The Cub's Newfound Treasure

by I He She

Something'd been bothering Suzuran lately. Some small things which had started appearing in her room, little items which perhaps were presents, perhaps were not. After a few days, Shamare decided to take the matter into her own hands and resolve the situation on her own. The results, however, were... not quite the intended ones. Shamare, Lunacub, Suzuran.

The Cub's Newfound Treasure

A simple door. Metal frame, hinged on one side, ordinary lock. A door like there were hundreds on the landship, doors Suzuran had walked through more times than she could count. That one, in particular, she pretty much always crossed at least twice every day. And yet she couldn't quite bring herself to open it, her hand hesitating whenever she tried to reach for the lock. She sighed, telling herself once more that her apprehension had no reason to be as she walked in circles for the umpteenth time in the last ten minutes or so. No, she couldn't waste any more time like that. She didn't really have anything urget to do at the moment either, true, but that was no reason to stand like that outside of her own room. She traced another couple of circles on the floor with her feet, took a deep breath, grabbed the handle and walked in, closing the door behind herself and making sure her tails woulnd't get caught in it.

That one had been quite the painful accident, decidedly not one she had any desire to repeat.

Before even looking around, she could tell just with her nose that someone had been there again. She could feel a person's scent, one she was sure she'd already smelled relatively recently, but which she just couldn't associate to a face. It was a little hard to notice, and it didn't quite leave a trail behind either, but rather lingered in a few places. Probably where the intruder loitered around for a while. That meant the very middle of the room, a small area with nothing of interest placed there, and the bed. Suzuran used to be pretty used to people inviting themselves into her room, but that had kind of changed as of lately. Ifrit had stopped barging in without warning, probably because either Silence or Saria had given her a particularly stern scolding after the second incident with the incinerated door. Annie no longer showed up out of nowhere, most likely because Suzuran had gotten used to that and didn't quite get as surprised anymore. Ceobe had learned that, while there was a bit of food inside there, it wasn't enough to justify the effort of actually getting to it compared to raiding the canteen, something more difficult but also several orders of magniture more rewarding. Specter had been put on a leash -almost literally at one point- by Gladiia to ensure she wouldn't pester Suzuran about dancing, not in the privacy of her own room at least, though she still did tag along for the private dance lessons Suzuran took from Gladiia. Well, Specter hadn't actually ever let herself in without permission, but she was the one who more often than anyone else woke up Suzuran at the unholiest hours of the night by knocking on her door, so...

Most of all, however, Lappland was absent.

More than anyone else -even combined- it was her who arrived whenever she wanted, did whatever she wanted and then left. Though if one were to ask Suzuran she'd say Lappland was actually quite considerate since, at the end of the day, she never once made the little vulpo miss her classes nor any other kind of committment she might've had. She even liked to give Suzuran some, shall we say, life tips, though whether this was actually for the better or not is quite debatable. Besides, Suzuran did like spending time with Lappland. She had a peculiar sense of humor, one the little vulpo sometimes struggled to grasp, and her pastimes could be... exceptionally embarassing at times, not to say too violent for Suzuran's heart. Though the one on the receiving end of said violence was none other than Lappland herself, in truth, and oh did she love that. Suzuran still felt a bit conflicted about those activities of theirs because, well... having to keep a portable Arts unit and a small first aid kit in her room just to take care of the marks left from them didn't feel normal. At the same time, however, she just couldn't bring herself to not like them.

And Lappland baked one exceptional millefeuille. She was a great cook all around, if perhaps a bit too... strict when it came to siracusan cuisine, enough to turn her room into a kitchen and go through the hassle of bringing ingredients, tools and everything else there just to not step into the cafeteria anymore for her meals, all because they didn't ban certain dishes from the menu. Deep down, Suzuran herself could almost understand wanting some of those things banned, but she also knew that what other people ate wasn't really her business in the first place. Well, she'd probably try and make it her business if she found out someone was eating literal poison, but that was kind of why Blue Poison and Glaucus made a point to keep their snacks to themselves. So, yeah, Lappland's millefeuille was truly something.

But Lappland had returned to Siracusa, leaving behind only a single letter telling Suzuran that she wouldn't be back for a while. It'd been a little over four months since then, and she still hadn't heard of her a single time. She had thought about asking Texas if she'd seen her, since she'd heard she'd gone to Siracusa too recently and knew she and Lappland had some kind of history together, but Shamare had dissuaded her from going through with it. And, in hindsight, keeping the... whatever the thing between Suzuran and Lappland was as secret as possible did sound like a good idea, she was sure Folinic would chew her out if she ever found out Suzuran drank someone else's blood in her free time, from the source no less. She... did miss doing that, to be honest, but she could manage without it too. And so, week after week, the little vulpo had grown used to nobody showing up in her room out of the blue.

That, however, had changed around ten days ago.

Suzuran had woken up with a bit of an headhache, bits and pieces of a weird dream lingering in her mind. She also caught a somewhat odd scent in her own room that morning, but a short check told her that it was Beanstalk's metal crabs she had smelled. ... mostly, at least. They'd probably gone on a stroll through the air vents, it wasn't exactly a regular thing but it wouldn't have been their first time doing that either. Those were actually patrol operations, but Suzuran didn't know that. Anyway, since that morning she would often find a certain scent lingering in her bed whenever she returned to her room after having been away for at least a few hours. That in itself was quite weird, but it was on the fourth day that she started to get confused. Because that's when the little stream of gifts -she guessed those were gifts- began. A few biscuits, a slice of cake, a parfait, a salami, and a couple of dishes, not quite still hot from the pan but warm enough to be eaten right away. Suzuran's first reaction had been to check her belongings to make sure those weren't some sort of payment for something which might've been taken away, a sort of barter made without her consent, but all her things were still where they were supposed to. She didn't dare eat those snacks knowing nothing of where they came from or who had placed them there, but since she'd have felt bad about throwing them away too she had stashed them inside her mini fridge instead.

On the seventh day, however, something else began to appear on her desk whenever she came back. Little gifts of the non-edible variety, to be slightly more accurate. The first one had been a small, handcrafted arrowhead, something Suzuran had found more confusing than concerning. Then a long, thin string of some sort, elastic but also resistant. Unable to figure out what that could've been, Suzuran found herself surprisingly indifferent to it and simply stored it away inside a drawer. Then arrived a cape, clearly stitched together by someone who knew how to use a needle but not how to make the needlework look pretty. The size wasn't exactly perfect for Suzuran, but it being a bit too large was definitively better than the other option. With that said, she had ended up stashing it away without ever putting it on too.

And now Suzuran was looking at another present lying on her desk. A rather large helping of dried meat, tied into long, thin strips, with what by all means was one of the canteen's napkins to act as a plate beneath them. And next to that was a knife, one carved out from bones tied together, though whether the end result was actually solid or not, that Suzuran couldn't tell. The blade did seem sharp, or pointy at the very least, and the handle gave off the impression of being rather comfortable to grasp, but... well, she didn't really need a knife.

A bit worried, Suzuran first searched through the entire room to make sure there really was nobody else inside there. Her nose was already telling her she was alone, but she wanted to double check for good measure, and there truly wasn't anyone with her there. So she wrapped the dried meat in the napkin and put it inside her mini fridge, which was beginning to fill up by then. She really had to do something about that food. Then she picked the knife, carefully examinating it.

It... wasn't exactly pretty, not for her tastes at least. It did seem functional, but Suzuran had no real need for a personal knife anyway, so she simply put it inside the same drawer with all the other gifts. Or so she had meant to, but the sight of all the other gifts -assuming that's what they were- stacked together gave her pause. People coming and going from her room as they pleased was nothing new, true -not quite normal, if one were to ask the vast majority of people residing on the landship, but still nothing new- but they always made a point to, well, show themselves. And Suzuran knew they they dropped by, at least most of the time. But this was different.

Her tails waved a little bit, lying close to the ground. She still wouldn't say she was scared, but maybe she really should've brought that up with an adult? Thinking about it, however, who was she even supposed to turn to? Kal'Tsit was far too busy, and the same went for Folinic. And Gladiia as well. Honestly, Suzuran wasn't even sure she'd have the courage to bother Gladiia for something like that in the first place. Specter... better not. Lappland wasn't around. And -later. She could think about that later, going through each and every person in her head would end up taking quite a while after all, though it would also have resulted in her actually finding someone she could turn to without being -or rather, without feeling like- a bother.

What she did instead was make some space on her desk, take out everything from the drawer and lie it there orderly in a line. Maybe looking at all of them together would shed some light on what exactly was going on. Well, the food was still in her minifridge, but she doubted that was anything more than just food. Especially because it pretty much always matched what was aviable at the cafeteria that day. No, if there was a chance to figure out something it was in those items.

