- Pillow Talk -
(or ‘How I discovered how Kivs flirt to each other’)
Beta-Reader: Ant0nius
The room that was going to be mine for the night was incredibly small considering that I was supposed to share it with the newest element in my life.
Luna was… quiet. While that shouldn’t say much about her personality, the fact she hadn’t snapped and shown  me an attitude different from the one she had shown in front of the rest of the Kivouack.
Restrained, quite mortified, but, most of all, incredibly loyal to Ludwig. The fact she ditched her assigned post out of spite against Yeshua was… troublesome for Ludwig, and that left her in a moral dilemma that saw her as the loser in either case.
Which is why, despite my interest in trying to have a discussion with her, I decided to leave her alone for the time being. She needed to recollect her thoughts, and adopt measures to avoid irking the Grand Voice any further.
And that was if I ignored the disappointment Fontaine showed to the blue-haired Kivouachian over this ‘betrayal’. He wasn’t outright angry, but the bitter tone in his wording just stuck around like the stern chiding of a tired grandfather.
That kind of stuff tended to stay around and make one think, especially if the individual is someone that wasn’t that keen in breaking the rules so often.
In that blissful moment of quiet, I was visited by two beings and the first one was… Fleischer.
The first thing the wyvern did was storm me with question after question.
‘Are you hurt? Did you come close to being injured by any of the attackers? Do you need moral support, because I have a chessboard around that we can use’.
I blitzed through the questions without offering much info since I was feeling way too tired to deal with this.
He was quick to leave before he had the chance of pressing some more about the situation, leaving me to face another concerned Kiv.
Hyzenthlay looked happy. Or she was trying to look happy over the fact that Lucy was no longer around me.
The murderous critter had left as soon as Sullivan led me around to where my bedroom was going to be. I didn’t notice up until the man mentioned, interrupting his interesting story about his gardener, Xander, and his strange obsession with flowers.
Which also explained why, despite the deviated mind the owner of the house had, he felt unnerved by this bizarre worker of his.
Still, the squirrel kivouachian took a comfortable seat by my lap as I rested by the bed. I wasn’t sleeping, but I was using that time spent in quiet solitude to think more on what had happened in my flat.
Shuck was possibly going to find it empty. There was no reason for Locket to return to the place if she knew I wasn’t there. It was terrifying how I was being reminded how ‘crucial’ my wellbeing was to Ludwig and his group.
If I was caught now, then his headquarters here at the Croft Estate would quickly become problematic to stay bunked inside.
It was surprising how I had yet to be killed now that the opportunity was there for them to use… but I connected this to Hyzenthlay herself.
While the little creature was hardly capable of making a stand over someone vastly superior like Ludwig, the effects of me being ‘removed’ from the board would be unacceptable for Ludwig’s interests over her ‘growth’.
Lucy had barely mentioned why the Grand Voice had extended such a fierce guarantee on Hyzenthlay’s safety, but I didn’t need to be told the full story to realize why the squirrel-like Kivouachian was important.
As much as the Kivouack might have been a society born from genetic purity, with the strongest surviving and the weak perishing instantly, their current numbers were abysmal compared to what once was the host of Kivouachians living in the pre-Big Bang society.
Promoting new Kivouachians through the ‘normal means’ would also prove to be detrimental, considering the brutal tradition of newborns killing their own parents the moment they could.
It was a primal instinct that Ludwig knew wouldn’t benefit their present, and thus he turned his attention in genetics.
Years spent stealing resources from influential scientists specializing in eugenics ended up boosting his chances of creating hybrid Kivouachians that could become full-blooded Kivs in due time.
And all of that without triggering the early murderous instinct his race was known for.
I guess that would explain why the Grand Voice was one of the main instigators of starting World War II despite Lucy’s own reluctance to spark the war, and why he spent several years in Central Europe while the conflict raged across the continent.
One would usually stop to think that something’s really wrong if Lucy is unwilling to go through some genocide, but no, Ludwig had been the one to start one of the worst events in history.
Nonetheless, my current situation hardly connected to this broad timeline. In fact, I don’t think that me scratching the squirrel on her head as she napped on my belly could be correlated to something this murderous.
The silence was nice at first, but as the hours went by, I realized that I was rapidly becoming bored of this situation. Instead of trying to get a good night sleep as I knew that Luna would’ve done nothing if Lucy decided to pay a visit and jump at me, I opted to finally speak with my bodyguard.
Since she had stayed within the room only to avoid any more confrontations with Ludwig, Fontaine, and Yeshua, I thought it would’ve been nice to make a tentative bridge after that shaky first encounter.
“So… are you going to stay in that position for the whole day?”
She blinked, finally breaking from the distracted look she had over the now-closed door. Her stare trailed up to me, locking onto my face while displaying a quizzical expression.
“Mhh, what?”
“That corner looks uncomfortable,” I pointed out. “Are you sure you don’t want a pillow or something?”
A frown adorned her visage. “I’m… I’m fine.”
I blinked, keeping quiet as she kept on with that staring for a while and… I shrugged.
