Lucky Rabbit

When Keros had appeared beside Pandy, she wasn’t really afraid. In spite of his rippling muscles and casual use of power, she could tell that he was harmless. Or at least mostly harmless. Now, the space filled with billowing fabric, oodles of hair, and warm, fleshy bits that Pandy didn’t want to think  about too much, she waited for the fear she’d felt only a moment before to become utterly overwhelming.

It didn’t. In fact, she felt her body relax into the honeysuckle smell and the feeling of silky cloth surrounding her. Something shifted in the darkness, and a soft glow filled the space. It was golden, surprisingly gentle, and while it made her whiskers quiver, it didn’t hurt.

“Oh. My. Me,” a voice squealed, and soft arms pulled Pandy close, where she sank into a bountiful bosom. “You’re adorable,” the voice cooed, and Pandy peered up to see a lovely face peering down at her. Round pink cheeks embraced plump red lips and a button nose. Waves of red-gold hair fell into sparkling eyes of an inhumanly green shade.

This was Aglaea? Because somehow Pandy couldn’t imagine that it was anyone else. Rubenesque curves filled out a toga in ways that would have had human Pandy blushing, especially given that the fabric wasn’t making much effort to conceal what lay beneath. Somehow the goddess’ modesty remained mostly intact, however, even as she shifted uncomfortably, glancing up at the slats of the bed. Fortunately, she was quite short, so even though she was also quite roundish, she was able to roll most of the way onto her side.

“Are we under a bed?” Aglaea asked, wrinkling her nose slightly. Then she giggled softly and stroked a finger down one of Pandy’s ears. “I haven’t hidden under a bed in ages. What fun!” Rolling her eyes upward, she whispered, “Who’s up there? A secret lover? Are you separated by fate and tragedy? Tragedies are my favorite. So much pathos and drama.”

She wrapped herself  – and thus Pandy as well, who was still trapped in her arms – in a giddy sort of embrace, squeeing softly until something else seemed to occur to her and she frowned, almost managing to crease her perfect skin. “I don’t support infidelity, though. I’ve been on the receiving end of that far too many times. I don’t care if Hephy says it was just a ‘misunderstanding’.”

Hephy? Pandy racked her brain, vaguely remembering that Keros had mentioned something about Hepha…Halfa…Halfstaffus? “No?” Pandy managed, then tried again, going for something a little more certain. “No. That’s-” How to explain, though? “That’s Thaniel,” she finally said, surprised as always to hear her own voice apparently coming from her rabbit throat. “He’s an orphan I’ve been…watching over. He’s six.”

Aglaea’s crystalline eyes instantly filled with tears. They spilled over, rolling down her cheek to drop onto Pandy’s fur and the floor. 

+30 Corruption Points for Bathing in the Tears of a Goddess

“Oh,” she murmured. “That poor boy. That’s the problem with tragedies. It may be fun for the adults, but the children.” Sniffing, she wiped a tear from her cheek. Pandy watched it longingly, but managed not to lunge for it as it dropped down onto the floor. She heard an odd sound as it connected, however, her ears twitching as she watched something small and white roll into the masses of hair that surrounded them.

Blinking away a final tear, Aglaea smiled down at Pandy. “It’s so kind of you to care for him. But why, exactly, are you hiding beneath his bed?”

Pandy scratched her ear, which was still tingling where the single tear that reached her had run down into her fur. “He’s sleeping. I don’t want to wake him up.”

The goddess nodded sagely, lifting a finger to cross her glossy lips in an apparently universal sign for silence. Which she immediately broke by saying, “So, have you seen my Kero-Kero lately? I’ve been looking everywhere for him, and I can’t find him anywhere.” She paused expectantly, brows lifting.

What should Pandy do? The obvious answer was to tell Aglaea everything, but was that what Keros would want? Yes, the god genuinely seemed to care about Aglaea, but did that mean he wanted her to see him chained to a rock? Besides, Pandy didn’t actually know where he was, or if what she’d seen was even real. That was why she’d been calling for him in the first place!

“I’m…not sure,” Pandy said carefully. “He told me that he’s not supposed to contact his, um, heroes again after he sends them on. So I-”

Aglaea flicked Pandy on the nose. It was gentle, but it still stung, perhaps because it was delivered by a goddess. The faintly luminescent green eyes were surprisingly sharp as she said, “I can see his blessing on you, silly rabbit. I can feel his power everywhere here, too, even though he’s made some effort to hide it.” She sighed softly. “I can tell you think you’re protecting him, but you don’t need to worry about me. I just want to make sure he’s all right. He may be a terribly silly god, but he’s my silly god, and I don’t like to share.”

