Limitless Evolution As a Snake

and that’s when Cherry shows up and drags me out of the dumpster and patches me up, and then keeps patching me up for like three days straight because apparently I looked like actual roadkill.”

”He did,” Cherry says, nodding fast. ”Really bad. I didn’t think you were going to make it the first night, honestly, sorry, that’s probably not what you want to hear.”

Lyra’s eyes go wide, her jaw slack. She stares from me to Cherry and back, her focus sharp and analytical, like a cop trying to piece together a crime scene that makes absolutely no sense.

”And somewhere in there, we ended up owning a kebab shop.”

”Matt, what did you do?”

”It’s a whole thing. Doesn’t matter right now; the point is I’m fine, obviously, I’m standing right here, smelling a bit spicy but otherwise structurally intact.”

Lyra doesn’t say anything for a second. She just looks me up and down, a clinical damage assessment. Her eyes narrow, and for a second I’m sure she’s looking for an injury just so she has an excuse to start yelling.

Then she looks at Cherry, who’s fidgeting with the edge of her coat, horn stumps twitching double time now. ”Okay,” Lyra mumbles out finally, voice quiet. ”Not gonna lie, when you didn’t come home the other night I thought you were dead.

Like actually dead, not sort-of-dead, not thrown-in-a-dumpster dead. I sat by that door most of the night telling myself you’d just gotten caught up in something dumb, and now you’re telling me you got caught up in something dumb, except the dumb thing was my ex cop boss minotaur and several murdered police officers and a kebab shop.”

”When you say it like that, it does sound like a lot.”

”It’s a lot,” she agrees, running a hand through her hair. Her gaze drops to the floor as if searching for a thread of sense. ”Right. Okay. Just give me a second.” She looks back up at me, eyes wide. ”So my ex-boss is dead, you’re covered in chilli sauce, and we own a kebab shop? I just need to stand here for a minute and let my brain catch up.”

She steps forward anyway, wraps her arms back around me despite the sauce and smell, despite the burn marks, despite the general crime-scene aesthetic I’m currently rocking, and just holds on for a second like she’s confirming I’m real.

Then she turns her head sideways, looks at Cherry over my shoulder, and says, completely deadpan, ”Thank you for not letting my snake die in a dumpster.”

Cherry lights up like she just got handed a trophy. ”Oh! You’re welcome! I mean, it was mostly instinct. Sorry, I didn’t really think about it; I just sort of grabbed him and ran. I also nearly tried to keep him because, I mean, look at him.” Cherry drools a little bit after saying that.

[System: i like your choice in women.]

”That counts,” Lyra says. ”That counts a lot.”

[System: mate, this is going better than expected; I had money on at least one of them trying to bite the other]

Not helpful.

I think back on it, but honestly, yeah. Better than expected.

Cherry jumps straight in before I can even open my mouth, practically vibrating with the retelling: orcs and cook pots and chilli oil and me walking through a cloud of tear gas like it’s a light drizzle.

Lyra is all over me after listening to Cherry, hands running over my scales, my chest, checking for burns or bites or anything that might be hiding under everything.

”You could’ve died,” she says, poking me in the ribs like that’ll teach me a lesson.

”I didn’t, though.”

”That’s not the point, Matt.”

I let her fuss for a bit because honestly it feels nice- someone caring that much about whether I come home in one piece. I fill her in between pokes, tell her I’m probably gonna start working for my dad soon, and mention that Cherry ended up with a copy of my blood venom skill from the bond.

That gets both their attention off me and onto skills instead, which, fine, whatever works. They start comparing notes, Lyra rattling off what she got from our bond, Cherry doing the same, both of them getting more and more animated like they’re trading Pokémon cards instead of magical side effects from banging a snake man.

I use the distraction to slip off toward the shower.

[System: This worked out well.]

Yeah, no idea how, but I’ll take it. Seeing them get along feels like a weight sliding off my coils I didn’t even know was there.

The hot water does exactly what I need it to do, washes the chilli smell out of my scales, melts the tension out of my coils, and gives me five minutes of not thinking about orcs or my mother going for a swim or my dad’s office waiting for me on the other side of tomorrow. I just stand there under the spray, letting my brain go quiet.

By the time I towel off and slither back out, Lyra and Cherry are sitting cross-legged on the couch, deep in conversation about scent tracking versus venom resistance. They look like a two-woman special ops team planning a heist, and for the first time, I realise that’s exactly what I’m going to need. I drop onto the arm of the couch. ”Okay. Lyra. You good with working for me, and probably Cherry, at my dad’s place?”

Lyra looks up at me and does this slow, evil little smirk, the kind that means she’s already three steps ahead of wherever this conversations going.

”Obviously.”

Cherry just beams, horn stumps twitching happily. ”I’m just happy to be wherever you are.”

Right, cool, great, no hesitation at all from either of them.

Not even a flicker, not one single ”hey, wait, isn’t this a criminal organisation” moment. Just straight into the deep end like it’s a career fair and my dad’s got the best booth.