Origin ARS 4 (23 page)

Rhea nodded. “Yes, I don’t keep a large amount of items in any one place.”

“Why do this at all. Surely you could buy a house or a vault or something.” asked Ero.

The elf girl shrugged. “I’d be tempted to get them too soon.”

“Self-imposed challenge?” asked Scott.

“Something like that. Before you arrived, I mostly played to take out my frustrations and to be free for a time.” said Rhea.

“I see. So, if your equipment was too bad ass, you’d kill everything too quickly?” he asked.

The goddess in elf form sighed softly. “Yes. Pretty much.”

Scott reached out and rubbed her shoulder. “I’m sorry. That could never work.”

“Huh? Why not?” asked Rhea with an innocent and curious expression.

He made a big show of eyeing her up and down in a perverted, yet friendly, manner. “Your natural equipment is already pretty badass.”

Rhea blinked at him then snorted. She looked him in the eyes then sweetly said, “Stupid.”

“You haven’t called me that so sweetly in a while.” said Scott. “I kind of missed it.”

Her nostrils flared slightly and her face reddened. She did not say anything, however. Scott and Rhea stood there looking into each other’s eyes for a moment.

Ero glanced from one to the other then lifted her fist and calmly coughed into it. She repeated the action once more. When they did not look up, she loudly said. “A-Hem!”

“Hmm?” asked Scott.

The fairy shook her head. “How you two can be so sweet that you can give a fairy cavities is something I’ll never understand.”

Rhea blinked at the fairy girl. “Ero?” Was something wrong? The tiny girl hardly ever said things like that.

The tiny girl shook her head then smiled warmly. “Nevermind. We have loot to loot!”

“Right! Let’s abuse Rhea and take all her cool things.” said Scott cheerfully.

Rhea glanced at him then snorted. She spoke in a flat tone of voice. “Oh yes, abuse me.”

Scott glanced at her in kind. He then lifted one finger into the air. “That set up was too easy. I refuse to take the bait.”

Rhea laughed then then turned toward the pile of rocks. “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t try to make things easy for you.”

“That’s cool. I don’t like easy girls.” said Scott.

“Didn’t you get engaged to an exotic dancer?” asked Rhea.

Scott smiled wryly at her in response. “Yeah, why do you think I stopped liking easy girls?”

They all shared a laugh upon hearing that. Life was a funny thing. A guy might start out engaged to a stripper but end up in a mostly accepted love triangle with a fairy and a goddess.

Ero and Rhea began to chat freely about Scott’s love life. They had both seen all his failures and triumphs. Rhea, as Origin, had directly seen his life story in detail. Ero, had rattled around inside his brain and seen how he actually dealt with those events internally.

It was a strange thing for him to accept at times. Both of the girls in his life knew him better than he knew himself, and yet he’d only just met both of them. It was entirely unfair. He chose not to be upset about it, however. If anything it made the relationship that much easier.

Scott needed easy. He’d joked about not liking easy girls, but in truth he truly enjoyed how easy the current relationship had become. Sure, there were bumps and tears along the way still but that was to be expected. Ero and Origin were both sweet girls, and they both wanted to spend time with him. That led to one or the other of them feeling left out.

He knew that to be the case. He’d seen the look of sadness in a girl’s eyes when she thought the one who she loved had lost interest in her. A few of his relationships had ended because of that no matter what he had said or how he had tried to convince his current love interest otherwise.

The sight of Ero and Rhea laughing together, even if it was at his expense, was heartwarming. Of course, the special sweet little feeling he had developed soured slightly when he realized their current topic of discussion.

“Yeah, I couldn’t believe he thought that would work!” said Rhea.

Ero laughed then threw a hand to her forehead and cried out, “I love you Elizabeth! Don’t marry this douche. Marry me!”

“Total rom-com action hero stuff.” said Rhea. She said it with a bright smile and a laugh, but also with what sounded like a hint of jealousy.

Scott grunted. He had wanted to forget that particular scene from his life. One of his first girlfriends, the only other one besides Sarah who he had gotten up the nerve to want to marry. They had dated for over a year. Yet, she had chosen to go to college across the country in California.

The long distance relationship went on for six months. Scott was a year younger than her, a school scandal when they first got together. However, after around two months she did not answer his calls as often. Sometimes she would not answer a text until the next day.

By the time the sixth month came around, she told him that she had cheated on him during a text that he had assured himself was tearful and heartfelt. The way that she had written things and admitted that she loved him had convinced him that the only problem was their distance.

Scott had pulled a road trip scenario. He had gathered up two of his friends and hit the road. Flying would have been faster, but he had wanted time to think. He needed to figure out exactly what he needed to do. It was an epic adventure with his high school friends. There were thrills, chills, bums who thought they were Jesus, and his friend Greg had even lost his virginity in an ill-conceived wager with a fat waitress named Sally.

“Yeah, I can’t believe he barged into the wedding while it was happening and said that!” exclaimed Ero.

“Can we not talk about this?” asked Scott quietly. It no longer hurt to hear about it, but it still made him feel like a fool.

The girls ignored him and continued on with their conversation until they reached the rocks. Scott had not been more thankful for the end of a conversation in a long time. Elizabeth was one of the true sore spots of his sordid past. If anything, what had happened with her had set the scene for his break down when Sarah had done what she had done.

Sadly, the conversation was not completely done. Rhea looked at Scott then smiled. “Hey, at least you don’t have to worry about that with us.”

“Yeah!” exclaimed Ero happily.

“So, neither of you have a childhood friend on the other side of the country to convince you to go to college where he is so that you’ll know someone there?” asked Scott.

“Nope.” said Rhea with a bright smile.

