Haiko must have been really asleep this time because when August woke up, her hair was pooled around her in a dark cloud, her breathing was audible, and her arms had gone slack around him. The early morning light was starting to creep in now, clawing its way between the tops of the trees before settling over the Lakeside Hovel. August decided he’d attempt to escape before anyone else woke up, but he barely made it as far as attempting to shift one of her arms—the slackened weight of it was unsurprisingly heavy given how much larger the Voithos were—before she woke up with a start.
“Sorry,” August said, keeping his voice low. “I was trying not to wake you up.”
Haiko shifted, turning over slightly and laying her cheek against a pair of folded-up arms, the yawn she was fighting down smothered by her own skin. August managed to find both of their leaf-made adornments nearby before attempting to figure out the tangled mess of twine the pair of vests had become.
“It’s very unusual sleeping beside someone like this,” Haiko said, sounding a bit puzzled. “But I can’t say it is unpleasant.”
It was obvious enough that she wasn’t talking about the plain act of sleeping beside someone in the same ‘room’ because she’d done that multiple times since she had arrived at Devil’s Nest with Kalter, Rittan, and Boko. The inference here was that she’d never slept next to someone after they’d been together—which might not have been that odd, considering her assignment.
“By choice?” August said.
Probably a bit bold of him to assume that the Children of Gaia had given the Voithos much of choice in anything, but still.
“I’m afraid not; the rules of my assignment were quite constraining at times, and one of them was to prevent extended interactions,” Haiko said, drawing her thumb and index finger across a rogue length of her hair. “Two hours was the most amount of time I was permitted to spend with anyone during a single session, with a buffer of several hours between each one—and sleeping wasn’t something anyone seemed interested in doing.”
“Two hours,” August murmured. “Either a measure to prevent attachments from forming with you or a way to force people to organise a new session?”
If the clientele were people like Junil Eltis—reportedly an obscenely rich woman—then maybe it was a profit-driven thing.
“It was most certainly the latter,” Haiko said, sounding amused. “That measure wasn’t specific to me if that’s what you have assumed—it applied to everyone who worked at the Bliss Lounge.”
He’d already assumed that it wasn’t just Haiko who worked there, given what he’d heard, but it still felt kind of odd to think about the Gaian collective as anything but an amorphous cloud of monstrous mad scientists. If there were rich people, there would be those who weren’t as well off, and those people would want their own ways of earning money. The wealth disparity would cause all sorts of different divisions across any society.
“The Gaians who worked there in a similar role to you,” August asked. “Were they under contracts like yours, or were they getting paid?”
“They were being compensated for their time,” Haiko said, watching him with interest. “I’ve heard that it is quite difficult to pass the selection to work there, but the compensation for those who do is supposedly quite marvellous.”
“Did you interact with the other employees there?” August said.
“Yes, I was received with quite a vivid distaste, and the sentiment seemed to be that I was unfairly taking a space that belonged to the Children of Gaia, someone far more deserving of the opportunity,” Haiko said with a small hum. “I suppose the much larger contingent of clients I received also played a part—the management of the establishment seemed happy, however, as without compensation to be paid, everything I earned above the contract was left untouched.”
“Happy enough to treat you like a person?” August said.
“Happy enough to provide access to a separate living space and the permission needed to fill it with items; I believe this was done to keep me—pardon my use of the word—spirited,” Haiko said, giving a knowing smile. “Procuring those items was something of an interesting challenge, but some of my more charitable clients were quite helpful in that regard.”
August shook his head at the words—having a separate living space outside of what were some kind of brothel and the ability to own possessions was something she’d had to earn—and if that wasn’t bad enough, it wasn’t even done as some kind of reward; it was only to make sure they kept on making them money.
“That’s incredibly fucked up—” August said.
Haiko let out a quiet laugh at the words, turning her mouth against her arm in an effort to muffle the sound of it.
“It is, damn it,” August insisted, “Seriously, are there any Children of Gaia who aren’t terrible people—one hundred billion of them, and there isn’t a single one? It’s absurd.”
