Zoey woke to an unfortunate mess.

A blonde woman glared at her, arms crossed, blue eyes like daggers.

“I put towels down for you,” Rosalie huffed, “but you really like to pump it out, so it only did so much. Do you have any consideration? We’ve ruined our bedsheets enough as is.”

Zoey sat up in bed, blinking in disorientation. She looked down at herself. She’d really made a mess of her pants. She wasn’t embarrassed half as easily as Rosalie was, but having a wet dream—and her girlfriend apparently watching it happen—was something that had her face burning.

“Sorry,” Zoey said. “Yeah. I guess I didn’t think that through.” She’d expected what sorts of dreams she’d be getting, so she should have made better preparations.

“Clearly.”

“Enjoy the show, at least?”

Rosalie’s face turned crimson, and she started sputtering. “What show? You think I watched you?”

She definitely had. That removed some of Zoey’s embarrassment, though filling her pants up with cum was … still awkward. At least her deviant girlfriend had had fun with it.

“I’ll, uh, get cleaned,” Zoey said. “And then we need to talk.”

“Talk?”

“I learned some stuff during my expedition.” She shook her head. “I think our vacation’s gonna cut short.”

That caught Rosalie’s attention, for all her blushing and glaring. She sensed the gravity behind Zoey’s words. “In your dream?”

For the first time, Zoey paused.

What had happened in the dream world had been real, right? Not actually a dream?

She hadn’t imagined all of that?

Zoey supposed it was a non-zero chance she had. At the same time, the consequences of believing that, then the events being real, far outweighed the waste of rushing to Mel’s shard and checking on her. Even if fake, Zoey wouldn’t be able to rest until she confirmed it for certain.

“In my dream,” Zoey said. “Yeah. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a dream in the usual sense.” She stood, awkwardly clutching the towel to her leg as she did. Cum dripped down her leg, and Zoey cursed as she tried to stop it from getting into the carpets. “Why do I have to make so much of a mess?” she growled. “Where does it even come from?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Rosalie said simply, seeming, for some reason, vindicated by Zoey’s complaints.

She shuffled off to the bathroom, then sighed and dumped the towels. After stripping her pants, she turned on the shower and waited for it to warm. With a wrinkled nose, she looked down at the cum coating her leg. Her pants were probably ruined.

“If you saw I forgot to take my pants off,” Zoey said, “couldn’t you have done that for me, too? You put towels down.”

“So this is my fault?”

Zoey rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. You just wanted to see it happen. Who gets off on watching their girlfriend have a wet dream into her pants?”

The sputtering said Zoey had hit the nail on the head—devastatingly so—not that she’d had any doubt about it.

“Wanna join me?” Zoey asked, stepping into the shower. “But we really do have to talk. So don’t seduce me.”

“You seduce me,” Rosalie growled. “Not that other way around.”

“Lies,” Zoey said. “You don’t get to walk around with a body like that and pretend it’s my fault when I touch it. Stop being so fuckable, and I won’t.”

Rosalie made a noise of protest, but the blush and the way she glanced away showed that she’d enjoyed the crude words. Like usual.

She stripped, and Zoey wrapped her arms around her stomach as she stepped into the shower with her. Hot water poured between them, washing away the mess Zoey had made, and her cock pressed against Rosalie’s naked leg. It was, to say the least, tempting to ignore her previous words, but considering the dire circumstances, they really needed to get clean then get going.

Zoey slid a hand down Rosalie’s stomach, cupping her pussy and pressing firmly. “Bet you’re all worked up, aren’t you?” she whispered into her ear. “Maybe we can spare a quick one. Promise to cum fast?”

Well. Zoey couldn’t really be blamed. Blushing and protesting, Rosalie was, as she’d said a second earlier, just way too fuckable.

Zoey took her apart efficiently. Rosalie’s hair trigger came in handy, sometimes.

That unproductive event taken care of, Zoey declared, “I said not to seduce me. You’re such a distraction.”