An arrowhead, an elastic string, a cape, a knife... and that scent she was positively sure she'd smelled quite recently, not long before the current situation began. They were all handcrafted items too, so... oh, maybe she knew who was behind those? She'd heard about a certain someone from Ceobe a fair bit as of late, and the mental image she had gotten of her did kind of match the aesthetic of those gifts. That was quite a poor reasoning though, at least enough to keep Suzuran from thinking of it as anywhere near conclusive. Besides, that wouldn't even make sense in the first place, that person and she had never even met, why would she suddenly start doing something so weird? It had to be someone else then.

A knock on her door took her away from her thoughts, and just a few steps later Suzuran found herself face to face with Shamare, who was carrying a small bag around her shoulder.

"Lisa" she greeted, though most people probably wouldn't be able to identify that as a greeting given her tone.

"Oh, hi Shamare. ... it wasn't today, right?" she asked, fully opening the door while wondering if maybe she had mixed up the dates for their trip to the warehouse.

"No. This is for you" she flatly replied, stepping to the side a bit to reveal Morte.

The doll was carrying a cardboard box on its back, or rather on its head and balancing it as it could with the aid of its arms. The box was rather small, so much so Morte probably wouldn't even fit inside, with two layers of tape all over it, the inner one visibly cut open and the later one probably placed after that to close the entire thing again. That in itself did kind of... check out with the way Shamare occasionally did things, but the cardboard box in itself? A little less so.

"What's this?" she asked as she took the load off Morte, finding it lighter than she had expected "For me?"

Before answering, Shamare casted her gaze past Suzuran and into the room, her eyes falling on the line of items placed on the desk. Her tail waved once, her ears fell ever so slightly down, but her expression remained unchanged.

"Ah, don't mind those, really" Suzuran said, having noticed where the other's eyes had gone.

"This isn't from me" Shamare stated, either taking Suzuran's suggestion or ignoring the matter entirely "It's from Lappland"

"From Lappmmpgh?!"

Shamare almost slapped Suzuran on the mouth to keep her from shouting, while placing a finger on her own lips at the same time. She also noticed the frenzy Suzuran's tails and ears had gone into upon hearing who the sender was, and while no reaction could be seen from her, Morte seemed to have gotten somewhat nervous all of a sudden. Though Suzuran didn't actually notice that.

"Don't shout in the hallway"

"Right, I'm sorry. But why are you the one giving it to me?"

Shamare took a look around, as if to see whether there was anyone within earshot.

"There's a smaller box inside this one. That's for you. The stuff between the two boxes was for me"

"That's... odd? Wouldn't the smaller box crush what's in the bigger one when it gets moved around?"

"It was just fur, it didn't break"

"... why did Lappland send you fur? And what fur?" she kept asking, confused.

She knew that Lappland and Shamare were... something more than complete strangers but, now that she thought about it, she actually had no idea how things between them were exactly. But, well, if Lappland had sent her a souvenir from Siracusa then surely they were on good terms.

"Stuffing. For the dolls"

"Oh, I see"

That sounded far less dangerous than the Originium stuffing Shamare could somehow always get her hands on, to be honest.

"Can I come in for a moment?"

"Sure! Do you want something to drink? I can make some tea" Suzuran agreed as she made way, closing the door behind Shamare.

"... fine. ... thanks"

A few minutes later, the two were sitting on Suzuran's bed, two cups of hot tea in their hands.

"You received another one?"

Suzuran's ears stood up.

"... yes"

"Have you found the one who puts them here?"

This time Suzuran's ears twitched. She did have someone in mind, to tell the truth, but that was a guess as wild as a guess could ever hope to be. In her mind, at least.

"Not yet" she admitted, her ears dropping down a little bit.

"Do you plan to tell someone else about this?"

She blinked, turning towards her. Shamare, on her part, kept staring at the perfectly still tea in her cup, or maybe at the steam rising from it.

"I'm... working on it. Nothing bad's happened, and you know that people always come and go from my room anyway, so... "

Shamare's ears dropped down too, a sight which cut Suzuran short.

"You should seek help if you can't solve it on your own" she said, an ever so faint trace of annoyance in her voice.

"I will, but I just want to confirm something first"

Not that day and probably not even the following one given her schedule, but after that she should've had enough free time to look for a certain someone and confirm whether she really was the one leaving all that stuff in her room. At that point she would either ask for an explanation or go tell an adult about the entire situation depending on whether her guess was right or not.

... was that person an adult, thinking about it? Ceobe had never really talked about that detail.

Shamare, on her part, put her cup down, got back up and walked to the items lined up on the desk, taking each one in her hands for either a few moments or a few entire minutes.

"... there is no malice in these items. Tragedy shouldn't befall you. This doesn't mean they're safe either. But... fine" she concluded as she got back to her seat and grabbed her cup again.

A rather brief silence followed as the two savored their tea, staring mostly at Morte as it finished putting the box down and then wandered around the room, and once both cups had been emptied Shamare pulled out something from her bag.

"... can you help me with this?" she then asked, not quite making eye contact as she showed Suzuran a math notebook.

"Sure!"

As for whether Shamare truly needed help with her homeworks or merely fabricated a little lie to justify to herself her spending some more time with Suzuran, one could only guess.

---

Rhodes Island had a few stores within its walls, mostly managed by the company itself, and generally speaking they were used as a way to offer a certain array of general goods to the residents without making them file a written request to the logistic department for every single thing they might want. Because of that, the prices were quite low, so long as one avoided a certain, particular store personally managed by a certain sarkaz engineer. There was also an handful of smaller stores, though perhaps calling them booths would've been more reflective of their size, ran by the residents themselves. These could be pretty expensive to frequent, even rather shady depending on who exactly had set up the place, but also offered a more unique array of merchandise.

Then there was the so-called warehouse. The name was, in truth, misleading, as it wasn't actually one of Rhodes Island's warehouses. At least technically speaking. If one were to somehow wander into it by mistake, however, chances were they'd indeed think they had walked into a warehouse, because the place was nothing more than a massive storage room -massive when taking into consideration how precious space on a landship was, at least-, four floors tall at that. And it was filled to the brim with clothes, neatly ordered and stored but not quite well sorted. Rhodes Island's standard uniforms weren't kept there but, other than those, one could find all manner of garments inside there, each with a price tag. The warehouse had a single entrance, excluding the emergency exits, and a single cashier who could never help find anything becase that job was on rotation and nobody could memorize what was inside there and where.

Well, there was at least one person who actually had everything memorized present on the landship, but she hardly ever applied for a shift there anyway, partially due to personal commitments.

Shamare and Suzuran had been navigating that sea of clothes for around two hours, going through several different sections with relatively little care for the size of the clothes on display. Shamare did that somewhat often, in truth, as she had taken the habit of trying to recreate actual clothes for her dolls, even though she often disposed of them within a week or two of their completion. Sometimes she even bought them outright, either because they were tricky to reproduce by memory or because she wanted to use the cloth itself for her dolls. Neither Shamare nor the other little kids on Rhodes Island had a salary as they naturally weren't employed -with a couple of exceptions, admittedly- but they did receive a bit of pocket money regularly to spend however they liked. Well, almost, certain sections of the web store required an adult's id to access for example.

Suzuran, on her part, didn't go to the warehouse nearly as often as Shamare. In fact, if one were to exclude the times the two had gone there together then she'd only visited it twice, maybe three times. There were some genuinely pretty clothes there, but navigating that place didn't quite strike her fancy. Maybe because she nearly got lost once, something she admittedly was pretty embarassed about. She didn't mind accompanying Shamare though, be it to that warehouse or somewhere else, quite the contraty if anything.

With all of that said, Shamare had noticed right away that something was weighing on Suzuran's mind that day. She seemed more than just a little bit distracted, her thoughts clearly somewhere else.

"Can you try this on?" she eventually asked as she handed Suzuran something.

Not a weird request by any means, Shamare regularly had Suzuran put clothes on during their trips there. Suzuran herself wasn't entirely sure why, in truth: she had initially thought she wanted to see how something would actually look like while worn, and in that sense looking at someone else wearing it rather than staring at herself in the mirror did seem to be a better idea. But more often than not the sizes were completely wrong, to the point Suzuran couldn't really see what the point of even putting them on was.

But that was still fun in its own way, so she never tried getting anything more explanatory than that one criptic answer she got when she first asked Shamare about it. And so, just as many other times, Suzuran grabbed the hanger and walked to the closest fitting room, further confirming Shamare's suspicions about her current absent-mindedness. And, just as she had expected, Suzuran came running back a few moments later. Well, not quite running, that was more of an hurried walk, but still.

"A-ahem, Shamare... what's this?" she asked, pointing to the metal crab-shaped jumpsuit in her hands.

The size was completely wrong. Sure, Suzuran had gotten somewhat used to trying on outfits too large for her, but that thing's size was wrong in the opposite sense: it was too small. And that was without taking her nine tails into account. Not to mention that it didn't fit Shamare's tastes at all either. If anything, it went right against them, Suzuran knew for a fact that Shamare didn't like that kind of costumes.

