The End Approaches

"Your eyes... they... they turned blue..."

"... what?"

"I swear, they're azure now" she repeated, possibly more confused than Oberon himself was.

That didn't make sense. Why would his eyes change color? That shouldn't have been possible. But she also had no reason to lie about that, especially not so out of the blue. Both him and Ara immediatly thought about what happened under the rain, that thing he did to him but which neither of them could really remember. From there, several different guesses drifted into their minds, some wilder than others.

"... let's just head back up" he then said as he headed to the door.

Since she didn't really have any better idea herself, Ara followed him all the way to the elevator. ... had it always been that hot inside there? As they moved upwards, she found herself stealing glances at him rather often. Maybe it was just her impression, but she felt like the tingling between her legs -and inside of her- had gotten worse. At one point Oberon took half a step to the side, adding a tiny bit of distance between them. Then, the doors opened.

"I... I thin I'll take a bath" she said before going away.

She walked upstairs, entered to the bathroom and splashed some water on her face as she waited for the bathtub to fill. While doing so she happened to look in the mirror. One of her eyes had gone red while the other had taken of a strong crimson shade, though they were both turning back to their natural amber color. That was weird, she didn't have them before stepping inside the elevator.

"W... what's going on?"

With no answer readily aviable, she simply dropped her clothes and slipped inside the warm water, the tingling beneath the chastity belt still pestering her.

Oberon, on his part, had walked to the closest mirror he could find to look at his own face. It was true, his eyes were azure, though they seemed to be going back to their normal color. There were a few shades of blue in his hair too. He wondered if Eve knew something about that. Either she didn't, or she did but decided not to tell him anything to enjoy his reaction. The second option also implied that it was nothing serious. Yes, that was probably it. And maybe it was just a small error in some of his inner coding, considering what he had recently gone through something like that wouldn't have been weird. Though while that might apply to his eyes, it definitively couldn't work as an explanation for his hair. Rather than thinking further about it, he decided to search again for the bottle of perfume with Ara's scent inside, but once more he couldn't find it.

Dinner that day went by silently, with her-she had put on a spare pantyhose while the other one was getting fixed- occasionally looking at the white cover of the book Oberon was reading. When she went back to her room she opened her wardrobe and began to put things back in order as she had left her clothes in a rather messy state, and in doing so she found something. A small glass bottle. That... wasn't hers. She grabbed it and took a better look at it. Was that perfume? It seemed to be perfume. She sprayed a bit on her hand to sniff it, but couldn't really smell anything. Maybe it was just water? No, it wouldn't make sense to put water inside there. She put it in a pocket of her coat, closed the wardrobe, undressed then threw herself on the bed, ignoring the urge to scratch the tingling between her legs. The chastity belt made not masturbating a lot easier. Also way more frustrating though. Eventually, she pulled out the anal plug from wherever it had been left and slowly put it on, hoping that it would somehow distract her. Then she called out Obe, got under the sheets with him and snuggled up to its tiny body as she waited to fall asleep.

The next morning seemed to be quite ordinary. Breakfast went by normally. Once she was done eating he asked her if she felt like working again that afternoon, and she couldn't really come up with a reason to say no. Lunch came slowly and uneventfully, and they had another cooking lesson. Ara almost ditched it upon seeing a few eggs, but upon noticing that Oberon simply put them away she dropped the idea of skipping. He had thought that she had gotten over it since she didn't seem too bothered in that sense by the egg the previous day, but... thinking about it, she was probably too worried about other things to think about cooking or eating. Eventually, they found themselves in the elevator, silence surrounding them as they moved to the lower levels. The door opened as they reached the eleventh floor. Walking past the door labeled with a two, they entered a room full of automated spinning machines, aside from the usual pieces of furniture.

"So... what to we have here?" she asked as she looked at the threads being worked, something about them seeming a bit off.

"Jellyfish merfolks, you could say" he replied as he left the key on the table before turning to a drawer.

"Jel... what?" she repeated while taking the chastity belt off.

She turned around, and shortly after Oberon did the same. He was holding something in his hands.

"... what are those?"

"This is an oxigen mask" he said as he placed it on the table "We have to go quite deep, all the way down actually, you will need it to get there"

"You're not saying I have to do that... underwater, right? I mean, way below the surface?"

"There is a cave on the bottom of the lake which contains an air pocket. That's where the session will take place, and once we get inside there you can take the mask off. This is a wetsuit. And these here are weights to make sure you don't float back up at the wrong time while we're going down"

"... a wetsuit? Is it that cold there?"

