Ultimately, the group decided to head to where Fenrir first regained consciousness at since his spot on the beach sounded like it was the safest out of where everybody came to at. There were no mind-controlling tentacle plants, it was far from the center of the island where they feared even stronger beasts were waiting for them, and it was pretty flat and open which provided them with a good range of vision on their surroundings.

It also meant Fenrir could fish for some food while Cassiel and Eva gathered supplies to make a fire.

“You sure the beach is safe?” Cassiel asked Eva. “I mean, you know, from waves and stuff. With that giant wave that brought us here… shouldn’t we be worried about another one sweeping everything away?”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Eva answered. “If there were waves that powerful posing a frequent threat to the beach, then I feel the beach’s landscape would be far different from what it is. We would also be seeing a bunch of broken-down trees everywhere.”

“But what if the trees evolved—adapted, to withstand being beat by a bunch of waves?”

“I thought about that already and tried pushing on a tree just to see how they are. They’re not flexible enough to just… bend with those waves, and they’re also not sturdy enough to resist that much pressure.”

“Then why doesn’t it look like any are knocked down from the one that brought us here?”

“Hmm. Magic?”

“Then who’s to say that magic isn’t protecting the beach from looking different and we’re at risk of getting picked up by another wave?”

“Gut feeling?”

“I don’t know if that’s something I want to place my faith in.”

“Well, we don’t have anything better to place it in right now. Also, I don’t know if we can safely eat anything on this island, but we do know that Fen has spotted some fish he recognizes, so those should be safe to eat. Now, I was thinking about finding a cave to hide out in… but then I thought, what if there’s some perverted tentacle monster or something in there that’s going to do horrible things to all of us?”

“You’ve been listening to Nell too much.”

“Spending some time with the other Scholars again is also responsible for that. They’re… going through a tentacle phase right now, I guess. Like, even that plant that controlled you—they would go crazy over that thing. If I can take a living sample back to them… it wouldn’t even be six hours before somebody lets it control them and tries to have sex during it. Honestly, I get it. It’s kind of exciting to think about. Having something else control my body and force me to have sex, making me act in a way that I would never normally act myself—that’s kind of hot. Scary, really scary, but hot.”

“No thanks. I hated being controlled like that. And what if it makes you do something you don’t like? Or makes you have sex with some random person?”

“Well, that’s why you would only let it happen in a controlled environment. Like lock me up in a room with only you or Fen or one of the others and then let it control me. As long as we all consent beforehand then, and we’re with a partner who would stop us from doing anything that they know we wouldn’t be alright with normally, then it should be fine.”

“I’ll still pass.”

“I know, Miss Vanilla.”

“Miss… Miss Vanilla?”

“Yeah. You’re as vanilla as can be, not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

Cassiel pouted a little and would have crossed her arms over her chest had she not been carrying a stack of sticks in her arms already. “I’m—I’m not vanilla…”

Sensing a bit of insecurity, Eva couldn’t resist teasing her over it. “You toooootally are. Wanting to hold hands while having sex doesn’t make you kinky.”

And that managed to properly turn Cassiel’s cheeks red. “I—I wasn’t implying it does! And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to hold—to hold hands during it! It’s nice! It—it makes it feel more intimate!”

“The kinkiest thing you do is call Fen a dumbie while ‘dressing up’ in a sweater for him. Even I’m super hardcore compared to you.”

“Ye-yeah?! What’s the kinkest thing you’ve done then?!”

“Well, there was that time Aza choked me to death with her thighs—wait. Crap. Can you uh… pretend you didn’t hear that? I—I forgot we agreed not to tell anybody about that.”

Cassiel stopped in her tracks to look at Eva with a blank expression before asking, “What?”

“Okay. I’ll tell you what happened if you promise to forget afterward since it’s already too late. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Okay. So. We were… you know, doing what girlfriends do, AKA she was riding my face, and I couldn’t breathe and felt myself passing out… but kept on pressing her thighs around my head even harder because it was really hot, and Aza got really into it, too, and uh… yeah. I died by suffocating from her thighs. She was… actually really freaked out by that, so we decided to never talk about it again and pretended that nothing happened. But let me tell you, at the end there, she was really squeezing like she wanted to kill me. It was nice… oh, and she was super adorable while apologizing over and over again for killing me.”

“I’m sticking to being vanilla.”

“Come on, you don’t want to know what it feels like to be suffocated to death by thighs while eating out your girlfriend?”

“I’m going to start pretending I know nothing about anything you just said now.”

“Fair.”

