Settling down
She rolls her neck tiredly. Obviously her neck wasn't really capable of aching, between, you know, not having a physical spine and the possession of Cancel Pain. It was more a habitual reaction after wrapping up extensive work. Naming all one hundred and seventy-three thousand Orcs in this case.
It was a good thing she'd had Rowena make a server outside of the isolation area to transfer all of the information stored in the server in the Trunk to, since she was able to pull on the languages she'd dumped into her library as a ‘just in case we ever run into a group that doesn't speak a language we do and it's an emergency’ sort of thing and essentially use her as a name generator. Each of the tribes' names had been given a prompt based on where they'd be settling, mountains and that sort of descriptor, and their names were ‘generated’ based on that.
It had taken almost one thousand nine hundred and fifty of her Full Potions to name them all, but it was worth it as far as she was concerned, especially given how easily it should be to replace them given they're made using mutated grass. Speaking of, while she doesn't want to distract them from helping speed up setting up the farms, she should probably look into having the Dryads help her with getting the beginnings of production on potion making later.
She glances back at her husband thoughtfully, “Just how strong are you out of curiosity anyway? Because I'm totally going to give you an actual name at some point so you won't just have to be ‘Noir’ at best or vaguely ‘husband’ and I have been gaining strength from all the namings and all that. I mean, I don't get nearly the same benefits of naming the Lizardmen and the Orcs using my workaround trick than with purely my own magic, which is fine since that isn't my motivation anyway, but I was curious how far off it is.”
He smiles in warm fondness, “Honestly, with the way you suppress your magic so masterfully it's actually hard to say. I mean, I am a Primordial, so logic says it's probably a good bit away, but at the same time… yes, you're naming weaker beings and essentially nickeling and diming your growth, but I mean, while it's not a one to one comparison on multiple fronts obviously, if you have a billion pennies, they may be pennies but you'd still have ten million dollars overall. So given the sheer number, it's not necessarily out of the question you could possibly name one of us relatively soon. Darling would be the best starting point, given she's the weakest, but she's also about a third of my own strength and half of Sister’s(1), so it would help snowball to naming me.”
She hums, “I've gotten so used to suppressing my magic I genuinely spaced you wouldn't be able to get a feel for it before I asked, sorry. Probably for the best I likely can't just yet. If I was put on the spot right now on the tail end of days of naming the Orcs, I'd probably pick something on the nose like Diablo-”
She sways to the side sharply as about two thirds of her magic is ripped from her with the standard unstreamlined version of naming. At the same time, something about the naming creates a surge through their bond, maybe just in that she arguably tried to make a new one via the naming, finishing the previously still in progress upgrade to a soul corridor all at once. A hand quickly snaps out to grab her on the side she was swaying toward, the owner catching her and stepping to her side.
Looking up she finds her husband, who's now apparently Diablo, smiling in amusement, “Guess it's a good thing I don't care in the slightest if you're on the nose with my name, since apparently the the answer to your previous question is ‘right now’ as you do, in fact, have the metaphorical billion pennies.”
She blinks rapidly at him, shaking her head from the dizziness as she peers up at him, “...Words of the World simultaneously takes everything literally but isn't capable of understanding that I wasn't trying to name you.” She squints up at the sky briefly, “I thought we were cool despite the dying mouthing off thing, Words of the World. But you do stuff like this and we're gonna be fightin’. I don't care if you don't have a physical form. I'll figure it out.”
She points her first two fingers of one of her hands at her eyes then points at the sky and Diablo chuckles, “That wasn't targeted at you specifically. There's a reason people are so careful about anything remotely name-like, and it's because Words of the World is just kinda like that.”
She huffs as she turns her gaze back to him from the sky, “Don't care. Fightin’ if it pulls nonsense like this again.”
He shakes his head in amusement, then gives her a more serious look, “How much did that take anyway?”
She rubs at her eyes tiredly as her annoyance drains, “'Bout two thirds, and on the tail end of finishing up naming the hundred and seventy-three thousand Orcs too, since even using that workaround, it still took a decent bit out of me. I suppose that means I'll definitely have the magic to name Darling and Sister later, though it means I've gotta come up with something, since while I am not using examples, even though my brain is absolutely immediately going towards specific Kanji, I'm still in no headspace for anything but something on the nose that literally has something Demon related in the names themselves. Also, it being unintentional means that was a Master-Subordinate Naming, which… seems odd for a soulmate.”
Her sister-in-law snickers, and her wife gives her a bemused look, “Well, you can't do it until you recover anyway, but while I can't speak for Sister, I'm not desperate enough for a name like most monsters and the like that I'd accept anything, I personally wouldn't care if it was something on the nose like that. Though, for the record, just mentioning a Kanji you're thinking of using in the name should be fine, since it's not inherently a name itself. Also, regarding the naming type, we were actually talking while you were busy and were going to suggest using Master-Subordinate ones anyway, since the benefits of it are better for both parties.”
Sister shakes her head, still smiling in faint amusement, “Nah, I wouldn't mind something a bit obvious either.”
She straightens up as the dizziness fades, “Nice to know just mentioning the Kanji is safe but honestly, I'm not kidding that my brain is burnt out on naming and going for on the nose, since it immediately went to the Kanji for magic or demon. And immediately started contemplating pairing it with the Kanji for logic and whatnot for Sister given the whole contractor thing and the Kanji for smile for Darling since her smile was one of the first things I noticed about her in our first life. And I guess it is true that Master-Subordinate Namings technically have more benefits, so if you'd prefer that, I suppose we could go with a standard naming.”
Darling flashes another smile, “That works just fine as far as I'm concerned. And yes, we would prefer a standard naming so we can all reap the benefits.”
Sister nods and she shrugs, “Well, I guess that saves me having to try to find names for you, but it'll still have to be later.” She mutters absently, “Should really put things like power into numerical values so I can get a better idea of what I have and what any particular naming will cost.”
