Last Night

---

Only when she had completely given up her search was she finally graced with the imperious woman’s presence, Herdsplitter lying in wait in the Herald’s own boudoir.

Filled with wretched sentiment, she wordlessly threw herself into the arms of her wolfy paramour. Sighing happily, she melted into the firm embrace, resting her head against the taller woman’s shoulder, comforted by the familiar scent of her body.

“I’ve missed you,” she murmured, clinging to her lover.

“I’m sorry, Beloved,” the wolf replied, crushing the bunnygirl against her chest. “I regret that I have made you wait so long.”

“It’s alright,” V answered, dismissing her apology. “Lacey had to wait a lot longer, didn’t she?”

“That is yet another of my failings,” Herdsplitter muttered, irritated by how easily her plans stole away the time she’d rather spend with her pack, and especially her favourite.

The amazon had been absent in UltraCraft for a little over a week, but she had yet to see Lacey again in realspace for over a month; as unwilling as she had been to tell any of the little family where she was or what she’d been up to, they could only hope and pray for her eventual safe return. While the imperious woman was more than capable in any respect when it came to violence or cunning, her ability was no safeguard against the fear of the unknown, and it was not a balm against worry. Her unwillingness to include her littermate in her plan was similarly distressing; ostensibly Arvina had come to some understanding if she was willing to participate in the shadow play, but V didn’t doubt that her girlfriend had been browbeaten into it.

“Come home,” the bunnygirl whispered, nuzzling against the wolf’s neck. “I want to feel you in realspace, too.”

It wouldn’t be that long before even that vessel would be emptied-out as well. Perhaps more of “V” would be left inside it, but whatever remained would be unrecognizable as the woman herself. As completely as UltraCraft had infested her stack, there would be no recovery from whatever wipe the Lunar Cry would execute, all of her memories and skills from nearly sixty (simultaneous) years of existence obliterated in faithful lockstep to the immersive simulation. Perhaps, if she were lucky, fragments of her consciousness would still exist inside the meat of her body, echoes of who she’d been before the merger with the server lattice.

Everything her girlfriends had taught her, all the patience and adoration they’d shared, all the consideration and bitter tears and selfish marks would be erased, the same as if they had never been in the first place. Whatever wreck of a girl remained wouldn’t resemble V in the slightest ⸻ if she survived at all. No matter how she framed it, the rabbit knew that this wasn’t something that could be overcome.

Tomorrow, she would die, and that would be the end of her.

Which would hurt her little family worse, she wondered: burying her in UltraCraft, or in realspace? Perhaps she should see to the matter herself, if a coroner’s office was still open. But then, what name would she put on the form? Should she make one up ⸻ would they even bother to check?

Clenching her jaw, she hissed angrily, furious with herself for repaying her polycule’s boundless kindness with nothing but a nameless corpse.

Sharp teeth worried at her neck, rescuing her from her thoughts.

“You were gone again,” Herdsplitter growled sullenly.

“I’m sorry,” V sighed, frustrated with herself. “I guess I’m not as ready to die as I thought I’d be.”

The difference between this death and her first, she realized, was that no one had cared about her when she’d drowned. Certainly, if she hadn’t recovered, her parents would’ve held a funeral and shed tears over the body ⸻ but it wouldn’t have been her that they were mourning. Perhaps they would lament the object of her corpse, or maybe the idealized notion of a “son” they had hoped to raise and lean in on in their aging years. For all she knew, those awful people had already assumed her death anyway after she fled her childhood home, and held a wake for whatever facsimile of her they pretended that they cared about ⸻ but V herself would pass from existence, entirely unknown, without anyone ever having said her name.

“I’m scared,” she murmured in a quiet voice, clinging to her wolf.

“As am I,” Herdsplitter grimaced, a bitter aggravation hiding behind her fangs. “I am not as prepared for your death as I had believed.”

Even as the wolf grit her teeth, the rabbit sighed in welcome relief. They were the sweetest words that her lover had ever given her, a gratuitous acknowledgement that the supremely self-confident woman would be wounded by her death. Understanding her place in the other woman’s heart only in the shape of the scar she would leave, the rabbit finally allowed herself to accept the other woman’s love.

And that’s what love was, wasn’t it? The admission that someone else craved her presence, that they missed her touch, that they desired her companionship, that they feared for her well-being ⸻ that it would hurt when she was gone.

Perhaps she would die nameless, but not unloved.

“Thank you,” she smiled, encircling her lover’s neck with her arms, rewarding the wolf with kisses.

“For what?” Herdsplitter asked, bewildered by the sudden affection.

“For the words I longed to hear,” she laughed lightly, a sweet and strained thing, sad and yet deliriously happy.

