Darkness, silence, numbness, inodorous, and the taste of unseasoned boiled chicken with cold rice noodles. Chad was Falling? Floating? No, no, it was falling. Falling into a void. Something about this void was eerily familiar to Chad but he could not place it.
The void was a color somewhere between violent and obsidian.
“Good Morning Cute-Bean,” Stelmaria shrieked the second Chad showed a hint of consciousness. “You fell asleep so fast. Was my man exhausted from saving my life? Ooooohhhh. I am so excited! Do you know what today is cute-bean?”
”'lor efror?” Chad gurgled.
“Hmmmm?” Was Stelmaria's perplexed reply.
“Huh? Oh.” Chad regained his sense of reality. “Hey, there beautiful. How long was I out?”
“One hour longer than me Mr. Sleepyhead! What were you saying before?”
“Nothing.”
“No, it was something for sure. It sounded like 'Lori Ferre' or something. Who is Lori babe?! Were you dreaming about another girl? Hmph.” Stelmaria crossed her arms and pouted as she teased him.
Chad, had no idea what was happening but the way Stelmaria's arms were crossed across her just brought his eyes to her chest. Chad froze. He forgot about his nightmare, then forgot about pretty much everything else. He stared at Stelmaria's womanly breast for dozens of seconds. Dozens! He began to drool.
Stelmaria, who adored it when a man had the self-confidence to drool as he stared at a woman's breast in silence for nearly an entire minute, felt a tingle tangles at the tips of her tits. “You are adorable and charming handsome but you did not answer my question”, she said as she poked his cute masculine nose. “Are my boobs better than Lori's? “
Chad was only half listening the rest of his focus was failing to keep his morning wood from pulsing in his slacks in response to Stelmaria's rack.
“Honey-bun?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah”
“Yeah as in my boobs are better than Lori's or yeah as in I am not listening to you but my subconscious is responding for me anyway.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Cute-bean?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Hehehehe. I know what you need.” Stel lifted her shirt up, pressed her bouncy melon sized breast to either side of Chad's face. “Do you like having my boobs in your face babe?”
Chad's cock might as well have been a diamond. To Stelmaria's credit, something about being pinned between her jugs did cause Chad to start processing what she had been saying. “So much”, he replied.
Stelmaria pulled away from him, which caused him to whimper in disappointment. “Well then listen to me. Who is Lori and how much prettier am I than her?”
“Lori? I do not know any one named Lori babe. What made you think I did?” Chad was confused on so many levels.
“You said 'Lori Ferre' when you first woke up. Like you were dreaming about somebody named Lori.” Stelmaria, took a breath as a she realized he was being honest based on his emotional signature. “Well Good. Then we can get going. We should get out of The Bellows as soon as possible. We do not want to give Des or any other Fiends a chance to track us.”
One may expect Stelmaria's mentioning of Desponia to have caused Chad to realize that the color of Des' irises matched the color of the void from his nightmare. Everyone else could then assume that this 'One' either: has the intelligence of an orange house cat not currently in position of the ONE-ORANGE-BRAIN-CELL or has never had their face smashed between a lovely pair of knockers and therefore does not realize it is essentially nirvana.
If the former but not the latter applies to this 'One' then 'One' has at least two things in common with our hero. In such a scenario, the wisest of 'Everyone else' would be jealous of 'One' and their blissful life.
Chad nodded as he solemnly watched Stelmaria pull her top back down. “Okay, I need to hunt something first though, so my family has food and stuff.”
“Hehehehhe. Okayyyy but hurrrrrryyyy”, Stel purred.
They broke down their campsite. Then Chad spent two hours mansplaining to a woman who turns into a vicious predator how to track, sneak up on, and fell an elk. Stelmaria could have killed half a dozen Elk in about five minutes but she nodded along and encouraged his condensation, gorging on his genuine affection, something she had not tasted in a long time. Thanks to Chad's long history of emotional suppression she was able to siphon nearly all of it without him noticing. The rush from affection was not as exhilarating to Stelmaria as on genuine terror but it was a decent alternative, and admittedly a lot less messy.
After the hunt, Stelmaria shifted to her beast form and carried Chad and the elk out of The Bellows. Chad directed her towards the town of West Harkness.
West Harkness was like every other boring small rural town that the protagonist of a fantasy story grew up in. As such, we will not waste time with a detailed description of West Harkness.