Once the women returned to Fenrir, they saw Rock still resting next to him as he fished up a decent pile of fish—well, a hole of fish. He dug a hole into the sand, filled it with water, and was keeping the fish in there until the others returned. Any time one of the fish was bold enough to jump out from said hole, Rock smacked it back in with one of her remaining paws before setting her head back down against the sand.

While Eva got to work on starting the fire, Cassiel went up to Fenrir and sat down next to Rock to pet her and ask, “How’re the fish looking?”

“Looking good,” Fenrir answered. “These are all the same species we can find out by Nameless, so they should be safe to eat. Plus we’re going to be roasting them over a fire, so any parasites that might be in them should get killed by the heat. But, just in case, I’ll check their meat out after cutting them open to see if I can spot anything… weird.”

“Weird?”

“Well, mainly just parasites.”

“You can see those? I always thought they’d be like… microscopic.”

“Yeah, you can see them usually. I’ve seen videos of sushi chefs showing what to look for. They’d cut open a huge fish only to show dozens of really thin, white worm-like things inside the flesh. They’re pretty noticeable, thankfully.”

“Surprised any huge fish like that are even left in our oceans.”

“Well, stuff like sushi is insanely expensive for a reason now. I’ve only had it a couple of times before, back when we lived in the city, and… it was amazing, but not worth the cost of an entire week’s worth of groceries.”

“By groceries, you mean chips and hard cider.”

“I—yeah… I forgot I used to live like that.”

“You’re welcome for helping you fix that. Well… I guess it was mainly Nell who made us all start to eat healthier.”

“I remember all Serra wanted to do was order pizza and Chinese. You just wanted a bunch of frozen dinners, and I—well, you already called me out. But then there was spoiled Nell who was used to always eating fresh, healthy food, and she was determined to make the rest of us eat like that even if she had to do the cooking herself.”

“Give us some credit at least. We helped her out.”

“Well, yeah. I don’t think any of us are heartless enough to let our wheelchair-bound girlfriend cook for us while we sit around and watch every day.”

“Yeah. So… what’s the plan after we eat?”

“Well, it’s getting dark, so probably set up a shelter of sorts. We can take turns being on lookout, leave one person in-game while the other two swap out and let their VAs take over. I wouldn’t want to leave all three of us controlled by our VAs… well, then again, if I swap out, it’ll just be Saya taking control. But I wouldn’t want to leave everything on her—wait.”

“What?”

“Our VAs have to act like us whenever we’re ‘activated’ while offline.”

“Yeah?”

“That means Saya has to act like me if anybody ever tries to wake me up or attack me when I’m not immersed.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Have… have you ever seen what she’s like when she’s acting like me? How does she do?”

“She acts exactly like you. Don’t they have to?”

“Well, yeah, but you know Saya’s situation. She’s a bit more than just a virtual assistant at this point.”

Cassiel shrugged. “The few times I’ve seen her controlling you, she acted just like you usually would, so I’m guessing she still has to take her job seriously.”

“Duh,” Saya chimed in, speaking into Fenrir’s mind. “No matter what I am, I still have to do my job as a VA properly. As fun as it would be to make you look stupid while controlling you… I don’t think Kadi would appreciate me breaking the rules like that.”

“Makes sense,” Fenrir said. “Saya just confirmed that right. I don’t know why, but I’m kind of disappointed. I want to see Saya pretending to be me but being really bad or sarcastic about it.”

“What’s with everybody wanting to be controlled by somebody else?” Cassiel asked and sighed. “Bunch of weirdos. I don’t even like the idea of my own VA acting exactly like me. But… I don’t know. I’ve always been freaked out by that kind of stuff. Even deepfakes. It’s just scary to think that somebody can look exactly like me, or just outright take control of me—well, my avatar, and make me say or do something I wouldn’t say or do myself. That’s like… horror movie level stuff.”

“Can’t say I don’t understand. But I trust Saya not to be, you know, evil with my avatar, so I wouldn’t mind her taking control and doing something stupid or funny with me.”

“I don’t know. Even if I have full faith in somebody—like, you. I would trust you to use my avatar, but I wouldn’t ever want you to.”

“I get it. You’re possessive of your identity. I think that’s a pretty natural thing to be. Reminds me of those old school videos of scientists showing tribal people in Africa cameras and taking pictures of them, or even just letting them see their reflections in mirrors, and they would freak out and be scared their soul was taken and stuff like that. I think it’s related to that. It’s a natural fear of losing control or ownership of something that fundamentally makes you who you are. And even if these are just virtual avatars, this is a world as real as the real one. It’s hard to completely disassociate here and remind ourselves that these bodies aren’t just as legitimate as our real ones.”