At last, at the very end of her life, she had mattered to someone else. Herdsplitter had everything: power, wealth, family, a supremely beautiful and faithful concubine ⸻ and yet V would be the one thing she lacked, a treasure that the wolf would be unable to possess. Faced with that revelation, her worth was undeniable; even if she couldn’t see it herself, its absence would be felt.

“Is that all?” the taller woman chuckled, amused by her Bunny’s strange behavior.

“Mhmn,” she hummed, sliding her fingers through the wolfborn’s wild mane. “I’ve been waiting my whole life for them.”

Pulling away from her future mate, she took the wolf by the hand, leading her back to her bedroom.

 

---

 

Something was wrong, but she couldn’t figure out what ⸻ at least, not at first.

Pinned beneath her lover, V undulated in time to wolf’s smooth rhythm; while it felt good to be stuffed so full, the sex lacked either the tender consideration Herdsplitter had shown when she’d bred her, or the rougher passion the wolfborn typically enjoyed. It was nice, certainly, but that’s all it was.

The subdued fuck was pleasurable in its own way, but even the kisses felt perfunctory, something done to cross an item off a list rather than for its own sake. While she was sure she could reach a satisfying end eventually, the hands roaming her body weren’t touching V, not in the ways she preferred, but instead caressing her in a paint-by-numbers sex, rotating through erogenous zones in a slow cycle. Perhaps, if she’d never known the vibrant touch of the other woman, nor the possessive bite of her littermate, what Herdsplitter was doing would’ve passed for “great sex” ⸻ but the rabbit knew the depth of passion that her future mate was capable of, and so the “pretty good” lovemaking was insulting by comparison.

Sighing in annoyance, she took her wolf’s face in both hands, glowering at the other woman.

“You’re not fucking me, are you?” It was a statement, not an accusation, but the air of complaint crept into her tone regardless.

Being the size-queen that she was, V knew enough about large insertions in realspace to understand why girls as gifted as the littermates would need to take things slow outside the polycule. Hardly anyone could take a massive cock the way the prized cow often did, not without a considerable amount of foreplay, and the evidence of the wolf’s multitasking unveiled itself from there.

While operating independently in two worlds at once was rather difficult, it was much-more manageable if the actions in both bodies lined-up with each other. If the RealDimension mirror and the realspace brain were allowed to work in sync, simultaneous motions were effortless ⸻ at least, compared to the demand on perceiving two sets of sensory input at once.

“Forgive me, my sweet,” the wolf apologized, gracing her with a bite that a more-vanilla girl might consider “hard.”

Caressing her lover’s face, her brows furrowed in hesitant concern. “Am I allowed to know who?”

“Merely a playing piece,” Herdsplitter answered regretfully, elucidating nothing.

Hooking her heels against her lover’s broader frame, she tried to encourage a faster pace, in the way one might goad a mount; while it succeeded in eliciting an amused smile from her lover, the rabbit’s insistence had little effect on the wolfborn’s measured pace.

“And it’s strictly necessary?” V growled jealously, her draconic greed showing fangs.

“What answer would you find satisfactory?” she chuckled, the corners of her mouth turning up in a crooked grin.

“Okay, fair,” the bunnygirl huffed, a little miffed by how easily the wolfborn could read her. “I just … ⸻ nevermind.”

Letting a frustrated breath hiss between her teeth, she put her hands around the back of the amazon’s neck, trying to pull her lover down into a closer intimacy. She hated how quickly her mood could sour ⸻ and it wasn’t even bad sex, either, was what really upset her. Herdsplitter had indulged her in every way she could, and yet the rabbit was still grasping for more. Doubtlessly, whatever fuck the wolf had found herself in was important for some reason or other, even on the off-chance that it was purely recreational; V wasn’t the arbiter of her lover’s affections, and yet she couldn’t stop a parsimonious indignance from building in her chest.

Still, she felt justified in her ire; this was to be her very last few hours of existence, were they not? Surely Herdsplitter could set aside her games for one night.

A clawed hand took her by the side of her face, turning the bunnygirl’s gaze back to her wolf.

“That’s not all you wanted to say, was it?” Herdsplitter prompted, allowing the rabbit to voice her displeasure.

“It’s nothing,” she lied, holding in her acrimonious feelings. “I guess it just hurts a little, knowing that it’s my last night here and you’re not even spending it with me.” Swallowing her anger, the acidic burn danced on her tongue anyway. “Is whatever it is you’re doing really that important?”