"A bit, but it's mostly to avoid incidents, an excessive amount of skin contact might cause some problems. It has a zip in the lower half so that you don't have to tear it open to work"

Hearing that made her blush. There had to be a less direct way to say that, right?

"I... don't have a swimsuit though" she noted. The one she had used for the session in the lake had ended... somewhere, she really had no idea where.

"You don't need to wear anything underneath, rather, I would advise against keeping your bra on if it has metal hooks"

Her cheeks turned redder.

"W-wait, you're telling me to strip and wear that?"

"... I guess, yes"

Ara looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds, and cursed the fact that she still had the butt plug on. Should she take that out or not? On one hand, keeping it in didn't seem like a great idea, on the other not doing it meant he might see it. Granted, he had seen her do much more embarassing things, but that didn't make it any less awkward.

"... alright then" she finally said.

Oberon turned around, and for some reason she did the same as she began to nervously undress, their backs facing each other. As she took off her coat, she noticed that the bottle of perfume she had found the previous day was still there. Well, now it wasn't the time to think about that. She took everything, including her hairpin, off, the only exception being her bra as she told herself that she could remove it later, and then grabbed the wetsuit.

It was made of jet black, almost shiny... rubber? She actually didn't know exactly what material that was. She took a good look at it. It sure seemed to be tight, and there really was a zip down there, aside from the one on the back which was already pulled open. There was also an hole for her tails, where they to grow out. She started to try and fit her legs inside, and while the inner side of the suit did slide over her skin much more easily than she had expected, it still took her quite a while to properly get in. It was her first time ever wearing one after all, and considering that she was actually doing quite well. An overall short while -and a removed bra- later, she had finished putting it on, though she took another minute or so to properly adjust it, the layer of neoprene -that was the actual material it was made of- covering her whole body except for her feet, her hands and her head. Well, and the tail hole on her lower back. Lastly she put on the weights, which were a pair of ankle rings made of metal. Then she turned around, and saw Oberon.

In a swimsuit. Black trunks, to be a bit more accurate, his clothes neatly folded and piled on the floor next to him.

"Are you ready?" he asked, still facing the wall.

"Eh-ah-y-yes" she replied nervously.

That was the first time she had ever seen so much of his skin exposed, and the thought made her blush. She had already seen him shirtless after the session with that sort of feathered snake with six arms, but the fact that he was wearing a swimsuit somehow made it completely different. That, and he did look great. He turned around and glanced at her. Truth be told, he was having similar thoughts about her, the thight wetsuit making her curves stand out more than her usual clothing did. Unlike Ara, however, he managed not to show it on his face. Before some of what was in his mind could somehow leak out, he headed to the door.

"Let's go then" he said.

She grabbed the oxygen mask and followed him through the door, the wetsuit feeling more comfortable than she had expected against her skin as she walked. Though she immediatly regretted having left the plug inside, the suit pushing it just a tiny bit deeper than she had gotten used to. As for the inside of the dome, it was a lake. Or rather, it looked like a small piece of sea encircled by a wall made of rocks and reefs. They were standing on the only, small turf of ground not submerged.

"This way" Oberon said as he began walking down a stair carved in the rock.

Ara put on the mask, made sure it was properly locked in place and followed him underwater, the weights making a nice job at allowing her to simply walk rather than swim. That did feel a bit weird though. The staircase was etched on the outer edge of the dome in a spiral fashion, and since she couldn't really talk with that on -not like they usually talked much during those times anyway- she looked around instead. There wasn't much to see at first, which also meant there wasn't much to distract her from the plug, but as they moved further down several fishes began to appear, though they were rather small and mostly gathered around the seaweed bushes, which were getting more and more abundant. The wetsuit kept her comfortably warm, though the weights around her ankles, convenient as they were, felt a bit weird. As they approached the bottom, she noticed that there were several holes on the floor, each large enough for a person or two to comfortably swim through, and that the stairs too proceeded further below.

Heading down there was somewhat unsettling, but she kept following Oberon anyway. Oddly enough, there was a faint light coming from further below them which illuminated the cavity they had entered in place of the sunlight that could no longer reach them. It wasn't much though, and for a short distance she had to hold on to Oberon with one hand while tasting the walls with the other to avoid bumping into something in the almost complete dark. Then the stairs turned a sharp corner and went up, the light now being much more intense. A few steps later they emerged -partially, the water still reached her breasts- inside a cave which was, as Oberon had said, filled with air. In some parts the floor reached up above the water surface, and on some of those areas were trees, their long, downward facing leaves glowing with enough intensity to illuminate the place with a faintly violet light. Some even sprouted from below the water, and were considerably larger than those growing from above it.

