Chapter 26
???????
Did I forget to mention something important about my puppies? Mayyybeee…
It’s very hard to appreciate Samson in full armor when he’s scowling at me. Nevertheless, I do my darnedest, soaking him in from his breastplate to his greaves as though I haven’t had the opportunity all morning.
In my defense, the light just hits different up here.
“What?” I ask once I’ve managed to pull my attention off his shoulders.
“I am standing,” he begins, tone extremely level, “on a cloud.”
I tip my attention down, down, down the marvelous expanse of him, to the cloud that he does appear to be standing on. I am, for the record, also standing on a surface resembling a cloud.
It’s not a cloud cloud, of course, because people can’t stand on clouds—they’re just mist, and mist could not hope to hold the some odd three hundred pounds of man before me.
“Samson.” I tilt my head. “What did you think I meant when I said we were going to a Sky Dungeon?”
He takes a deep breath. “I do not rightly know.” Pulling his hand off the hilt of his sword, he juts his thumb behind him, at a swirling vortex.
“Not unlocking a secret passage behind a waterfall with your magic sword, locating that thing, and getting spit out of it onto a cloud five hundred feet off the ground.”
I do not have the heart to tell him that five hundred feet off the ground isn’t all that high at all. Even low-hanging clouds rest around six thousand feet up.
“Oh, come on, shoulders. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“In a cave. Behind a waterfall. Five hundred feet down.”
Six thousand-ish feet down. But I don’t say that.
Smiling, I take his hand and coax him forward. Puffs of fluffy substance waft around our feet, dissipating into the air. “Focus,” I tell him. “We are here for puppies. Which means conquering the Sky Dungeon and saving them.”
Breath leaves him in a heavy sigh. “I’ve only heard legends of places like these, built by the hands of the ones who craft worlds.
” Squeezing my hand, he peers at the maw of the cloud cave opening before us.
“But why would there be puppies up here? How would they survive what must be centuries of neglect?”
“That—” I say, “—is an excellent question. You just stay close and shine bright, okay?” Releasing his hand, I pull my sword free of my backpack and let a rain of magic sparks illuminate the darkness writhing with monsters ahead of what Samson’s glow ring can reach.
“There are seven rooms, starting here, in the red room.”
Cussing, Samson draws his sword as the mass of monsters creep forward from the mouth of the cloud cave.
“In case you were wondering, it’s red for a reason.”
“Citrus,” he hisses.
“Don’t worry. I know this place by heart. Every enemy and every puzzle. I’m also on an adrenaline high, thinking about the Cosmic Mines and dear sweet puppies in our future.”
“Just…be careful.”
I laugh, and then I sweep forward, into the fray.
~ ~
“For the record—” Samson’s breaths saw in and out of his lungs, which is funny, because he’s mostly stood behind me and stressed while I cut my way through all the monsters—including a Terror-pin boss, just now, giant turtle, impenetrable shell, no biiig. “—I hated every moment of this.”
Merrily, I place the gemstones received in each room prior into the proper position on a panel beside a violet door—ruby, citrine, topaz, emerald, sapphire, lapis. It’s a lovely rainbow. So on brand, given the clouds and the sky themes. How wonderful for morale.
As the lapis slots into place, the door faintly glows and eases open, just like all the doors before, but this time I put my sword in my bag.
“Citrus, what are you doing?” Samson’s anxiety-ridden presence congests the entirety of the dungeon.
“What? Nothing.” I throw open my arms. “Yami! Tsuki!”
From the pitch darkness beyond Samson’s glow ring, streaks of fluffy black and white cloud emerge—to tackle me.
A strangled sound leaves Samson’s mouth as I hit the—thankfully plush—cloud-like ground with an explosion of laughter.
This is joy.
This is happiness.
The cure for depression, cancer, I don’t know, you name it.
“Not my face! Noo. My glasses.” Knocked off, my glasses fall a safe distance away from the fuzzy cuddle pile.
Long fur and tongues. I squeal, nuzzling soft faces, cold noses, puppy ears.
“Who’s a good puppy? You?” I gasp. “Correct!” My baby voice would be embarrassing if it weren’t a universally accepted behavior—in every world, logically.
Voice stretched as taut as a snapping guitar string, Samson says, “Citrus, these aren’t puppies, these are wolves.”
“Big, fluffy puppies!” I bury my face in Yami’s—the giant black wolf’s—silken coat. I do not “um, actually” Samson and clarify that my big fluffy puppies are technically mythic beasts, not “wolves,” and the creators of the Sky Dungeon itself.
