Fell Champions

‘Pact Island’ was the name of the small land mass. It wasn’t anything special. Rocks, dirt, and barely above the surface of the ocean. It was just beginning to rain when they docked, a sudden drizzle that Juala said would probably be done before they could get annoyed by it. 

Everyone piled out, and stretched their legs as best they could. Sami muttered about needing to upgrade the vessel for more space, something Holt had implied was possible. Otter wasn’t as cramped as the rest. She’d spent most of the ride in the front, where there was ample leg room. She also hadn’t been sat on by Sami at any point, which was probably why Kir and Juala both looked like their backs were sore. 

Kir looked over the island, a faraway look in her eyes. “I haven’t been here in years. It seems… profane, coming back. Like I’m not meant to be here.”

“Don’t see why,” Otter said. “It’s not like you guys worship the Dreamers.”

“Worship? Why would we ever do that? We fear them, and for good reason. Especially when you form a Pact. The immensity of them…” 

Kir shuddered visibly. Otter had a sympathetic shudder as well. Parts of her original interaction with the Sleeper in the Depths, the Silayan Dreamer, had been excised from her mind, a form of psychic surgery meant to be a ‘favour,’ but just felt like a further violation. 

“How bad is the Mikovian Dreamer?”

“Now? Now you want to know?” Kir asked incredulously.

Otter shrugged. “Listen, my plans are always insane. But they usually work. Sometimes.”

“She’s underselling herself,” Sami said. “They almost always work. So long as you apply some common sense to them first.

“Common sense would be not trying this at all.”

“The Dreamer probably won’t answer,” Juala said. “They usually ignore people. And I’ve never heard of a Dreamer answer someone after making a Pact.”

“Have you ever heard of anyone insane enough to try?”

“I don’t remember. But what is there to remember?”

“I thought not.” Kir looked up at the skies, as if to complain about the drizzle, but just as she opened her mouth, it stopped. If anything, that seemed to make her more offended. “Let’s get this insanity over with. We might be better off if they don’t respond.”

Kir held out her hand, and suddenly her armor disappeared from her body, and a shard of ice appeared in her hand. Kir didn’t answer when probed about how her ice armor worked, only saying it was a ‘Mikovian secret’ and that it was ‘Wild Rime,’ and something about a Steelsinger. Sami hadn’t had any idea, but Kir wouldn’t let her play with the fancy ice.

Kir stowed the shard of ice away, and then began stripping off her clothes. Juala suddenly seemed very interested in what was happening. Sami also stopped for a moment to openly appraise Kir as she got naked. Vex was turning the colour of the sun. Everett looked bored, and apparently decided he was better served working on the ship. Otter definitely didn’t stare. Not at all. 

But holy shit Kir had tits. 

Otter wasn’t normally a boob girl. Well, she liked boobs. And girl butts. And thighs. And backs. And arms. Especially if they had a little tone in them. Oh, and tummies. Flat, muscled, a little fleshy. She liked it all. But she didn’t have an overall preference for boobs. She always thought people salivating over big boobs were babies.

Looking at Kir’s chest, Otter quickly had to amend her opinion. She was definitely a boob girl now. 

They weren’t just big - and they were definitely big - but they were also just perfectly shaped. Each breast was capped with a nipple that was a startling cyan. And more, her skin was so pale, you could easily see the pathways of blue veins all over them. 

Juala whistled her appreciation. Kir made an annoyed sigh.

“Get it over with,” she said.

“Kir, I always knew–” Juala started, but Sami interrupted her.

“I’ve seen better.”

Kir’s head jerked towards Sami, her eyes narrowing.

“I mean, really,” Sami continued. “How much Allure have you invested in yourself? And this is the extent of your beauty? I’ve seen basic bitch titty streamers with moderate online followings that have better. Girls with deep wallets and good plastic surgeons, some Daddy issues and a quick makeup tutorial. You have magic on your side. It should be a cheat code. And all I see is a girl with big tits and an over-inflated opinion of herself.”

“Are you kidding me?” Juala exclaimed. “Those are the best tits I’ve seen in my life.”

Otter nearly agreed, but kept her opinion to herself. She knew what Sami was doing.

“Eh, they’re okay,” Sami said. “But just okay.”

Kir stood up a little straighter, her mouth working as if she wanted to say something, but her brain had short-circuited. Her cheeks were a blazing blue. 

“Well, let’s get the rest of the show over with,” Sami said. “I bet your ass isn’t half as good as Otter’s.”

Kir still seemed to be unsure how to respond. At least with words. She jerked her pants down quickly enough, staring at Sami the entire time.

“Fables,” Juala said, leering at Kir.

“Just what I thought. It’s fine, I guess. Otter’s is better.”

“Really? Can I–”

“No, Juala. Not until Rua’s safe. You heard what she wants.”

Juala rolled her eyes, trying to play it off, but her cheeks heated in a soft blush.

“You’re lying,” Kir finally said.

Sami shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe your vaunted soul power isn’t that special compared to someone who’s seen better just from scrolling the Bird app and being inundated with women of all shapes and sizes begging for you to look at their OnlyFans.”

Kir kicked off her boots and peeled her pants off, and finally said, “You. You’re the one who’s going to paint the wards on me.”