"I seem to have gotten the timing a bit wrong" he commented as he looked around, no living creature in sight "We've arrived a bit too early"

Ara took off the mask and walked around a bit. The place looked nice, and since they apparently had to wait for a while she took the chance to enjoy the scenery. She noticed a few of the same holes she had seen before the stairs went underground, and guessed they were connected. Most of them were underwater, but there were also a few on the dry surfaces of the cave. After taking a better look at the trees she noticed that there were fruits here and there on the branches, though juicy as they looked she didn't really feel like trying them out. Then she heard a sound behind her and turned around.

A few meters away from her was a vaguely humanoid creature, standing where the water reached around its waist. By the look of it, it wasn't much taller than her, if at all. It had two skinny arms with webbed hands, an head and no legs. The skin was of a dark blue with no scales, and the eyes were empty like those of a fish. It had nostrills but no nose, and it's mouth was surprisingly small. It didn't have any hair but the back of the head, the shoulders and the waist were covered in what strongly resembled a large jellyfish bell which seemed to reflect the light. From underneath them came several dozens -if not more- of long, extremely thin tentacles, and a few of what Ara was almost sure were called oral arms, though the name probably wasn't as appropriate for that creature. All of those floated in the water around the merfolk, making for an impressive, if somewhat weird, sight. She guessed those were what the spinning machines back in the antechamber were working on.

Ara looked at Oberon, her eyes asking him if she was supposed to do something in particular, and he simply told her to go where the water was a bit deeper. She did so, a bit hesitantly as, while she had never had personal experiences with jellyfishes, she had heard of some bad encounters people had had with them. She stopped where the water reached her ribs. A few moments later the creature let itself fall down, its bells expanding and waving in the water, propelling it forward. She wasn't sure how that worked, but it did look nice. Relatively. The creature got back on its feet at less than an arm's length from her and began to smell her. Not sure about how to act, Ara simply stood there, a bit concerned about the tentacles which were slowly forming a sort of circle around them. Wether that was intentional on its part of not, she had no idea.

The creature then placed its hands over her shoulders and began to slowly ran them over her body, in a somewhat awkward manner, as if it wasn't sure what it was doing. Ara wondered if its hands were padded or if it was the wetsuit that made its touch feel like that. Occasionally it would touch her breasts or her rear, but it really looked like it was just genuinely curious about what -well, who- was in front of it.

And then another one emerged from the water.

Ara said nothing, but felt a cold sweat run down her face. Oberon... did use the plural, right. How in the world did she miss that? Anyway, the second one seemed to be taller, but she couldn't really see many other differences aside from that. It pushed away the smaller one, which didn't quite look too happy about that but also didn't resist, and... groped her. It didn't just touch her casually like the first one, it grabbed her rear rather firmly -as much as its hand allowed it to, since they didn't have the best shape fof it- and opened its mouth, running its cylindrical, long tongue over her breasts, the wetsuit separating her skin from it.

"W-wait, what's with the change in attitude?" she asked, her voice maybe a tad too loud.

"Older ones tend to be more assertive"

Well, that did explain the difference in size. As its tentacles began to wrap around her body, the creature pushed her back. She briefly ended up with her head underwater after falling down, but a few moments later she had already brought it back out. Meanwhile, the merfolk had moved one hand between her legs and was currently in a losing battle with the zipper. Wether it didn't know what it was or simply coulnd't open it with its fingers, Ara didn't really care. She brought her hand down and nervously opened it herself to avoid having the wetsuit torn open, her face bright red, the gesture being even more embarassing than she had expected it to be. With her entrance now bare, the creature slid its tongue right inside, the several little bumps along its length rubbing against her inner walls, sending weak but sudden jolts of pleasure through her body. The merfolk also pulled her waist down below the water, and while that made it easier for her to keep her head out -she was floating at the moment rather than standing- that also meant that her... natural lubrification was getting washed away. It didn't quite make it painful, just... less enjoyable? A bit uncomfortable, that was for sure.

Telling herself not to think about that, she instead focused on keeping her balance, something made easier by the small sea of tiny tentacles tangling around her. Most of them were so thin she could hardly see them, but they felt surprisingly warm, hot even, against her exposed skin, which is to say her feet and hands. For one reason or another, none touched her neck or head. As for the creature still licking her, it... sure was vigorous, but also... wasn't really that good at it? The thought itself was embarassing, but she still had a faint tingling from the previous day, and the jellyfish man wasn't doing exactly a great job at scratching it. She was too shy to say anything about that though, and even then, it's not like it would have understood her anyway.