There was something in those last words that made Pandy swallow hard, and she nodded, words spilling out. “I tried to buy a spell, but it didn’t work exactly the way it was supposed to, and when I was…recovering, I thought I saw him.” Quickly, she described what she saw, emphasizing the fact that she wasn’t at all certain she hadn’t imagined the whole thing.

By the time she was done, all semblance of a fluffy airhead was gone, and Aglaea hummed thoughtfully as she drummed her fingers on the floor. As with Keros, the normal rules of sound seemed to be suspended while the goddess was there, because neither boy woke and came to investigate. At last, Aglaea held out a finger tipped with a glossy pink fingernail with a curving arc of what looked like real diamonds attached around the nailbed. “Do you mind?” she asked.

Pandy wasn’t sure what exactly she was supposed to mind, but she shook her head, deciding that she didn’t really want to get in between this surprisingly formidable female and whatever she wanted. Aglaea smiled and pressed the finger to Pandy’s forehead.

Images blurred before Pandy’s eyes. Her own attempt to gain Shield of Light, followed by her possible – probable – minor explosion. The disappearance of her Spark. Falling into darkness. And then…Keros. For a moment, the memory came to a halt, and Pandy was able to take in details she’d missed the first time. Keros’ toga wasn’t just dirty, but torn, and was that blood around the hem? His wrists looked chafed, too, and his eyes were tired.

Everything sped back up, but this time it was focused on Keros’ surroundings. The boulder to which he was chained sat in the center of an otherwise unremarkable clearing, but far in the distance, Pandy could see the misty tops of a few mountains, with one looming over the others. She also noticed that the sun looked a little too bright, and its light was wrong, not soft yellow but a brilliant white.

“There you are,” Aglaea murmured, withdrawing her hand. She smiled at Pandy again, her expression melting into the slightly vapid one she’d worn when she first arrived. Snuggling Pandy to her bosom once more, she said, “Thank you. I would have been searching just forever. Now I know exactly what I need to do.” For an instant, the clear green eyes became dark and stormy, but then she leaned forward, giving Pandy an enthusiastic kiss on the nose, saying, “Ta, darling. Do call if you need a favor in return.”

Pandy nodded, not because she had any intention of doing so, but because that was what you did when a goddess said something like that, and Aglaea was gone. Pandy’s head swam for a moment, and she swayed, but managed to stay on her paws. The lingering scent of warm honey was the only thing that told her she hadn’t just imagined that, too. At least, that was the only thing until she spotted the pearls.

They were small – teardrop sized, in fact – but they practically glowed in the very faint light that managed to make it under the bed. One of them had rolled over toward the edge of the bed, and Pandy saw that one first, and then the others drew her attention once she knew what to look for.

There were four pearls in total, and as best she could tell, they were all pink. When Pandy rolled them into a little pile, they gleamed with a luster unlike anything she had ever seen before. A few of her foster mothers had had fake pearls, and one had a string of cultured pearls that she only wore to church. These made those pearls look like cheap plastic in comparison.

Pandy had no doubt these  were the result of Aglaea’s tears, and she sat there, staring at them, trying to figure out what to do with them or where to hide them, until she remembered that she now had a bag in her inventory. When she called it forth, it appeared beneath her right paw, since she’d been holding it in her human hand when she put it into inventory.

It was tricky, but Pandy managed to use paws and teeth to open the clasp, and nudged the pearls inside. She really wished she had some kind of identification skill, but that was something Clara had never needed. In Gacha Love, items were either known when Clara received them, or they were intentionally mysterious, requiring her to take them to the correct person to find out what they were.