"You said you would try it" she said back as she stared at an elegant black dress, one a little too large for the two of them but not by much.

"I did, but... " Suzuran began to answer, only for her words to trail off into an awkward silence.

Shamare wasn't exactly the most outspoken person Suzuran knew, one could say. She had little to no problems saying what she thought when she actually wanted to, but she only said how she felt about things on exceptionally rare occasions. Because of that, Suzuran had learned to read Shamare in other ways. Or she was trying to learn that, at least. And right there, right then, Shamare's low, unmoving tail, her ears bent a little low, the way her eyes were wandering while her head remained still, they all told her that Shamare was annoyed. Incidentally, that made Suzuran realize just how distracted she'd been the entire day.

"... sorry"

"Did you get another one?"

"Eh? Ah, no! No, I mean, yes, but it's nothing to worry about, really"

"You don't seem fine. There's gloom around you. And less sparks than usual"

"I'm just... thinking about something else" Suzuran answered, kind of understanding what Shamare meant, kind of simply being used to it "I'm sorry, I probably wasn't of much company today. Oh, right! Popukar invited us and the others to her room for a sleepover tonight!"

Shamare's ears twitched, and she turned towards Suzuran. Something went through her mind, Suzuran could tell by the faint twitch of her left ear. Arguably even more indicative was the way Morte had briefly stopped moving before beginning to look around itself before fixing its gaze on Shamare.

"... I'm busy tonight. I'll come next time. Are you trying that?" she added, pointing to the crab costume still in Suzuran's hands "It will bring a little bit of good fortune"

... she's angry...

In the end, they had to buy the costume because Suzuran tore open an hole in its back while trying to somehow fit inside of it.

---

Lunacub could tell that something was off even before getting out of the air vent. She couldn't see anything wrong, though admittedly she couldn't quite see much in the first place from there. Or rather, with the lights turned off she could only vaguely make out where the furniture was, let alone notice any detail. She also hadn't heard any weird noises, and she'd been there for quite some time by then. No odd scents either.

But something was up, her skin itself was telling her that. Which was especially odd, because Suzuran was...

... well, not exactly harmless, no. Lunacub had learned only after the fact that the candies she had eaten that night belonged to a guy called Aak, and why exactly taking unlabeled candies from Aak was a terrible idea. But the effect they'd had on Suzuran that night after she offered the little vulpo one had been... unexpected. Startling. But also quite unforgettable, in a way that was equally exceptional and, shall we say, pleasant. So much so that Lunacub had started dropping by her room at least once a day, sometimes more.

Through the vents.

When Suzuran wasn't around.

Because something about the thought of actually ending up face to face with her again caused her mind to turn into a shapeless, steamy mush.

Still, that was her first time getting such an unsettling feeling from that room. Her instincts were telling her that she was... not quite in danger, nor being watched. No, it was something more vague. A faint feeling of... unpleasantness.

Oh, well, whatever. If trouble was waiting for her, she'd just deal with it the moment it showed its face.

Moving slower than usual to pay more attention to her surroundings, Lunacub made her way out of the air vent and properly -if we want to put it that way- entered the room, putting the grate back in its place as she did so. She had with her a few tools to properly fix it from within the air duct itself on her way out, taken in an absolutely formal and not at all improper way, but she left those inside said vent as she had no immediate need for them. She had also already gotten familiar enough with the layout of the place to walk around swiftly even in the dark, without running into anything a single time, but the weak goosebumps on her back convinced her to move slowly, one step at a time. Suzuran was most likely spending the night out: she'd seen her pack a pajama and a couple other things into a backpack before heading out and, considering how long it'd been since then, Lunacub wasn't expecting her to come back before sunrise. That meant she could take her sweet time.

So, first things first, the lights. She could move around well enough even in that pitch darkness, true, but that didn't mean she had to. So she made a beeline to the switch and flicked it on. Rubbing her eyes a little as they quickly got used to the light, she casted another quick glance around, but still she couldn't see anything that would warrant that bad feeling she was still having. Had that been anyone else's room she'd have properly searched for traps or the like, but in Suzuran's dorm? No way.

So she simply walked up to the desk, where her previous gifts were currently lined up. Now that was new.

"Oh. So she likes them, right?" she wondered out loud as she added an handcrafted hairpin to the display.

Then she went back to the air vent, took a small lunch box she had placed down before entering the room and put it on the desk as well. They had, how did they say it was called, sushi at the cafeteria that day, Suzuran would definitely enjoy that. That little box would even keep it fresh for a lot of hours so it wouldn't go bad either. Ah, the wonders of modernity. Well, the good wonders at least.

"Lunacub"

The lupo froze, a shiver so intense it made every single hair of her fur stand up running through her skin from head to toe, ears pointing straight upwards and tail low.

"Agnese!" she greeted with the most cheerful and natural tone she could muster as she spun around on her feet, the most radiant smile she could plaster on her face.

She was a bad actress though.

"Is this what you've been up to the past week and a half?"

Agnese was sitting there just a few steps away from the lupo, the large wolf staring her down with no anger in either her voice nor her eyes.

Think, Lunacub, think before you speak.

Back in the wilderness, Lunacub never really found any reason to lie to Agnese. Sometimes she would skip over pointless details when talking about an hunt or things like that, but she couldn't recall having ever said any proper falsehoods.

The civilized world was a bit different.

Tons of things had happened ever since they'd left the wild lands, some good, some bad and, oddly enough, some Lunacub wasn't quite sure she wanted Agnese to know about. Be it because they were embarassing, awkward, or directly went against the way Agnese had taught her to act. What she was doing at the moment fell into all three of those categories.

"Yes, this is exactly what I've been up to!" she replied with a wide, slightly forced smile.

Perhaps think a little more before speaking next time, Lunacub.

"... and what is this exactly, then?" Agnese inquired, either playing along or giving Lunacub a chance to actually explain herself as her gaze trailed to the line of items placed on the desk.

"I'm... visiting a friend. I made some new friends. You said I might make new friends out here, right? And these are, uh, tokens. Of friendship, yes"

Agnese got up and walked around the room a little, sniffing the air every now and then, her eyes meeting those of someone else for but a brief moment.

"I don't see this new friend anywhere, Lunacub"

"They... had something to do! It was really sudden, so I'm watching over their place until they're back"

"To make sure nobody wanders in without permission, I take it"

"Exactly!"

Agnese turned around to stare at Lunacub, at that ever so slightly trembling smile of hers, at the oh so telling way her ears were standing tall, at her still tail.

"You are a remarkable huntress, Lunacub" she said, her little pupil puffing her chest out a little bit at those words "... if a bit too straightforward. And a good leader for the pack, for your age at least. But a good storyteller, that you are not"

"... I can explain"

"There's no need, my little cub. You are not difficult to read. Not for me" she decided to add, seeing the little pout that had appeared on Lunacub's face "But modern society has its rules. If you want to break them, so be it, so long as you are aware of your action and are prepared to face the consequences"

Again, her voice was calm. Collected. That wasn't a reprimand so much as it was an advice, it would seem. Or maybe a warning.

"I know people don't like it when someone enters their place without permission, but they won't catch me. Nobody knows I'm here. Nobody even suspects I'm here"

Agnere turned her gaze to the gifts lined up on the desk.

"I find this belief of yours hard to share"

"... alright, Suzuran knows. I'm sure she knows these are from me"

"Then why not give these to her personally?"

Lunacub's face turned bright red, her ears standing tall, her fur doing the same.

"B-because, because!" she began to stammer, walking in circles and doing meaningless motions with her hands "That vulpo's weird! Scary! The stuff she did with those flames wasn't normal!"

"You are well aware of the existance of Arts"

"And the toothbrush!" she continued, opting to not comment Agnese's remark "How can brushing someone's teeth cause those feeling?!" she apparently ranted, though the way her tail was waving suggested otherwise "I did give her the candy, yes, but I didn't know something was wrong with those candies when I did! And I even ate them too! I thought I'd ask her to brush my teeth again to see if maybe it felt that good only because of the candies, but what if those had nothing to do with it?!"

Somewhere deep within Agnese, a sentiment rather similar to happiness was lingering. It was good that Lunacub was going through new experiences, new feelings. She hadn't quite expected her to have a crush on someone, admittedly, especially not under such... odd circumstances, but there was nonetheless something to be gained from it all.

And also something to be lost, possibly. That, too, would make for an important lesson, if it truly came to that.

"Old, that you aren't. But you are no longer a child either, Lunacub. I trust that you will bear the responsibility of your actions. But" she added, pushing her snout against the short lupo and rubbing her cheeks, with Lunacub herself seemingly slightly conflicted between leaning into the touch and backing away to display her -supposed?- maturity "You are still my pupil. I will stop you if I ever deem it necessary, and I will come to your aid if you find yourself in need"

"I can look after myself, Agnese" she replied, having apparently decided to rub herself on her head too "You taught me how to"

"Remember this well then, Lunacub. Whatever your current behaviour leads to, the consequences will be yours to face. I shall only come to your aid if your safety is threatened" she warned, a pair of hears not belonging to either of them twitching at those words.

