Xopil's gaze pierced the five women standing before him one by one. Bunny. Cat. Wolf. Fox. Leopard.

"Such an intense glare..." the women mumbled as they shifted uncomfortably.

"You probably have your reasons for lying to me, but I can't be bothered any more. You're not descended from the royal guard..."

"Lying? Where did you get the idea that we were descended from royal guards?" Caly interrupted... "All five of us have always been your personal maids, your highness."

Xopil sat frozen as those words sank in, his mouth opening and closing like a fish as he tried to find words... any words. In the end, he admitted defeat and simply diverted his eyes to the floor.

"I'll not lie, the experiments were horrible. That's said and done though, centuries have passed. We escaped, found this place, settled down and accepted our situation." Beda stated matter-of-factly.

"Mmm not all of it has been bad though..." Caly added, which the other four nodded agreement to.

"If..." Xopil finally found his voice. "if it were possible to prevent everything after the loss of the war from happening..."

"What are you talking about? We won the war at the end of the golden age."

Xopil stared blankly at the five women in front of him, then finally said, "...Tell me what happened to Minerva."

"Minerva? ...Sorry, I don't know anyone with that name."

...They should definately remember Minerva. Xopil thought then asked, "What about Foralis?"

"..." the women looked at eachother and shrugged.

"Okay... who introduced us?" Xopil's question received five blank stares.

"...Your highness. You're scaring us. It's only been the six of us living in this abandoned town for the past thousand years."

Xopil fell silent, he slowly scratched his chin in thought. Have I changed history or have I been thrown into a parallel time? ...For that matter, what was the different action I took? What does this mean for Xiara and Boris...?

"It seems the fever has affected him more than we initially thought." Beda spoke for all of them.

"We shall go hunting," Lexi, Winter and Felicyta spoke in unison and promptly left the room. Meanwhile, Calypso and Beda tackled Xopil, pushing him onto the bed and cuddling next to him to elevate his body temperature, and prevent him from leaving the bed. Clearly, this was not the first time these women had experienced this situation.

Despite protesting loudly for several hours that he was fine and struggling against them, Beda and Caly hadn't relented in the slightest until Xopil finally passed out from their combined heat and exhausting himself.

"He's... finally... asleep..." Caly said slowly, her own eyes closing after all the energy she had expended.

"Yeah..." Beda barely replied, her own fatigue taking her consciousness away.

Xopil's eyes opened wearily. I feel like I just ran several marathons.

Xopil tried to get up, only to find his body was extremely heavy. No, not heavy. Restrained. The sounds of chains clinking together alerted a person in the room with him.

"Prince?" an unfamiliar voice greeted him.

"...What's the meaning of this?" Xopil tried his best not to sound irritated.

"...Prince, do you know who I am?"

"No." Xopil replied, while subtly taking stock of his surroundings.

"So you are the real Prince then..."

"What the hell is going on here anyway?"

"Let's just say you did this to yourself. Yes, that's quite accurate indeed."

"And who are you then?" Xopil asked as he focused on the aged man in front of him.

"No one of consequence, honestly. I am quite well acquainted with your other self though."

"What happens now?"

"We're going to play a little game. I won't bore you with the rules, but suffice to say we each have our own goals for winning. I've recently started dabbling with a new magic your other self taught me, and I need test subjects as it were."

"So, my goal is to escape before your experiment starts?" Xopil asked.

"Hmm... smarter than I was led to believe. Indeed, I'm told this magic is quite painful. Once I begin you won't be able to focus on escaping."

"I see..." Xopil replied as the restraints seemingly evaporated into thin air.

"Ho? Color me impressed. This will indeed be a fun game." the aged man replied, then his voice broke into a series of incomprehensible chants as he waved his arms around mystically.

Xopil's entire body was instantly wracked with pain, along with a sense of familiarity as he watched the old man. I know this magic...?

Flames danced on the ground as fire erupted from underground.

"...Very interesting indeed," the aged man paused his chant upon this turn of events. "You are indeed a mystery whoever you are."

"Thanks for the compliment," Xopil waved his arm at his side, then brought it forward in front of him, his open hand slowly closed into a tight fist. "don't think too badly of me though; the magic you wield is too dangerous to leave you be."

The space around the aged man compressed heavily. His body imploded into itself leaving naught but a speck, no larger than a grain of sand, behind. Xopil lightly waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal, the speck was sent out the gap under the door. From there, the fate of the speck was determined by the wind.

Xopil sat down heavily, experiencing the full repurcussion of the space magic he just used in addition to the pain he was still suffering from the aged man's curse. Xopil laughed in a self-deprecating manner. "Remind me not to use magic I don't properly remember how to use. Not that I had much choice here..."

Xopil remained there until the pain from the curse subsided and the fatigue from his own magic faded. Afterward, his perception was engulfed in a raging fire.

Xopil slowly opened his eyes. He was in his own bed, huddled around him were five animals staring intently at him.

"...Feels like I'm getting further from my goal..." Xopil pinched his nose as he felt a headache developing. The five animals jumped off the bed, transforming before they hit the ground.

"What goal?" Caly asked.

"Ehm... nevermind that, what just happened?" Xopil asked.

"You're asking like you've never seen us change between our elf and animal forms." Winter responded.

Xopil rubbed his eyes and took a closer look at the five women. Their animal features were less prominent now, however now they could... Xopil collapsed on the bed, "...I need to rest."

"You just slept straight through five days..." Caly protested.

"Can't you cuddle, pet and scratch eachother?"

"It's not the same!" they all retorted.

"..." Xopil had no response to that. I wonder where Xiara is and what she's doing.