The True Endgame

Ca.s.siel stands by ready to mock Fenrir for what she a.s.sumes is going to be a complete fail. Instead, Fenrir"s spear manages to… yeah, it"s a fail.

His spear thrusts into the muddy bed of the stream, only managing to cut the fish"s side.

"Such a great teacher you are," Ca.s.siel is the one to start the teasing.

"At least I still have my spear," Fenrir replies and wins seeing as how she has no comeback to that.

Serra has carried Rock to a better spot so that they can watch the two"s compet.i.tion. She sits on her ground with her back to a tree and Rock in her lap, rolling over onto her back so that Serra can rub her belly. The rock on the underside of its belly may not be softer, but it is smoother.

"Fine, so I just have to thrust instead of throw. I didn"t know that! You should have told me sooner," Ca.s.siel says.

"I thought that if cavemen could do it, so could you?" Fenrir asks.

"Shut up!"

Fenrir worries that she"s going to grind her teeth down to tiny stubs if she keeps on gritting them so much.

"That one"s mine! I call it!" she shouts as soon as the next fish comes into view. Alas, rather than try to track the fish and predict where it might move, she simply thrusts as soon as it"s in range. Another miss.

"You can"t just wildly thrust your pole around the place. You have to properly grip it, aim it, and thrust in the perfect angl—"

"Shut! Up!" Ca.s.siel"s face is pure red and the most p.i.s.sed off that he"s seen it.
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Serra has to use her hand that isn"t petting Rock to hide her smile and giggles.

Another fish. "You want to call this one too?" Fenrir asks, looking over at Ca.s.siel. She"s glaring at him. Her eyes tell him that if he says one more thing, her spear is going to be going through his chest.

It"s another one of those catfish-like fish, but this one is smaller and moving around more frequently. It"ll be more of a challenge than the first one he missed. With his spear readied and held in each of his hands, his eyes never leave the fish and try to predict its movements. He"s able to predict where it"s going to move next more often than not. The biggest giveaway is its whiskers. Each time they stay in a spot for more than a few seconds, the fish moves over to them. He peeks over at Ca.s.siel. Looks like she"s noticed the pattern as well.

Fenrir thrusts his spear and impales the fish! He lifts it up out of the water and almost loses it when it tries flopping away to freedom. Unfortunately for the fish, the only freedom it gets is the freedom of death after Fenrir grabs its tail and smacks it against a rock.

He looks over to Ca.s.siel to smugly show off his catch, but she has the same idea. They both look at one another with a fish in hand.

The game is on.

The two split up to cover more ground along the stream and so that they don"t have to compete for fish. They bring every fish they catch back to a pile in front of Serra and Rock so that she can keep track of who"s in the lead.

Each of the compet.i.tors is heavily breathing and practically tripping over themselves in an attempt to hurry back and forth between the stream and their respective piles.

Serra doesn"t know who she wants to root for more. Sure, she might have a crush on Fenrir and want to see him win to see him happy, but at the same time, Ca.s.siel is clearly putting in a serious amount of effort to try and win. Ca.s.siel also has the underdog factor going on for her… but Fenrir has the literal dog factor going on. Whether to root for the inspiring underdog or the romantically-interested-in-dog is a tough choice. She also thinks it would be really cute to see Fenrir"s surprised face if he loses.

The stream is devoid of fish before long. Any survivors from the onslaught of a compet.i.tion have fled into faraway waters, leaving the two monsters terrorizing fish-kind without any further victims.

Fenrir and Ca.s.siel both stand hunched over in front of Serra. They look like they"re about to fall over at any moment.

Serra had no idea that fishing could be so intense.

"Who won?" Fenrir asks. Even his tail and ears look tired.

"Tell us!" Ca.s.siel somehow still has enough energy to shout despite being out of breath.

Serra looks at each pile again and then points at Ca.s.siel. "She won by one," Serra says.