“Don’t think so.” said Ero.

“Well, that’s something I guess.” he said, before reaching down to casually start moving rocks to the side.

Ero helped move the smaller rocks while Rhea helped with the larger ones. While they worked, the conversation continued.

“I’m sorry if we upset you. If it still bothers you, I won’t talk about it anymore?” asked Rhea.

Scott shook his head. “It’s fine. I have to try to laugh at the stupid crap that I used to do, or it’ll eat at me forever.”

Ero lifted a rock twice as big as she was and flew off with it. When she returned, she said, “If you’d done that for me, I’d have more of your potential babies.”

Scott laughed. “Thanks Ero.”

She giggled cutely then hefted another massive, for her, rock. She might be little but she did her best!

“It was really sweet, what you did.” said Rhea.

“Really? Kevin thought it was kind of stalker-ish, even if he wanted to see me crash and burn.” said Scott.

The elf girl laughed. “Well, I thought it was sweet. Though, if you recall I spent decades of my life watching you live yours.”

“I’m going to pretend that you spanked it a few times whenever you saw me in the shower. That’ll fix everything.” said Scott.

Rhea’s face turned bright red and she laughed again. She looked to the side and struggled to lift another rock. “Well…”

Scott blinked at her and stopped what he was doing. “Wait…”

Rhea laughed nervously and started to dig at the rocks with greater speed. “We should really get moving on this. These rocks won’t move themselves.”

He suddenly felt absurdly pleased with himself. His life and all of its pains and pleasures had been the spank material of his goddess girlfriend. It should have been some sort of extreme violation of his privacy, but the image of Rhea doing that sort of thing while daydreaming about the random crap he had done in his life invalidated that response.

“So, the goddess of love got off on watching me do things.” said Scott casually.

Rhea made a strangely noise then dug at the rocks faster. “So many rocks!”

Ero glanced at Rhea then tilted her head to the side. “Why are you so red?”

Rhea whimpered cutely and shook her head. “Darn rocks.”

“Must have been hard for you whenever I had a girlfriend.” said Scott softly.

The blue haired girl sighed loudly. “You don’t want to ask me these questions.”

“I don’t?” asked Scott.

She shook her head. “No. You don’t.”

“I kind of do now.” said Scott.

Rhea stopped and let the rock she had picked up fall from her hands. She looked down at the ground and her hair fell forward to shadow her eyes. “I hated it.”

“Rhea…?”

“I hated every second of it!” she exclaimed. Her hands turned into tight little fists and her body began to tremble.

Scott stepped toward her and she looked to the side. “The thought of those girls with you, touching you. I hated it.”

“You kept watching, though…” Scott was not sure why she would keep watching if she hated it.

Her trembling increased and a slight gasping sob escaped her lips. “It was all I could ever have.”

“Rhea, what do you mean?” asked Ero.

The blue haired girl took a breath then said. “You both know what it’s like for my people. We love humanity, yet we can never truly be human.”

“You feel human enough to me.” said Scott.

Rhea lifted her hands to her chest and she sighed softly. “Thank you for that.”

Scott soon realized what she was getting at. She had mentioned this sort of thing to him before. Her people tried to be like humans in order to understand humanity and deep emotion. Yet, they could rarely interact with them on any equivalent manner. They were gods or at least god-like beings. Even when they created avatars and entered a mortal world, they were never truly human or mortal. So, in the end his life in her eyes had been like a fascinating movie. No matter how much she might want it, she could not be with the person on screen. All she could do was daydream and live vicariously through the characters of the women who he had dated.

“Rhea, I’m sorry.” said Scott before moving closer and slipping his arms around her.

Her trembling stopped, but her eyes remained downcast. “Why, Scott?”

He leaned his forehead against the back of her head. “All this time, you wanted to be the girl with me, but could only watch me with other people.”

She gently placed her hand atop his arm. “I can’t stand the thought anymore.”

Another thing occurred to him not long after that. “You once said your people are normally polygamous. This is why you aren’t?”

“I… Can’t share you. I’ve had to do that for too long.” she said softly.

Ero placed a hand to her mouth and tried not to make a noise. She fluttered down and sat on a rock. Her eyes began to shimmer gently as tears started to form. She now knew why Rhea went a little crazy sometimes, and it was her fault. She kept reminding her of how she could not be Scott’s one and only special someone.

“I wanted to be Elizabeth, or Mary, or Jennifer, or…” Rhea rattled off a list of Scott’s past failures ending with Sarah. “I wanted to be any of them, but at the same time I kind of wanted them to die in a fire.”

Scott held her tightly until the end of her statement. That was a bit dark. He understood the sentiment, but it also made him wonder about her a little. He realized what she really mean, though. She wanted to be with him, but as herself.

Ero flew up and exclaimed. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Rhea!”

The blue haired elf blinked quickly to clear the tears from her eyes then looked askance at Ero. “Huh?”

“It’s my fault! If not for me…” Ero looked down then placed her hands over her eyes and started to cry.

The elf looked at the crying fairy for a moment then lifted her hands up and held Ero gently in her cupped palms. “Ero, it’s alright.”

The fairy sniffled a little then lowered her hands. “Is it?”

“Yes, I hate the idea of sharing him, but I don’t hate you.”

Ero wiped the tears from her eyes then sniffled again. “Really?”

Rhea moved one of her thumbs forward and used it to gently massage Ero’s belly. “How can I hate someone he truly loves? Especially someone as sweet as you.”

Ero sniffed again. “I guess… But what about other people, like Shara?”

Rhea snorted. “I love my sister, but she can get her own Scott. This one only has two arms and both are taken.”