“Stop pretending like you just awarded me a prize. It’s just some finger painting. Unless you want my fingers to go somewhere else.”Kir spun on her heel, turning away, her cheeks blazing. Sami smirked at Otter, and the two exchanged a quick high five. 

“I can’t believe you just pulled that off,” Otter whispered.

“Too many people value her for her looks. I like what she looks like underneath all that magic Allure.”

“Oh? And what does she look like?”

Sami paused for a moment, and then smiled. “Prey.”

The ritual took longer than expected. Sami had read extensively on Pacts, and had done ward-painting before on Everett. Juala, though, was the true expert. She pointed at every little whirl of mud Sami painted, every design that was the least bit off, and corrected her.

“You’re not just painting designs,” Juala said. “You’re painting math, represented in these symbols. What’s more, they’re not exactly static. Depending on where the moons are in the sky-” 

Otter blurted out, “Moons?” but was summarily ignored.

“-what season it is, if a Dreamer has recently awoken, these can all change. Not by a lot, and most of the time it isn’t noticeable. Not by us anyway. You can get away with a few mistakes here and there. Most of the time the Dreamers don’t bother to test how good your wards are. But we’re in unexplored waters here. Assuming this works, we want good wards. Really good wards.”

Sami nodded along, eager to learn. She was exactly enough on the spectrum to hyper-fixate on this kind of thing, but to Otter, it was honestly kind of tedious. Who cared if a minor nearby earthquake caused one line to shift four degrees, or if an early migration by the local soo-meng made a swirl a little more swirly? She just wanted to get to the good part.

“You could at least take this a little more seriously,” Kir said, catching Otter’s bored expression. 

“Why? Not like I can add anything.”

“Why? Because this could be a colossal waste of time. Or worse, it could work. And if it works, then you could be risking my life. My soul. Who knows how a Dreamer would react?”

“Well, tell me about this Dreamer. Are they male? Female? Reasonable? Angry?”

“None of the Dreamers subscribe to a gender. Except maybe the Sleeper in the Depths. Sometimes they’re male. Sometimes female. Sometimes neither.”

“Okay, and what does the Mikovian Dreamer appear as?”

“A mountain. Our tallest mountain. Covered in snow, where even the slightest sound might cause an avalanche. All while a fierce storm blows. It is all of this, the mountain, the impending avalanche, and the storm, all at once. It is a force of nature.”

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool. That doesn’t sound overdramatic at all. Okay. We ready?”

“Yes,” Sami said, just as Juala said, “Almost.”

Juala pointed out a few more things she wanted Sami to correct, shaking her head all the while. “I wish I had a calendar handy. One with the moon phases represented. And a list of… Oh, never mind, it’s as good as we’re going to get.”

“Very well,” Sami said. “I’ll recite the ritual.”

“No,” Kir said. “Let… let Juala do it. I trust her. With this, anyway.”

Something in Juala’s eyes shone at that. And then she coughed into her hand, and said, “Sure thing, sweet tits. I mean, anything for my beloved-yet-symbolic sister.”

Kir made a face, and then knelt down. Juala looked about to make a crude remark until Vex swatted her, which brought Otter up short from making her own.

Juala got a serious look on her face, and then closed her eyes. “I invoke the Mikovian Dreamer. The Cold Judgement, the Frozen Heart.”

Just hearing those words sent a shiver down Otter’s spine.

“The winds bluster. The snow falls. The night comes. I invoke the Unending Tempest.”

Otter really began to feel cold. Not just eerie, but like the temperature had dropped ten degrees, all at once. Beside her, Kir’s shoulders squared, as if she were getting ready for a fight.

The sky darkened.

“Huh, guess that means it’s working,” Otter muttered.

Sami gave her a confused look, and then hushed her.

“I invoke the Guardian on the Wall, the Barren Feast, the Empty Hearth.”

Otter’s breath misted in front of her. Silly how she’d missed something as silly as seeing your breath when it got cold. Most streamers like herself moved to LA for the collabs. And even when she’d retreated from the life following her illness, she’d been forced to stay inside. Well, not forced. She just… hadn’t wanted to go out. She hadn’t seen a winter in a while. 

She blew a steady stream of cold air in front of her, pretending to be a vicious dragon. Sami gave her a startled look.

And then Otter realized. Only her breath was misting. No. That wasn’t right. Kir’s was as well.

“I invoke the Eternal Sentinel, the Vigilant Shepherd…”

Suddenly, Otter could see a vision. A vision of soldiers standing on battlements made of ice, fighting a hopeless war as figures of shadow rode black four-legged beasts across the sky, descending on them from above as if gravity didn’t matter. Of the night itself come to life as pale men and women fought back for just one more moment, just one more day to live, all while the sound of children crying could be heard in the distance.

This wasn’t right. This was similar to how it’d been when Rua had summoned the Silayan Dreamer for Otter. But the ritual had been for her, so only she’d seen the vision. 

“Guys,” Otter said. “Something isn’t right.”

Juala continued on, as if in a trance, “I call upon the Herald of the Dawn.”

And then, just like that, the sky turned black. Not just the black of night, but a night with no stars, no moon, no light to stave it off. But somehow Otter could still see. In every direction, the ground was white, covered in virgin snow. Kir knelt beside her. 

No one else was there.

And in the distance, a mountain loomed over them both. And a storm began to rage.

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