“Welcome to West Harkness,” Chad said as Stelmaria came to a stop on the outskirts of town. He pointed to a few buildings in the center of town. “Butcher, Blacksmith, Tanner, General Store, Town Hall, Salted Swine (the seedy tavern), Braised Boar (the bougie tavern), the Inn, and in the middle is the market where anyone can sell or trade their goods.” He gestured to the surrounding areas,” Most people live in the outskirts on tracks of land. The clusters of small houses closer to town are the few business owners or those that work for them.
Chad dismounted Stelmaria and removed the elk from her back, tying it to a leather strap so he could haul it across the snow. Stelmaria shifted back into normal form. Chad gestured to her ears and said “those will give you away, people are afraid of the fae here.”
Stelmaria made a playful pouty face and then said, “it's okay I can be invisible.” When she vanished Chad was overcome with a severe scent that was a blend of petrichor, sandalwood, spring berries, cinnamon, anise, vanilla, all spice, banana, stale chamomile tea, and crushed pine needles covered in sweet cream meringue. It was like walking into a Yankee candle store and his head started to throb.
Not being a wimp, Chad did his best to ignore the sound of his blood pulsing inside his skull and only looked like he was about to hurl a little bit. He did not know if Stelmaria caught this grimace or not because she remained perfectly silent.
As the scent begun to disperse Stelmaria begun marching towards the town leaving footsteps in the snow behind her. Do you think if you pull the elk behind you and follow me close enough it'll hide my foot prints?
Chad nodded, then realized he wasn't sure which way Stel was looking and responded through the telepathic link instead Yup, we just have to go to the butcher and then I can carry you to my house.
***
Michelle felt butterflies in her stomach when she saw the handsome hunter drag a giant elk into her father's shop. She must be so lucky that today was a day her father needed her to man the store. Usually her brother, cousin, or father covered the store while one of the other two worked in the back. Neither her brother or cousin was available today, so her father was forced to let his daughter work the front – something that went against his misogynistic instincts.
Chad looked surprised to see her. She guessed it was because he had never seen her covering the store before. Oh no would this make him think less of her? What if he had the same feelings about women working as her father? “Greg and Kyle had to run a delivery to the east side of the barony because the snow held up the normal caravans this morning. It was a major customer so my dad did not want to risk a tardy delivery.”
Chad looked at her dumbfounded and the butterflies in her stomach turning to beetles. “I mean to say, I do not normally cover the store. It is a rare circumstance and I hope you understand I am just helping my family.”
It is a real tragedy that Michelle had all this anxiety about how Chad thought of her. Chad had forgotten she existed over the last forty eight hours and her woeful fate had been sealed the several moments ago when Stelmaria sensed her feelings for Chad. At least it is kind of ironic for her to be put in the refrigerator since her father is a butcher? In this stories defense there have been less developed girls written into existence for the sole purpose of easily demonstrating that the antagonist is a sadistic psychopath beyond redemption or worse just to be sort of a mean girl for a bit and then get hella roasted by some mythical beast. At least her name is not the same as a cheap mall jewlery store for tweens nor a Pixar film nobody remembers!
Chad gave her an awkward smile and bless her heart she thought it was handsome. “Michelle I need this Elk butchered. I will give a quarter of the leg-meat for payment and am willing to sell half the prime steaks for coin if of interest to your father.”
“Hold on one second Chad, I need to check the inventory records to see if we need any elk steaks...Also, very funny but I know you know the standard butchering fee is two legs for an elk. “We can take all the elk steaks—goodwill on a bull elk is 15 silver. Your steaks are guaranteed to weigh in well above that value so you can expect more coin when you come to pick it up tomorrow afternoon.” She slid the coins across the table to him and batter her eyes. “I'll be working tomorrow too, if you want to show up a little early.” [Despite both an Em dash and ellipse in this paragraph it was written by a human, you can tell because neither one is used very well (or correctly?) and also because this bracket commentary ends with the phrase Elon Musk is a shithead.]
“Ummmm I will think about it but you know first day back from the Bellows, a lot to do.” Chad said as he pocketed the coins and walked out seeming flustered. Michelle thought this was a sign his feelings for her were growing. Her naivety was for the best since she would be dead before she could learn the truth about his aloofness in third final interaction.
Michelle watch him trot home through the snow, oblivious that her soon to be murderer was sitting on her crushes shoulders.