Page 29

Delaney

“Nothing about this place makes any sense. You know that, right?”

Saladriel shrugs. “It doesn't have to make sense; it just has to be.”

“Wow, that was deep,” Wil says with a nod. “You know, there was this famous philosopher that said—”

“Is that what I think it is? I haven't smelled that since...” Spencer closes his eyes and inhales deeply, tension leaving his body as he does. “It smells like the best cookies I've ever had in my life. The batch grandma made for my 7th birthday. Damn, they were perfect.”

“Cookies? No. It smells of rotting flesh. It's delightful.” How Rush says this with an actual smile on his face is actually not the most alarming thing we've encountered here.

Turns out they're both wrong. “Saladriel, why does this ominous tunnel of clouds with a river running through it smell exactly like Adam's cum?”

“Wait, does everybody's cum smell different to you?” Saladriel asks in earnest.

“I don't think anybody wants to know what I think,” Wil says dejectedly.

“Hey,” I say as I lift his chin. He looks at me, and happy silly butterflies erupt in my stomach. “What does it smell like to you?”

“The patch of grass where we went to convention when I turned 13. There were a lot of wildflowers that year, and lots of bees. Everything that grew there just tasted perfect.”

Saladriel walks to the side of the tunnel and opens what looks like a shed, the sound of scraping metal echoes and with a bit of resistance, he tugs a rowboat out into the stream.

He stands and he's about to talk, but then he thinks better of it and takes a few steps back to the side, hits a switch, and the entire tunnel lights up with neon pink and red lights. Music starts up, and then a big sign that reads, ‘Tunnel of Love’ descends from the ceiling right above us.

I stare up at it, dumbfounded. “Yikes. That's really... yeah, that's really there, alright.”

“Fairygoddess likes to encourage us to be immersed with one another, remember? This is the most direct route to where we need to go. I know it seems a little odd to you, but I thought you might like it,” he says with a shrug.

“Alright, love tunnel it is!” Spencer says as he rushes toward the boat. He turns to look at us, and one by one we shrug and reluctantly get in as well.

The second Saladriel kicks off from the bank of clouds, we begin to speedily float through the Tunnel of Love.

At first, it's mostly innocent things, like the lights and the music and the smells that seem to cater to each of us individually, or evoking something from our past that we enjoyed.

But as we turn the corner, a new section emerges. Sounds of flesh slapping together is faint enough where you have to strain your ears to hear it, present enough to give us all tingles and a little bit of a flush, but not substantial enough to truly enjoy.

Eventually, an animatronic flying cupid drops from a cable in the ceiling playing a violin, sprinkling down confetti that looks very much like the psychedelic stuff that fairy goddess told me would fuck me up.

I learned my lesson last time. I scoop some of that shit up and stuff it in my bra in case I need it later.

“The inn is just up here,” Saladriel says as his face flushes with embarrassment.

The boat does indeed move swiftly, and after listening to several awful ballads written specifically for unicorns, praising the silkiness of a mane, or the way a certain flank glistens in the sun, Saladriel is mooring us off to the side where there's a sign like you'd see on a highway back home.

The exit simply says ‘Trope Inn’, and there's an arrow pointing off to the right. I’m giddy, looking forward to whatever is about to be delivered unto us.

“I should probably warn you—” Saladriel starts, but I cut him off.

“No, you shouldn't. We're on an adventure. I'll take whatever's about to happen at face value.”

He sighs resignedly, and I get my first glimpse of other unicorns.

It's not just an inn here, there're other buildings as well; what look like cafes with benches outside, roads made of cobblestones if cobblestones were made of clouds instead of stone, and plenty of grass patches where there are unicorns grazing helter-skelter.

Every single unicorn that sees us stops immediately and drops their jaw open, staring at us like we're some freaks from a different world or something.

Oh, wait.

I give them a wave and a smile, sidling a little closer to Saladriel as I do in case they think we weren’t invited here.

Nobody seems to want to talk to us, but that's probably because Rush is currently in the fetal position, rocking back and forth against the nearest wall he could find.

“It's okay Rush,” I coax. “They're nice unicorns. I promise.”

