14 The world around us - aranea

By the time I woke up, Eri was already on her feet, though her side of the bed was still warm. I found the light crystal lying on her pillow.

"I also checked the ones in your room. They're all empty." She announced as soon as the green candlelight began to illuminate the surroundings. It took me a moment to realize that she was referring to the contents of the wardrobe and the dresser drawers. "Also, there's no water in the bathroom."

The petite girl moved to stand over me, it wasn't hard to discern her thoughts from frowning expression 'why are you still lying in my bed? Do something about water and clothes'.

"Let's eat breakfast and then go and grab the basket from the cradle room. It's not that far, and some of them weren't that bad. For sure better than having only one set to wear." I said after a bit of stretching and a big yawn. This day began well, my face didn't hurt any longer. "No idea what to do about water, I usually just had to turn on the tap. Maybe there's a well or something nearby?"

"Running water, heh? So envious. Those showers you had in your world were great as well, think we can make one here?" She asked while scanning my face from up close.

"A primitive one is easy, but it's going to be a pain in the ass to refill after each use. How does it look?"

"Way better, I won't have to be ashamed of standing next to my brother. But it doesn't change the fact you needed a full night's rest to heal such minor injuries. Your future is hopeless and full of pain."

Listening to my sister's encouraging words I finished smoothing out my clothes, found the black doublet and shoes lying nearby, and used the chance when she stood engrossed in pondering about something to give her silver hair a light tousle.

She responded with an unhappy murmur and avoided my hand. "We really need a slave, waking up without water to freshen up is unbearable."

During the breakfast, I took a quick look at the pantry. Inside were shelves with dried rations, rows of small barrels full of wine, ceramic kitchenware, and some little trinkets stored on the side. Nothing caught my eye, so I left a detailed search for later.

When my sister started complaining about us living like barbarians, comparing this place to her previous mansion and the sights from my memories, I only listened and nodded, allowing the princess to release some unhappiness in the form of words. I truly agreed with most of what she said, life in prosperity was something we both desired. However, my lower limit was below hers. I was thoroughly convinced that since our elven bodies practically didn't sweat, we could easily brave a day or three without washing and changing clothes.

She didn't like this observation.

When we were walking toward the cradle room, with Eri leading the way and me shaking the toy behind, I was thinking about the topic of clothes. The ones she wore right now were such a waste of her body's potential.

The green short-sleeved blouse and knee-long dark green skirt combo was plain and simple, unfit for her noble bearing. True, the exposed arms and calves together with her natural adorableness more than made up for this deficiency. And there was something slightly erotic in the way her twin tails clearly marked the border between the upper and lower layer of clothes.

But it was such a far cry from how she should look like.

Dressing her in a black gothic lolita dress, one with a lot of ribbons, bows, and frills; or black and white wicked combo that would make her look like a vampire princess; or maybe something black and red like a corset and short ruffled skirt, that would highlight her slim waist, oh and wrapping her shapely legs in checkered stockings - that was one of my top goals, even if I had to sew everything myself!

Before I noticed, we reached our destination. The cradle's roots were more lively than yesterday, almost as if they were welcoming us. I patted some of the closest ones, while she took the basket that was in the exact same place we left it yesterday.

"Hey, Eri." I called, but she didn't respond.

My sister stood in silence with her back to me, watching the remaining cocoons. I went closer and wanted to grab her shoulder to get her attention.

"Eri?"

In response, one of her tails moved with lightning speed. The swishing tail became no different from an armored whip that threatened to broke fingers of my outstretched hand upon impact. However, the other tail moved at the same time and managed to intercept most of the force behind the former. My fingers were hit with only a portion of the whip's initial speed.

"Aua!" There was a painful red mark left across four of my fingers. "What the he-"

"Victor. My name's Erica." My sister interjected angrily and turned around. "Are you the type that won't learn from words alone? Where are we right now?" There was a penitent undertone to her voice. She was biting her lips to avoid making any unsightly noises and wrapped the twin tails around her waist with slightly trembling hands - a part of one scaly whip was visibly swollen.

I took a deep breath, slapped my cheeks hard to get rid of the raising, completely misplaced anger, and took a step away from her. I had to be more careful and stop forcing my proud little sister to take actions that she was going to instantly regret.

