“Can you stop touching each other for, like, three seconds?!” Arlethia groaned.

I thoughtfully stared into the air, as if to consider it, then said, “No,” and went back to kissing Esther. The lady of my love happily obliged my advances and soon I tasted the salted butter of the breakfast bread on her lips. My left arm was slung around her waist and glided over the curve of her hips with repetitive but always pleasing movements. How we had managed to actually eat our breakfast in between those make out sessions, I had no idea.

The succubus grumbled something frustrated. Her complaint was slightly hypocritical, as her tail was slung around Willt’s arm. My good friend leaned back and concentrated on his cup of black tea. “I almost want to pray to fucking Jesus, as long as someone gets me away from your grope fest,” Arlethia continued. “Seriously, you were the same kind of laughably awkward yesterday as you were for the past three months and then you suddenly fuck and now you’re just completely attached to each other, what the fuck happened?”

“My beloved Karitas knew what to say,” Esther answered when our kiss came to an end. It was replaced with her embracing me and pressing her boobs against my shoulder. “If our behaviour is annoying you, you’re advised to leave. I will not stop.”

“I think she’s just jealous,” I noted and looked over to Willt. “How about you give your sex demon some head pats? Maybe that will fix her moodiness.”

“Listen here you arrogant- Oh, that’s pretty nice actually,” the red-skinned succubus trailed off when her warlock boyfriend did as advised and ran his hands over her dark red hair. Soon, she contentedly swayed her head. Arlethia moved her own chair closer to her man to do a bit of cuddling. All conversation was temporarily put on hold as we instead indulged in our chosen partner.

“Good girl,” Willt said. Without blushing despite Esther being around, while continuing to pat his future Queen. I was happy that they, after several months, still behaved like I and Esther did after just one night. That our relationship would be just as, if not more, successful was a certainty in my mind. That the warlock no longer behaved overly shy around my raven-haired lady was also a point of joy. Friends getting along with each other was always desirable.

“But seriously though,” Arlethia sounded calmer now but, knowing her, the initial tone had been hyperbole anyway, “what happened?”

Willt kissed her on the forehead and answered before I could, “Something like what happened with us, I would say. Often, it just takes one proper conversation to put everything in the right perspective. Remember how your confession shifted my entire image of you and suddenly we were dating?”

“Given that I wanted to die for the first ten minutes of that, I don’t think I could ever forget,” Arlethia shivered from the past embarrassment. “I said so many stupid things in so little time.”

“So you talked slower than normal?” I asked.

“Ha-ha,” Arlethia returned a dry, faked laugh. “Let’s laugh at the succubus that had trouble confessing. Come on, get it all out, I’ll kick you when you least expect it and then I’ll laugh!”

“Hey, whenever you want to surrender our verbal war, I’m happy to make peace and not make fun of you at every opportunity.”

“Why should I surrender? My victory is at hand!”

Willt looked at the display of his Ashod and finished his tea. “We will be late for class if we don’t go now.” He pushed up his red-tinged, round glasses and got up. “You coming, Karitas?”

Just like them, I had a class in the second block of the day, while Esther had a few more hours to kill before having to go to the university grounds. Even now that we were officially a couple, an Anomalia even, the flow of time continued as before. The world felt different to us, but it was still the same. Giant burdens were off my shoulders and now I could just continue on without feeling like I was aging at thrice the speed.

“Go ahead, I want to enjoy the morning for a little bit longer,” I told them.

“So, you’re going to skip out and fuck all day?” Arlethia asked.

“I would not approve of that,” Esther shook her head and kissed my neck. “He will act responsibly.”

“If I have to,” I grinned and took the warning pinch in my side with a happy giggle. Then we kissed again. We forgot the world around us for as long as it took the front door to close behind Willt and Arlethia. “Is there seriously no way I can convince you that we should go back to the bedroom?”

“We already had sex this morning,” Esther reprimanded me. “Although I share your desire to repeat the sensation as often as possible, it is just as inadvisable to spend all of our time in coitus as it would be consuming alcohol.”

“Are you afraid you might get addicted?” I teased.

“No, given your proclivity in this area of life, I am certain I will become addicted to it,” she returned in her usual, stern fashion. “Which is exactly why I will not set a precedent and allow us to forego our mundane lives in favour of shutting ourselves in. If we cross that line, I find it too likely we’re just going to forget everything but each other.” She must have read on my face that I didn’t think that was the worst fate ever. Sighing, she added, “Do not forget that you have a harem to build for yourself.”

“Don’t you mean for us, my Queen?” I wanted to know.

“If we do it right, I will enjoy my fellow lovers. It motivates you more than it motivates me, however, and right now I need to stir you into getting up and going to your classes.”

I looked down on myself. “It will be rather difficult to stand up while you’re still holding onto me.”

“If you jog the way, I estimate you still have a few minutes,” she asserted and leaned up. Our lips met for a quick peck, then she rested her head on my shoulder. “If you do not mind the question,” she whispered into the quiet we shared, “why did you come to Welldark? My path brought me here to avoid people inhabiting the more prestigious Cosmic Universities, but I do not think this limitation applies to you. Was it just to stay with your friends?”

“No, although that helped motivate the decision,” I answered and then, careful to make every word as clear as possible, presented my real reason. “In the time between graduation and arriving here, I travelled to a few different worlds. I evaluated whether or not I even wanted to attend one of these places. Torn between multiple paths that opened themselves to me, I decided to try and see what I could read from the world and conjured a vision. It took a fair bit to get all the necessary materials and learn the basics, but that’s a different story entirely. What I saw were two things. I saw a girl with a bleeding back under a starless sky and I saw Welldark.” I stopped for a moment and looked at her. “I would say that girl was you, dear Esther.”

She furrowed her eyebrows, the news seemed to confuse her more than upset her. “It was not a starless night,” she let me know. “Regardless of the shifted detail, this is peculiar. Is history already written, perhaps.”

“It is not.”

“You sound certain of that.”

“Because I am sure.” I looked deep into her amber eyes. “There is no entity that can control history. Fate is dead and we’re all the makers of our own paths. What glimpses of what is likely and what is not we can conjure, they’re no guarantees. Our world is not determined from before we are born. Our stories are our own and for the two of us,” I smiled, infinitely grateful that we were now each other’s partner, “this is just the start.”