Her husband, who was still hovering at her side protectively leans over to brush a kiss to her temple, “Something to work out later Xiǎolóng.”
She hums in tired agreement. Then she glances at her husband, “With all the naming and everything, I didn't really get a chance to ask earlier, but what was up with Treyni's impression on you?”
He hums, “Part of it is due to the fact I have a human mind, so compared to the rest of the slow to change Daemons, I seem almost frivolous. To the extent most of them tend to label me as whimsical in all honesty. And it doesn't help that the oldest of the Primordials, Guy, is annoying as all hell, so I started using a persona crafted explicitly to target as many of his pet peeves as possible to get him to avoidme.”
He grins at her, “He hates people taking forever to get to the point? Welp! Now I'm soooo long winded it may very well be a viable method of power generation to have me talk towards a wind turbine. He hates dramatic flair?” He places a hand to his chest with a dramatic gasp, “I'm hurt Guy! I thought we were close, I mean, you were constantly seeking me out and hanging around, so you can't blame me for getting that impression. I am absolutely devastated, utterly anguished, completely inconsolable! And I will now take it personally and start slamming doors in your face because I will never let it go.”
She starts shaking with low laughter and he grins at her, “It was perfectly believable too. Since how slow to change they are, combined with the fact that just because Veldanava made them physically fully developed doesn't mean the Primordials immediately had a strong sense of their own self and it took time for them to figure themselves out. My act coming about actually beat a couple of them legitimately figuring themselves out, so no one even batted an eyelash at my sudden change or anything, given they were all just sort of going through the motions and acting how they thought was expected of them before that.“
He sighs, “To avert risking him happening to be watching and catching on, I went all in and basically never dropped it except in my own territory in the Daemon realm. Not going to keep it up now that you're here, since I have significantly more important things. But combined with my whimsical, dramatic persona, the fact how quickly I changed gave others the impression I was fickle. Add in just regular old misinterpretation of why I did some of the things I did or some of the people who summoned me either being unable to or just not being honest what they called me for and twisting the story, and I'm neither surprised nor particularly hurt the Dryads were wary of you potentially calling the Black Primordial when the situation was already tumultuous.”
She blinks, too worn out from the naming for her brain to engage properly, “Unable to be honest? What?”
He smiles gently down at her, “Naming me really did take a lot out of you, huh? You know, things like the abused princess needing her kingly father disposed of so she can finally be free of him, but unable to exactly admit why a Daemon killed him? Not the only reason people couldn't just say why I did what I did and had to make it seem like a summoning went wrong or something, but it's a good example.”
She nods slowly, “Yeah. That makes sense.” She rubs at her eyes, “Damn though, losing so much magic all at once really did mess with my head.”
He leans over to brush another kiss to her forehead, “Honestly, normally I'd say you need some sleep, but from what I saw, Slimes physically can't. You do need some rest though.”
She hums, “Probably. When I can actually get a bit of rest depends on how much work I potentially need to do when we get back though.” Diablo looks down at her with fond exasperation and she grins tiredly, “Hey, you're the one who waited so long for me to show up. Workaholic tendencies are included in the package. You knew what you were getting yourself into, and now that you're here you're stuck with me and my workaholic tendencies! No take backs!”
He shakes his head, a grin on his lips like he doesn't want it to be, but that was, in fact, funny, “Wish you weren't a workaholic, but as far as being stuck with you goes, I wouldn't have it any other way Xiǎolóng. Forget take backs, someone would have to pry you from my cold dead hands. And that's kind of impossible now that I'm a Daemon. If anything, you're stuck with me.”
She smiles up at him, so damned happy her soulmates are back with her, leaning up to brush a kiss against the corner of his mouth, “Wouldn't have it any other way Diablo.” She drops to be flat on her feet, “We do need to get going and head back to the town though.”
They chat as they head out, and it almost feels strange to be heading to the town without the depressive cloud due to the questions and uncertainty about them hanging over her.
Strange, but better though, that's for sure.
Now that the naming is over and she's back in town, which started really ramping up in construction speed once the Orcs -who evolved into High Orcs after the naming, which no one had turned down- were there and on the job, she finds herself with far less to do then she'd thought there would be.
It hadn't taken as long as she thought to translate Malice Perception to act as the trigger to deny entry into the ward which she'd built based on her own Multilayer Barrier once it was also translated into engraving magic. It hadn't even really been difficult to designate who any malice targeting was to be considered by the ward. The fact she named them all means that even the Orcs, weak though their bond may be, technically have a tiny bit of her magic within them from the naming engraving it into their souls. Which meant she could literally just set it up to protect her from malice and it would automatically include them because of the traces of her they carry in their very souls. She'd have to tweak it later if they ever got anyone she didn't name moving to town, but she was already trying to work that out idly on the side.
Her Time Turner observation had finally yielded some results for Time Manipulation as well. Copying it had let her gain a Skill that copied its function, letting her go an hour into the past that was. The Skill had something of a built in limiter since the moment it was used it ‘stored time’ as it put it and only had a limited capacity on what she could ‘store’ so she couldn't really stack it.
Or, that was its slightly upgraded version anyway. Initially it just said it had one use and a new jump opportunity was gained after time caught back up to when she initially jumped back from. But then she'd gained a Time Acceleration Skill, and experimenting with merging them had changed it to that ‘store time’ thing which she could also use up on accelerating somethings time. It had upgraded again a smidge after some experimenting and managing to create a version fused with Regrowth, which was even more complicated than just merging two universe's powers usually was since it wasn't technically related to time. When she got it though, she was capable of rewinding something else's time, and the limit had expanded to twenty-four hours.
She could arguably technicallytry to abuse it if she wanted by constantly accelerating her own time to burn through the stock of that as she continuously jumped back. As a Slime, it's not like she'd die of old age or something. So it was technically an option. She didn't really have any reason to do that, but she could. And if she did, given Skills seem to essentially be based on Words of the World recognizing an achievement, just doing it would probably strengthen her Skill.