Fenrir doesn"t dare look over at Ca.s.siel. He can already feel her smug sense of satisfaction staring at him. The last thing he needs to see is—

Wait.

When he looks down at the piles of fish, one of the very first fish that he caught is sitting in her pile instead of his. Sure, she could have caught an identical fish, but then what happened to the one in his pile?

He stares at the fish and then looks up at Ca.s.siel.

She looks away.

He looks at Serra.

She, too, looks away.

"Serra," Fenrir says.

"Y-yes?" Serra replies.

"I thought we were friends."

"We – we are."

"Ca.s.s wouldn"t have been able to… steal my fish without you noticing, right?"

"Maybe…"

Fenrir looks down at Rock.

Rock looks away.

"I feel very betrayed right now," Fenrir says. He can see a single bead of sweat running down from Serra"s forehead. He"s pretty sure that he would see the same from Rock if Rock could sweat.

"It"s – it"s not my fault! She talked to me about how girls have to stick together and look out for each other, and she said it"d be fun to see how you look when you lose," Serra explains.

They must have had a secret meeting when he wasn"t paying attention.

"You weren"t supposed to say that!" Ca.s.siel shouts.

"But she almost killed me!" Fenrir shouts now, causing Serra and Rock to both droop their heads and look at the ground.

Fenrir needs Oleander here to help him bully Ca.s.siel. Serra can"t be trusted.

Even so, he"s the first one to laugh. "I see how it is. There needs to be some more sausage in this party since all the girls are teaming up against me."

Serra breaks her sad act and giggles.

Even Rock goes from looking miserable to wagging her tail and barking.

Ca.s.siel is the only one left out of this sudden change of mood. "You aren"t actually mad?" she asks, looking at Fenrir.

"Of course not. Why would I be? It"s just a game, and this was all for fun," Fenrir explains.

Ca.s.siel realizes that while she may have convinced Serra to betray Fenrir for her, Serra did it because she thought it would be funny for everybody involved. Her and Fenrir are already in sync when it comes to comedy routines. "You guys must have known each other for a long time."

Both Fenrir and Serra shake their heads. "Nope. Only been friends for… what, three days now? It"s kind of hard to keep track since the game dilates time," Fenrir says.

Ca.s.siel blinks a few times. "Haah? Really? There"s no way. You guys are like a married couple already."

Those words cause a mighty blush to take over Serra"s face, but Fenrir tilts his head just like how Rock does. "Nah. We"ve just been friends for a few days. I can be kind of hard to get along with, so I guess anybody who can tolerate me just really clicks with me right away."

"How are you hard to get along with? You"re like some goody-two-shoes, aren"t you? I would"ve thought you"re the type to want to be friends with everybody."

"Are you forgetting that I"ve already made an entire village hate me, and now I plan on stealing their ship and killing as many of them as possible?"

Ca.s.siel pauses. Now that she thinks about it, that is the main reason why she"s still here.

"By the way, even if you did try cheating, good job. I had a feeling you"d catch a lot since you seem like the really determined type. You"re pretty impressive," Fenrir praises Ca.s.siel.

Naturally, this causes a certain vulgar not-so-holy maiden to turn away with red cheeks. "Tch, I just don"t like losing. Save the praise for your dog and girlfriend there."

Poor Serra"s head hangs lower and lower to hide her face. Even though she knows what Fenrir is about to say, just hearing Ca.s.siel a.s.sume they"re dating makes her happy.

"How could she be my girlfriend if I"ve only known her for three days? That"s not really enough time to get to know somebody to do anything like that," Fenrir says. It isn"t exactly what Serra expected, but it"s still a denial of them being together.

"Why not? I dated all my ex"s after like a day," Ca.s.siel says.

"And how long did those last?" Fenrir sees her fists clench.

"Shut up."

Fenrir looks up at the sky through the forest"s canopy. Oleander should hopefully be getting on soon. When he does, and after they meet up, they can go over the plans to steal the ship and ruin Coastedge.