So, there it was. The olive branch extended to her by the System. She wasn’t sure why it had finally come — maybe she had whined enough, and the System had relented, or maybe the System had understood how dangerous it was to spite her, and sent amends. Or, maybe, this had nothing to do with the System at all, because Skills were inherent to people. Perhaps it was just the first time Theora had tried something new in a very long while.

Be that as it may, that new Skill now rested on her glitched-out and broken stat sheet, becoming the only part of it that felt nice to look at. A little space on the sheet that spelled comfort.

Of course, the Skill had limited use. Dema was the only person she could gift bouquets to, and if she actually did that, Dema would tease her to no end. Not that Theora actually minded, but she did foster the delusion of having some dignity left.

Theora went to sit on her own bed, a little lost with how to behave herself or what to do now. Eventually, Dema placed the flowers into a vase on the night table, and looked over at Theora, with a bit of a questioning look in her eyes. “So,” she began, “that mean you gonna kill me now? Is it, like, a goodbye gift or something?”

Theora met her eyes, as hard as it was. “That depends. Are you… Are you still thinking?”

Dema smiled. “Why, yes of course!” she exclaimed, and tapped her temple. “Doing some pretty heavy lifting up here, all the time, non-stop. Hella busy.”

Theora nodded. An awkward nod, not one of her perfect solemn and weary nods, but instead a nod that jolted to the side a bit by accident. “In that case, we can go for a while longer.”

And as she said that, Theora felt both terrible and relieved at once.

She didn’t want to kill Dema, so she felt good for putting it off.

But she also desperately wanted to rest. And she could never truly rest while Dema was alive.

These two opposing realities fought inside her brain, but it wasn’t a slugfest right now, because she was too tired and her head was too heavy and so she just bounced onto the cushion. She would have drifted asleep almost immediately, if not for Dema’s voice cutting right through the fog of her consciousness again.

“So, where, like, do we go now?” she asked. “We’ve been to the village. What’s up next?”

Theora struggled to get her thoughts in order. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. She still hadn’t received a side quest, and doing side quests had always been her primary objective. Or rather, her primary way to procrastinate. Without that, she was lost.

Dema hummed curiously. “You know, following you is kinda hard if you don’t know where you’re going.”

“Getting bored?” Theora asked, half-asleep.

“Huh. No way. Told you, I’m thinking. Same as in my prison, except a lot prettier out here. If I didn’t get bored in there, why should I get bored now?”

She interrupted her rambling for a moment.

“I guess I’m a little worried about you? You’re human, so shouldn’t we… do stuff, before you kick the bucket? You guys drop to time like flies. Time flies for you like a gull!”

Theora opened her eyes again that had fallen shut. She just stared at Dema in disbelief, not responding.

“Alright, fine.” Dema raised her arms in defeat. “Yeah, I get it, no worrying about you, no being patronising to the little rabbit out to off you. I just can’t help it!”

“Not what I meant,” Theora pressed out, but was unwilling to elaborate. “Do you have anywhere you want to go?”

Dema put her chin in her hand and acted deep in thought. Then, she shouted out an “Ah!” and said, “There’s this big town fire tomorrow! They’ve been pruning a lot of the apple trees because spring’s coming, and it all has to go somewhere. I wanna sit at the big fire tomorrow. Let’s go there?”

Theora gave a weak nod. This didn’t answer the real question at all, just postponed it for a day. What were they supposed to do next?

This was all very new to her. This feeling of — almost, but not quite — being free. She did not like it. But, she’d received her first new Skill in a long time just now. Things were changing, weren’t they?

Maybe it was time for Theora to change as well. And in her weary state, she made a decision. She’d give it one more day. One more day for the System to give her a side quest. One last chance for the System to make use of her. And, if it didn’t, Theora would give up on side quests forever, and just do… what she wanted? What did she want?

With a very weak smile, and on the brink of falling into dreams, Theora thought she might just have to find that out right then.

Theora was woken up by a soft and teasing voice whispering sweet lies to her. “Wake up, pretty rabbit! Why, aren’t you such a cute sleeper!”

“I most definitely am not.”

“Can’t help but disagree! But really now, get up, it’s time. For the fire!”

Theora’s eyelids softly sprang open, as if she’d only faked her sleep. “Already?” She couldn’t tell how much time had passed. From how she felt, she might as well have only slept a minute. A look through the window showed her it definitely was still dark — or, more likely, dark again. Theora was somewhat sure that in the sorry state she was in right now, she could sleep for a hundred years.

“What do you mean, already, sleepyhead! Get up now, you said we’d go! No take-backs or I will cry.”

Had Theora actually said that? Either way, it didn’t matter. She gently pressed herself up from the mattress, realising a few things — she was still dressed in her layered travelling coat, she was extremely thirsty, and she had to address other human needs.

Well, ‘had to’ was a strong expression. Technically, Theora didn’t have to drink or eat, or do anything else, since her body had morphed into something akin to a low-maintenance monstrosity over time. In a way, this was part of the result of both not taking care of herself as well as refusing to die at the same time. But even that was looking at it too optimistically. She liked to think it was her sheer force of will holding her together, and while that was probably mostly true, there were other reasons for her condition she didn’t love to think about.

Still, Theora felt awkward not taking care of her body, regardless of whether she ‘needed to’, especially around Dema. “Give me a few minutes to get myself proper,” she mumbled, and pulled a set of fresh undergarments and a handkerchief from somewhere within her layered coat.

“Damn, is that like… bigger on the inside?”

Theora nodded. “Has storage room in the creases. I just have to remember where things are. Truth be told, I mostly only use a few of the pockets. Who knows what I’ve forgotten exists in the others.”

Dema smirked. “Full of surprises then, huh? Well, just know that whatever you carry with yourself, I won’t judge.”

Theora did not comprehend what in the world Dema could be getting at, but she didn’t care either. There was a bathhouse in the village, so she’d go there and get ready. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Just come to the fireplace in the middle of the village,” Dema sang. 

“Alright, yes. Saw that the day before last. I’ll find it.”

“Alright!” Dema exclaimed, then looked down at herself. She still wore her ragged cloak and the same set of clothes underneath. Demons didn’t really function like humans; they didn’t generally sweat or excrete other stuff, not unless they wanted to or got sick, so mostly she just smelled like soil, with scents of ash and coal mixed in. Those scents probably originated from her own body. “I should join you!”

Theora stared. She’d seen Dema take baths in rivers and lakes before, wash herself with snow and the likes. In fact, Dema never missed a single chance to immerse herself in any kind of water. But they’d never done it together.

It was right then. Right as Theora was parsing the implications of visiting a bath together with Dema, right as her thoughts were both racing and screeching to a halt at the same time, causing her brain to effectively shut down. It was then that the System took its chance.

It took its chance, or maybe, it was more of a matter of the System blinking first.

Theora was the kind of person to receive the quests that nobody else was able to handle. She was the last resort, the ace, the thing glaring at the end of the path of every despicable and unspeakable cruel abomination on the planet. She knew that, and the System did, too. By not giving her quests, the System had dared her, but it had also left one of its major players unused. Without a doubt, other heroes had needed to fill in, holding back the monsters at the risk of their own lives, waiting for Theora’s return.

This pressure was part of the reason Theora had set out to solve her Main Quest in the first place — knowing that without her, others would sacrifice their resources and themselves to hold the dark things in the world at bay.

The System had dared her, and she had blinked, by pursuing her Main Quest.

But, now, she had dared the System, and the System blinked in return. It used its last chance because Theora had dared to set herself free.

For the first time in four years, a [New Quest] notification lit up on the edge of her vision.