Ilsa [2]

The woman, a tall blond stepped out of the store with a content smile and a special hop to her skip. Noah followed her back whilst blinking slowly then soon shook his head and turned back to Meira who was already pushing through the aperture and into the store proper.

'I will never get used to this,' following on her heel, Noah's gaze danced around the room. It wasn't large and was heavily rustic in appearance with aged dark brown woods lining the walls only just barely contrasted with the few lighter shelves, counter, and ceiling. All throughout the room was also a scent, an expetedly sour scent of a woman's sex.

Stood just behind the counter was the perpetrator and reason for the smell. A short brunette rising to just above Noah's shoulders. She turned her blue almond shaped eyes over Noah and Meira and looked like she'd sucked on something sour. She patted down her lips with a towel and swept back her long lock of brown out of her eye and Noah could see she was missing the pinky of her left hand. It was an old wound, long since scarred over.

She lowered the towel from her mouth, reached out to something under the counter and lifted a glass of water and took a mouth full before swishing and spitting it out into a vase, all in the efforts of ridding herself of the sour taste of her previous client.

When all was done she grumbled and looked to Meira, her arms crossing just beneath her minute bosom that was hidden even more by the baggy blue and wet stained tunic she was wearing. "Meira." She murmured. "Can't believe you decided to show up again. Been what? Sixth months? Thought you'd just abandoned me to deal with this shithole on my own."

Noah rose a brow and looked to Meira but she was too focused on the woman to notice.

"I've been busy." Meira tried to quell the womans seeming scathing.

"You always are. You say you're going to be gone for a while but fail to mention that 'awhile' in your book is half a year."

"I know, and I apologize for not assisting when I should. That isn't how partners should act."

"Oh, you're only figuring that out now?" The woman skirted around the counter with slow, sliding steps Noah thought were almost serpentine in nature from just how smoothly she seemed to skate.

"I knew for plenty long that it's not right. But as I said. I was busy. I focused myself on my training all to-"

"Oh please," she scoffed, "the only reason you 'focused' on training is because you want to protect your ass. No other reason." Huffing she quickly moved to a cabinet near the left wall and pulled from it a mop and began cleaning up the wet puddle her client had left for her. "Do you know how many men I've hat to suck off? How many I've had to fuck? Plan was we'd get this cheap shithole building and build it into something reputable, but no. You just have to abandon me to deal with everything on my own."

Meira sucked in her lips as Noah kept silent, just watching and analyzing everything that was going on between these two. Recognizing namely that this woman was like him, someone who'd been brought in by Meira's wiles. Unnervingly though, he recalled Meira telling him he'd be the first contract she'd made but as it was turning out, he wasn't sure if that was true.

"I didn't mean to abandon you Ilsa. But you know as well as I do that a merchant sponsoring a store without their license is tantamount to career suicide. I didn't have a choice. I focused on my studies so I could get my license, and now I am on the verge of getting it. I just need your help to finish off the final details and then-"

"And then what? You can run off again?" the now named Ilsa scoffed and stopped her mopping to glare up and into Meira's eyes. Taking the opportunity, Noah took a single swift glance over her body.

Compared to Meira, she was a complete opposite. Short, lacking in the plump and soft curves at her bosom and hips but what she lacked in veritable thickness, she made up with a more cutesy tightness. In place of the usual skirts and dresses he'd seen the girls around the villages he'd been to wear, she instead wore short pants that hugged her bottom and sunk into her bottom, ending just half way down her thighs before knee-high leather boots took the rest of her legs.

Upwards of her thin curves, she wore a much more revealing accoutrement than anything anyone reasonable would wear. It consisted of a loose set crop top that hung off her shoulder but ran into long bell sleeves. All hemmed with elegant whites and a few scant golds. Pitiable though truly was her lacking curves, had she the bosom, Noah was sure to have found himself enjoying her revealing costume.

Seeming to sense his thoughts, Ilsa looked to Noah and narrowed her eyes. Silencing his thoughts as the scurried away into the recesses of security.

"No. I don't intend on abandoning you Ilsa. Not again. I just, as I said, I need your help to finish off my studies, and then I can officially sponsor you without anymore cloak and daggers needed."

"I'm sure. Let me guess, the greeny got something to do with this?"

"Greeny?" Noah exclaimed.

"Yes." Turning to him, Meira held out one hand as if presenting him and said, "this is Noah, he's planning on starting a ranch. I will be acting as his liason and selling his produce. But unfortunately, Noah has had no training and is poorly prepared. So I'd like you to-"

"Supply him with everything he could need." Ilsa puffed and rolled her eyes annoyed at what she'd expected coming into reality. "Fifty thousand."

Meira staggered, "I can't do that Ilsa. That's unreasonable. For tools he may only buy once or twice."

"And I want out of this shithole city like we'd made a deal on two years ago. I've made enough buckles getting my ass reamed to be able to afford a trip up to Estalder. Now I need the buckles to buy myself a house and settle down once and for all."

"I…" Meira clutched her hands into fists and shook her head, "I can't pay you that much Ilsa. Not right now. Eventually maybe, but right now I just cannot. If you give me time I could-"

"You had six months to come back. You're not getting six more. Fifty thousand now, or just leave. I don't need your sponsorship anymore."

"Ilsa," Meira looked to Noah with her expression souring apoologetically before looking back to Ilsa, "would you change your mind if I told you he's an other worlder?"