It was as far as she's gotten so far though. Honestly, she'd started the Time Manipulation experiments more out of curiosity than anything and then it had been something to distract her from the soulmate MIA crisis, and then she'd gotten hyper fixated in a desperate attempt to distract herself. That being said, while maybe it could be useful at some point, she doesn't really need Time Manipulation Skills.
So she'd lost quite a lot of interest in that to be honest. Especially since if her experience with time turners in her first life is any indication, the rules of it is usually ‘if you travel in time to make something happened, you always traveled in time and the version of events you're used to already had your influence’ so there wasn't much use to going back in all honesty. And if soulmate marks are any indication, looking forward just gives you a glimpse of what will happen, not because no one has freedom of choice, but because you're glimpsing how things play out after everyone has made their choices. Well, by the rules she knows anyway, maybe it's different in other universes, but the majority of her interest was in things like time acceleration. There's uses for that, speeding up processes that take longer and the like.
Honestly, far more interesting was the fact that when she'd been messing with her Skills and observing them, she'd realized Raphael and Beelzebuth were drifting towards one another. Which had honestly been confusing at first, but, well, ultimately, Raphael wanted to understand everything, Beelzebuth wanted to gain raw power, skills, mimicries and just about anything it could, but they both wanted to consume. Raphael the knowledge of everything, Beelzebuth just everything period, and further, arguably Raphael was the proverbial ‘biggest fish’ available to Beelzebuth to eat. The fact they both wanted to consume though, made them surprisingly compatible.
At least, that was the conclusion she'd reached. After discussing it with Rowena, they ultimately decided to merge them, where she was greeted by the fact that Words of the World apparently has a rather pompous naming style. For some damn reason it had named the resultant Skill God of the Void, Azathoth. In the process, they'd realized Raphael had some sort of innate… back door of control, she supposes it'd be called. Wanting to simultaneously not allow it to be used against her, but also wanting to hold onto it in case it could be useful in some way, she'd gone out of her way to protect it from the way the evolution process was threatening destroying it, removing it from the merging Skills and placing it in Isolation.
She hasn't gotten further with her experiments yet, but noticing a more substantial change in the day to day, she'd questioned Rowena about it. In return, Rowena had sheepishly admitted that she'd been distracted keeping an eye on her out of worry, so between her getting her head screwed on right now that the soulmate crisis was dealt with and Rowena being able to focus more on other things, the productivity of both of them to shoot up. Enough so that… well, frankly there isn't a whole lot for her to do most of the day.
Their budding nation is getting to the point that there's actual paperwork technically, but between her Thought Acceleration and sheer efficiency, she's done with what she comes into the morning waiting for her within an hour. Obviously, more paperwork trickles in throughout the day which is dealt with even swifter, but barring her rotating in-person check-ins to make sure everything is running smoothly her entire work day really only takes up a combined two maybe two and a half hours.
Diablo had, in fact, channeled the sort of conflicting desires of wanting to take care of her and not wanting to leave her side really -which were only conflicting in the sense that he usually channeled his desire to take care of his wives into his house husband ways- into legitimately assigning himself to be her secretary. Or, one of two anyway.
While it wasn't really like her in the sense she usually felt a desire to do more important things, her wife had also assigned herself to be another secretary. She supposes she should be glad she'd insisted they finish up the housing they needed for everyone first, since it means there was time to do some mild alterations to the main government building they have planned while those that need the space to do more office type work do so in the upper floors of the dorms she had made to serve as an intermediary for housing.
Her wife's own workaholic tendencies means she's not quite satisfied with just essentially being a secretary in name but more a personal butler like her husband, since the majority of his work is just… getting her tea and food. Maybe a little bit of file retrieval occasionally.
Honestly, while she didn't care much, and none of her ‘top brass’ as it were do either since they know what's going on, for the sake of saving face to other dignitaries if they ever develop international relations, she's ordered the official response to be more along the lines of ‘Diablo? Oh he's just her secretary! And that he happens to be incredibly powerful when she doesn't appear to have any Royal Guards… well, that's just a coincidence.' Though, given the way they take everything literally, she'd had to remind most of the people she'd told not to word it exactly like that every time they had reason to ‘explain’ it to trusted people. That would just arouse suspicion if they all worded it the same way after all.
And since she was banking on it being absolutely believable that she may have thinlyveiled the fact he was actually her Guard by claiming he was just a secretary, and it was equally believable that he was her Guard given how powerful he was, it was important that she made it seem like they were at least thinly veiling it. It was just to save face in front of any potential future foreign dignitaries and the like of course, but it was important to hammer such things out before they were needed. And it ultimately was incredibly believable.
Didn't hurt that while it wasn't his job exactly, her husband wouldn't hesitate to protect her like a Guard. It had the unintended side effect of putting her people's minds at ease actually, since while she'd made solid points when she shut down the suggestion regarding Shion being her Royal Guard, it had apparently left her people with anxiety regarding her lack of Guard. Diablo was more than powerful enough to serve as one too, given the whole ‘Primordial Daemon’ and all that.
As she'd decided previously, her and Diablo's wife's got a name combining the Kanji for ‘laugh, smile’ with the Kanji for ‘demon, magic’ to make Ema, since as serious as her wife was most of the time, when she does loosen up a bit, she's always had the prettiest smile and laugh. And as she'd mentioned when she told her it was the name she was thinking of, it was the first thing she noticed about her, as was more than evident from the Mark she'd made on her in their first life. But she was a bit of a workaholic herself and wasn't as happy to have so little to do while hanging around her, which is why it was a good thing there was time to rearrange the building schematics for the main government building.
It meant she could add an office leading into her own where Ema could act on the more usual secretary work of meeting people as they came in and potentially asking them to wait so they don't interrupt something important or just accept paperwork for her that's being delivered. Since she also wanted to just be near her and see her, the layout of the office had already been decided.