“I like when you talk about stuff like this.”

“You—you do?”

“It reminds me of how Eva rambles. I like it. But, I hate that I like it at the same time.”

“Why’s that?”

“Ugh… I only realized this recently about myself when I was thinking about why I like it so much when Eva nerds out, and… it involves talking about my exes and dad. That alright?”

Fenrir smiled and nodded. “Of course. And thanks for asking in the first place, even if you didn’t need to.”

Cassiel looked away with a bit of a blush. “W-well, I read that you should warn your partner whenever you’re going to bring up an ex or something, so… I was just doing what I read. Anyways! So… my dad is, you know, kind of a huge, controlling, authoritarian asshole. He loves to boss people around and control them. But at the same time, he’s… a man of very few words. He’s really into all that traditional ‘masculine’ stuff, and that includes being a stoic dick who never opens up to his wife or family or anything. And you know, when I went through my rebellious phase of dating guys who I knew my dad would hate… it—god, it disgusts me to admit this, but I realized recently that uh… I was basically dating guys who were just like my dad. Yeah, sure, they were committing pretty crimes and breaking laws and stuff, but they weren’t doing it to spite the system and be rebels. They were doing it because they were selfish, entitled assholes who believed everybody should bow down to them, and that was part of why my dad hated them so much. They were rivals to him. They both just wanted to control me. They were all men—no, boys of actions instead of words, and their actions were purely selfish and only done to try and control others so that they never had to be uncomfortable with anything. So… when Eva, or you, ramble and talk a lot, it feels like I’m finally free from that. It’s nice to be with somebody who just… talks. I never got to experience that growing up. I always wanted to ask questions and, you know, be a curious little kid, but I was always pushed off to the side and ignored. But with you and Eva—even with Nell’s fantasies, I never have to ask questions because you all ramble enough in the first place that any questions I can think of get answered. So… yeah. I love that about all of you. Makes me feel kind of bad that I can never do the same because it feels like I’m not interesting enough to ramble about anything, but—”

“Says the woman who’s rambling my ear off.”

“This—this doesn’t count.”

“Hey, Cass Cass.”

“What?”

“Kiss me.”

With a slightly pouty expression, Cassiel leaned forward over Rock to bring her lips to Fenrir’s. “Dumbie.”

“Thanks for the fanservice,” Fenrir said, his voice a bit lower and quieter since her face was still right in front of his own. “And I’ll have to ramble about random bullshit for you more often then.”

“I’d like that.”

“But I want you to do it for me, about anything you might ever have on your mind, whenever you’re in the mood for it. Even if it’s you being all introspective about your past relationships.”

“I—I feel awkward talking about my exes with you, and I’ve always heard you shouldn’t talk about your exes with your current partner.”

“Hey, as far as I’m concerned, the more I know about what you hated in them, the more I can do the opposite of that to make sure you love me more.”

“One, I never loved any of them. Two, even if I did, you’ve… always been such an amazing boyfriend that I doubt you would ever not be infinitely better than them.”

“I like it when you stroke my ego. It’s almost as good as when you wear a sweater and stroke my—”

“I didn’t like how perverted my exes were.”

“—di—uh… it’s… almost as good as when you’re just being your wonderful, wholesome, beautiful, intelligent, badass self?”

“I’m joking. I hated when they acted like perverts… but… i-it’s not like I mind when you do it. Why do you think I always wear sweaters for you…”

“Have I ever mentioned how perfect you are?”

“Not often enough.”

“Then allow me to.” Fenrir leaned forward just a bit to reunite their lips again. “I love you, my perfect Cass Cass.”

“I—I love you, too, my dumbie Fenrir.”

“It turns me on more than it should when you call me a dumbie.”

“You’re so weird. Wait! That—calling you a dumbie when I know it excites you, that—that makes me not vanilla, right?!”

Fenrir cocked his head to the side and raised his eyebrows at Cassiel. What she asked definitely did not make her not vanilla. And, for some reason, her sudden outburst also caused Eva to obviously try holding in a laugh in the background.

“You’re… you’re pretty vanilla,” Fenrir said.

And with that, Cassiel huffed, stood up, and marched away without saying a single other word to any of them.

“Did… did I say something wrong?” Fenrir asked, looking down at Rock.

Rock shrugged as much as a dog made out of rock could and then slapped the latest would-be-escapee fish back into the sandy hole it jumped out of.

“Well, at least I know if it was something serious, she wouldn’t just march away like that. But I still feel kind of bad… but mainly confused,” Fenrir said.

Before he could feel too bad or confused, though, he received another tug on his line which demanded his attention if he didn’t want to lose Rod.