Novel Full Chapter 2187 Nice Distractions Part 1
— Lily —
While Kat was eating dinner, and blocking her out, Lily found the desire to wander. She didn’t blame Kat. Her silly girlfriend had only barely blocked the communication when she started to relay what had happened around the dinner table and it just made sense to inform everyone… but dammit Kat was right that Lily really, really didn’t want to think about what had just happened in the arena.
It didn’t even take five minutes of trying to relax for Lily to start to feel uncomfortable. She tried flipping around, shifting position a few dozen times, and eventually just hopping out of her little nook entirely. Even transforming to stretch in several odd and vaguely uncomfortable ways didn’t stop the memories from intruding in… so Lily decided it was time to go and DO something. What that something was, she hadn’t yet decided, and sure standing guard here was probably important but she just… couldn’t right now.
Some part of her really wanted to let Kat know that she was off exploring… but the sort of outpouring of care such a statement would likely bring as Kat swiftly realised WHY she felt like wandering just wasn’t what Lily wanted right now. Perhaps it was part of what she needed but… well, Lily didn’t exactly want to feel good about herself for the moment. Stewing in her guilt wasn’t exactly appealing either but Lily just couldn’t bring herself to try to be happy.
*Is it still considered punishing yourself when you’re trying to avoid both good AND bad feelings? I just feel… uncomfortable, and like I don’t really want to deal with either of those feelings right now.*
Lily looked down at her hands, expecting to get some sort of movie-esque flash where they were suddenly covered in blood or Kat’s severed head appeared between them… but nope. They were just… normal hands. Same as they always were. Lily tried to summon her shadows up over them and found the process just as easy as before. No annoying mental blocks limiting her shadow abilities, and they were just as blood free as they always were. Even if Lily felt internally stained, physically she was clearly fine.
Lily sighed, and started to make her way up the stairs. As she did so, Lily realised that if someone snuck inside she didn’t want to be seen… but maybe being a Memphis wasn’t quite what she wanted either for the moment. Tilting her head a bit, Lily got an idea to solve both issues. Lily let her shadows crawl over the rest of her body, wrapping herself in them before allowing the shadows to warp and shift a bit. Turning her into more of an inky humanoid monster, dripping black gunk onto the ground only for it to fade soon after. Sure it was just shell around her, basically an illusion… but it was something.
It ended up being surprisingly distracting. Lily took some time climbing the stairs. It was more amusing then she’d thought it would be to get a proper shamble going. Walking up the stairs in such a wonky way took some thought as well. Lily tried a sort of stuttered step, as if she was a zombie, each time she placed a foot on the next step, she allowed herself to bend down and swing out rather far before continuing. Sort of like she had one bad lag… except obviously she was making both of them and the shadows meant you could see neither.
Then Lily tried to make it seem like she was simply gliding up the stairs and that was a lot harder. Lily found she could do it with just her legs but it was far easier to just ride along on the shadows as if she was surfing up the stairs. It gave the impressions of floating, and Lily could even bob around a bit to sell the illusion that she wasn’t attached to the ground. It was so much fun that Lily even flew back down the stairs using this method before climbing back up and making some monster noises. If Kat was able to watch, she’d have thought the whole thing was exceptionally cute.
In the end, Lily spent a good thirty minutes just sliding around the stairs before noticing how much mana she’d wasted on the activity. That snapped her out of her improving mood and sent her back into the darkness, both literally and somewhat figuratively. Lily sighed as the shadow figure around her body fell apart into nothing. Her shadows returning to normal now they were unleashed from her will.
Why did I even bother? It’s not like I’m about to run out of mana. I’m simply down forty percent. Which is a lot sure, but it was half an hour of intense use for multiple different things. I just… dammit. I hate that I made it a habit to check up on my mana. I already HAD a sense of how low it was getting, I just didn’t know the exact number and I honestly didn’t NEED to know what it was either. Now though…
Lily let out another sigh as she made her way back up the stairs. Hoping that it would help her mode like it did the first time. The shell of shadows formed around her once again… but Lily couldn’t find herself to be quite so happy about it this time. So, she got to work transforming it. The goopy appearance was tightened up… perhaps a bit too much. Lily found it was uncomfortable clinging to a NUMBER of places it shouldn’t be. Once again, if Kat was around she’d be very amused.
Lily loosened the shadow all over her body and then expanded some other areas in larger ways. Eventually, she made herself into a humanoid shadow cat form. Then Lily realised this was basically a fur suit but made of shadows and quickly discarded that form. Vanishing it into the ’don’t think about it’ box. Deciding that was enough messing around with her form, Lily transformed, barely thinking about her previous issues with the idea.
Lily then started to go through the various dorm rooms that were scattered around the area… but they ended up being pretty boring. Lily wasn’t sure if Thyme just hadn’t wanted to put in the effort to decorate them well, or if there was some rule against individuality, but basically everything in the room was identical, with most of the difference being from how they’d decayed. Perhaps there had once been some individual bits, but even if there had been they’d fallen apart and thus, might as well have no been there. Perhaps that was the reasoning to excuse the lack of decorations.
Still, Lily tried to have a bit of fun with the few things she did find. One of beds had fallen apart into a bunch of mostly spherical shapes and she spent some time knocking them around the room before that got boring. They just didn’t roll right, or perhaps she wasn’t enough of a cat to enjoy just batting them around.
Another decently fun room was one that was missing the ceiling. It had caved in at some point and Lily crawled up to see what she could spot. The answer was, sadly, not much. The top of the residential area didn’t really have enough space for someone to crawl around up there. Even if all there was to see were the tops of roofs and some rocks it was still a nice way to kill some time. Lily even made sure to be extra careful, stepping lightly, using her wings when she needed to, and spreading her shadows out to both spread the weight and reinforce what was there.
Lily found it kept her busy… for a while at least. The problem was, she started to build up a good mental framework for spreading out her shadows and needed to think on it less and less. Sure it wasn’t perfect but the roof wasn’t a moment away from collapsing either so there wasn’t much of a risk of collapse. Especially not when she was so light in the first place. That meant less time devoted to distracting magic, and more time with her brain slowly trying to claw its way back to… that moment even if it wasn’t one Lily actively wanted to think about.
Which… even that she was arguing with herself a bit now. It wasn’t just something to be avoided. Not quite. Not anymore. *Would… would confronting it actually help? I’ve been avoiding it because it hurts… but is this more like a dirty wound situation? I’ve got a bunch of dirt and other rubbish in this mental cut and I need to wash it out? Or is this closer to picking at a scab that’s closed over and I really should allow to rest. I don’t want to make things worse. So… am I already doing that?*
Lily turned the idea over in her head. She… didn’t know. It was also a somewhat safe topic. It was adjacent to the issue but not quite addressing it directly. It gave her hope for a solution without actually offering one in itself. For the moment? It was a nice distraction.