The door leading into Ema's office wasn't directly lined up with the door to hers. It was on the wall that would be on the right side of her office actually. Mostly so they can leave the door open when there isn't important things going on so Ema, whose desk was going to be lined up with her door, could see in pretty much constantly, with the only exception being when it's closed for aforementioned important and/or private meetings. Not because Ema isn't allowed in on those things, but just to make sure anyone who enters Ema's office wouldn't automatically hear and see everything going on.
It's not surprising since they aren't soulmates, but the only one of the three who wasn't around her twenty-four seven was her sister-in-law, who she had in fact named Mari using the previously mentioned ‘demon, magic' Kanji and combining it with ‘logic, reason’ in reference to her contractor nature. It was still fitting, since even if she spread the cost and the power itself between Diablo and Mari, she still technically was a contractor. It hadn't occurred to her until after, but technically she's actually met a Mari before in Watanabe, but oh well. It's not like she had full exclusive rights to the name or anything.(2)
Given Diablo didn't really have any interest in leaving her side to take control of that department, whether or not Soei and his subordinates would start answering to one of them was up to Mari. Mari, however, had been all too happy to leave it to Soei, since those sorts of things specifically didn't really suit her. She'd been more than happy to leave serving Rimuru in the capacity of her nation's intelligence department to Soei while she remained her personal agent essentially.
Soei had been perfectly happy with that, since he was still serving her, he was just focused on doing so via his work for her nation. He hadn't even been upset about Mari's job being as her personal agent, since them being separate meant neither would distract from the duties of the other. And as much as he desired to serve her, the presence of the other Ogres and the bonds he's made since they arrived make him taking a broader focused job more fulfilling for him personally, since he gets to serve her and help secure the home of people he cares about and himself.
Rowena had also technically become part of security, though it was entirely in the capacity of the fact that trail towards the crystal ball she'd observed had been for what Gelmud's memories identified as an Observation Link Orb.(3) Gelmud hadn't known how to make them himself, but given she'd seen the Eidos of the one that had been linked to him, they just made their own version, which had opened up possible usage for public security.
Namely, she'd translated an extremely limited version of her Multidimensional Perception in engraving magic form powered with some of the ambient magic from having so many demi-humans around onto a casing that any potential otherworlder who visited would recognize as a camera. Each of those engraving cameras was then linked to an Observation Link Orb which were themselves capable of recording. She'd explained to Rigurd to make sure everyone understood that they weren't after invading anyone's privacy, it was entirely a matter of additional security.
Part of the reason it was so limited was because she'd also made an engraving magic that could block it, though while she trusted her people, the easiest way to keep a secret was to not let it spread to begin with. To that extent, on the privacy part, only Rowena and the artistic Myrd knew the counter magic engraving, which they'd hidden in various versions of wallpapers to be offered for things like bedrooms at minimum, but also any other room people wanted privacy from the cameras in. To further hide the counter engravings, the wallpapers weren't just on their own, they had it on a few items and when people came to acquire privacy application, they'd be told to pick multiple of each category just to muddy the water on what was triggering it or if it was a singular item or multiple linked together working in conjunction.
There was always the possibility of future issues between them and Dwargon and the Dwarves potentially taking their home nations side, so something even Myrd didn't know was that the counter only worked with part of one of the limiters she applied to her cameras. If deemed necessary, just how limited it is can be turned down at which point the counter doesn't work. It's mostly just a precaution against anyone trying to copy her counter and use it for some sort of espionage.
And even then, that's the second fall back option. Technically, the engraving magic in the counters could recharge themselves with some of the ambient magic, and they wouldn't even glow to give away the hidden magic design. The key however, was they could recharge themselves with ambient magic. They had to gain an initial charge with her magic or it would basically do the opposite, and rather than countering the camera's abilities, it would basically light you up like a Christmas tree to them.
All of that, however, brings her to now. She doesn't know if the basics of engraving magic were something Veldanava himself taught people and it spread or if someone had a Skill similar to hers at some point who could see the engravings of Skills. Regardless of which, the two were incredibly similar. Not quite a one to one, so there was still a little work to translate a Skill to an engraving magic, but it wasn't a lot.
Once she had all the ones she'd need for various things in their budding nation down, she'd shifted her attention to translating magics from her previous lives to this world's spells and engravings. That was a bit harder since she had to just use the Elemental Sight aspect of Multidimensional Perception to see exactly what a spell did and piece together how to do it using this world's magic. It wasn't the near impossibility of translating some of her Calanthe Potter-Black magic to her more rigid Yotsuba Toshiko magic since the magic here was significantly more fluid, but the entirely different system combined with how much she wants to translate as there's no equivalent here means it's slow going.
She's actually in the middle of some of that now, not having any work regarding the nation at the moment since she'd already done the paperwork that had been in her office when she arrived. Her rotating schedule of check-ins had Shuna and the sewing workshop today to make sure everything was running smoothly and they didn't need anything, which she'd already dealt with between when her morning paperwork was finished and lunch. She'd dealt with what little paperwork had come in during lunch, so now unless something arrives, there's not much else for her to do.
Which is why she's been focusing on that for the past six hours, when the notebook she was writing in, or studying as she thought while resting the side of her pen against her lower lip anyway, is suddenly snatched away. She looks up quickly at her husband, “Hey!”
He bops her on the nose with the edge of the notebook, “Workday is over Xiǎolóng. Time to go home and get dinner.”
She frowns at him, “It's not like I can sleep or even need to eat anyway.”
He huffs a laugh, “You adore my cooking and want it anyway, particularly since that long gap between when we came to this world and when you did means I got said cooking talent to all new heights.”
He wasn't wrong there. The first time she tasted his long missed cooking it had still filled that desire for his cooking, still tasted vaguely like his cooking, but she'd been treated to the delight that a couple hundred thousand years of time to kill and his passion for food had done to said cooking ability. She's pretty sure he could make a famous five star chef weep with the things he can make now.