“I’m sorry for… being rude,” I backed out quickly, which ended up getting me a confused look returned from the Kivouachian.
…
“Why?”
Another blink, my stare returning to Luna with a questioning glance. “Hmm?”
“Why do you care?” She elaborated her query. “Is this some joke?”
“I don’t see how that can become a joke,” I rebuked. “But no, I was mentioning this since I know how painful it can be to rest for a long time in a sturdy place.”
…
“Are you offering?”
I gave a calm nod, and Luna sighed as she stretched her hands as to wait for the little offering.
Picking up one of the pillows from behind my back to throw it at her, I noticed that the Kiv easily caught the soft projectile.
I thought that nothing would have continued out of that… and yet I was proven wrong when she started to hum.
“How did you… learn about us?”
I was tempted to grimace at this, but I gave her an indifferent look. “Lucy.”
Her lips parted at the curt response, showing that the blue-haired being couldn’t exactly imagine the crazy thing actually being responsible for my presence here.
“How?” It was the crystallization of all her skepticality over the matter.
“She visited around because she needed time off from the Estate,” I answered with a sigh. “I was the ‘lucky’ fellow that she decided to pester.”
“You didn’t look too disheartened in the dining room,” Luna pointed out and I nodded.
“It’s less evident now but… she really enjoys putting me in deadly situations,” I remarked. “And I still have a couple of scars to prove it.”
The Kiv nodded, still looking unsure about the topic. “I still don’t believe it that Lucy just… grew soft on you.”
“I mean, there is the fact I… won against her this one time-”
“You what?!”
I tensed up as Luna’s voice grew a little bit loud.
“How did you ‘win’?”
“I scared her into capitulating. I started hitting her with a wrench and kind of frightened her to that point,” I explained dryly, feeling rather uneasy at remembering that. “I mean, nothing else happened from that, other than Lucy being slightly less prone to murdering me.”
…
“Mfff-hahahahaha,” Luna started to laugh as I finished with my explanation, causing me to look rather… confused.
Did I say something wrong? Maybe that was something embarrassing enough to take a shot at Lucy? Was I going to be attacked by that bitch again because of that?
“That- That actually explains why- why she is so giddy about this- haha,” The Kivouachian said before sighing mirthfully. “Wait, that means you don’t know what the Selection and Refinement Act is.”
“The what and what act now?”
For some reason, I felt my brain grow a tad bit… nervous. As if I was entering a subject I should’ve known about a while ago and… now could terribly traumatize me.
Oddly specific, but I’ve been there before.
“The Selection and Refinement Act is an old custom in the Kivouack in which two creatures, by fighting and bantering with each other,  end up forming a strong bond. A bond only… mates should have.”
...Oh God, no.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
“WHAT?” Much to my surprise, it wasn’t me that exclaimed that reaction. I was too shocked to speak coherently at the moment, and so the now awake Hyzenthlay followed my example by staring in utter shock at Luna.
The bigger Kiv stared down, a glimmer of surprise shining from her eyes as she regarded the hybrid.
“I-It’s an old rule and… I don’t think Lucy is being serious. I think everyone knows already that it’s just a big prank from her to get a reaction out of you in a ‘better’ time.”
“A-And you’re sure of that… because?”
“Lucy isn’t into males,” Luna brought up tensely, ignoring my growing shock at these discoveries. Lucy was a lesbian? While I hadn’t bothered asking her that yet, I certainly didn’t see a need to do that when she was trying to murder me.
How was I supposed to know that?
“She had two mates, both were females,” The blue-haired Kiv continued. “In fact, Felicity was her first partner.”
Which would explain why Lucy was this much tense to be around her…
I wonder how badly that relationship had to have gone to cause the murderous critter to be so pissed at that single individual.
“What about her last mate?” I found myself asking. Now that I had some insight over Lucy’s life before Earth formed, I really wanted to milk the opportunity as much as I could.
Knowledge is power, after all.
Luna looked incredibly unsure about giving an answer, and before she even got the chance of saying anything, the door opened to reveal a… grinning Lucy.
“Wakey wakey, you lazy fucks,” The critter cackled mirthfully. “Lunch is almost ready, and I really don’t want to miss my tea time.”
...She didn’t seem aware of our conversation from how happy she was but… I was kind of miffed about a topic about it.
“You twat, you pranked me!”
The sudden loud comment got a surprised look from Lucy.
“Prank? When?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Let me give you a couple of words: ‘Selection and Refinement Act’.”
…
“Oh-”
“Yep, and I’m really annoyed that you didn’t tell me that I was literally flirting to you for a  while now!” I interjected fiercely. “Like, why the fuck did you do that?”
She didn’t reply, merely smiling smugly back at me and prompting me to stand up, with Hyzenthlay still latched on my shirt as I made my way towards the doorstep and ignored Lucy.
Luna followed shortly after, an uncertain look painted on her face as we both failed to register a single detail during the interaction.
The moment I wasn’t looking at her, Lucy’s face fell in a grimace and… annoyed look. What just happened, while partly entertaining, did put a wrench on her plan for sure.