How could you look at a race of beings that were so closely adjacent to you in appearance, a race that shared your level of intelligence, that could feel and speak the same language—and just treat them so poorly? Individual people could be terrible sure, but all of them? There had to be some moral foundation that had gone awry for an entire society of people to just be so indifferent to the suffering of something like the Voithos.
“I have only met a very small fraction of that number, so I cannot speak with confidence on the issue,” Haiko said, covering her smile with the back of her hand. “But I’m certain there were some that meet your criteria of good.”
“Feel free to point them out if we ever run into them,” August said without much confidence. “Haiko—you should probably get dressed before the others wake up.”
“An interesting suggestion, but if your intention was to hide what has occurred, I’m afraid it won’t work,” Haiko said, sounding amused. “I was very clear about what my intentions were when I warned them all yesterday afternoon.”
August just about gave himself mental whiplash as he went from building up an anticipatory defence as to why trying to keep it a secret might be a good idea to wondering just how confident she had been in her success to fucking warn them—yesterday afternoon? Was that why no one had said anything about her messing with him all night?
“That’s—actually good,” August said, burying his face in his hand. “Everybody knows you were the aggressor, so they can’t be mad at me.”
Haiko just laughed.
The book one revision of Contention with the overhaul of the system is done, and it's sitting up on my Patreon in the 1$ tier; you can find it in the pinned master list post. It will stay up until it eventually becomes an ebook. It's only available in pdf for now. I'd appreciate any feedback on the new system/revised version if anyone wants to pay the gatekeeping fee to check it out.
Contention: Revised Edition - Book One.
Seeking Direction: Revised Edition is now live; It's a revised RWBY fanfiction following an OC with Direction Manipulation as his Semblance.
Please remember to leave a rating and a review, it helps a lot with visibility!
If you like my writing and want to see more of it, you can find links to my original books on Elbowsnapper.com
If you want to show some support, get early access, or see my first drafts, go check out my Patreon
Love you guys, keep on keeping on!
Recent Releases:
Ameliorate: Intersect
Reroll: Falling & Shatter
Systematic Soul Sorting: Book 1 & Audiobook. Book 2(First Draft)
Seeker's Precept: The Dragon's Marble
Haiko must have been really asleep this time because when August woke up, her hair was pooled around her in a dark cloud, her breathing was audible, and her arms had gone slack around him. The early morning light was starting to creep in now, clawing its way between the tops of the trees before settling over the Lakeside Hovel. August decided he’d attempt to escape before anyone else woke up, but he barely made it as far as attempting to shift one of her arms—the slackened weight of it was unsurprisingly heavy given how much larger the Voithos were—before she woke up with a start.
“Sorry,” August said, keeping his voice low. “I was trying not to wake you up.”
Haiko shifted, turning over slightly and laying her cheek against a pair of folded-up arms, the yawn she was fighting down smothered by her own skin. August managed to find both of their leaf-made adornments nearby before attempting to figure out the tangled mess of twine the pair of vests had become.
“It’s very unusual sleeping beside someone like this,” Haiko said, sounding a bit puzzled. “But I can’t say it is unpleasant.”
It was obvious enough that she wasn’t talking about the plain act of sleeping beside someone in the same ‘room’ because she’d done that multiple times since she had arrived at Devil’s Nest with Kalter, Rittan, and Boko. The inference here was that she’d never slept next to someone after they’d been together—which might not have been that odd, considering her assignment.
“By choice?” August said.
Probably a bit bold of him to assume that the Children of Gaia had given the Voithos much of choice in anything, but still.
“I’m afraid not; the rules of my assignment were quite constraining at times, and one of them was to prevent extended interactions,” Haiko said, drawing her thumb and index finger across a rogue length of her hair. “Two hours was the most amount of time I was permitted to spend with anyone during a single session, with a buffer of several hours between each one—and sleeping wasn’t something anyone seemed interested in doing.”
“Two hours,” August murmured. “Either a measure to prevent attachments from forming with you or a way to force people to organise a new session?”
If the clientele were people like Junil Eltis—reportedly an obscenely rich woman—then maybe it was a profit-driven thing.
“It was most certainly the latter,” Haiko said, sounding amused. “That measure wasn’t specific to me if that’s what you have assumed—it applied to everyone who worked at the Bliss Lounge.”