He leans down towards her, “And you know full well I can get you to sleep. Which is honestly probably healthier for your mind anyway. Not that it's in any way a chore to get you to go to sleep.”
She once more feels like her cheeks flush even though she knows they physically can't. The whole reason Slimes couldn't sleep was because of the fact their cells were uniform and changed out which were acting as muscles, which were acting as neurons, and which were resting. That also means, however, that when you have two spouses who have a couple hundred thousand years head start on a particular life than you and have been somewhat unknowingly honing their ability in bed on one another, they are absolutely capable of wearing out all three of those categories of cells. At which point yes, even as a Slime you can in fact, get some sleep.
She shakes her head, trying to get rid of the heat that's descended onto her from the memories, “I have things I need to do Diablo.”
He hums, “Not anything incredibly pressing you don't. It can wait until tomorrow.” She rolls her eyes, but before she can say anything, he leans closer, holding the notebook up near his face, smile devilish and gaze dark, “Xiǎolóng, I'd like to remind you that I'm capable of making you forget your own name in bed. Or perhaps it's more telling that you forget mine and Ema's, even our previous names. And while we may have misjudged what you were capable of handling, I would also like to remind you that when we had our first reunion in bed a couple days ago, you were still recovering the next day. That is with us still holding back. You can behave and ‘lose’ a couple hours of work tonight, or lose all of tomorrow, when your overwork threatens me with a good time that I take you up on. Your choice dear.”
Her jaw drops, “Are you weaponizing your sexual prowess against me?”
He reaches out with his other hand to trail his first two fingers up her throat until he's cupping the bottom of her jaw as his voice, dark and low purrs out, “If that's what it takes for you to be a good girl and stop overworking constantly, then yes. Yes I am.”
Then he drops a kiss on her lips, before turning and sauntering over to her shelves to drop her notebook off. She opens and closes her mouth, trying to find what to say, eventually just giving him a dirty look as she gets up from the desk and starts towards the door, giving the smug bastard -her smug bastard- of a husband a dirty look, “You don't play fair.”
He laughs, “Former assassin. Also, you're the one who calls me ‘sneaky stabby husband’. Of course I don't play fair.” Then he turns towards Ema as she finishes straightening her own paperwork and starts over to join them, “Hey! I finally have a threat to use on Xiǎolóng! And it's even enjoyable!”
Ema shakes her head with amusement, “Who'd have thought. Conquering Sweetheart’s excessive over workaholic tendencies just takes mind meltingly good sex.”
She gives them both dirty looks now, before dramatically asking, “Why did I ever miss you two? You've hardly been in town three days and Diablo is already bullying me, threatening me in fact! And you're not doing anything about it Ema, you traitor."
Diablo grins at her, “I'm not threatening you. I said your tendencies were threatening me with a good time love.”
Ema leans her head on her shoulder, batting her pretty ruby red eyes at her, “Because we're the lights of your lives? Also, Sweetheart, one of the loves of my lifes. One of the two halves of my everything. We've been over this. If traitors we have to be to rein in your over-workaholic tendencies, then traitors we will happily and gleefully be.”
Ema lifts her head with an amused look, “…Also, for the record, if we really wanted to threaten you, we would be pointing out that over the course of a couple hundred thousand years, and throwing in the fact we're both bisexual, it was practically inevitable we'd end up getting curious what sex feels like on the opposite end of things.”
“Which means we ended up taking advantage of the fact Daemons don't exactly have set appearances to swap our… equipment below the belt, as it were, and experiment a little. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a woman as far as identity goes, and Diablo still considers himself a man, but even after initially trying it out, we did occasionally feel like messing around like that again. Which means even if it was rare, like once a century or something, when you live that long… I've gotten pretty experienced at using that equipment as well. If we really wanted to ‘threaten’ you, we'd be suggesting I swap ‘parts’ and we double team you without holding back.”
Diablo looks over at Ema, “Absolutely true, but also, I've been wondering about that anyway. Not the ‘not holding back’ part, since we ought to go easier on her since she is considerably less experienced with sex then us, and maybe it's just my imagination going wild now that we're back with Rimuru after such a long wait, but I must admit I've been wondering about experimenting with that.”
“Namely, I had an errant amusing thought contemplating how long it would take you to decide you wanted a taste of Rimuru with the other equipment. But then that snowballed a little. It wasn't exactly available before since none of us were interested in bringing in anyone else, but that errant thought made me realize it's technically on the table now which led to me wondering what double penetration feels like. Either end of the giving/receiving sexual equation is technically applicable, since if Rimuru is up for experimenting, I'd like to remind you that since she's using a shapeshifting ability, she's no more tied to exactly what equipment she possesses then we are.”
She's not against experimenting a bit, if anything she's actually interested, but… She doesn't even realize she's started chewing on her lower lip until Diablo nudges her gently while Ema watches in concern, “Hey now, it was just something that crossed my mind, there's no pressure if you aren't comfortable with it-”
She raises and waves her hands quickly, “Oh no! That's not what I was thinking about in the slightest. Actually, you two have already gone through that part a long time ago and experienced it and everything else a lot already, but I have to admit, while it's never occurred to me, now I am kind of curious how it feels."
She'd been so frantic to reassure Diablo, not wanting him to get the wrong idea, that she had forgotten for a moment. Forgotten that her soulmates used to be a world class assassin and an incredible cop. She forgot that while she's usually comfortable saying and showing everything she feels or thinks with them, that it means that when there is something she doesn't want to share for some reason or another, she has to be careful about what she says.
She immediately knows she's messed up when both of their gazes sharpen before Ema says all too casually, like she's mulling it over. She knows her wife though and knows damn well that tone actually means she's absolutely already turned it over in her head and come to her own conclusions and is just prodding for more information or a confirmation of what she's thinking, “Experienced it and everything else a lot already’? Sweetheart you don't, I don't know, think you have inadequateexperience leading to lacking talent compared to us or something do you? Because yeah, we accrued a lot of experience while we were waiting, but we were waiting for you. That -that you're finally here and we can finally be with you again- is far more important to either of us than how skilled you are at anything.”
