it. Hurt himself too.”
Tamana moves back. “You shoved him?”
“Yeah.” Ryuk bites his lip. “I was, still am, sick of his shit. He can kill me for all I care! He will no longer intimidate me.”
She looks away and is quiet for a moment. Finally, she turns back to Ryuk. “Don’t say that.”
“Say what?”
“That he can kill you. I don’t want you to die.”
“But I don’t care if I live, so that makes dying a lot easier. That, and the fact that I will spawn here, and we can … ”
She looks away. “I don’t want you to think that way about dying. It’s too serious to be trivialized. Yes, you can come here as an RPC once you die, but I don’t want you to think of it as some type of backup plan. You need to live, enjoy your life up there, get married, have kids …”
“I don’t want any of that.” Ryuk grabs Tamana’s hand. “I want you, that’s it. Not someone else up there. I want what we have here.”
Shogyo Mujo, Ryuk thinks, all worldly things are transitory.
“Don’t … you don’t know what you’re saying. You’re just going through a lot right now. I’m not real.” She runs her hands along the front of her avatar’s body to make her point. “I’m an RPC, which as you know, is just a very well-designed NPC. The Tamana you knew up there is dead.”
“No, she’s right here.” He squeezes her hand even harder.
“That’s not the way it is, Ryuk, and you know that.”
He releases her hand and sits back for a moment, thinking of what to say next. “Do you remember the RPC couples we’ve met in Valhalla and other places?”
“I do.”
“We can be like them.”
A sad smile moves across her face. “But you’re not an RPC and, I don’t even know if that’s the kind of relationship we should have right now.”
His heart sinks. “So you wouldn’t have said yes, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
When I asked you out before the incident. You never gave me an answer. The date.” He looks away.
“Of course I would have said yes. I was … ” She clears her throat. “It was just unexpected. I was going to message you later and tell you yes. Honest.”
Ryuk’s eyes fill with joy. “Tamana, you know everything about me, even my family’s dark past, and I know everything about you, all of it. There isn’t another person, in the real world or in the Proxima Galaxy who is a better fit for me.”
Her eyes soften. “You think so?”
“I do, I really do, and I’ve never been able to say it and damn me for finally having the guts to tell you now. I’m here for you, forever, and I will be here in Tritania forever when my RW avatar moves on.”
She takes Ryuk’s hand and brings it to her chest, just above her heart. “If you can accept me for who I’ve become, if you can truly accept me, then I support any decision you make. Just, please, don’t do anything hasty; don’t be careless with your life. Try to live as long as you can; be a positive influence on the world up there and we can grow what we already have here.”
“Oh, fick me to tears – what is this, the Junior Prom?” Hiccup stands at the exit of their room with an empty tray of dragon wings in his greasy, sauce besmeared goblin beaters. “You two are just about the most pathetic virgins I’ve ever come across.”
Ryuk whips his hand away from Tamana’s chest.
“Ha! You finally get your chance to cop a feel and you let your old Uncle Goblin stop you? Pfft! Grab on, my friend, grab on.” Hiccup deposits the tray on the check-in desk. “And you,” he tells Jim, who now stands behind the desk. “What kind of perv gets his jollies watching some icky-sweet display of puppy love? Talk about a voyeuristic ficker.”