It’s theorized that their previous master was a rare gifted and blessed adventurer who took his puppies with him to all sorts of other hidden dungeons filled with puzzles.
Whenever he passed away, his beloved babies took to their skies and built a test, honoring their memory of him in order to search for a new owner—which, yes, involved both puppy magic and kidnapping monsters for their dungeon rooms.
Did I mention that mythic beasts possess magic?
I’m sure Samson won’t mind.
After all, the description when you find them in the game is: Aw, looks like these two just wanted to play.
I approve.
I also approve of the fact my dear sweet angel puppies sit, panting and staring at Samson with their blue and yellow eyes as he oh-so-carefully retrieves my glasses from the ground and returns them to my face.
He meets the white wolf’s blue eyes. “So…this is…”
“Tsuki. It means moon in a language from my world.”
His attention shifts to the black wolf. “And Yami means?”
“Darkness. Same language.”
“Why would this world have creatures named after a language in yours?”
I shrug. “Who knows? What matters is that they’re a very good boy and girl.” I squish their cute faces together. “Yes, they are.”
Samson crouches beside me. “They’re…huge.”
Coming from a giant…yes. Yes, they are huge.
Thank goodness I’ve not been sleeping in the queen guest bed.
They’ll be able to use it. Because, sadly, we would die if we tried to get the four of us in even Samson’s giant bed together.
It would take an Alaskan King to house the three giants I’m about to live with.
Samson, ever cautious, extends his hand to Tsuki.
The big boy snuffs before nosing Samson’s palm atop his head.
It’s that moment Samson falls in love, and it is beautiful to behold.
All the tension exits his shoulders as his mind begins working, running through every important thing.
“They aren’t going to hurt the farm animals? ”
“Nooo.” I baby Yami. “They would never. They’re good puppies.”
“What do we feed them?”
“Monsters.”
Samson’s attention jets my way. “What?”
“They’ll eat most anything, isn’t that right?
” I flop Yami’s ears, scritching. “In the game, they hunted on their own, and some mornings you’d wake up to a monster drop on your doorstep and the dialogue box, Looks like Yami and Tsuki brought you some of their dinner.
They’d just wander around the farm. You’d pet them to raise your relationship status.
And the better your relationship, the better the gifts they’d bring you. ”
Samson blows out a breath. “What is everyone else in town going to think about this?”
I smirk. “Who cares as long as I can gloat about my cool magical babies in front of Austin? Help me come up with a clever way to work his snide remark about how I wouldn’t last a week into introducing them, will you?”
Freezing, Samson turns achingly slow toward me. Blue eyes wide and several shades darker than Tsuki’s, he says, “Did…did you just say magical?”
Tsuki, helpfully, barks, then leaps over Samson onto a cloud that forms beneath his feet. Popping from one cloud platform to another, he fully circles the shadows in the room before returning to Samson’s side and wagging his tail. Like a very good boy.
Refusing to be outdone, Yami rises, stares at the center of the room, and snuffs, hackles rising.
Lightning crashes majestically through the ceiling, blasting sunlight into the room and sending a zipping shock up my spine.
Samson’s eye twitches. His mouth opens. He covers his lips with his hand. Patient, calm, tense, he says, “C-Citrus…”
I throw my arms around Yami and snuggle. “We’re keeping them.”
“B-but, Citrus—”
“Happy wife, happy life,” I say, because it’s good to remind my very dear friend whom I share a platonic bed with that we are married with missing steps.
One day he’ll figure it out. I believe in him.
Just like I’ve begun to believe that the question marks under his name indicate utter confusion on his part where I’m concerned.
He doesn’t understand emotions.
He’s been isolated from them his entire life, raised in a loveless, careless way.
He doesn’t know what I am to him, not really.
And I’m okay with that, because in response to happy wife, happy life, he deflates with utter acceptance. “I guess it would make me feel better to know you have a magical wolf with you whenever you disappear.”
I’m sparkling. “That’s the spirit.”
Shaking his head, he sets my hair back over my ear and kisses my cheek. Then, he rises and offers me a hand. “Are you ready to head back home?”
Dazed, I nod as I take his hand and let him pull me to my feet.
The metal scales on my armor chime as I stop before him, inches away.
The memory hits me late, but I gasp and turn toward the gemstones in the door panel before it’s too late to ever return to the Sky Dungeon again “Right, I need these for my sword. To upgrade it to Verity’s Edge.
With these, I’m only missing a diamond and a cosmic shard.
Located in the Cosmic Mines. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Samson echoes, as though he’s almost used to my wee rambles by now.
As though he almost finds them endearing.
But, since that’s silly, I set the thought aside, and we make our way back home as a happy little family…of four.