And well, between her wife's tone and those sharp looks they got as they picked up on her sloppy wording letting out more than she was wanting, there wasn't much point in trying to dodge the question now was there? And she wasn't going to lie to her soulmates anyway, which the point blank question would necessitate to not answer. The only real time she's been seriously dishonest with them was when she was hiding how she felt back in her first life.
When she was a teenager hopelessly in love but knewfull well that her soulmates were adults unlike her, and even without the block literally preventing them from feeling anything, they weren't pedophiles to begin with. So if she let even a hint of it out, she'd just have their assassin and cop minds and ingrained habits questioning everything she did, even though she respected the age difference and never meant anything in any way but innocently. Which would in turn have inevitably just made them uncomfortable. She couldn't have taken the constant scrutiny when she sincerely respected the age gap and was never trying to make a move or take advantage, and it would've made her miserable if they were uncomfortable around her.
The only other times she's been dishonest with them were present contents and playful things. Never over anything serious. At best she could be accused of occasionally lying by omission sometimes, but she almost always had her reasons for that. Usually because she wasn't ready to acknowledge or talk about something, or because it was a lose-lose situation like Melaena's surprise pregnancy because she was powerful enough to age significantly slower and Hei was dying to old age and likely wouldn't live long enough to meet their youngest daughter. At which point she was forced to choose between either telling him and hoping he lived long enough so he wouldn't die with such a massive regret since it wasn't exactly something that could be fixed at the last moment, or take advantage of the fact he wasn't really at risk of a heart attack if by some miracle he did live long enough to be surprised by her going into labor.
She was absolutely capable of lying through her teeth with anyone else and without a lick of shame, but not her soulmates. Never her soulmates. To that end, she finds herself shrugging, “I mean. It's not wrong, now is it? You two have been getting down for hundreds of thousands of years and building up your talent and resistance to that level of mind numbing sex. It's just a statement of fact that I'm basically a sloppy amateur in comparison, now isn't it? Honestly, while I'm not against experimenting, and like I said it's actually an interesting idea, it's probably not a good idea, since there's not a whole lot for me to offer. Especially since that one is even worse. At least as a woman, as minuscule as it is compared to hundreds of thousands of years, I have a couplecenturies of experience with that kind of sex. I have zero experience being the one with male genitalia in the equation of sex.”
She snorts derisively, “Honestly, I have no clue what on earth to do about it, since what's left when the sheer novelty of being back together wears off will undoubtedly be incredibly disappointing and unsatisfying.”
Diablo seems unable to handle that, wiping towards her to grab her by the chin, “Excuse you. First of all, not even you are allowed to talk about my wife like that, and I will not stand for it, thank you very damn much! Second, the 'novelty', as you put it, will never wear off, since it's not a novelty, it's the sheer and utter joy of being with you, as in, someone we love. Third, you could never be a disappointment, given it's not about how skilled you are, it's about the fact that it's you. It's not your style, but you could be a pillow princess who didn't do jack and we'd have a phenomenal time. Not because of some screwed up derogatory thing that we can just use your body and take our pleasure, but because it's you we want, not what you can ‘offer’, as you put it. You actually taking an active part just makes it better. Do you understand me?”
She swears she was flushed all the way down to her toes at how impassioned her husband was being about it. She supposes if nothing else, she should thank her new Slime body for being unable to show that. She's checked somewhat obsessively every damn time this happens, given just how much of a blushing mess her soulmates would have turned her into recently. Probably trying to save itself from becoming a stuttering mess since her practically always human mimicked Slime body can't save her from that, her brain takes a wild tangent into thinking about how the only time she has blushed so far, which she assumes was something like the heartbeat in that she was subconsciously replicating it, was when they damn neat melted her mind with pleasure.
Seeing Diablo narrow his eyes and realizing he was still waiting on a response, she blinks rapidly, “Yeah, I understand.”
Ema curls her forefinger in front of her mouth, “Pfft! So she says, but we all know you don't let go of your concerns that easily. It's something to be worked on over time I suppose. We’ll make you see though. You'll always be enough for us sweetheart.”
She looks away, breaking Diablo's loose hold on her in the process, brows furrowed. She can't exactly dispute the notion that she hasn't really let it go, because there is a small part of her that still frets over it, but she also doesn't feel like getting into the fact Diablo had kind of lovingly bullied her into believing it to an extent with sheer force of will.
That it and his firm insistence had pushed her doubts aside enough for her fretting mind to remember that her soulmates are also usually honest with her, even more so than she is with them to be frank. They all know it, and they also know why she sometimes does what she does and don't really complain about the differences. That, and it pushed it aside enough to remember one of the most fundamental parts of herself that was being smothered by her concerns. Namely, that at the end of the day, she has complete and utter faith and trust in her soulmates.
Maybe she's right and it will be a problem later, maybe Diablo is right and it won't, but regardless, they'll figure out what to do about it. At the end of the day, her soulmates were kind of her everything. Something that was probably highlighted all too well by how close she was to giving up before Treyni let her in on the Dryads' suspicions regarding Diablo's identity. She'd very nearly quit right at the finish line.
She probably needs to have a discussion about that with her soulmates somewhat soon actually, but they still haven't been together very long, and she doesn't want to taint the new happiness. Besides, she's not sure she's ready to talk about it yet. Also, they'd gotten a bit sidetracked, but they were being insufferably smug just having a viable method of bullying her into not working so hard, thanks.
Given she doesn't feel like getting into it, she sidesteps it all and makes a quip, “Jeez. As annoyingly persistent as those check engine lights that come on even when you've had a mechanic check it and there's nothing wrong. It isn't enough for you two that you've gained the ability to bully me about my work tendencies? Now you've gotta bully me with things like this too??”