"I'll be fine!"

"... I shall leave you to your activities then, Lunacub"

"Mnh. Bye!" she waved goodbye as the large wolf dissipated into a thick mist which quickly grew thinner and then disappeared completely.

"Alright then!" she pretty mouch shouted as she turned towards the bed, her exchange with Agnese having one way or another considerably lifted her mood.

Perhaps even a little too much, as she no longer paid that feeling of unease from earlier any attention and simply sank into the sheets. A lupo's nose wasn't as sensitive as that of a vulpo, but it was still far more receptive than that of most if not all other races. And Lunacub, having spent pretty much the entirety of her life out in the wilderness, had senses keener than any ordinary lupo. So, despite Suzuran regularly changing her sheets, Lunacub could still clearly smell her scent lingering on that bed, and she made sure to smother herself in it. Something had to be wrong with that vulpo, in truth, because nobody should've had such a pleasant, sweet, alluring aroma to them, but Lunacub didn't actually mind at all. Quite the contrary, really, her tail waving wildly as she rolled around and around in the sheets.

But she made a point to not fall asleep. On one hand, the scent constantly reminded her of the things little Suzuran did to her that night under the influence of that bles- cursed candy, memories which didn't exactly induce sleep. On the other one, the scent itself was oh so relaxing, Lunacub would occasionally catch her eyelids fall down a little bit. But she had already made the mistake of falling asleep there once and nearly got caught for it, an error she wouldn't repeat. Ironically enough, however, her having spent that long on Suzuran's bed was probably the one thing that had kept the little vulpo from catching her scent and thus finding her on that occasion.

No, she simply continued to roll around in the bed for a while, enjoying herself and wondering if Suzuran would like her latest gift.

That is, until the bathroom's door swung open.

Lunacub jumped to her feet, standing atop the messy sheets, hand instinctively on the hilt of her knife. As for how she had managed to cut neither herself, her clothes nor the sheets a single time while rolling around with a blade on her hip, one could say that was a perhaps rather odd skill she had learned growing up in the wilderness.

Back to the current events. Standing in front of her was a vulpo, around the same height as Suzuran. But the similarities ended there, really. Her fur was purple, her ears were smaller -though this admittedly didn't mean much, given how massive Suzuran's were-, her fashion sense was completely different, her pupils had an exceedingly odd shape. And, well, she clearly didn't have nine tails. Though what truly set them apart was the facial expression. That little girl seemed rather indifferent, hardly any emotion showing on her face, but Lunacub could clearly feel something in her gaze. Calling it hatred would've been wrong, it seemed neither that intense nor personal. She wouldn't quite consider that hostility either, no. It felt more like... an odd kind of malice, maybe? Her sudden appearance had put Lunacub on guard but, rather than in danger, she simply felt uncomfortable.

Maybe because that little vulpo had to have been holed up in the bathroom for at least seven hours by then, any less and Lunacub would've seen her walk inside from her hiding spot in the air vents. The lupo sort of respected that, in truth. As for the doll she was holding, that didn't make her appear any more friendly either.

"Who are you?"

The vulpo didn't answer, tilting her head a little to the side instead, keeping uninterrupted eye contact by not blinking.

"This is not your room"

Well, if she'd been inside the bathroom since before Lunacub had started observing the room from the air vent she had most likely seen everything, so there was no point in lying.

"I'm here to drop a present" she replied, pointing to the items still lined up on the desk with one hand.

"... what did Suzuran do to you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You spoke of it with what spectral fangbeast. What exactly did Suzuran do to you? When?"

Spectral fangbeast? That had to be Agnese. What a weird way to call her. But then again that was a child, no wonder she didn't know what she was talking about. No, Lunacub was more concerned with the faint annoyance she could now hear in her words.

"That has nothing to do with you, child"

"What? And when?" she asked again.

"It's none of your business"

Still, that was quite the problem. How could she get this vulpo to keep quiet? She tried to think up a solution, but nothing came to mind. The only way she knew to silence someone was... not exactly a good method. Or rather, it normally was, but not in that place, not given her current circumstances. Besides, Lunacub never really liked killing pups anyway.

She was truly regretting not having done a proper search before diving onto the bed now.

The vulpo, on her part, didn't ask the question again. What she did instead was take a suction cup from a pocket and look up, at the doorframe right above her head. Then she walked back inside the bathroom, only to come back with a stool right away and use it to reach the aforementioned frame, fix the cup on it and tie a string long enough to nearly reach the ground to it, all under the deeply perplexed gaze of Lunacub. Then the vulpo lifted up her doll, and only then the lupo noticed its details. Button eyes, a sort of small groove for a mouth. But it also had long, dark brown hair, two ears on the top of its head, a white dress and a tail. These all gave off the impression of having been stitched together and onto it as quickly as possible, but the end result was nonetheless clear.

That was a doll of Lunacub.

An exceptionally unpleasant shiver ran up her spine but, just as she was about to jump forward, Shamare tied the doll's arms with the string and then let go of it, leaving the doll to hang from its restraint.

Lunacub's own arms suddenly shot up, something intangible holding her wrists together above her head, high enough she couldn't quite rest her heel on the bed beneath her.

"What the- ?!"

Shamare then tied another string around the doll's legs, a string with a small weight attached to it, to make sure Lunacub couldn't kick around either.

"What happened between you and Suzuran?" she asked again.

"If she didn't tell you then she doesn't want you to know" Lunacub said back.

Shamare's ears twitched, sending goosebumps all over the lupo's skin.

"... we have time" she concluded, a very simple sentence which didn't really bode well for the bound trespasser.

"We don- " she began to retort, only for her words to choke on nothing as Shamare tied a cloth around the doll's head and across its open mouth, preventing it from closing and thus silencing her somewhat.

Not again Lunacub thought, a small part of her simply appreciating the odd pleasantry of being restrained while the rest of her mind focused on trying to come up with a way to get out of that predicament.

"Morte"

Another doll walked out from under the bed, another reminder that Lunacub had gotten rather lax when it came to sneaking into that room as she hadn't checked under there either. Had she done that, she'd have seen not only Morte but also the odd collection of scraps and junk arranged into weird circles underneath the bed. But she hadn't, so all she could do now was stare at that other doll dragging a bag towards the vulpo, on said bag a name tag suggesting that the little girl was called Shamare. The vulpo grabbed it and started rummaging inside of it.

Now, what to do, what to do. Shamare's initial plans were rather... shall we say extreme. But she was fairly sure some of what that Agnese being had said said was aimed at her. In other words, she'd probably better leave the knife where it was. The knife, the scissor, the needles and also the stapler. Luckily enough, she had also brought other stuff with her, a plan b of sort. So she took out a bunch of rubber gloves and put them on, three pairs in total one over the other, ignoring the way Lunacub was pretty much glaring at her. Then she grabbed a small jar, removed the lid and dipped her finger inside, covering it in a sticky goo of sort before turning towards the doll, grabbing it with her still clean glove. Lunacub felt an impossibly large hand taking hold of her, her body swaying a little to mirror the doll as Shamare began to apply that substance to its armpits, its feet -the doll had no shoes-, even lifting the dress to smear some on its sides and thighs, a sharp but not particularly intense coldness assaulting Lunacub on those very same areas. Then she closed the lid, stuffed the gloves into two separate bags, fetched a chair and just... sat down, beginning to work on a brand new doll while completely ignoring the lupo.

Lunacub figured trying to talk with her wouldn't get her anywhere at that point, and only partially because she couldn't speak to begin with at the moment.

Her train of thoughts got derailed before even properly departing by a sudden flare on her feet, quickly followed by a similar one in the other areas where that goo was stuck on her doll. Her skin began to sting a little, then burn, as if something was irritating it. A certain kind of dread then rapidly took over Lunacub's mind as she realized what that feeling exactly was.

Itch.

Her skin was itching.

Terribly so.

She began to jerk, to struggle against those ethereal restraints, trashing around as much as she could, but that amounted to a whole lot of nothing. The doll holding her still moved a little, but the little strings binding it and the weight holding its legs down didn't budge, and so neither did Lunacub's limbs, her fingers moving around frantically as she desperately tried to reach herself and scratch that terrible feeling off, her throat vocalizing her plight more loudly than she realized.

Maybe because she could do nothing about it, maybe because that goo took a while to fully display its effects, the itch only grew stronger with time, her need to scratch herself burning with more and more intensity with every passing moment. She even tried to rub her soles against the sheets or the mattress beneath her to get at least some vague semblance of relief, but her ankles were stuck in the air just a bit too high for that. At some point she turned towards the vulpo, Shamare, but even her attempts at getting her to look her way amounted to nothing, her captor simply working on a doll instead.

Had it not been for the clock hanged on the wall, Lunacub would've thought at least two hours had gone by by the time Shamare got off her seat and walked in front of her, desperate as she was to get rid of that terrible feeling. But it'd actually been only thirty minutes or so.