Then, suddenly, she felt its tongue slide out, quickly replaced by something else, warmer, thicker and harder. The sudden penetration made her gasp, the lack of proper lubrification making the insertion a tad too rough. While she was still lying on the water surface, her mate grabbed her hips and began to thrust back and forth. The stimulation took a short while to go from mildly painful due to the foreplay being too short -and the whole thing happening underwater- to rather nice, but also relatively weak, at least compared to what she had already experienced. And much to her surprise, a few minutes later she felt its warm seed releasing inside of her, but far as she was stil from her climax, that feeling didn't do too much to bring her closer to the edge. As she kicked herself in the head -mentally- for thinking about how disappointingly short that was instead of how nice it was that it was over already, however, the creature started moving again, with just as much vigor as before.

Not really displeased by that, Ara kept going back and forth between trying to ignore the feeling because of her shyness and simply enjoying it because there wasn't much else to do. The fact that the pleasure was building up at a slow pace made it rather easy to keep her voice in check, which made the whole thing less embarassing. At least until she let out a sudden shriek when something moved the butt plug around. Unable to really turn around in her current situation, she still managed to see that the other merfolk had floated underwater right beneath her and grabbed the plug.

"W-wait a moment!" she nearly shouted, wondering if the zip had slid open by itself or if she had accidentally pulled it too much. Actually, why did it even go that far back in the first place?

Oblivious to her thoughts, the younger creature kept toying with the plug, which caused Ara to involuntarily tighten up. Then, as suddenly as the merfolk had grabbed it, it pulled the plug out, making her let out a moan, her face red. The older one then leaned forward, and Ara found herself right on the surface of the water, partially floating and partially resting over the younger one's body while the older creature was lying over her, keeping her relatively still, its head right next to hers, the back and forth motion of its hips never stopping.

"No no no wait a mom-mmnhh!"

The other creature penetrated her rear from behind and began moving as well, and the fact that the two of them thrusted at different paces made it especially hard for Ara to adapt to the sudden development. The skins of the merfolks being rather slippery against the wetsuit -and water not being the best thing to lie on to avoid naturally drifting away-, she also began to slip to the side a bit, and before she could hold on to one of them to avoid falling down they both grabbed her to hold her in place. And their hands ended up in the worst places they could possibly wind up on, namely her breasts and her butt. Soon enough she felt both of her partners releasing their seed inside of her, and just like the first time they stopped for merely a few moments before resuming the mating. Her voice turning into a series of moans, Ara felt her climax approaching, the pleasure building up more and more, her muscles tensing up as the jellyfishes's tentacles wrapped further around her limbs, her arms and legs by now entangled all the way to the elbows and knees.

Her back arched soon after her teeth had dug into her lips, her breathing stopping for a few moments as a warm wave spreader through her nerves, both her entrance and her rear contracting against her partners's members, causing them to slow down, if only a little. And while her orgasm was still lingering in her system, the one beneath her released its seed once again inside of her, with the older one soon doing the same, prolonging her climax. Without ever changing position nor rythim, the two creatures continued to indulge in her body, in an honestly not really creative but undeniably persistent fashion, the three of them slowly drifting off to where the water wasn't as deep.

Ara had no idea for how long they kept going. Their seed dripping out of her and floating off in the water, her body unable to hold all of it inside, she spasmed again as what probably was her third orgasm coursed through her body, her teeth once again digging inside her lips, threatening to spill her own blood, the stimulation continually building up, uncaring of her ever increasing sensitivity.

The next orgasm arrived quickier than the previous one, her body shaking once more, her voice since long out of her control, her moans echoing inside the cave. Then, at one point, her partners simply stopped moving. Well, not at the same time actually, the younger one kept thrusting back and forth inside her rear for a couple more rounds than the other one, but after that he too became still. Ara took the chance to try and regulate her breath a bit but, soon after, a third one emerged from the water, right in front of her face.

"Anoth-mmh?!"

Before she could finish the sentence, or even just the first word, the new arrival had grabbed her head and inserted its whole length inside her mouth. She nearly chocked on it for a moment as she instinctively tried to move away, but with the other two still tangled around her limbs -and, well, still inside of her as well- she couldn't really do that. Before she could attempt to push it away, however, the creature's member suddenly throbbed, releasing its seed within her mouth. Thankfully the amount was small, but while the taste was surprisingly sweet, almost disturbingly so, the consistency was terrible. The creature then pulled out, allowing her to cough most of it out while it smacked the two other merfolks on the head.