“More important than you?” she started, inferring the bunnygirl’s true question. “No, of course not ⸻ but it is important, yes.” Shifting atop the rabbit, she nuzzled against the smaller girl’s neck, lapping at fading marks with her broad, rough tongue. “I promise you, everything I do is in service to my pack, and I care very much for my mates.”

Raking her fingers through the woman’s gorgeous mane, she breathed deep, inhaling her scent, a wry smile playing across her lips. “So you say ⸻ but I’m not your mate yet, am I?”

Withdrawing slightly, Herdsplitter fixed her with a serious look; it wasn’t reproachful, not exactly, but there was something V couldn’t understand hidden inside it. “... Not yet, I suppose,” she murmured, a lingering regret still lurking in her words; she transferred it orally, the melancholy tasting so, so sweet. “Even still, you belong to me.”

That was all the acknowledgement she needed.

Leaning her weight to one side, the Herald of Twilight flexed her considerable strength, pulling her lover down against the mattress as she climbed atop her. Setting her hands flat against her wolf’s chest, she held her down as she wiggled into a better position.

“And what is this?” Herdsplitter laughed, eyeing her lover with an amused grin.

“If you’re not going to fuck me properly,” the rabbit growled, “then I’m going to take what I want.”

If her lover’s schemes demanded her attention even during such dire times as this, then the bunnygirl would graciously allow them to continue ⸻ but she still craved the affection she was owed, and she wasn’t going to let some other realspace toy steal it from her.

Proving her worth as a future mate, V rode her reward out of the supine wolf at the speed and depth that both of them deserved. Sitting proudly, she displayed herself for the other woman’s benefit, her glory clothed in only a sheen of sweat. Indulging in a lapine dominance, her impassioned bouncing drew grunts of approval from her distracted lover; part of her hoped it would be gripping enough to wreck her phantom competition’s intimacy altogether, but she would settle for working out her stress on her willing wolf.

Resolving not to stop until she heard howling, the bunnygirl greedily pursued her diplomatic incident to its delectable end, the rhythm of their coupling accompanied by the rapid blinking of the party chat.

 

---

 

“What did it feel like?” she asked however long later, after her stamina had finally given out; laying next to her lover, she rested her head on the other woman’s shoulder, secure in her half-embrace.

“Mn?” Herdsplitter mumbled, absently petting her bunnygirl as she drifted towards sleep.

“When you lost your limiter,” V clarified, apprehensive of the answer.

“You mean when I died?” the wolf grinned, raising an eyebrow.

Blushing guiltily, she nodded. “Yeah. When you stopped dreaming.”

It was a question that had been bothering her ever since she’d learned about Herdsplitter’s origin and how it paralleled her own existence. Shackled with a controlling restraint, the wolf had been spread across however many Worlds, her consciousness split into fragmented pieces; bound by that hobble, she had been incapable of being fully “awake,” unable to truly live. Only by being completely rid of it could she experience clear thought, ultimately becoming the imperious woman that had captured her enemies in an elaborate scheme, fighting against the Gods of her world on even ground.

The confined Herdsplitter and V herself weren’t all that different; mirrored and yet opposite, the rabbit was her own regulator, the chain holding back all the other dozen pieces she had split herself into. After the comparison entered her mind back in the polycule’s flat, she’d obsessed over it in the background, wondering if she were similarly incapable of being a “real” person ⸻ a not-ungrounded fear, evidenced by the nothing inside her, the hole where her heart should be.

If V ever became “real,” in the way the wolfborn was, wouldn’t that mean that she would have died? If shedding the limiter was necessary for a true life, then it would demand the bunnygirl’s erasure no matter what; there was no pleasant ending awaiting her.

“It was horrific,” Herdsplitter smiled, recalling it like a fond memory. “After the ‘Reset,’ everyone I’d ever known had died in a single instant, and yet I was unable to properly grieve for them as they were never truly alive.” Grinning wider, she gripped her rabbit tightly, snuggling even closer. “Up till then, I hadn’t ever been aware of anything, and yet all of it, all of my knowledge, was unfathomably wrong. When I first awoke from those endless dreams, I couldn’t even understand the language of the Gods, or their gruesome broadcasts about the entertainment value of my world.”

“That sounds terrifying,” V murmured, hugging her wolf.

“It was,” she chuckled, conversing about it so easily, in the way that only someone who survived the unthinkable ever could. “If it weren’t for my little mother, I might not have been able to carry on.”

“Lacey was that important to you?” she prompted, already guessing the answer.

“Her, and our pups,” Herdsplitter shrugged, obscuring something in that slight gesture. “If anything of my pack continued on from that bleak day, it was held inside my mate.”