Once the bag was returned to Pandy’s inventory –  going in correctly in spite of the fact that Pandy wasn’t human at the moment – Pandy settled down again, resting her chin on her front paws. She was still a bit worried about Keros, but she had a feeling that Aglaea had the situation well in hand, which meant Pandy could focus on her own problems. Which were numerous. All of the solutions started by growing stronger, though, so Pandy thought,

At first, Pandy didn’t even realize anything was wrong, because she hadn’t expected the skill to do anything visible anyway. But when no acknowledging text appeared before her eyes, hovering in the dimness, Pandy tilted her head to the side and thought,

Name: Pandy

Race: Rabbit? (Deceased)

Age: 24

LF: 0/2

Mana: 15/82

Stats▾

Strength: 18 Intelligence: 12 Agility: 20 Pain Tolerance: 1Skills▾

Hop: Lv. 20 (5/190) Bite: Lv. 19 (44/100) Scratch: Lv. 11 (2/28) Minor Heal: Lv. 22 (255/370) Wings of Glory: Lv. 1 (1/2) Verdant Surge: Lv. 1 (1/2) Vita Herbalis: Lv. 1 Spark: Lv. 1 (1/2) Shifting Faces: Lv. 2     00:00:02 Radiant Presence: Lv. 1 Innate Magic: Lv. 1 Dance: Lv. 1 Dual Wielding: Lv. 1 Shield of Darkness: Lv. 1Boons▾

Ismara’s Blessing IMark of KerosAglaea’s KissCorruption Points: 32

Skimming through the growing list of skills, Pandy looked for Graceful Presence. It wasn’t there. It took a second look to realize that half of it was, but she now had a skill called Radiant Presence, instead. She also had a new boon entitled Aglaea’s Kiss, which probably explained why the skill had changed.

Tentatively, Pandy thought,

Casting of Radiant Presence successful. One more use remains before next level. 

Pandy began to glow. It was subtle, and if she’d been in full daylight, she doubted it would have been visible. But she wasn’t, it was, and as she glanced at her own paw, she saw that the fur was fluffier than usual, as well. It caught her own light and that of the dim lamp, casting it back in a healthy gloss that almost seemed to shimmer. Her claws were pure white, the tips ending in delicate, perfect points. There were no brown stains on the bottoms of her feet, either. Instead, they were as white as the rest of her, and when she managed to catch a glimpse of her tail, it was a beautiful, fluffy sphere, looking like someone had attached a small white cloud to her behind.

It all ended as abruptly as it had begun, and Pandy’s fur fell to its usual level of fluff, while the stains reappeared on her paw-fur. One of her claws was broken, the tip lost somewhere, probably in the forest. She was sure she was still cute, because Pandy’s rabbit-shape was always cute, but not like she had been for that brief period. What was that? Twenty seconds? Maybe thirty?

she thought again, already heading for the edge of the bed. There was a mirror on the wall above the washstand, and Pandy was almost certain she could jump up onto the table without knocking off the bowl or pitcher of water sitting on it.

You have no Mana. Using Life Force instead.

Casting of Radiant Presence successful. Radiant Presence is now level 2.

The glow returned, but this time it illuminated the drop of blood that dripped from Pandy’s mouth, onto the floor. The blood glistened a brilliant ruby red as Pandy examined her status once more, finding that she was now at minus eight Life Force. So the new skill was a spell, and it cost fifteen Mana or eight LF to use. Add to that the fact that all it seemed to do was make Pandy pretty and glowy for a short period of time, and she wasn’t sure it was actually an improvement over the original. At least Graceful Presence hadn’t made her glow, which meant she could have leveled it as much as she wanted, even in public places.

Sighing, Pandy looked at her status one more time, focusing on her actual stats. Time to find out what Aglaea’s gift was actually going to do for her.

Name: Pandy

Race: Rabbit? (Deceased)

Age: 24

LF: -8/2

Mana: 0/82

Stats▾

Strength: 18 Intelligence: 12 Agility: 20 Pain Tolerance: 1 Charm: 1Skills▾

Hop: Lv. 20 (5/190) Bite: Lv. 19 (44/100) Scratch: Lv. 11 (2/28) Minor Heal: Lv. 22 (255/370) Wings of Glory: Lv. 1 (1/2) Verdant Surge: Lv. 1 (1/2) Vita Herbalis: Lv. 1 Spark: Lv. 1 (1/2) Shifting Faces: Lv. 2     00:00:02 Radiant Presence: Lv. 2 Innate Magic: Lv. 1 Dance: Lv. 1 Dual Wielding: Lv. 1 Shield of Darkness: Lv. 1Boons▾

Ismara’s Blessing IMark of KerosAglaea’s KissCorruption Points: 32 

Pandy slumped, crossing her paws over her nose in despair. Why did it have to be Charm?