"Tell me" Shamare spoke as she gestured for Morte to undo the cloth around the doll's mouth "What happened between you and Suzuran?"

"Ask that to her if you care so much" she said back, partially out of stubborness, partially out of a certain, perhaps weird kind of pride, and partially because of an entirely different reason.

Shamare didn't insist, which admittedly did surprise Lunacub a bit. Instead she turned around, walking to her bag again while instructing Morte to gag the doll again. Then she handed Morte a small, plastic paddle, one clearly meant for the doll given its size. The last thing Lunacub saw was her replica getting blindfolded, her own vision suddenly going dark despite nothing technically being on her face. Somewhat of a weird feeling, though what really bothered her about it was that she could no longer see the clock like that. She was used to being able to tell the time by simply looking at the sky, clocks were a nice compromise while indoors, but having even that taken from her was kind of unsettling. Not to mention that it made not thinking about that wretched itch harder.

Then her entire body jolted, or at least it tried to, as the sound of plastic hitting cloth reached her ears, accompanied by a sharp pain on her round rear. She let out a muffled groan as the sound echoed again, the feeling of another hit spreading on her butt, followed by another, and then another, and another still. Cursing the little vulpo, even if only in her mind, Lunacub could only do her best to endure the relentless spanking, humiliating as that was. Every hit distracted her a little bit from the itch still tormenting her but, all things considered, that was a very meager consolation, especially as the hits kept coming and her rear started to turn bright red, though nobody could actually tell as she was technically fully clothed.

At some point she realized she was salivating, drops of saliva rolling down along her chin and falling down onto the sheets beneath her. Shamare had admittedly not considered that, but she figured she could still deal with that later. With that said, something about Lunacub's reaction was making her doubt the efficacy of her methods. She wasn't surprised that she hadn't talked yet, no, but...

... why was she wagging her tail?

Annoyed, though she couldn't quite tell why herself, Shamare walked up to the doll, the sound of her footsteps sending shivers through Lunacub's skin. The vulpo then produced a toothbrush from her bag, one with exceptionally soft bristles, and put her gloves back on before placing said bristles against the doll's feet. Holding them still with her other hand, she began to scrub the cloth, soft and somewhat slow motions which got amplified by the doll's minute stature, feeding Lunacub a greatly amplified feeling. The sudden scratch did allievate the itch, if only a bit, if only in a single area of her body, but at the same time it forced a loud laugh out of her lungs, an uncontrolled laughter beginning to fill the room, interrupted only by the fairly regular groans -whimpers? ... moans?- the spanks dragged out of Lunacub's throat.

The lupo was, in truth, quite enjoying that, for a few reasons. One was that she simply liked that kind of play -if we want to use an expression Lunacub wasn't familiar with-, much more than she herself would've ever suspected, at least up until a few days earlier. Another one was that she was at least subconsciously aware that at least a part of Agnese's words were actually directed at that vulpo, if only because she couldn't bring herself to believe Agnese had also failed to notice her presence. That, in turn, probably meant Shamare wouldn't actually harm her. Or, at least, Agnese would intervene in case she tried to. It was reassuring, but also somewhat mortifying.

It also meant Agnese was keeping watch on her, but at least for the time being that detail escaped Lunacub's subconscious reasoning.

Shamare, on her part, simply kept brushing the doll, now its feet, now its sides, now its thighs, now its armpits. By the time she decided to stop, Lunacub was completely out of breath and covered in sweat, and of droll too on her chin. Shamare then casted a quick look between the lupo's legs, and caught yet another kind of fluid running down along her thighs, one which had nothing to do with a bathroom.

With mixed feelings she herself wasn't sure how to name swirling around in her mind, Shamare removed the doll's gag. Her mouth free, Lunacub took a long series of quick, deep breaths, her chest moving up and down with every single one.

"What happened?"

"Nothing that... has to do with you... " the lupo answered between one ragged breath and the other.

Had she not been blindfolded, she'd have probably regretted saying those words right there and then given the look on Shamare's face. But since she couldn't see, all she had to go off was her instinct, which admittedly also told her she had just messed up big time. Well, uh... messed up bigger time?

The cloth around the doll forcing her mouth open again, she braced for another wave of tickling and spanking, only for nothing to happen. And while she couldn't see Shamare, she could hear her rummaging through her bag again, her ears standing tall to catch every sound. From what she could guess, the vulpo was setting an alarm on a, how were those little things called... a phone. As a matter of fact, Lunacub heard a ringtone for a second or two before the thing turned silent, an entirely different kind of noise replacing the tune. Realization hit her moments before Shamare pushed the small phone, currently vibrating, between the doll's legs and up against its crotch.

Lunacub jolted almost violently, her wrists and ankles anchored to the air being the only thing keeping her from shaking too much as she felt vibrations echoing from deep within her through nearly half of her body, stimulating parts of her she had never even thought existed, an overbearing heat quickly building up between her legs, amplified by every spank and kept in check by every scratch on her armpits, sides and feet, a constant high and low which, combined with the itch still ravaging her, made her completely lose her composure. Her voice grew quite for a moment as a sudden orgasm ran through her body, reaching all the way to the tip of her toes, fingers, tail and ears and then bouncing back, but Shamare didn't stop for even a single moment, continuing to torment the doll instead and thus Lunacub, continuing for only she knew how long, making the lupo twist and jerk and whimper and laugh and moan without a pause, bringing her to complete bliss and exhaustion then bliss and then exhaustion yet again and then continuing still.

By the time she decided to stop, Lunacub could no longer think straight, she was just glad she could catch her breath a little bit. Shamare undid both the gag and the blindfold, the lights stinging Lunacub's senses a little as they adjusted to them.

"What happened?" Shamare asked again, phone and toothbrush still in her hands, Morte holding a plastic paddle up right next to Lunacub's doll double.

"That's not... " she began to say, but the way Shamare began to turn around towards the doll once more was enough to make her change her mind.

She... did kind of like that, yes. But there was a limit to everything, not to mention that, unlike Suzuran, Shamare seemed a lot less concerned with Lunacub herself.

"Wait wait!"

"What happened?" the vulpo asked again, facing the lupo once more, annoyance beginning to show on her face too, even if only faintly.

"We played! We just played! She brushed my teeth and I had to stay still or I'd lose! That's all!"

"... Morte"

"It's the tr-!" Lunacub tried to say, only for her voice to get cut off again by the cloth around her doll's mouth.

Desperate -kinda excited too, to be completely honest, but moreso desperate at the moment-, she tried to break free somehow, but it was as if her wrists and ankles were stuck in solid boulders, not budging in the slightest. Panic set in when she saw Shamare grabbing the jar again, applying another layer of goo on the doll's armpits and sides, and this time even smearing some on her more private parts for good measure, or maybe simply out of spite. Either way, the itch which hadn't even started to subside in the first place flared up a second time, tormenting Lunacub with even more intensity, making her squirm and trash around so wildly one could reasonably wonder if she wouldn't accidentally strain a muscle or two.

Things didn't get any better when Shamare told Morte to resume spanking the doll, this time putting more strength into every strike, a jolt of pain running up her spine with every hit from the paddle, accompanied by a fainter but still noticeable shiver of pleasure making its way up her tail with it. Shamare dropped her phone down, further exacerbating Lunacub's predicament as the vibrations between her legs would've at least soothed the itch somewhat. But what Shamare did instead was grab the doll's feet -the one part on which she hadn't smeared more goo- and aggressively rub the toothbrush against them, forced laughters once more joining the cacophony that was Lunacub's mixture of moans, groans and whimpers, her skin covered in so much sweat her clothes almost seemed glued to her, a small puddle of a certain other kind forming beneath her.

In truth, had Shamare not heard a low growl for a brief moment, she might've made Lunacub pass out from sheer lack of oxigen, her assault so intense and unrelenting that the lupo couldn't even manage to breathe properly. That sound, however, confirmed her suspicious that Agnese was indeed watching on, and so she toned it down a bit, enough for the growl to die down.

Shamare did have a pretty clear idea in mind as to what Agnese was, in truth, but that idea was actually wrong. As for why Agnese was doing that in the first place, Shamare had a good idea about that too, an actually accurate one which could be summarised with the word "education".

Agnese herself was kind of second guessing the entire thing given how the situation had shaped itself, in truth, but that was a different matter.

"What happened?" Shamare asked again, removing the cloth gag and taking her gloves off once more.

"I told you! We played that weird toothbrushing game and- "

"Li- Suzuran only plays that game with Lappland" Shamare interrupted her "... And don't shout"

"Yeah, that- that woman" Lunacub said back, adjusting the tone of her voice for fear of angering Shamare, though a small part of her was kind of curious about what would happen is she did just that instead "She said she wanted to play pretend that she was Lappland. She even bit me at some point"

Upon hearing that, Shamare's ears twitched. Asimmetrically too, for some reason.