Ilsa's eyes bolted wide and she spun her gaze to Noah.

"Meira!? What the hell!?" Noah recoiled, just as quickly sinking in on himself to mutter, "what's the point of a secret when the people I know can't even keep it? Might as well just parade through this world with a flip sign saying 'idiot from another world here.'" His words unheard by both women as it came out in only grumbles.

It didn't take long for Ilsa to throw down her mop and march past the two and to her door where she shut it, locked it, and flipped a sign in the display that said 'closed.' When she turned back her expression was spiteful and loud, "what do you think you're doing!?" she bellowed. "You can't just go around spouting things like that in public you IDIOT! What if Artemia's harlots heard you? I would be ruined. YOU would be ruined!" for some inexplicable reason, Noah heard more concern when she jabbed a finger Meira's way.

"I'm aware. But if it gets you on board, I'm willing to risk it."

"I'm not," Noah once more went unheard, it was his life on the line after all.

"No, NO! I might as well just go tell them there's an otherworlder, at least then I'll get some buckles in return."

"Not a lot." Meira urged, "If you turn in Noah, you'll get what? Ten thousand? Barely enough to afford a piece of dirt in Estalder let alone start up a new business. But keep Noah alive and he could be the gold you need to change everything."

"Or ruin everything. If I'm found to be knowingly assisting an Otherworlder I could be tried for heresy, Meira!"

"This isn't Parlight, Ilsa. The church doesn't have its fangs in so deep here."

"That doesn't matter! Either way I could lose everything the moment the church does."

"Then you just never acknowledge Noah's existence as an otherworlder. Simple enough."

Ilsa threw her head back and fell into paces, "simple enough, SIMPLE ENOUGH!? Do you know what the church does to suspected harbingers? They've got truth serums or potions to make you say what they want! It doesn't matter whether I acknowledge him or not, given the chance they will figure it out, and I will turned into another of their pets."

"That won't happen Ilsa."

"You don't know that." The woman stopped her pacing and pulled closer to Meira to jab a finger through Meira's sari wrap and into her bared brown belly, the girl not high enough to comfortably poke her chest, "you've got the safety of your father. I barely have the safety of four walls and a roof. The only reason, I haven't been turned into a whore by the gangs is because I have to pay hundreds every month to keep them away. I barely feed myself enough to look pretty enough for men to come in for my ass and even then, I barely have a body grown men enjoy. And the women, they pay me a pittance for everything they ask of me. So don't get me started on 'this or that won't happen,' Meira. Because it won't happen to you, but it will to me."

Meira's gaped at the girl, her jaw hanging wide, her expression fell, draining colour as her head soon came to hung. By then Noah was feeling like the third wheel in lovers quarrel and could only step away to watch the final throngs, the moment when they'd make up and kiss and everything would be 'better' "I'm sorry. But I still want your help Ilsa. Given time, we could build up something and then we wouldn't need to worry about the church anymore. They wouldn't be able to touch you."

"That's not good enough." Ilsa's voice cracked, her finger turning to a palm against Meira's stomach, splaying out the four fingers she had left. Her gaze locked to her missing pinky and her throat tightened in turn. "I need security Meira. Not empty words."

"They're not empty." Meira took Ilsa's hand into her own and lowered it from her stomach, "I will truly help you this time. And this time, I won't leave you on your own."

Shaking her head, Ilsa pulled her hand free and backed away. "I can't bring myself to believing you this time. It was easy enough for you to do last time, the next will be the same." She moved to her counter and hunched over it, casting the shortest look to Noah where her eye twitched and her lips were sucked in unsure of what to do.

Meira didn't hesitate to click her heels closer and stood behind the girl, "what would it take to make you believe me?"

Hesitantly, Ilsa stilled, glanced over her shoulder to Meira and met the gyaru's bright blue eyes framed by illustrious blonde hair and shook her head. She then leaned over her counter and snaked one hand behind it. Noah—and even Meira—drawn for the shortest of moments to the accentuation of her pert rump as she did so. It didn't take long for her to remove herself from the back and turn back to Meira, now clutching something that sent Noah's spine on end.

A small silver dagger, its tip glinting in the light that reflected off its dual edged blade.

"You owe me a bloodoath. That is the least you can do."

***

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Yellow people. To put my inexorably not-long story even shorter. Here's a poll to figure out how you all would like to see me do MGR chapters from hence forth.

(Basically longer chapters, 3-4000 words/a story arc (the Ilsa arc but instead of 4 chapters, its either 1 or two longer chapters. But at the detractor I might only get it out once a week.)

Or shorter chapters (keep it as it is with two times a week with chapters any where between 1500 and 2000 words and twice a week release.

Here's a poll, use it. I don't really read the comments anymore (which I really should)

https://poll.ly/#/PX63r1rG

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Oh yeah. Also, till I figure this out I'll be tweaking release schedule.

MGR will now be released on Sundays and Wednesdays and likely sundays if I start doing the longer chapters.

...

Should also mention with the longer chapters, if I ever get to my backlog with MGR (which I sorely hope I can do sometime in the future) I will likely release twice a week then anything over the backlog threshold.

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Oh, oh, I'm also working on a new project. An IF (Interactive Fiction) sort of in the lines of Trials in Tainted space (though with much, much less of the grotesque inflation of just about everything in that game) so if you have suggestions, head on off to the discord to toss out your ideas or things you think would be interesting in a sci-fi setting with very limited (warhammer-esque) magic.