“I-Insufferable,” the still-shaking blonde said. “What happened in your dream? Tell me.”

After getting herself cleaned—and making sure to help rub soap into Rosalie in a liberal manner, pinching and playing with her nipples—they stepped from the shower, and Zoey finally explained.

For her to really understand, Zoey had to start from the beginning. And given permission by Ephy, the discussion that had been a long time coming finally took place.

“So,” Zoey said. “I’m not sure where to begin with all this. And it’s going to be really outlandish. As in, I want you to know I’m being completely serious, but I expect you’ll have a hard time believing me. I won’t be offended.”

Well, maybe she would be, a little bit. More likely than thinking that she was lying, though, Rosalie would just think Zoey had moderate to severe brain damage, and the delusions that came with it.

And, Christ, she did have brain damage, for a sense of the phrase. Ephy had scooped out her memories. Didn’t build the greatest case for believability, not remembering the names of your parents.

“That’s quite the preface,” Rosalie said. “But when it comes to you, I’m willing to believe just about anything.”

Zoey looked at her, amused. “And what does that mean?”

“That you are, by far, the strangest woman I’ve ever met. And how you ended up in the shard with me? Your circumstances in general?”

Zoey pursed her lips. She supposed all the oddities did provide support for what she was about to say.

Still. How was a girl supposed to just explain she was from another planet? Or, god, another dimension, really. Or reality, whatever the term was.

“I’m an alien,” Zoey said. Then, laughing, she said, “Okay, no, I said I’d be serious. But technically, I might be?” She sobered up. Now wasn’t the time to be making jokes, however much the absurdity of the situation had brought it out. “Sorry. Uh. Are ‘other worlds’ something normal, here?”

Rosalie, understandably, stared at her.

“I didn’t tell you because my patron suggested that I shouldn’t. And I wasn’t sure whether it was a suggestion or an order. You’ve called me reckless, but even I didn’t think upsetting a divine being the smartest thing to do. But I recently got the go-ahead, so, now we’re talking about it.”

Er. Assuming Ephy hadn’t been a fragment of Zoey’s imagination, and the dream sequences had been real, not inventions of her mind. That would be a rather unfortunate series of events leading to a divine smiting.

Rosalie continued to stare.

“Anyway,” Zoey said. “Are they? Other worlds, common? Something you know of?”

“You’re saying you’re from one?”

Zoey shrugged. Not because she was playing coy about it, but because she was agreeing with Rosalie’s incredulity. A shrug that meant, ‘yeah, pretty insane, isn’t it’?

“I half-way figured since this entire place is a bunch of linked pocket-worlds,” Zoey said, “that maybe it’d sound a little less crazy?”

Plus all the magic. She didn’t think this reveal would be easy to digest, but heapings of magic and already living in a universe comprised of miniature worlds stitched together would make Zoey’s claims go down easier than if she’d tried to sell it to a resident of Earth. Or that was the hope, at least.

“Patron,” Rosalie said. “Who?”

That she wasn’t dismissing Zoey outright was a good sign. Though, by her expression, she was hardly accepting it without question, either.

“Ephythithys,” Zoey said. “She says Ephy is fine. But she said she’s not your world’s goddess, so I don’t think you know her?”

“Ephythithys,” Rosalie repeated, expression turning from careful and incredulous to flat. “Your patron is the goddess of fertility and lust.”

Zoey paused. So Rosalie’s world did have a name for Ephy? The details behind how gods and goddesses worked across worlds were unclear.

“I mean,” Zoey said. “Considering my class and abilities … it makes sense, right?”

Rosalie only seemed exasperated. “It would, yes.” She rubbed her forehead. “Your patron? Start from the beginning.”

They’d broached the hardest part—Zoey’s origins and her entanglement with Ephy. She didn’t know if Rosalie believed her, but getting started was the hard part.

Now came detailed explanations, and hopefully, convincing her that she wasn’t insane.

And, after that, how they needed to go and rescue Mel.

Zoey took a breath in, then hunkered down for a long, ridiculous conversation.