Apparently they had fallen asleep, since that seemed to suddenly wake them up. They awkwardly drifted away from Ara, their tentacles smoothly sliding off the wetsuit, the sudden motion sending a last jolt of pleasure through her body. She took a better look at the third one and noticed that its skin wasn't as coloured, its body was thinner and it had considerably less tentacles, though it also was taller. It looked... old. The thought wasn't exactly pleasant, for one reason or another. The three merfolks seemed to have a brief conversation or something like that, then they just drifted away, disappearing underwater. That was... not the best way to end a session.

"How do you feel?" Oberon asked.

"How do you think I feel?" she replied as she took advantage of the amount of water readily aviable to wash her mouth.

As she did so, she noticed that clenching her fists was hard. Actually, her hands had turned rather greenish. Well, he did say that excessive skin contact would have been bad, which probably meant she'd go back to normal soon enough. Right? Then she looked at her own reflection. Her eyes were mostly red and she had a few strands of white hair, but again, nothing more than that.

"You can close it now, in case you were wondering" he commented.

"Clos -?!"

Realizing that she was bent forward facing the worst direction she could have possibly picked while the lower zip was still open, Ara dived underwater immediatly, her hands scrambling to pull the slider back up before emerging again. Oberon was already going back to the stairs, which was a sort of relief since that way he couldn't see how much she was blushing. She looked around a bit for the oxygen mask, found it and quickly grabbed it before walking up to him. He looked quite great with his hair wet, the drops of water falling from them trailing down along his body accentuating his muscles.

... what? she thought after having rationalized what had just crossed her mind.

"Are you ready?"

"Just... give me a few minutes to recover"

Said few minutes went by silently. Awkwardly so. Oberon kept facing away from her, and she felt like she knew why. Eventually she put the mask on and tapped him on the shoulder, and he did turn around to make sure she was set. As she had suspected -why, she wasn't sure- his eyes were mostly blue. Without a word, he began walking and she followed him. On their way up she would occasionally look at her hands, and while their color was turning back to normal she felt like her fingers were actually growing number. When they finally reached the surface, Ara took off the oxygen mask -that turned out to be a surprisingly hard task, her hands getting even less responsive than before- and took a long, deep breath. That had been quite the experience, especially considering the underwater walk they had to do.

Then she placed her hands over her belly, feeling especially filled up. The same kind of applied to her rear, but she tried not to think about it. ... actually... she had forgotten the plug down there. Well, that was as good as lost probably. No way she was going all the way back just for that.

"Do you mind if I... get changed here?" she asked, thinking about giving herself a quick wash before putting her clothes on.

"Not at all. I'll prepare something do dry up a bit" he replied as he walked back inside the antechamber, closing the door behind him.

He opened a couple of drawers, pulled a few towels out and placed them on the table, used one to wipe himself then changed back into his usual clothes. Soon after, Ara walked inside, still in her wetsuit. Oberon forced himself not to focus on the water drops over it which made her almost shine under the light, her wet hair sticking to her back, her ample breasts pressed beneath the thick garment which emphasized her excellent figure. He forced himself not to focus on any of that. The results of his attempts were... questionable.

"I... " Ara said, snapping him back to reality "I can't... open the zip..." she said while trying to close her hands, her fingers barely able to move, making her unable to grasp anything, especially something as small as the zip's slider.

Her face was red. Oberon... was kind of happy about that. And nervous. And that was the reason why he wanted to simply wait a bit for her hands to recover, it wouldn't take long anyway. Or maybe he could bring her something to make the process faster, that was a good option too. There should have been a cream somewhere there for that. That said, he had no idea what could have possibly crossed his mind as he said what he said.

"I'll help you remove it then"

Upon hearing that, a small strand of her hair turned white. His hair, on the other part, had taken on a dark shade of blue since quite a while already. Ara didn't really reply, instead simply turning around. He felt like he could hear her breaths, but maybe it was just an impression. He walked up to her, slowly, and raised his hands. For a moment he thought he was shaking, but that couldn't be the case. First things first. He bent down to remove the weights from her ankles, letting them fall on the floor, and got back up. Then he gently grabbed her hair, which was already partially out of the way, and moved it aside, fully revealing the zip beneath. He grabbed the slider and pulled it down. Not as quickly as he should have, probably. Ara said nothing, for one reason or another, and Oberon found his gaze locked on the thin layer of exposed skin between the slowly parting edges of the black neoprene.