"Sorry sister, and thanks for not breaking the fool's fingers."

"Of course, I can show at least a bit leniency to my brother. So, what were you trying to say?" She responded with poorly hidden relief and took a less defensive posture.

"I wanted to say that after coming back to our place, I want to massage an even bigger fool's hurting tail." She turned her head away, pretending not to hear my words. "Ah, and let's explore the area a bit on our way back, see if there's anything that resembles a well."

"Alright, let's go."

The stinging red mark on my fingers was a small price for this agreement. She wanted to emphasize that even if the whole 'face and honor' values were a low priority for me, for her, it was a critical matter. Otherwise, things could get ugly if I forgot myself in front of a big audience. I already knew that, but while I liked the name 'Erica', I refused to call her as such if it meant referring to her public mask. Fortunately, 'sister' was accepted as a suitable replacement and it was reserved for my exclusive use - which allowed for more leeway with the meaning and actions connected to it.

Barely five minutes after we took a different route back, we sensed water flowing nearby and discovered a set of stairs leading to a small natural cavern. A broad stream of fresh water passed through it. Finding a water source was essential and took a lot of worries off our shoulders. Albeit it might have been wrong of us to plan our lives here already. Who knew if we weren't going to abandon this place tomorrow?

Eri instantly began conducting various tests. She checked the temperature, depth, water's clarity, local flora and fauna, visibility from the only entrance, and even the strength of the current. During that time I was sitting on the last step of stone stairs leading to this place - playing with the light crystal in one hand and holding the basket of clothes with the other, but mostly watching as my sister fought to maintain a serious expression. From time to time she lost the battle, and an entirely childlike one emerged.

She really wanted to swim.

Without any warning, she made a small 'ugh' sound, grabbed her belly and fell down.

"ERI! What's wrong?!" I tossed away the basket and ran to her.

Thank the heavens, before any of the worst-case scenarios involving venomous snakes, toads, and traps was confirmed, Eri shifted her position to a sitting one and hurriedly began to unwrap the tails from her waist.

"A-haha… nothing, it's nothing. I'm okay." Her voice was breaking, and a deep shade of red was spreading over her pale skin.

I stopped in mid-step and facepalmed as the understanding of this situation came to me. The small girl got so excited about the perspective of her own private bathing place that her twin tails reflexively clenched. Her poor control over them nearly made the content of her own stomach to come outside. It also sent a shiver of terror down my spine as I realized that her attempt at breaking my fingers was something unplanned and out of her control… she probably only wanted to brush away my hand.

No wonder she hurt her other tail in a desperate last-second attempt to save my bones.

"Sister, don't scare me like that."

"... barely passable."

"Hmm?"

"... the water… it's barely passable." She forcibly changed the topic, unwilling to make eye contact. "Victor, there's a big wooden bucket in our bathroom, could you bring it here? Don't come back for at least thirty, no, give me an hour. Don't mind the clothes, I will gather them."

"Any chances of swimming naked together?"

"Shut up! Get lost! Now!"

I also wanted to teach her a lesson, one that said that she didn't have to worry about face and stuff in the middle of an underground cave.

This event was going to be a great tease material for when she moved to her 'private' mode and allowed to hug her.

On the way back, I was pondering over installing a door to the cave with the stream or building some kind of a fence there. Maybe if I went all out and turned it into a proper bathing area, then that would be enough to convince the silver girl that it was alright to relax there. She clearly wanted to go for a swim straight away but had to find the best, the most secure, and well hidden spot before even thinking about it. I bet that being in a state of maximum alertness removed a lot of fun from the idea of leisurely swimming.

And there was one other thing I was wondering about since waking up. She told me to come back in an hour, but how to measure the passage of time underground without any clocks? How to check if I was asleep for four, eight, or twelve hours? Was the day in the twenty-four hours format I was used to? But that format was based upon the day-night cycle of my old world, so in this one, it could be entirely different. Not to mention that permanent underground dwellers could measure time in an utterly different manner - one detached from the movements of the sun on the sky. It wouldn't be strange if they used some other units of time to regulate the rhythm of their lives. But silver elves were no strangers to the surface, and it would make things way easier for everyone if the length of a day was kept uniform among races.

The term 'circadian rhythm' was somehow connected to it, but all the necessary details had been erased from my memory.

