The Over-Break System

Cynrik grabbed her hand before she could even ask for an explanation; the darkness around her suddenly compressed into a tiny dot until the horizon vanished entirely. There was no portal or anything like that, no flash of light, nothing, just a sickening moment where the shadows seemed to move through her instead of around her, leaving her to deal with the effects of being transferred through space. Her stomach churned so violently she thought she might be thrown out of her own body, every limb stretching in a different direction before snapping back into place with a brutal jerk.

Her boots finally hit the stone floor at Home Point, but the landing left Selene stumbling toward the nearest wall until Cynrik caught her around the waist, saving her from slamming into it shoulder-first. ”Ugh, I feel like I’m going to puke,” she said, her voice muffled as she fought to keep everything down.

”Mother...FUCKER!” Selene planted both hands against Cynrik’s chest, glaring at her husband as he struggled not to laugh, though the twitch at the corner of his mouth had already given him away. ”You could have explained what ’haven’t eaten recently’ was supposed to fucking mean.”

”I figured the implication was pretty clear,” Cynrik replied, keeping Selene close until she regained her balance, although the slight paleness in his face suggested he hadn’t enjoyed the transfer any more than she had. ”All of your limbs are still attached. I’m calling that a successful transfer.”

-That is a clear improvement over several of the earlier tests.-

The look Selene shot her husband made her opinion of Tobs’s assessment abundantly clear. ”See, THAT is the kind of sentence I really don’t want to hear after letting this asshole drag me across half the Shadow Realm.” Still staring him down, she demanded, ”How bad were the earlier tests?”

-The successful ones, or all of them?-

”The important part is we’re here, we’re intact, and neither of us got spliced into the architecture.”

Glancing down at both hands, Selene flexed her fingers just to make sure the transfer hadn’t left anything important behind. ”Those words did absolutely nothing to make me feel better.”

”They weren’t really supposed to.”

Her vision kept sliding sideways, so Selene gripped the nearest wall until the dizziness finally eased enough for her to make sense of her surroundings.

The uneven stonework beneath the doorway was the first thing Selene recognized, a crooked seam Cynrik had never bothered repairing because it didn’t interfere with anything important. She still remembered squeezing past furniture to reach the kitchen before their renovations turned that cramped little hideout into somewhere they could actually live. These days, the dining area no longer doubled as storage, the living room had enough space to cross without bruising a shin, and they’d somehow ended up with three bedrooms, including a primary bedroom larger than she’d originally wanted, and two proper bathrooms.

The furniture, the kitchen counter, the tile floor…come to think of it, they’d fucked on basically every usable surface at least once. Remembering those afternoons made her mouth twitch, although her stomach was in no mood for nostalgia.

The old patio had since been enclosed and handed over to Cynrik’s experiments, with an exterior entrance that let him haul equipment inside without dragging it through their living room. A workbench stretched along one wall beneath shallow storage shelves, while an assembly table crowded the remaining space enough to make moving heavier pieces a pain in the ass. It was tiny compared to the Workshop beneath Hárauður-Virki, but it handled repairs, research, plus the experimental bullshit Cynrik preferred not to haul all the way back to the Fortress.

Somewhere along the way, this place had stopped being a hideout and become another home for them.

Her gaze lingered on the hallway leading to the primary bedroom, though her unsteady legs weren’t remotely prepared to act on that thought. Still, Cynrik apparently understood where her mind had gone from the look on her face.

”Don’t.” Selene planted a finger against Cynrik’s chest before he could say a word, already anticipating the filthy remark he was struggling not to make. ”My stomach is currently trying to climb into my throat, and if you somehow turn that into something sexual, I’m throwing up on you out of principle.”

When Selene trusted her legs enough to walk, she caught Cynrik by the arm and followed him outside, only to discover that the thin air of the Shadow Realm offered little relief from the lingering nausea. The cottage looked offensively ordinary after what she’d just endured, while her husband had already slipped back into that familiar expression he wore whenever a successful experiment gave him a dozen worse ideas.

”So how many times have you actually done that?”

”Enough,” Cynrik answered. Selene poked him in the ribs with her elbow. ”Enough successful attempts to prove that the Point is stable.”

