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Dungeons can be lonely places. Besides the fact that they’re unpredictable, eerie, and can sometimes run bitterly cold, they’re a place no one would enter if they didn’t have to. Especially not alone. And so an individual adventurer is hard to come by, at least on the first level. The deeper you go and the more members of your party are picked off by monsters or to the unforeseen circumstances of an ever changing environment - sometimes, you can be forced into a position of isolation. Sometimes you don’t have a choice and the sudden imposing size of the dungeon will become apparent in comparison to the smallness of your body. Sometimes you end up in a place no one has been before, a stranger in an even stranger place.
So in that regard, Marcille believes she should be grateful. This feeling in her stomach. This emptiness coated with a strange sadness, it doesn’t make any sense.
Beside her are four other bodies - constantly. Laios, Senshi, Chilchuck and Izutsumi. They take up space and sometimes even squish her in between them, navigating tight corners or running in a pack from an enemy. The heat they give off, the smells, the sounds of their voices are all welcome and necessary company. Yet...as they pass each level...that feeling in Marcille grows. Going from static little pinches right before she goes to bed to long, stretched out aches as she lays in the dark and stares up.
If Falin were here, she would never feel this way.
Marcille somehow instinctively knows this and she’s been with the party long enough that this feeling is new. She has never experienced it before - before Falin was eaten - before this journey to save her.
Am I lonely?
Marcille doesn’t have the option of swapping her bedroll for Falin’s. Of coiling her thin arms around a bigger, stronger, and warmer body. Of counting the breaths another takes as she uses them to lull herself to slumber.
Marcille doesn’t have Falin’s big hands to wrap around her waist. Her sweet, hot sweat that Marcille can taste when she gets close enough in their hug to press her mouth to an exposed part of Falin’s neck. Her muscular but still plush thighs that Marcille can rub up against in the silence of night, Falin’s panting pretty in her ear.
I’m not lonely. I’m needy.
Marcille puts a hand on her stomach and presses, tries to see if she can use her magic to help her find that soreness and make it stop. She can’t.
Beside her are four other bodies - one of them should be able to help.
+
Laios is the first option to come to mind and that she decides to try. Maybe because he’s the leader, or maybe because he resembles Falin the most. Afterall, Falin is what she really wants - what she really pictures in her mind when she touches herself in hopes of reliving this pesky need by her own means. Of course, that doesn’t work and that’s why she’s here - in front of Laios - who drops the rag he’s using to clean dried blood from his armor when she shows up and undoes the little rope of ribbon around her robe and it opens with one easy flutter.
“Marcille?”
She can’t help but be a little proud of how forward she’s being with him right now. Of all the lovey dovey novels she likes to cozy up with, the main characters are always so shy and submissive. But she looks at Laios like she always does.
“I’m a little lonely, can you help me out?”
His face is an open book. In that regard, he’s different from his sister, who manages to hold the same sleepy and peaceful expression in any situation. Even if it betrays how she really feels. So Marcille can tell he’s trying to understand and then failing to do so.
She saunters over. Laios is the youngest male in the party so it shouldn’t be too hard to convince him. She can tell she’s pretty much already done so when he pushes his chair back enough so that she can throw one leg over his and get comfortable in his lap. He’s a little too tall for her liking, Falin was the perfect height, but she puts her hands on his shoulders.
“Do you like me?”
Of course he asks a stupid question, and in return she gives a look.
“This isn’t going to change anything.”
Everything about him is bigger than she’s used to. Tallmen aren’t her type, when it comes to males she finds dainty elves more her style, but he’ll have to suffice for now.
His movements are a little sloppy, like he hasn’t had much experience and she has to tell him where to touch and to slow down a lot. Still, he’s able to lift her easily and she kind of enjoys that way he follows commands without a second thought. He doesn’t kiss her, which she also likes, she’s decided that kissing in crossing the line but getting pressed down into a wooden table is fine.
Laios gets all red and mumbles an apology and a word of gratitude when they’re done.
“We were both a little lonely, huh?”
He shakes his head, “I don’t think I’m lonely, I just haven’t...” he shrugs “I just haven’t scratched the animalistic itch is all.”
She rolls her eyes at the answer.
But like she said, the encounter changes nothing between them. And the feeling in her subsides, at least for a bit.
+
When it comes back, Marcille isn’t happy. She had hoped it would start and end with Laios and that they’d get Falin back soon.