"You're lying"

"I'm not"

The door then opened suddenly. Lunacub, exhausted physically and mentally as she was, failed to notice, while Shamare was left stunned by the event itself -she knew for a fact the door was locked, she had personally made sure of it after all-, for just one second too long to react in time.

"I took some candies from the room of someone called Aak, they tasted funny but I didn't know they were, what did they call it, drugs or what, so I ate some and offered Suzuran one because I was hiding in her room from some metal crabs, then she started acting weird and tied me down with some glass-looking flames and brushed my teeth and then she also, mmnhh, she fi-fi-fingered me and bit me and touched me and did things and then she fell asleep on me!"

"... what... ?"

Lunacub's ears stood straight up, her tail seemingly unable to decide whether it wanted to stay still or wave wildly, going from one to the other with neither rhyme nor reason. Shamare, on the other hand, gestured to Morte to gag the doll again as she walked around the bed and up to Suzuran, who was standing on the doorstep of her own room, wearing a slightly oversized pajama and carrying a small bag around her shoulder, utter bewilderment written all over her face.

"... why are you here?" Shamare eventually began to ask, ignoring the way Lunacub was bending her neck to its extreme to look at Suzuran.

"... Popukar... Popukar set off a couple of firecrackers she got from miss Kafka, that woke up miss Orchid, who was in the next room over, she got really mad and told us to go back to our rooms because the firecrakers almost started a fire and she had to clean everything up... she did offer to accompany us but Popukar's room is close by so I told her I'd be fine, she didn't want us to stay and help her either, but... what is... " she tried but failed to ask.

Having just heard a short summary of that night from Lunacub, the memories which Aak's special candy had buried somewhere relatively deep within her mind began to resurface. She was right, Lunacub had eaten some of those candies, and Suzuran had had one herself too, though that was admittedly her first time hearing who had made them. And that didn't quite tell her much either, this Aak person was not someone she was familiar with. But the fact that she started acting weird after that, playing pretend as if she was Lappland, playing the toothbrush game with Lunacub... oh-oh dear, she even casted her Arts without using an Arts unit, that was completely reckless. But she... did she really manage to crystallize her flames? A storm of conflicting feelings suddenly assaulted her, and she could only see a single way out from that.

"Shamare, what's... going on here?"

Shamare's first reaction was to walk past Suzuran and close the door. That made sense, it was really late, they didn't want to bother anyone.

"... you weren't doing anything about it. About those" she then replied, pointing to the things Lunacub had been leaving in her room lately "So I did something instead. I caught the culprit"

"But... but I told you I would do something about it. I had a... a faint feeling that miss Lunacub might be the one leaving them here, I was going to ask her tomorrow or the day after that"

"... even then. You were distressed yesterday. I couldn't... leave you like that"

"... ah!" Suzuran exclaimed, as if she had just had a revelation of some kind "No! I mean, I-I was distracted, yes! But that was for something else" she tried to explain, adjusting the tone of her voice because she knew that Shamare wasn't fond at all of unnecessarily loud noises "And miss Lunacub isn't even... the first person to sneak into my room anyway. And she didn't do anything wrong either. As for yesterd-"

"Lappland always makes her presence loud and clear. And she tells you when she goes by your room and doesn't find you" Shamare cut her off, arguably the clearest indication that she was not calm at all despite how composed she appaeared to be "Ifrit does too. So does Specter, and everyone else. But she didn't" she accused, pointing to Lunacub -who, on her part, was still busy trying to recover- "She wasn't just visiting you, she was hiding the fact. She knew it was wrong"

Morte, in the meanwhile, had made its way to Shamare's leg and was sort of hugging it, sort of softly bashing its head against her, which was its way of trying to calm down Shamare. It usually worked, oddly enough. Usually.

"And she lied too. She said you... "

"N-no, that... " Suzuran interrupted her before Shamare's misunderstanding -if that's what it was- could get any worse "She... she wasn't lying"

Shamare blinked.

"... she was"

"We... that... th-that did really... happen... that candy made me fell all... weird and funny and... " she tried to explain, so embarassed she could barely look Shamare in the eyes, her face completely died red.

"Did you bite her?"

"Eh?"

"Did you bite her?" Shamare asked again, a faint, somewhat sinister glow in her eyes.

"I-I-I don't remember the details. I... I think I did... maybe? A little?"

"Told you" Lunacub chimed in, still short of breath but not to the point of being unable to speak "Didn't I?"

"Silence" Shamare simply said back, hissed almost, as she grabbed Morte and plunged her hand right into it, her fingers sinking into the fabric as if it was water and pulling out something.

A writhing, purple clump of semi-transparent appendages, tentacles of sort which varied in size and length, some thin and barely longer than a child's finger, others longer than Lunacub was tall and almost as thick as her arms if not a little more.

"Wha-?!"

"Shamare wait!"

"This will not harm her"

Lunacub, who very quickly regretted -or not?- having tiptoed in place on the bed to turn around and look at the two vulpos directly, tried to dodge out of sheer instinct. But stuck in place as she was, she could do nothing to actually avoid the cluster as Shamare threw it at her, the thing landing right on the lupo's face and latching on to her, some of its appendages curling up around her neck and head while others began to just wander around aimlessly in the air, a few others still exploring her ears and nose while another bunch made its way down her throat, moving up and down along it, an odd mixture of discomfort and warmth spreading within Lunacub as the thing violated her mouth while some of its appendages found their way to her chest. It took her a few moments to realize that she could somehow breathe through that thing, as if her airways weren't actually completely sealed shut.

"M-miss Lunacub?!"

"This is fine" Shamare commented as Suzuran dashed past her, awkwardly walking around the bed as she tried to figure out what to do "She is fine"

"H-how can she be fine in this state? I know she can still breathe, but... "

"... she likes this" Shamare said back, and while she had gone back to sounding distant and cold, Suzuran could tell she was annoyed by the words she had just spoken herself.

"... eh?"

"Listen"

Shamare then told Morte to go back to the doll still hanging above the floor and spank it again, hard. Suzuran nearly jumped as Lunacub suddenly let out something that was indeed much closer to a moan than it was to a groan, the little vulpo's face turning even redder.

"... w-well, this... "

"... then look" Shamare added, gently grabbing Suzuran's wrist and guiding her in front of Lunacub before going to lift the lupo's dress up.

"A-awawawa?!"

"You know what this means" Shamare said, Lunacub's wetness now in plain sight, her fluids having since long completely drenched her underwear and made a trail down along her inner thighs.

"... then... uhm... is... is this... fine... ?" she asked Lunacub herself.

What exactly the expression on her face meant, that Suzuran couldn't really tell, and only partially because that half-transparent bunch of tentacles was stuck to it. What she could tell was that Lunacub didn't shake her head, nor did she make any kind of gesture that could mean the same thing.

Agnese was beginning to question herself on the decisions which had led to the current situation.

"... wait a bit" Shamare then said as she walked past the bed.

"What are you doing now?"

"She still needs behavioural correction" Shamare answered as she grabbed the doll, Lunacub's body briefly floating in the air before falling on the bed as the vulpo took her simulacrum off the thread and placed it on the floor instead, running a few more strings around its arms to keep them restrained and then looping another two around its neck and knees, both to prevent her from walking or kicking and to leave her even more defenseless.

"Wha... what do you mean with that?" Suzuran asked, even though a part of her already knew the answer.

Shamare didn't really believe her own words, to be honest. She was aware of it. She just wanted to vent a certain kind of frustration, but this part she hadn't quite realized herself. So she ordered Morte to make sure the doll wouldn't move from its spot -and to keep spanking it with the paddle for good measure- before dragging another purple mass from it, similar to the first one but different.

"H-hold on, Shamare" she tried to stop her as the other vulpo climbed on top of the bed "I appreciate that you're doing this for me, really, but this isn't necessary. I'm sure miss Lunacub understands why she shouldn't have done that"

"She still needs to be punished for it"

"B-but this surely is a bit much? Oh, but if she really likes this, maybe... no, hold on, then this wouldn't even be a punishment in the first place"

Shamare stopped.

"... why her?"

"Eh?"

"It was fine so long as it was just Lappland. But why would you bite this person too and not me?"

"... Shamare, what... are you saying?" she asked, bewildered, ears tall and tails still, cheeks red and mind racing back to memories of her time with Lappland.

"Why her and not me?" Shamare asked again, letting the second amalgamation fall on the bed as she got in front of Suzuran, unbuttoning the upper half of her shirt to bare her own collarbone "Am I not... good enough?"

For a few moments, Suzuran's mind blanked out completely, so much so it didn't even notice the second mass crawling towards Lunacub's lower half, latching on to her and doing to her privates the same thing the other one was doing to her mouth, not even sparing her rear entrance, though that did soothe her itch somewhat, its appendages phasing through her clothes rather than tearing them off or moving them aside. Still, considering how... loudly Lunacub's reactions were, that spoke volumes about just how startled Suzuran was.

