Chapter 39 #2
“You got that new Speak with Animals spell when you leveled up this morning,” Doug says. “Ask it.”
Speak with Animals? I shake free of Doug’s hand so that I can nod.
Miko shrugs. “Sure.” I guess she finally got that shopping trip she wanted because she whips out a brand-new staff and holds it up. “Speak with Animals,” she says nonchalantly.
I don’t even wait for her to say anything. “Miko! It’s me, Lauren!”
She squints in response and turns to Doug. “She says she’s someone named Lauren.”
Doug scratches the back of his neck. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”
“Because I’m your ex-girlfriend, you asshole!” I shout.
Miko’s eyes widen. “Whoa, she’s got quite a mouth on her! Says she’s your ex-girlfriend.”
“What?” Doug asks. “I don’t have an ex-girlfriend. I mean, unless you count Melissa. But we didn’t break up. I just wound up here when I…Why can’t I remember how I got here?”
“Maybe you were drunk like Guy,” Miko responds.
“Guy!” I cry out. “Is he okay? Is Cait okay? Joshua?”
“How do you know all those names?” Miko asks.
“Because it’s me, Lauren,” I answer. “And that other horse is Sylvia!”
“Sylvia?” Miko asks.
“She’s the Archer of Artemis,” I say, “and I’m the Cleric of Aphrodite.”
Miko laughs. “Okay, yeah, and I’m Santa.” She turns to Doug. “She says that she’s the Cleric of Aphrodite.”
This gets Doug laughing as well. “That old legend?”
“Legend? No, I’m your friend!” I insist. “Miko, I convinced the party to let you live when you were an empusa, and that’s why Guy gave you the grape so that Dionysus would adopt you. Remember?”
Miko’s laughter stops. Instead of looking at me curiously, she takes me in like I might deserve her rare sympathy. “That’s not something many people know,” she says. “When Hekate turned me into an empusa, my friends acted like they’d forgotten me. I thought they were pretending but…could it be?”
“Tell Doug that he has a bad habit of leaving empty chip bags on the desk after playing video games all day,” I tell her.
“Ew,” Miko grimaces and turns to Doug. “You leave your trash next to your computer? That’s how you get a gunked up cooling fan!”
“Exactly!” I shout.
Doug looks at me like I’m a mystery. “How would you know that?”
“I think we actually might know this Lauren person,” Miko says. “Probably whoever Sylvia is, too. Whatever god did this to them made everyone forget.”
“But she said she’s the Cleric of Aphrodite,” Doug says, shaking his head. “That’s just a quest line for people who didn’t get to finish those broken low-level quests.”
“I broke those quests,” I say. “That’s why Zeus did this to me. Well, I think Zeus did this.”
“Zeus?” Miko says. “If you belong to Aphrodite, another god can’t hurt you.”
“The rules don’t apply to him,” I say. “He’s the King of Gods.”
“Oh, shit…” Miko whispers.
“What is it? What’s she saying?” Doug asks.
“Zeus did this,” she answers. “He can hurt any player he wants, regardless of who their deity is.”
“Please, is everyone else okay?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Miko says. “Joshua is resting after a battle. I think Cait and Guy are on a date.”
A date. So they really love each other. They’re not just pretending for me. This warms me from head to toe. What we have is real, not just a byproduct of being one of Aphrodite’s players. Well, what we had. If they’ve forgotten me, too…I don’t even want to think about that.
“What am I going to do?” I ask myself aloud.
“There’s a cleric in town who can remove hexes, but that would just return you to human form,” Miko says. “I have no idea how to help anyone regain their memories of you.”
That will have to be good enough. I can probably start these relationships over from scratch, but I’ll definitely need my human form to complete the Khione mission. Now that Zeus has done this to me, I want nothing more than to succeed where he hoped to see me fail.
“Please bring him,” I say. “I’ll get Sylvia and let her know. She’ll be so relieved.”
Sylvia and I stand side by side beside the road leading to Ismarus.
Doug stays by our side to prevent players from killing us.
He’s had to tell many players that we’re not the monsters they’re looking for, so I feel like sobbing with relief when Miko and the cleric show up. I can’t cry, though. I’m a horse.
The cleric trembles at the sight of me. “Are you sure this isn’t a monster?” he asks Miko.
“Yes, I talked to one of them at great length,” she says. “If she was a man-eating monster, she had plenty of opportunity to chew us to a pulp.”
“Well, then, I must do what I can to save them both from this curse,” he says.
The cleric stands in front of Sylvia and me and presses his palms on our muzzles. Then he closes his eyes and whispers a prayer to Apollo. God, I hope Apollo pulls through. Zeus is his father. Maybe he’d prefer for me to stay like this.
My body shifts, and agonizing pain radiates from every inch of me. It’s like someone is breaking all my bones and tearing apart my skin all at once. But soon, I slump forward in human form, my hands and knees buried in the snow.
The little protection from the cold my horsehair had provided is gone. The freezing gusts burn against my nude body. I look at Sylvia, who’s curled up on her side, naked and shivering.
“Oh, God!” Miko shouts. “I didn’t realize it was going to make you naked! Um, um…” She brings up her menu and taps furiously at it until her old warlock robes are in her hands. “Put this on,” she says, offering it to me.
I almost refuse and ask her to give it to Sylvia, but Doug is already passing some old armor of his to her. With shaking arms, I pull on her robes. Unlike my white cleric chiton, this is black and hugs me in more of a witchy seductress way.
“Damn, that looks better on you than it did on me,” Miko says. “And I looked incredible. I guess you really do belong to Aphrodite.”
Ignoring her lovely compliment, I get straight to business. “I need to get to Khione.”
Miko shakes her head. “You need to eat a warm meal and figure out what else you’re missing. I already sent a message to my friends—our friends—to expect a guest soon.”
“A message?” I ask, but I don’t wait for an answer. “Fuck, this could be all it takes for Zeus to—”
“Relax,” Miko says. “I’m a druid. I sent it with a bird. No one’s going to know what’s going on but us.”
“I really could use that meal,” Sylvia says, leaning against Doug. She’s still shaking, but I’m pretty sure it’s not just because of the cold. She looks gaunt. How long were we in the nothingness? It doesn’t look like she’s had a bite to eat in days.
I nod. “Okay, but as soon as I can, I need to figure out a plan. There’s a reason Zeus did this to us, and speaking to Khione may be my only way to prevent it from happening again.”
“Got it,” Doug says. “Recover, plan, and then talk to someone named Khione.”
We walk back into Ismarus, leaving the endless snow behind for a city full of people who would like to see me dead.