Ema laughs as she drops her hand from in front of her mouth and Diablo snickers from her other side. She really did miss them, as annoying as they can be sometimes. For better or for worse and all that. She loves them even when they're at their worst and that will never change.
She looks up as Benimaru and some of the others enter the meeting room, one being called so they can all discuss how well the Orcs are integrating and whether they need anything critical before it turns to disaster. Something made significantly easier by the fact Geld's Gourmet Skill that he gained after being named, which was essentially a more… benevolent version of his father's Starved Skill, also had something similar to Predator's Stomach. It did have the difference that he can only absorb things smaller than him, and it's accessible for either deposit or withdrawal by any Orcs under his command, irregardless of distance.
All of the Orcs were under his command of course, and it certainly made transportation between the various Orc settlements all the easier. She'd actually gotten Treyni and Kouki's permission to station a handful of Orcs in their territories just for that ease of conveyance between them as well.
As they enter for the meeting though, her mind stumbles over the greetings they give her.
In her life as Calanthe, it had been little more than habitual, both in act and noticing it and she never even thought about it, it was so ingrained after the first couple years of Andromeda's Heiress training. Hell, even when someone broke protocol, she only noticed if it was a surprise, since there wasn't any point paying it any mind from the likes of the Death Eaters during that time she met with them to deliver a warning.
In her life as Toshiko, her mind had undoubtedly noticed it, but just as unquestionably brushed it off since it held no meaning there.
The way her mind had been stuttering over the way they greet her as some weird side effect of the confusion regarding her soulmates, likely just her mind scrambling for the familiar, and she just… hasn't yet readjusted to it not being a thing yet. Regardless, she raises to greet them habitually, and while he lets her get through it, Diablo smiles at her in amusement after, “I can practically hear you having a little mental hiccup every time someone greets you like that.”
She rolls her eyes, “Hey, I may have had a regular human lifespan of about eighty years followed by the one that was cut off early just before this one, but I lived in the other for hundreds of years as a noble. The mannerisms there are more deeply ingrained, especially with what was going on before. Give me a break.”
Diablo laughs, “I know, but I can practically hear your brain going,” He points at Benimaru dramatically, “Rude! No wait, wrong culture.’ every time someone greets you.”
Benimaru looks horrified and he's far from the only one, “What? Are you saying we've been insulting Lady Rimuru this whole time?!” He looks at her frantically, “Why didn't you say anything?!”
She gives him a nonplussed look, “Because it was the cultural mannerisms of an entirely different world. There are entirely different ones here and if anything, it's rude of my brain to keep trying to insist on judging situations by them, and also to pressure people around me to change their manners and already established culture just to pander to what I grew up learning was polite in an entirely different world.”
Benimaru makes a noise like he's dying, and Shuna shakes her head, “It may not be the mannerisms here, but the idea that we've been insulting you is unacceptable Lady Rimuru.”
She blinks rapidly and Diablo hums, “I can understand not wanting to try to force non-problematic culture to change, but honestly, it sounds to me like they care more about not accidentally insulting you. So you should probably just fill them in on what it is that's causing that little pause every time they greet you while you briefly fight with ingrained habitual notion of it being rude.”
She tilts her head, then shrugs, “I guess? Culturally, greeting is done standing -raising if you have to, regardless of whether your social position is of higher, lower, or equal rank-, holding your hands open and slightly away from your body, which is something of a wordless way of saying ‘I greet you with respect, with no weapon in hand, and no ill intentions nor hostility.”
There are gasps at that, which she gives them an odd look for, “Obviously, one could easily arm themselves and it doesn't help if you're skilled at casting magic without a foci, but it was symbolic. So men as well as women who weren't wearing clothes more conducive to hiding weapons or curtsying would just hold their hands slightly out while women who did fit that criteria would curtsy by gathering the fabric between the knuckles of their pointer and middle fingers to leave their hands free to show they were empty. Standing tied into it as a means of showing you had no weapons hidden under a table or something in your lap.” She shrugs again, “It doesn't mean anything here, it's just that ingrained manners keep tripping me up for a split second every time I'm greeted here in a different manner is all.”
Benimaru makes another distressed noise, “Is that why you always rise when we meet with you regardless of how many times we've tried to tell you it's fine to stay seated?”
She glances up, “Ah? Oh yeah.” She waves a hand near her head like she's shooing off a bug, “It's just habit though. Don't worry about it.”
Shuna sounds almost desperate, “Lady Rimuru, I beg of you, I know you're busy, but when you have time, please teach me! We cannot continue to insult you, unintentionally or not!”
She blinks rapidly, brows furrowed, “It really isn't neces-”
Ema sighs, “Sweetheart, I know you're just saying it isn't necessary because as far as you're concerned they're manners from an entirely different life- a different world and it's a rude imposition, but they genuinely can't stand the idea of it. It's more of a burden on them to not teach them.” She glances away, “You are busy enough that it'll probably take too long for them to stand though, and while you haven't worked out how to get the magics to play nice yet, there's nothing stopping you from absorbing the materials for Rowena and having her write out a book in this world's language on the customs and mannerisms from our first world. Shuna can study it on her own time and teach them so they can avoid accidentally insulting you.”
She frown slightly at her, then sighs, “If you insist, though I really don't see why it's so important.”
Barring the likes of her soulmates, sister-in-law, and Rowena, everyone looks relieved at the notion, flicking looks at Shuna, who nods seriously. She shakes her head. It still felt strange to have their people in… their nation use mannerisms from a different world, but she supposes if it makes them happy, she doesn't really have a reason to reject the idea.
She shifts, “On a different note, I was busy with other things at the time, but it occurs to me that we didn't exactly pick a name for our nation.” She glances at Treyni, “Well, unless we were just going to go with the Great Jura Forest Alliance anyway.”
Treyni straightens, “Ah. That wasn't my intention, no. You are correct that we didn't though…”
Shion pipes up at that, “We should just call it Rimuru! After Lady Rimuru!”