They did get her back for what felt like a split hair of a second - and then, like Marcille’s worst nightmare, Falin had turned into a monster. A monster that Marcille herself had created. Half human, half dragon.
But what made Marcille squirm around the most, bringing her hands to her face in terrible guilt, was that seeing Falin like that was probably the reason this urge had come back to bite her.
I want her, whatever she looks like, I want her. I miss her.
Marcille turns on her side and sighs. Going back to Laios might be a safe bet, but then she remembers how he’d been so nonchalant about it at the end. Reminding her that what they’d gained from that moment had been totally different. Longing and the need for connection with another was what Marcille was clawing for - Laios was just doing what animals do.
And the idea that Marcille might beckon him again and he would refuse her, well the thought was just too unbearable and embarrassing. So Marcille thinks of her next option.
Chilchuck.
She’s getting ready to wash her hair in one of the bathrooms of the Golden Country. Yaado and the others had been so accommodating since they’d appeared that she nearly forgot the plan she’s been piecing together in her head since seeing Falin.
Opening the door, she checks where she thinks Chilchuck would most likely be - and she’s correct to find him in the pantry beside the banquet hall - probably looking for something to drink.
“Chil?”
She calls out, making her voice light - trying not to think about how she’s actively making herself sound younger. Thinking that in some kind of way that’ll appeal to him even though he’s made it evident that age....is a sour point in his life.
His back freezes and he straightens up.
“Marcille?”
He turns, brows knitted together because that’s a new nickname.
“Can you come with me?”
The thing about Chilchuck is that he likes to tease and argue with her all the time, but when it comes down to it he really does take care of her. His worries are evident whenever she finds herself injured or depleted of her magic. He might nag about how he dislikes her treatment of him, headpats and cooing, but he makes sure to never push her away too far. A part of Marcille even suspects that he likes her - not in a super romantic way, not in a way that could possibly overcome his love for his family (wherever they are) - but in the way everyone likes pretty things.
Marcille is kind of his flavor of choice too, blonde with big light eyes. The downside, she assumes, is that she’s an elf and therefore taller. Had she been a half foot......well she doesn’t think too much about it, just hopes that Chilchuck doesn’t freak out when she gives him her proposition.
He does.
He doesn’t yell or scream, he just gives her a wide eyed look that turns means as he says “No.” and tries to turn the knob on the bathroom door. She locked it when they got in here and he doesn’t have his picking tools.
“Chilchuk please? This isn’t going to change anything.”
“Yes- what the hell do you mean? Of course it will! I like knowing who I work with, but not.....not that intimately! Once you know those things about a person - you never forget them!”
Marcille pouts, really putting an emphasis on the way it makes her cheeks go cutely round.
“It’s not like that! It’s just a relief, for both of us.”
“Don’t you like Falin?”
Marcille jumps a little.
“W-What?”
Chilchuck’s gaze goes from stone to soft, if only a little bit.
“You like Falin......so you should wait for us to rescue her and then you guys can....”
“We already have, that’s why I’m doing this.”
Chilchuk’s confusion settles back on his expression. Marcille twirls a loose strand of her hair in her fingers. Hoping the long, pretty shine somehow catches his attention and works to her benefit. When did she get so .... sly?
“I miss her. I miss touching her and her touching me, and it.....” She wets her lips “....and it’s getting to a point where it literally hurts. So please, please Chil?”
She gives it a beat and then two. For all the patience he has with traps and locks, he seems to have none with people. But his hand slides off the knob of the door and it looks like her words touched on something. Or maybe Chilchuck just hasn’t had any action in who knows how many years and he’s just seizing the opportunity.
“Since when do you call me that?”
He whispers to himself, but he steps in closer and she eagerly hops over to where he’s awkwardly swaying on his two feet.
The bathtub is spacious and the water is nice and warm. Marcille sits in between Chilchuck’s knees and he threads his hands through her hair - fixated on it and Marcille notes that it’s definitely a fetish. Chilchuck asks her twice, and then a third just for the sake of it, what she wants exactly.
She blushes harder than she did when she was with Laios and it’s probably because Chilchuck is older and just the way he combs through her hair is enough to tell her he knows what he’s doing.
“Just......touch me.”
“Where?”
When she tries to look over her shoulder at him, he pushes her down and she slides against the bottom of the bathtub until her head is under his chin.
“Everywhere.”
