Stefan’s POV
I knew, with a kind of grim, resigned certainty, that I needed the AP too badly to talk myself out of accepting this mission.
Three thousand was too much to walk away from, not with a life ember still sitting eight hundred coins out of reach and a General’s patience running out somewhere down the hall. So I accepted it, feeling the number settle into my interface with a weight that promised nothing but pain in the immediate future, and turned to Kara before she could ask what I’d decided.
"Give me some time," I said. "A couple hours, at least."
She peered at me for a moment as if she was reading some things off my face.
"Some heartbeats before sunset," she said. "I’ll come for you then. Be ready when I do."
I nodded, and she slipped out of the room without another word, leaving me alone with the quiet hum of the system’s timer already counting somewhere in the back of my skull.
Two hours. Two hours bleeding straight out of the two sunsets I didn’t have left to spare, and I hadn’t even started yet.
~~~~~~~~~~
I went looking for Jonquil with that thought sitting heavy in my chest, an itch of urgency I couldn’t quite shake no matter how many times I told myself the math still worked out in my favor.
I found her in one corner of her room, deep into her own private drills, moving through motions I didn’t recognize with the kind of unconscious ease that came from a lifetime of repetition.
The room was large enough that she’d carved out a proper training ground for herself in it without ever needing to leave, furs pushed aside, floor swept bare. She caught sight of me mid-motion and stopped entirely, staring, clearly not expecting company at this particular hour of the day.
"What?" she said, flat, wary, sweat already gathering along her collarbone from whatever she’d been doing before I interrupted.
"Some entity decided I need training," I said, gesturing vaguely at the empty air, at the system that had ruined my entire afternoon with a single chime. "By force. And I need you to be the one who does it."
Jonquil tilted her head slightly, studying me the way she studied everything, unhurried, thorough. "The kind of training we do together?"
I laughed, dry, dragging a hand through my hair. "No. Believe me, that’s never once been the issue between us." I rubbed the back of my neck, already dreading the words even as I said them. "The other kind. Whatever you do to build your body. Yours and the other Flowers’."
She looked at me for a long moment, something shifting slowly behind her eyes, some private amusement she usually kept locked down tight finally slipping its leash. And then she smiled.
It caught me off guard enough that I actually took half a step back. "Are you mocking me right now?"
She didn’t answer. She just kept smiling, small and unreadable, and dropped into position, feet planted wide, back straight, arms loose at her sides. "Follow me," she said. "Exactly as I move."
I knew that woman would be excited to do this. Of course, she would.
The system’s timer flickered to life in the corner of my vision the second I copied her stance, red numbers counting down from two full hours, unforgiving and immediate.
Jonquil moved into her first drill, effortless, switching from one motion to the next with a fluid discipline I could only watch and envy, muscle rolling under skin like she’d never once had to think about the mechanics of any of it.
I tried to keep up and understood, almost immediately, exactly how far apart our two bodies actually were. My balance wavered on the second motion.
By the fourth, sweat was already sliding down my spine, and every time she glanced over and caught me wobbling, arms shaking, one bad breath away from collapsing entirely, something flickered across her face. Disbelief, mostly. Like she genuinely couldn’t process how a grown man’s body could be built this poorly.
Time kept ticking, relentless, unbothered by my suffering.
She dropped into push-ups next, settling into the motion like it cost her nothing at all, and I followed her down, determined not to embarrass myself twice in one lifetime on this godforsaken planet. I made it to five before my arms gave out completely and I face-planted straight into the furs, breath knocked clean out of me.
Jonquil laughed.
I froze, genuinely startled by the sound of it, something I’d never once heard out of her in all the days I’d known her. Short, surprised, entirely unguarded, gone again almost as fast as it had arrived, swallowed back down before she’d fully allowed herself to enjoy it.
I gritted my teeth against the humiliation, half annoyed, half something warmer I didn’t particularly want to examine too closely right then.
The system chimed, soft, almost pleased with itself.
[JONQUIL — AFFECTION: 90%]
I grinned into the furs, face still pressed flat against them, tasting dust and my own exhaustion. Worth it, apparently. Worth every second of looking like an idiot in front of the one of the plenty women on this planet I actually wanted to impress.
Jonquil crouched down beside me then, adjusting my hands where they’d splayed wrong against the floor, my elbows tucked too tight against my ribs, correcting the angle of my back with two firm, precise taps.
"Like this," she said, patient in a way she’d never once been with anyone else I’d seen her train. "Not there. Here."
I tried again, following her adjustments to the letter, and something clicked properly into place this time, my arms finding leverage they hadn’t had a single second ago. I did ten. Then twenty, my whole body screaming somewhere around thirty, sweat soaking clean through the transparent silk I still hadn’t managed to replace with anything decent. By the time I hit fifty, my arms had gone past pain into something closer to numbness, but the timer hadn’t run out yet, and Jonquil showed absolutely no sign of letting up on me anytime soon.
~~~~~~~~~~
The system chimed again some indeterminate, agonizing stretch of time later.
[MISSION COMPLETE.]
Rewards dropped, numbers scrolling past faster than my exhausted brain could properly track, and I let myself collapse flat onto the floor, chest heaving, every single muscle in my body lit up with a soreness I’d never once felt back on earth, not even after the longest nights of my old life.
[Incubus Physique — Passive Effect Active.]
I felt it immediately, something tightening and settling beneath my skin, muscle fiber knitting itself into something firmer, denser, the ache already starting to feel less like damage and more like construction happening in real time. My eyes started to slide shut on their own, exhaustion finally catching up with me all at once, dragging me down toward sleep whether I wanted it or not.
Then two arms hooked under me, effortless, and I was lifted clean off the floor, settled onto a pair of shoulders like I weighed nothing at all.
"What are you doing?" I mumbled, too tired to properly protest, my whole body swaying limp with her movement.
"We aren’t finished," Jonquil said, already walking, steady and unbothered, like carrying a grown man over her shoulder cost her nothing at all.
"I am so done," I yelled, voice cracking somewhere between exhaustion and disbelief.
"Jonquil. I am so, so done."
She didn’t stop walking.
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