"I... S-Shamare, that's... it's... m-miss Lappland is strong" she eventually replied "I... I always end up getting carried away when I bite her, but miss Lappland is big and strong, she can... she can take it, and... "

"You heal her" Shamare cut her off "I know you have a first aid kit in your room just for that. That you started putting extra effort into practicing your restorative Arts after the first time you bit her. That you have a miniature Arts unit inside here just for that. You can do that to me too. Or you can not, that would be as fine"

Maybe because she'd gone so long without having bitten anyone, since Lappland had been away for months by then, Suzuran found the memory of the feeling, of the taste, of the texture making its way to the forefront of her mind. A little string of saliva began to fall from her lips.

"It's... not that I don't want to, Shamare, but... that... that would hurt you... "

Shamare nearly replied that it couldn't be worse than what she had already experienced in the past, but stopped herself in time. Partially because she knew that's not what Suzuran needed to hear, partially because Shamare herself just didn't want to put it that way, but mostly because what she was asking for wasn't a bad thing to begin with, not in her mind at the very least.

"It wouldn't"

Almost hesitantly, Suzuran took a step forward, her hands slowly reaching for Shamare's shoulder and arm, carefully grasping her, as if she feared she might break, a feral instinct she hadn't sated in months resurfacing in all of its ferality.

"... can I... ?"

Shamare's expression was the only answer Suzuran received, and the only one she needed.

For anyone wondering, Lunacub was still squirming and moaning on the bed, being ravaged in every way she could've ever imagined and then some by ghostly tendrils that reached spots within her she didn't even know were sensitive in the first place, the itch still tormenting her and Morte still landing regular hits on her exceptionally sore butt. And being left in that state while Suzuran and Shamare got completely caught up in their own bubble right next to her, well... it felt way more exciting than Lunacub would've ever guessed, in truth, the already overwhelming pleasure forced upon her made that much more intense by the fact that she was effectively being ignored.

Going back to the two vulpos, Suzuran had her lips pretty much on Shamare's shoulders. Biting others was in no way an habit of hers. Lappland was the one who awakened her to it, and also the only one Suzuran had ever bitten. Bitten that way, at least. What happened with Lunacub that night really couldn't compare, as that had been nothing more than a relatively gentle nibbling of her ears. For those same reasons, Suzuran had never really thought about biting others, and not having bitten Lappland for so long hadn't really weighted on her because, with Lappland herself gone, the need itself never presented herself. Or so she had convinced herself, but that conviction came crashing down the moment Shamare offered her bare shoulder to her, her sudden plea having made her realize that she did, in fact, miss that.

Oh, how did she miss that.

"Can I?" she asked again, her ears twitching at all the noises made by Lunacub, her mind not really taking in a single one of them.

Once again, Shamare didn't answer verbally, closing her arms around Suzuran instead and pulling her a little bit closer. Still with a bit of hesitation, Suzuran rested the tip of her nose on Shamare's bare skin. They'd been friends for more than just a while by then, and since they were both vulpos they'd gotten well acquaintained with each other's scent by simply spending time together, but that was her first time actually smelling Shamare from so up close. It was something she'd normally consider rude to do, after all. Her aroma was somewhat faint, as if something was dampening it even though there was nothing between her flesh and Suzuran's nostrils. At the same time it was sharp, pungent, and had something vaguely... otherwordly to it.

Had that been Lappland, Suzuran would've plunged her little fangs right into the flesh offered to her, force of habit and knowledge of the sweet treat awaiting her overpowering everything else. But as that wasn't the lupo, she still hesitated a little, resting her lips on Shamare's skin instead and awkwardly licking her a couple of times. There wasn't a single bead of sweat for her to lap up, and the taste in general was rather... absent, but the heat did kind of lure her in.

Shamare then started to pat her head. Amusingly enough, her touch was by far more awkward than Suzuran's, and she even seemed to freeze whenever Suzuran's large ears twitched against her hands. Still, that proved to be enough to spur her friend forward.

Suzuran opened her mouth a little bit more, placed her teeth on the bare skin and pushed them down. The skin tore rather quickly, tiny fangs making their way through and sinking slightly into the hot, living flesh underneath. Blood spilled out, filling Suzuran's nostrils, running down into her mouth and meeting her tongue, tickling a primal need within her, her own mind urging her to keep going to spread more of that ferrous aroma, to savor more of that alluring taste.

Her teeth began to plunge deeper in, only to stop right after as she felt Shamare's entire body tremble.

"A-are you ok?" she worriedly asked, taking half a step back to look her in the eyes.

For a second or two, Shamare stared at her own blood adorning Suzuran's lips and chin, at how pretty it made her look, at how red it was. Only then did she answer.

"I'm fine. This doesn't hurt"

"No, this... this does absolutely hurt" Suzuran stated, her gaze moving to the red marks on Shamare's shoulder, crimson lines slowly trailing out of them.

"It doesn't"

In a certain sense, Shamare wasn't lying so much as she was twisting her own words. Had Suzuran asked if that was painful, Shamare would've agreed with her right away. But the pain in her shoulder was a sign that she and Suzuran had gotten closer, that they had joined together in a way. Suzuran had lapped up her blood, she knew that. It could perhaps be described as a form of intimacy. It was painful, but it couldn't possibly hurt her. Quite the contrary, it made her happy.

"Continue. ... please"

Under more ordinary circumstances Suzuran would've probably turned her down, the sight of the wound alone enough to make her fetch the first aid kit right away. But there and then, she found that exceptionally hard to do. The way Shamare was looking at her didn't help either, in that regard.

She gulped, the taste of blood flowing down her throat again, further cracking what most would call her self control, or perhaps her common sense.

And so she grabbed Shamare again, this time more firmly, placing her teeth on the fresh wound and pushing them back in, digging even further, unsure if she should go slowly or sink her fangs all at once.

Unlike Lappland, who usually laughed her heart out and ruffled Suzuran's hair, her ears and sometimes even her tails almost aggressively whenever they did that, Shamare simply hugged her, patting her back as if to reassure her that she was doing well. Perhaps because of that, Suzuran didn't feel quite as intoxicated as she usually did, finding herself in a weird state of having a clearer mind to savor the taste, the scent, the texture with, while also finding their allure less intense, althoug not any less pleasant either. Blood dripped down along Suzuran's chin, staining Shamare's clothes and falling on the floor, the little vulpo lapping it up as much as she could, holding back the most extreme of her urges because, no matter what Shamare said, that would've definitively been too much. She began to suck on Shamare's shoulder instead, hesitation showing in her touch with every little jolt from Shamare, because the pain was searing after all, a little miracle -or perhaps disaster- that she could nearly completely refrain from making any noise despite the burning sensation spreading from her shoulder.

Not too long after, Suzuran pulled herself away, her eyes meeting Shamare. Guilt reared its head as she saw her friend's face: unlike Lappland, whose expression always seemed to range from unfazed to euphoric, she was clearly in pain. At the same time, however, her lips were curled up into an ever so soft, almost warm smile, one even Suzuran had seen so few times she could count them on one hand.

"You can continue" she said, and in her neutral tone Suzuran could almost hear a faint request.

The primal need for more, the hesitation to injure Shamare any further and the fear of letting the one who could reasonably be considered her best friend down all mixed together. Suzuran's eyes fell on the bleeding wound, her dripping fangs drawn to it, but she bit a bit further down along Shamare's arm instead, falling back into her embrace as she sank her teeth into her again, not as deeply as before, getting high on the taste flowing into her mouth and on the scent filling her nostrils, Shamare's almost unnatural silence making it hard for her to understand if she could push a little further or not without causing injury. Excessive injury. Then she pulled back and moved a little further down still, dragging Shamare's sleeve and half of her shirt down as she went, because several shallow -... relatively- wounds were both easier and faster to heal than a single, deeper one, and biting down on different areas still satisfied her urge to chew on the warm, inviting flesh to a degree.

By the time she pulled back again enough to stare at Shamare, Suzuran had left five or six different marks along her shoulder and arm, crimson dying both them, their clothes and the floor beneath them to a degree. Shamare was still silent, deadly so even, only her breath betraying the fact that she was indeed alive, if maybe a fair bit more pale than usual. Then she grabbed Suzuran's face, gently cupping her cheeks.

"... ah!"

Suzuran's ears twitched, an intense flutter shaking her tails as Shamare rested her lips on hers. That wasn't really a kiss though, more of a long, motionless peck, but it nonetheless left her startled, neither leaning into it nor backing away. The former would've been rather awkward, but even moreso than that it would've been far too embarassing to bear, while the latter simply seemed like a rude thing to do. Debatable, one could perhaps argue. They stayed like that for a while, breathing slowly through their noses, simply taking in each other's scent and presence, until Shamare eventually put half an arm of distance between the two of them.