She shakes her head, “That would just over complicate things having as entirely different name then the Forest of Jura itself. We should base it off Jura in some way to make it simple. Also, it just feels egotistical to name something after myself, so I'd rather not."
Shion pouts, and even the rest of the Demi-Humans and Magic Born look a bit displeased. Ema pipes up, holding up her hands with a placating smile, “It isn't uncommon for the royal family of a nation to share their last name with said nation though. So how about a compromise of Tempest and Jura combined?”
The others seem to get excited about that, and she sighs, “I suppose that could work. It was originally Jura though, so that name should be first. Jura-Tempest something.”
Diablo shrugs, “I mean, you obviously don't really intend to interfere with internal affairs for groups like the Dragonewts and Dryads, not unless they cross some sort of line anyway. That would be a federation, so..."
She tilts her head, “The Jura-Tempest Federation.”
The others buzz with excitement, clearly liking it, and she raises her eyebrows briefly, “It's settled then. The Jura-Tempest Federation it is.”
As they settle in to properly start the meeting, she turns part of her mind towards wracking her brain for any other things she overlooked either because she was wrapped up in the personal crisis of her soulmates or things were just busy.
She sighs in aggravation.
Diablo glances over his shoulder from where he's busy cooking dinner, but Ema waves him off from where she's got her legs tangled with her own, “Sweetheart? Something wrong?”
She huffs a laugh, “Nah, just me being a moron.”
Ema frowns, “What? You aren't a moron.”
She waves a hand near her face like she's shooing a bug away, even as Diablo finishes up the step he was on in cooking and it goes back to simmering and turns with a frown, “I am when I'm distracted by weird ass results throwing confusion regarding my soulmates onto the situation. Enough so that I apparently forgot to empty the majority of the stuff stored in the Trunk out of it and just into the Isolation area, since I still don't have a means of getting it to accept this world's magic and have to supply it.”
“I initially estimated five years, but that doesn't take into account the spikes of magic drain from the poor reaction to this world's magic for the time it was in contact with it. The fact I pulled all the metals out when I went to Dwargon for trading was actually one hell of a saving grace, since it would already be out of magic otherwise. It's dangerously low. Rowena's been directing that other minimalistic H3 she has inside Isolation to empty it out of the Trunk. Between pulling those out and the fact Rowena isn't stored in the Orb anymore and doesn't draw power from it means it should start building its reserves back up decently quickly, but if it had run out, everything stored inside of it would've been lost forever.”
Diablo tilts his head at her, “It's not like you to forget something so critical, even with something like the confusion about us due to Prophet going on. I mean, yeah, you can get pretty hyper focused on problems with us, but if anything you tend to try to use things like that as a distraction from whatever is going on.”
She gives them a tired look, “My brain was too hyper focused to accept being distracted.”
Diablo frowns, “Did the ‘individual not found’ thing really bother you that much..?”
She tries to wave it off, still not really ready to get into it with them even as she fights off the lingering stress, “Don't worry about it.”
Now Ema frowns at her, “Sweetheart, of course we're going you worry about it. You're our wife, our soulmate. We'll always be worried about you, especially when things like this come up.”
She can't lie to her soulmates, but she's not ready so she just musters up a smile even as the resurfacing terror starts to choke her, “It's over with now. There's not much point discussing it.”
Diablo's brows furrow, “Xiǎolóng, that just makes us more worried. Because you only say things like that when it's absolutely something we need to talk about.”
She shakes her head, the remnants of that mind numbing panic starts showing its ugly face and her brain starts whiting out, “It's fine. The Trunk is being dealt with now, you're both here and the confusion as to why it happen has been sorted out, there's really no point-”
Ema reaches across the table to grab her hand gently, “Sweetheart, please. We've talked about your tendency to avoid conversations like this.”
She breaks under the stirred up and pulled to the surface emotions and memories, which definitely haven't become like an actor in a play like she'd likened the memories of her abuse at the hands of the Dursleys becoming. She looks away, pursing her lips, but she honestly forgot they have a soul corridor now. And more importantly, that emotional things like this inevitably compromised anyone's Occlumency, because hers crumbles like a dry sand castle. Which, as a distant numb part of her mind notes, is quite a problem with their soul corridor, since with the discussion tugging the memories to the surface, they rush down the soul corridors like water escaping a breaking dam.
Every single memory of the absolute meltdown that was happening twenty-four seven in the back of her mind that she was desperately trying to outrun crashing into them like a tidal wave. And that only makes things messier, because their own absolute heartbreak and horror at what she was going through compromises their own Occlumency barriers and then they get tangled up mentally. It wasn't anything like they started to lose sight of where one of them ended and the other began or anything, it was much harder than people thought for things like that to happen, but she starts hearing a wave of thoughts from them, too chaotic and all over the place and seemingly overlapping from even a single one of them for her to make sense of any of it.
All she knows is that the next thing she's aware of, she's sobbing in both of their arms, each of her hands clenchingdesperately at one each of their respective forearms, nails incapable of breaking their skin given how strong they are, but certainly digging in.
That numb part of her brain, distant and disconnected, dully points out that she needs to pull herself together. Ema laughs hysterically from her left, looking at her with watery eyes and a pained smile as she gently strokes her hair, “Oh, sweetheart. You always do hold yourself to impossible standards, don't you? It's okay to break sometimes you know. You're stronger than you give yourself credit for, especially to hold out so long with that going on in your head.”
Diablo finally lifts his head from where he had his forehead pressed against her own head behind her ear, cheeks wet with tears that are still trailing down, “We're so damn proud of you, I hope you know that. But Ema is right, you aren't unbreakable. If anything, it's unhealthy to try to force yourself to be.”
Her shoulders shake as her eyes well up anew, and a moment later she falls forward into their hold to cry the remainders of the grief, and agony, and terror out as they comfort her, murmuring sweet and gentle.