Just because they want to prove me wrong, a passing unicorn spits on us, literally turns his nose in the air while saying loud enough for all of us to hear, “Damn tourists,” before sashaying away.

Saladriel looks like he's moments away from bounding after them and accosting them in some form, but I assure him it's fine.

I try a different tactic with my easily spooked demon. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you, Rush. Would it help you if you wrapped your arms around me and just let me lead you? You can keep your eyes closed. You won't have to look at all the scary unicorns that way.”

He takes a deep breath and nods, briefly getting to his feet with his eyes squeezed as shut as he can make them.

It's definitely not my fault when I immediately forget he's there and turn sideways to see something and make him walk into a signpost, but after that things go a little smoother. I keep a hold on his arms as they cross over the front of my shoulders, reassuringly patting them occasionally.

When we finally make it to our destination, Saladriel opens the door for us and we enter what passes for an inn here, all of us nearly dead on our feet after the long day we've had.

I didn't even think about needing to stop and sleep until Saladriel pointed out the sun doesn't set in the same time frame as it does back home, so we need to remember to sleep and pay attention to our bodies.

Before any of us can even ask for a room from the receptionist, he's reaching behind the counter and grabbing a key and slapping it on the counter. “Penthouse suite. Full package.”

Saladriel groans. “I was afraid of that. Thanks, man.”

“What does he mean by full package?” Wil asks as we follow our resident unicorn to a cloud elevator.

“Your girlfriend specifically said she didn't want to be spoiled. You'll see when we get there,” Saladriel tells him as he pushes some buttons that don't look anything like buttons inside the elevator.

The cloud rocks gently and Wil peeks at me sideways. “Is that what you are? My girlfriend?”

“If you're not ready for me to call you my mate yet, then sure. If that's what you want,” I say with what I hope is a smile. I'm actually just counting down until I can find the privacy of a bathroom, because I’ve been holding my bladder for hours now, feeling icked out by peeing on a random cloud. And I’d do some pretty questionable things for a shower. Gods , how I want to shower.

Before Saladriel lets us into our room, he turns to the group one more time. “I would like to warn you before we go in; does anybody want my warning? Because once we walk through this door, it might be a bit until the room decides to let us out.”

We're all scratching our heads at this, but it's Spencer that speaks up. “What, is the room like, sentient or something?”

Saladriel plays with the key that has a little room tag attached to it.

“Yes and no. Look, it's kind of like the love tunnel.

The goddess has done everything she can, everywhere she can, to encourage romance and bonding between us.

This hotel... it's one of her more…shall we call it, aggressive methods?

But there's nowhere else to stay. My apartment wouldn't fit more than two of us, and I have a feeling we should be sticking together right now.”

There's a strange energy running through me, aside from the fact that I'm already getting hungry again. “Staying together is good,” I say with a bit of rasp to my voice. All four of them whip towards me at my tone, and I can feel the lust rising in them.

“Again?” Rush asks with a bit of a laugh.

Then he looks down at his dick. “Listen here buddy, we've been waiting for this for years.

We're not gonna let this chance go by, you hear?

First chance we've had to lie her out like this in what feels like forever, and you're not going to go all scaredy cat on me and shrivel up because of a couple innocent...”

Saladriel gets sick of waiting and opens up, revealing a room that might very well be trying to get me pregnant.

“Rainbows...” Rush says dryly.

It's so very different than the clouds outside, that it's hard to believe we're in the same place.

There are no clouds here, the goddess has put in actual furniture made of rainbows themselves. I squat down and give a big kiss to the front of Rush’s crotch just so he doesn't feel left out.

The place is huge, with flat surfaces of varying heights and contours everywhere. Literally, every single one is begging me to bend over them and get taken.

I don't think I'm being clear enough. I can sense that they're not alive, but they're literally whispering, ‘ Fall on your back and arch your chest to the ceiling’ , or ‘ I have an indent to cup your breasts while you flop forward on me’ .

They have talking instructions on how to use them, and pretty much every piece of furniture in the room seems to be a sex bench of various types.

Saladriel sits in the entryway with a hand covering the lower half of his face, horrified and embarrassed at the same time, but I'm giddy as a fucking unicorn. “It's like a park!”