He’d already assumed that it wasn’t just Haiko who worked there, given what he’d heard, but it still felt kind of odd to think about the Gaian collective as anything but an amorphous cloud of monstrous mad scientists. If there were rich people, there would be those who weren’t as well off, and those people would want their own ways of earning money. The wealth disparity would cause all sorts of different divisions across any society.
“The Gaians who worked there in a similar role to you,” August asked. “Were they under contracts like yours, or were they getting paid?”
“They were being compensated for their time,” Haiko said, watching him with interest. “I’ve heard that it is quite difficult to pass the selection to work there, but the compensation for those who do is supposedly quite marvellous.”
“Did you interact with the other employees there?” August said.
“Yes, I was received with quite a vivid distaste, and the sentiment seemed to be that I was unfairly taking a space that belonged to the Children of Gaia, someone far more deserving of the opportunity,” Haiko said with a small hum. “I suppose the much larger contingent of clients I received also played a part—the management of the establishment seemed happy, however, as without compensation to be paid, everything I earned above the contract was left untouched.”
“Happy enough to treat you like a person?” August said.
“Happy enough to provide access to a separate living space and the permission needed to fill it with items; I believe this was done to keep me—pardon my use of the word—spirited,” Haiko said, giving a knowing smile. “Procuring those items was something of an interesting challenge, but some of my more charitable clients were quite helpful in that regard.”
August shook his head at the words—having a separate living space outside of what were some kind of brothel and the ability to own possessions was something she’d had to earn—and if that wasn’t bad enough, it wasn’t even done as some kind of reward; it was only to make sure they kept on making them money.
“That’s incredibly fucked up—” August said.
Haiko let out a quiet laugh at the words, turning her mouth against her arm in an effort to muffle the sound of it.
“It is, damn it,” August insisted, “Seriously, are there any Children of Gaia who aren’t terrible people—one hundred billion of them, and there isn’t a single one? It’s absurd.”
How could you look at a race of beings that were so closely adjacent to you in appearance, a race that shared your level of intelligence, that could feel and speak the same language—and just treat them so poorly? Individual people could be terrible sure, but all of them? There had to be some moral foundation that had gone awry for an entire society of people to just be so indifferent to the suffering of something like the Voithos.
“I have only met a very small fraction of that number, so I cannot speak with confidence on the issue,” Haiko said, covering her smile with the back of her hand. “But I’m certain there were some that meet your criteria of good.”
“Feel free to point them out if we ever run into them,” August said without much confidence. “Haiko—you should probably get dressed before the others wake up.”
“An interesting suggestion, but if your intention was to hide what has occurred, I’m afraid it won’t work,” Haiko said, sounding amused. “I was very clear about what my intentions were when I warned them all yesterday afternoon.”
August just about gave himself mental whiplash as he went from building up an anticipatory defence as to why trying to keep it a secret might be a good idea to wondering just how confident she had been in her success to fucking warn them—yesterday afternoon? Was that why no one had said anything about her messing with him all night?
“That’s—actually good,” August said, burying his face in his hand. “Everybody knows you were the aggressor, so they can’t be mad at me.”
Haiko just laughed.
The book one revision of Contention with the overhaul of the system is done, and it's sitting up on my Patreon in the 1$ tier; you can find it in the pinned master list post. It will stay up until it eventually becomes an ebook. It's only available in pdf for now. I'd appreciate any feedback on the new system/revised version if anyone wants to pay the gatekeeping fee to check it out.
Contention: Revised Edition - Book One.
Seeking Direction: Revised Edition is now live; It's a revised RWBY fanfiction following an OC with Direction Manipulation as his Semblance.
Please remember to leave a rating and a review, it helps a lot with visibility!
If you like my writing and want to see more of it, you can find links to my original books on Elbowsnapper.com
If you want to show some support, get early access, or see my first drafts, go check out my Patreon
Love you guys, keep on keeping on!
Recent Releases:
Ameliorate: Intersect
Reroll: Falling & Shatter
Systematic Soul Sorting: Book 1 & Audiobook. Book 2(First Draft)
Seeker's Precept: The Dragon's Marble