Nevertheless, if I took it further, then I would have to doubt the very definition of a month. After all, it was based on lunar cycles, and I had yet to confirm if there was something akin to the Moon in the skies of this world. No, that way of thinking was wrong. There had to be something like that, tidal waves were crucial for the development of life. But what were the chances for that moon, or moons, to take exactly the same amount of time between each eclipse as the Moon?

Were silver elves nocturnal or diurnal? In the first place, did I even have to follow the three meals a day, eight hours of sleep lifestyle I had before? Maybe I just had to eat and sleep once a week?

That was just the tip of an iceberg of questions I wanted to ask about, but that could be done later. I didn't want someone to give me all the answers on a silver plate, finding some minor things out by myself was more fun. For example, a single day on the surface of this world should remove at least half of those topics. The other reason was that getting used to everything still required a lot of effort. Especially to the fact that a small crystal ball was my only source of light. Constant shaking it was becoming annoying as hell. Not to mention the problem with my mana core and the rusty doors.

Trying to tackle everything at once would tire me out in a matter of days. My primary goal was to have fun, to fulfill my dreams and wishes, and to earn some comfy authority. Not to gather more useless elven titles like 'the only elf who went bald from stress'.

Alright, the truth was that I was scared of disappointing my little sister any more than I already had. It would suck if it turned out that she didn't mention anything about the issue of time since it was another - natural as breathing - thing that elves were supposed to sense through… somehow that didn't apply to me.

Once inside our place, I went into the bathroom and stood motionlessly for a longer while. This was my first visit to it, and like almost everything else, it required me to ponder about a new batch of topics in order to polish my understanding of this world's technological level - a fancy way of saying that I took a look around while peeing.

The cold throne made of stone stood in the middle of the wall opposite the entrance. There was a funny looking lever next to it responsible for opening and closing a hole inside it - the local equivalent of a sewage system. I just had to remember to open it prior to doing my business. A theoretical mistake would be paid with a huge chunk of my dignity. The sharp elven nose couldn't be fooled by a little cleaning with water alone.

Instead of running water there was a big wooden bucket that had to be refilled every day. There were also two bronze basins attached to the wall, that after plugging the drain served different functions. One bigger, to prepare water for washing the body with a towel. One smaller, probably used to wash the wipe-cloths and hands. A small stack of the former was placed in the corner, and I already missed the good old disposable toilet paper, cleaning those eco-friendly reusable wipe-cloths was going to be disgusting.

There was only one cupboard, and it seemed that it had been already claimed by Eri, half of the toiletries were put inside, and more than a half of wipe-cloths. Actually, she pillaged eighty percent of them and was probably planning on turning them into single-use items. Well, it wasn't a bad idea to avoid washing… until the moment there were none left.

Though I wasn't sure about those three wooden boxes with different leaves, placed on a shelf. There was a minty smell coming from one of them, it could mean that the leaves inside were a replacement for brushing teeth - maybe I had to chew on them? However, for all I knew, it could also be a scented equivalent of soap that had to put inside the bigger basin together with water.

After finishing my business, when I was about to go back to my sister with the bucket, a small shudder ran down my spine. It announced that Crea telepathic connection was back online.

'I've sent araneas to fetch you. There's a lot of things to do today.'

'A lot of things?' Sent my sister cautiously.

'What's an aranea?' I sent, praying to all gods that this name was the most misleading name in the history of misleading names.

'Yes, a lot. The first major step I want to achieve is establishing five villages around our shelter to procure resources. That's why I want to equalize the level between you and the remaining three leaders I chose. They're stronger but can't think outside of the box. You're weak like newborn elves, but can actually argue with me and move in unpredictable ways.'

'THE FUCK IS ARANEA?!'

'Victor, don't waste my time.' Crea's superficial kind tone was wearing thin.

'... brother, be strong.' My sister's confirmation was nothing short of a death sentence. She knew what the thing I was scared of the most was.

The end of telepathic connection was like a signal to start running. I dropped the bucket, and with a scream of horror ran away. If an aranea was coming for me, then it was coming to our place. And there was no way in hell that I was going to stand in place and wait until some fucking giant spider came to 'fetch me'.

A flamethrower.

I had to find a flamethrower before it was too late.