He’s incredibly good with his hands. Justified according to his profession and age and experience, but still, Marcille is mind blown. First off, he’s ambidextrous which is so hot, but he also is an incredible multitasker - one hand on Marcille’s left breast and the other inside her - both working in different motions and at different speeds.
Marcille is lightheaded faster than she expects and she barely hears Chilchuck talking to himself. Saying something about how much older he is, about how this is so wrong, about how he never though he’d be finger fucking an elf when all he signed up for was dungeon crawling and making money on a job that wasn’t supposed to be this dangerous. Was he talking about the girl turned dragon or about the situation of the present? It was impossible to tell.
She lulls her head to the side and her lips brush against the inside of Chilchuk’s forearm. He gets goosebumps and she likes that.
From how they’re positioned, Marcille can’t really tell if Chilchuck is getting hard from this, and to be honest, it really doesn’t matter to her. When the rope inside of her binds so tight and snaps - she makes a sound from the back of her throat that jolts her upright and Chilchuck’s hands return to his sides.
She splashes water all around her when she turns to look at him - to ask him if she can return the favor in one way or another - but he’s already getting out of the bathtub and shaking his head.
“This never happened.”
She agrees, nodding her head when she comes down from her dizzy little high, but he’s gone.
+
The feeling sparks in Marcille’s stomach once again, right before she’s lured in to eat with her party - ramen noodles long and hot and waiting to be consumed.
She’s become the master of the dungeon and she feels sick and exhilarated all the same.
She’s empty, though, part of her is empty.
Hunger - maybe. She eats and becomes full but still, she feels that part of her is still empty. She looks up and sees Senshi.
No.
She looks around and sees Laios, Chilchuck, Izutsumi.
No.
She wants Falin back so bad.
+
Izutsumi confuses Marcille. Maybe it’s because of all the events that have transpired, all of the plans on killing Falin and then eating the part of her that isn’t really her anymore. Maybe it’s because Marcille went insane with her own desire under the sweet talkings of the winged dragon. Maybe it’s because she thought Laios did too.
Nonetheless, Izutsumi confuses her when they’re prepping the meal that’ll go alongside the parts of Falin they’re cooking and the beastkin comes prancing up to her with the question: “What are you going to do after all this?”
Marcille only has about ten minutes to spare, but she grabs Izutsumi and brings her back to the large cavern of Falin’s body - still covered in ice - still in tact, fused together with the dragon part below her.
“I’m probably going to go back with the Canaries. What I did to make her .... like this, deserves punishment.”
Marcille feels her heart shake in her ribcage. Izutsumi must pick up on it, ears perking, tail swishing.
"But I'm scared this won't work." Marcille continues "And that I won't get her back. I've felt lonely without her here, I think everyone has."
Izutsumi gives her a tilt of the head, "I haven't. But I didn't know her."
Marcille wonders if she's being awful. Something about the fact that Izutsumi is a stranger to Falin makes the feeling of wanting to be with her ten times worse then what happened with Laios and Chilchuck. They're people Falin could come to understand - "Oh, you needed your wants taken care of and you trust them." But would Falin understand that about Izutsumi?
Marcille is aware of what she wants, she's become accustomed to it, now that she's had it sated twice - and had it come back more than that. So she tugs Izutsumi toward her gently.
Izutsumi reflexively resists, but then lets down her resistance as Marcille's lips teeter at the corner of her lips.
If Falin doesn't comeback the same, if Falin dies completely, Marcille wants the closeness of someone she loves at least one more time. Someone from the party at least, especially if she's shipped off before she can properly say her goodbyes. Izutsumi might think this is just Marcille being.....Marcille. Giving her a peck the way a doting older sister might to her younger sibling, but to Marcille it's something else.
Even though the feeling inside her has always been sexual, it's also been one of pure connection. Of the reassurance that she wasn't alone. Of closeness.
Izutsumi's tail comes up to brush where Marcille is hold her wrist still. Marcille let's go and they both look up at Falin. She's peaceful and serene.
"I hope you get to see her soon."
Marcille is surprised by the tenderness of Izutsumi's voice. She's looking at the ground beside Marcille, almost coyly, almost like she's a little embarrassed.
"Me too. I hope we all get to see her soon."
+
When Falin returns, complete and perfect, Marcille doesn't know what to do with herself. And when Falin asks if they can revisit the dungeon, Marcille is surprisingly the first to agree to the idea.
Dungeons can be lonely places, but with the people you love, they can be just as full.