-Unfortunately, his definition conveniently excludes the significantly larger number of failures.-

”Little tinkering, huh?” Selene said as Cynrik glanced toward Tobs.

”Someone’s being dramatic.”

-I have records.-

”Records that you will ABSOLUTELY KEEP TO YOURSELF AND NEVER SHOW MY LOVING, BEAUTIFUL, AND AMAZINGLY AWESOME WIFE EVER!”

-I mean…if she asks, who am I to say no? I am, after all, but a tiny fairy who can’t fight against her glorious self.-

She was still laughing as she led Cynrik away from the cottage toward the safer parts of the Shadow Realm. Now that her nausea had subsided, she could begin to appreciate his hard work on the escape routes, fallback positions, safe houses, and how he intended to move between territories without actually having to travel through the Shadow Realm manually.

”We have to establish the Points beforehand, but once they’re stable, we can cover distances that would normally take forever.” Cynrik was already considering where to place the next anchor when Selene squeezed his arm, drawing his attention back to her. ”What?”

”Places to hide bodies.”

He didn’t even blink. ”See, this is why I married you.” The approval in Cynrik’s voice made her laugh again.

”Really, only that,” Selene teased while pushing her breasts up enough to give him a good look down her low-cut shirt.

”A…mong other reasons…”

A short while later, they crossed back into Reality near Pinhurst Mansion, where Selene drew a grateful breath of normal air while Cynrik checked their surroundings, only for the Mansion’s security system to pick them up before he finished. By the time they reached the house, Cinyah was waiting at the door.

”There you are!” she exclaimed as she grabbed Selene in a tight hug. ”Classes start, and suddenly nobody remembers they have a Mother anymore.”

”I told him you missed us,” Selene said, returning Cinyah’s hug before blaming Cynrik for taking so long.

”The fuck?” Cynrik looked between the two women in disbelief. ”We LITERALLY got here less than ten minutes after you sent the message.”

His mother let go of Selene and then, in a very sharp, precise movement, smacked Cynrik on the arm. ”Language.”

”I am a grown man.”

”And?”

His mother gave him a look that ended the argument right there. ”Being grown up means nothing in this house.” When she shifted the conversation to dinner, neither Cynrik nor Selene could claim they’d eaten.

By the time Cinyah was finished with them, their inventories were stuffed with leftovers, while Cynrik silently regretted how much dinner he’d managed to put away. Selene didn’t look any happier about making the return jump on a full stomach.

”If I throw up during the jump, I’m aiming for your mouth,” she warned while rubbing her stomach.

Her threat should’ve kept Cynrik quiet, but he still couldn’t resist one last jab as he opened the door for her. ”I mean, I did hint that eating before a jump is a bad idea...” Before he could even grin at his own joke, Selene rounded on him fast enough to make him stumble backward. ”YOU tell Mom no when she puts three plates of food in front of you!”

Looking back at the Mansion, Cynrik pictured himself trying to refuse one of his mother’s extra helpings, knowing damn well how that conversation would end before it even started. Yeah, no, if Selene wanted to argue with Cinyah about dinner, she was more than welcome to handle that one herself.

Once they were clear of Pinhurst Mansion, Cynrik took them back into the Shadow Realm the usual way, but the Load Point jump that followed was every bit as unpleasant as the first, made considerably worse by the dinner neither of them had been able to refuse. By the time Hárauður-Virki snapped back into view, Selene was crouched with one hand pressed against her stomach while Cynrik rested a hand against her back, fighting the urge to laugh.

”We… are fixing… the fucking nausea,” she growled once breathing became possible again.

”Already on the list.”

-It has been on the list for approximately fourteen months.-

He closed his eyes as Selene’s head rose beside him. Wonderful. Tobs had just earned herself a new favorite person.

”Tobsie.”

-Yes?-

”I love you.”

-I know.-

Cynrik gave Tobs a mental thumbs-up for the Han Solo reference, only to catch Selene pushing herself upright and pointing toward the Fortress. He started edging away before she could decide what to do with him.

”Run.”

He didn’t need to be told again, already sprinting toward Hárauður-Virki when Selene gave chase, though the sound of her boots pounding against the stone behind him convinced him to pick up the pace.

’Heh. Emergency Wife evasion. Gotta add that to the Load Point specs.’