"This is difficult"

"I... I've never been bitten myself, so" Suzuran replied, either having misunderstood what Shamare was talking about or having purposely avoided the subject out of sheer awkwardness "I... I want to say I understand how it feels but... Lappland always says I wouldn't be able to withstand her bites, so... "

"No. This is fine" she reassured her, making an effort to not show just how painful the bite wounds were "If... if you want, next time... I can... no, nevermind"

Suzuran's ears twitched. She was almost certain she knew what Shamare wanted to say, and... and she would've been on board for it, honestly. She understood Lappland's reason for having never bitten her, but that still left, shall we say, a bad taste in her mouth. But she decided to not pursue that matter further, since Shamare herself had just dropped it.

"I'll get the kit right away"

Shamare simply nodded, sitting down on the floor and turning to her side to look at Morte, which had at some point walked next to them. Only to turn all around as she heard Suzuran nearly scream.

"M-miss Lunacub! I'm so sorry!" she pretty much shouted, having only then remembered that the lupo was still immobilized on her bed and at the mercy of two tentacular ghosts, or whatever those things were "Ah, b-but I have to treat Shamare now! A, awawawa, just a minute!"

Having just been given priority, a little smile creeped into Shamare's face, perhaps unbeknownst to even herself. Still, Suzuran came back a few seconds after and began to disinfect the wounds before casting her Arts on them using a miniature Arts unit. Azure flames gently enveloped Shamare's shoulder and arm, seeping into the wound, stopping the bleeding and then slowly closing the holes left by Suzuran's fangs.

"You should sleep in my room tonight" Shamare eventually said "Folinic has a day off tomorrow. You made plans with her"

Suzuran looked past Shamare and at the bed, her cheeks turning bright red once more at the sight of Lunacub still lying there, making enough noise to make her wonder just how in the world she had managed to forget about her. Leaving the lupo aside, it was true that cleaning the sheets and the floor and everything else would take a rather long while, especially because they couldn't quite have anyone find out about what happened that night so sending everything to the laundry room wasn't an option. As for Shamare herself, she had no commitments in the morning and was also used to getting little to no sleep at all on some nights.

"I'll clean the floor at least" she said, her tails waving in response to the sight still in front of her.

"... fine"

Then, as soon as they were done treating Shamare's wounds, Suzuran asked her to release Lunacub. Her friend complied, stashing the clusters of tentacles back into Morte and then having it destroy the circle underneath the bed, breaking the lupo's connection with the doll shaped after her.

"So, uhm... m-miss Lunacub... can you hear me?" Suzuran asked, fidgeting, stepping in place and fumbling with her own fingers as she stood in front of the lupo.

She was lying on her back on the bed, completely covered in sweat, saliva trailing out from her mouth, another kind of fluid leaking from between her legs, a purple and somewhat sticky substance seeping out from both sides. She was panting heavily, her gaze unfocused, but she managed to nod. That... didn't seem too convincing, but Suzuran figured all she could do was take her word for it. She couldn't cure exhaustion, after all.

"I appreciate your gifts but... I would appreciate it if you didn't give me so many, I'm not sure where I would keep them if you keep this rate. And... you don't have to sneak into my room like that anymore either. Just knock and I'll be happy to let you in. Also, I don't really know what you like, so I don't know what I should even give you to repay for your presents, so... can we... become friends? We can play together and once I get to know you better I will repay you for everything?"

Words couldn't properly describe just how awkward that entire thing was to say for Suzuran but, when she extended her hand, Lunacub grabbed it to shake it too, even if there wasn't any strength at all in her arm.

"... sure... " she then managed to answer, taking an heavy toll off Suzuran's mind.

"Thanks!" she said back, and the sight of that bright, warm smile made Lunacub think that maybe the people who called her the Light did have somewhat of a point "Oh, actually!" she added as she dashed off, coming back with a sort of odd, small costume "Miss Ceobe told me you're always looking for all kind of clothes of all sizes, so... could this interest you, maybe? It's a bit... there's an hole in it, but I don't have anything I think you might like now, so... "

A small thumbs up was all Lunacub could manage for an answer, her gaze lost in that oh so radiant smile in front of her.

The two little vulpos then began cleaning up and, once they were done with the floor, Suzuran called Shamare to a corner of the room and whispered something to her.

"About yesterday" she explained "It wasn't miss Lunacub's present that had me worried. It was... you see, in her letter, miss Lappland said that there is someone very fluffy following her now, and she's in Siracusa, and she always said that she liked my fur, and also the way I smell because it reminds her of Siracusa, it's a bit weird but, and she said she slept on this someone at some point and... "

"Lisa" Shamare interrupted her "I know what was inside that letter. I red it"

"... eh?"

"You're getting it wrong. She was clearly talking about a pet, not a person"

"... eh... eh?!"

Shamare bent her head to the side a little, reaching out to very softly pat Suzuran's head.

"She won't get tired of you"

For better or for worse, she thought. She won't live long enough to get to that point anyway, she thought. But she also decided to not voice any of that.

"Do you think so? Really?" Suzuran pressed, a weird mixture of relief and worry and something else showing both on her face and in her voice.

"Really. You should go now. It's late"

"Mnh. Thanks a lot, Shamare!" she concluded, hugging her while making sure to not put any pressure on the parts she had bitten her on.

Shamare didn't back away, and in fact returned the hug a little bit even, which was rather unusual for her. Then Suzuran quickly washed herself, took a change of clothes and a few other things and left for Shamare's room. She could still get some more sleep before her alarm would ring, and she figured nothing bad would happen even if she left because they had cleared everything up with Lunacub so Shamare had no reason to be mean to her anymore. She did feel sorry about leaving her there like that, yes, but Shamare would definitively take care of her.

"You... " Shamare said to a still completely exhausted Lunacub, too tired to even get off the bed "... you are weird. And your weirdness is similar to Adele's. ... masochist"

Lunacub gulped. She didn't actually know what that word meant, nor did she have any clue who this Adele was, but the way that little girl was staring at her sent a cold shiver down her spine, not to mention the effect the coldness of her voice had on her, goosebumps making her fur stand up in a fuzzy, pleasant way.

"Suzuran said she will play with you" she said, reaching for Morte and beginning to pull something else out of it "I can play with you too. All the kind of games you should not play with her"

Lunacub opened her mouth to speak, but the combination of weariness and something else, something decidedly less physical, kept her from voicing anything, or anything which made sense at least.

"I will play those games with you. Adele says I am very good at these games" she repeated, the slight angle her ears were bent at hinting at the fact that, unlike before, she was now planning to enjoy herlsef "And the bed is already dirty either way"

Lunacub's lips cracked into a very wide, very conflicted and just generally very, very weird smile.

---

A couple of days later, on Rhodes Island's deck, a not at all suspicious tent was standing its ground against the rain. Hidden in a corner that kept it rather shielded from prying eyes, the artigianal refuge could keep the falling drops out remarkably well, its multiple layers blocking the rain out pretty much completely. The occasional gust of noticeable intensity would shake it a little but, while the tent was unlikely to resist the most terrible of storms, it could still hold itself together against the weather they were having that day.

Huddled inside there was Lunacub, sitting on the softest pillow she had managed to get her hands on, though not even that was enough to allow her to sit down without feeling her posterior flaring up in pain. The warm steak in her hands, however, did a good job at distracting her from it, well cooked and finely seasoned as it was.

Someone in the canteen was probably either very confused or very angry at the moment.

The patch of cloth recently added to the tent helped her feel at ease too, though she still wasn't sure what to think about those stuffed imitations of a metal crab's legs dangling from it. Maybe she would take those out later. Maybe not.

"Do you have anything to tell me, Lunacub?" Agnese asked from outside the tent.

Lunacub had tried to make it large enough to fit her inside as well, once, but the end result would've clearly been something impossible to comfortably move around, and so she had resigned to having a tent only to herself, though another person or two could've probably fit inside there as well so long as they weren't too big. Besides, Agnese wasn't really affected by the rain either way.

"... well" she cleared her throat between one bite and the other "... something did happen"

Agnese had seen almost the entire night play out, true, but she had also left together with Suzuran to give Lunacub at least some semblance of privacy, as by that point she was sure Shamare had no ill will left. Still, she wanted to see what Lunacub herself thought about that night. Hopefully, she had learned something after what she had gone through. As for Lunacub herself, deep down she knew that Agnese already knew mostly everything, but either she didn't want to admit it due to how embarassing it was or she thought Agnese was testing her honesty. Yet again, the truth likely resided somewhere in the middle.

And so Lunacub poked her head out of the tent to look directly at Agnese, pure confidence radiating from her expression, ears tall and tail restless as she ignored the rain falling on her face. She had even gone out of her way to find a dictionary and look for new words that could help her describe what had happened to Agnese. And oh, she did find some new words, she sure did.

"Agnese" she spoke, all happy and with a weird glint in her eyes "I have found myself a dominatrix!"

Agnese blinked.

Several times.

"... Lunacub. ... Lunacub, what in the- "

---

Thank you for reading.