When he finally pulled it completely open, Ara turned around. Her face was red, her breath a bit ragged, yet he felt like she was somehow calmer than him. With neither of them saying anything, he grabbed the wetsuit on the upper half of her back, near the neck, and slowly began to remove it, pulling it down bit by bit. She didn't resist at all, instead she moved her right arm to make it easier for him to remove the suit. Then they did the same with her left one. It took a tiny bit of force to do so, since the wetsuit kind of stuck to her skin due to being, well, wet. The top half then fell down, hanging from the waist, leaving her chest exposed, her breasts moving up and down with every breath.

Oberon managed to fix his stare on her eyes, even redder than her cheeks, before getting on his knees. He lowered his gaze, to the point he was looking more at the floor than at her, as he began to pull the wetsuit down, exposing her privates, a bit of seed still dripping out of them. Soon after they had gotten her completely out of the neoprene. He got back up and turned around as quickly as he could.

"The towels are on the table" he said as he walked past them, fully aware that there was no way she hadn't seen them already "I'll... wait here" he added as he briefly scratched his head.

That gesture was... odd for him, to say the least. Ara wasn't sure how to interpret that. Though she gave priority to grabbing a towel, wiping herself and getting dressed rather than thinking about that. Truth be told, Oberon did that simply because he felt a sort of... itch. Which actually didn't make sense. He was starting to worry. First the color of his eyes, then the shades of blue in his hair, and now an itch. Eve hadn't really told him anything, but he was finding it harder and harder to believe that there was nothing wrong with his body.

While putting her clothes on -doing so with her hands still not quite responding was a bit awkward but something she had every intention of accomplishing-, Ara found something else on the table. Which is to say, the anal plug. Evidently, Oberon had grabbed it before coming back up. She didn't blush, mainly because her cheeks were already completely red, and put it in her pocket, grateful that they were large enough to fit it completely. As she did that, her hands found once again the small glass bottle, and once again she thought that to be nothing too important, at least at the moment. She could always ask about that later. She finished getting dressed, hesitating a bit when it came to the chastity belt but ultimately putting it on. A few minutes later they were both back inside the elevator, standing a bit farther from each other than necessary, in silence.

When they reached the ground floor Ara headed to the bathroom, though she felt like taking a shower rather than having a bath, while Oberon disappeared somewhere up until dinner, and by then her hands had gone back to normal. The meal went by rather uneventfully -she had mixed feelings about the main dish being fish-, silently even, at least until she had finished eating. Before she could get up, Oberon closed his book and placed it on the table.

"There is one thing you should be informed about" he said.

"What?" she asked back.

For some reason, she had a good feeling about whatever she was about to hear. And ever more oddly, she felt like he sounded a bit... disconsolate? That couldn't really be the case though. It probably was just an impression.

"The next session will be the last one. After that, your debt will be extinguished"

Ara didn't quite react at first. She waited a short while, as if to see if he'd say that he was just joking, that he suddenly realized he had done the calculations wrong or something along those lines. But he didn't. The news then finally sank into her mind. Her face lighted up.

"Really!?"

"Really"

His gaze fell on her smile. She was about to say "finally", but then realized that considering how much money the debt amounted to, she had actually gone through it at lightning speed.

I might kind of miss thi- !

Her cheeks turned red as she realized what thought had just crossed her mind. It was true, however, that the job she did there had amazingly flexibles working hours, she had paid meals, a room all to herself and there was no way she'd get fired due to oversleeping. ... she probably had better grow out of that habit anyway. But yes, that was what she meant when she thought she might miss it. That was definitively it. Absolutely. She stood up and went to her room, wondering if it was too early to start packing her stuff.

Oberon, on his part, cleaned up the kitchen, walked to his room, sat down at the writing desk, pulled out a blank sheet of paper, placed the tip of a pen on it and froze. It wasn't that he didn't know what to write. On the contrary, it was a rather standardized kind of text. The problem was that he wasn't sure writing that was a good idea. On one hand, while he could handle things mostly fine by himself, some help would have been appreciated. On the other, going through with that could possibly mean getting less work done, which wouldn't have been optimal. And maybe Eve wouldn't even approve of it either way.

As he kept thinking about those things, several other thoughts crossing his mind as well, his hand eventually moved, letters flowing on the paper one after the other.

Thank you for reading.