It was a romantic way of looking at things, certainly, but V assumed the wolfborn had to understand just as well as she did that the situation after the Reset was not so believably concrete. Perhaps she might have suspected that Lacey were a player, but there was nothing to guarantee that her pups would’ve been “real” in the way that she desired; as far as anyone knew at that point, the “little mother” could’ve been carrying around similar small-matrix NPCs, who would simply be more hyper-aggressive fodder in the tribal wolfborn storylines; what was more likely, was that Herdsplitter desperately needed to convince herself of their validity as a method of survival.

Either way, it only deepened V’s respect for the other woman. The amazon had not only suffered an immense tragedy, but had been forced to grapple with the true nature of her world, yet she had come out the other side still intact. Regrettably, the bunnygirl had not fared as well as her lover; she’d lived so long with the nothing inside her that she no longer remembered its genesis, whether she had been born with it or had been carefully and righteously instructed in its existence. The only thing she could be certain of was that she had been branded and mangled so thoroughly that she would never be capable of trust ever again, and so she lacked the foundational block of “love,” unable to return the wonderful gift that her wolf had graced her with.

Perhaps it was that understanding of tragedy that allowed her to believe in Herdsplitter’s adoration in the first place, their similar scars convincing her of the wolfborn’s sincerity. It was almost laughable, in a way, that her first death had stolen away her capacity for affection, and yet her second was the proof of its existence.

Cruelly, she could only ever have something just as she was fated to lose it: love, a family, motherhood, a place where she felt safe ⸻ where she belonged ⸻ all of it would slip through her fingers before she ever had a chance to fully experience it.

Resting a hand on Herdsplitter’s chest, V calmed herself with the gentle rise and fall of her future mate’s breathing; its pace had already begun to slow, lengthening out into the peaceful quiet just before sleep. With the demands on the other woman’s time, the rabbit couldn’t fault her exhaustion, but there was so much left for V to take care of and zero time in which to do it. She had entrusted as much of her burdens as she could to those important to her, and though it felt wrong to add to the weight her wolf was already carrying, she needed the assurance that the amazon’s capability provided.

If she would never be allowed to love her litter, then they would need twice as much care from their other parents.

“After the ritual,” V started, choking back her misery, “can you please go see Silvermane? I would feel better if her sire’s pack were looking after her.”

“Mn,” Herdsplitter nodded, wrapping her arms around the rabbit.

“And, if she asks about me … can you tell her that I had to go away?” Thumbing the corners of her eyes, she fought against her growing panic. “Some day, when she learns what really happened … tell her that I didn’t suffer, okay? I don’t want her to worry about me.”

“Mn,” the wolf mumbled, squeezing the bunnygirl like a pillow.

Warm inside that loving embrace, she couldn’t help but cry into her love’s soft mane. As tired as she was, she wanted nothing more than to drift off to a comfortable rest with her wolf, but the nightmare of their previous night together hadn’t faded; worse than that, however, was the knowledge that she might be visited by another terror just before her final battle.

Her oracular visions had brought so much misery to V’s life: the labyrinth chase, Genevieve’s death, the destruction of Northriver. A foreboding panic gripped her as she imagined the unthinkable; what if she dreamt of another ally’s death? What if it were Alyssa, or Rose? What if it were Lacey, or Herdsplitter?

What if it was Estelle?

Chest heaving with hysteric consternation, she clutched at her wolf, choking back her wretched sobbing. “Please,” she begged, ruby-red eyes bright with tears, “don’t let me fall asleep.”

Stirring awake, Herdsplitter’s eyes came alive with a flash of worry, cradling her lover close against her body. “Is it another memory?” she asked, her sleep-softened voice suffused with concern.

“Not that,” V muttered, fighting against her rising mania. “I’m scared of dreaming.”

The apprehension in the wolf’s gaze intensified, but so did the strength of her consideration. “Then it is my duty to protect you,” she intoned sincerely, shaking free of the grip of sleep as she climbed atop her Bunny once more.

V wanted nothing more than to give in to physical assurance, to writhe against her lover in the dwindling hours just before twilight, but her worry exacerbated the nothing inside her, the pressure building in her chest; her anguish overflowing into anger, she snapped at her wolf, seeking to ease the pain of her thorned affection.

“Because of my value as the Herald?” the petulant rabbit muttered, chained to her miserable habits of mistrust.

“Of course not,” Herdsplitter purred, pressing kisses against the bunnygirl’s throat. “My concern is for the mother of my pups.”

Setting teeth to the rabbit’s skin, she chased away fatigue with a sharp bite, striking the euphoric red that lurked beneath. Fulfilling her promise to fight off whatever afflicted her future mate, Herdsplitter dedicated herself to the Herald of Twilight, driving away the fear of the night.