Learning to shareNSFW

You know how dangerous this is, don't you?

Tala rubs a thumb over the pendant around her neck. "Yes, I'm well aware of the risk I'm taking."

Helixia's flirtatious voice teases in her mind. But are you, though? I mean, aside from the obvious, me dragging your soul into the Void with me...

"Which you won't do for the same reason you hang out around my neck all the time, you not exactly being welcome in the Void." Tala takes out her bottle of sacrificial blood - drawn from her own body, she's not a murderer - and gets a brush from her supply kit.

Or never letting your body go once I have control of it...

"You've told me that you loathe the difficulties of being alive, and you prefer admiring my body from the outside." The brush splashes as Tala dips it into the blood vial, pulls her mirror closer, and traces the shape of the sigil on her forehead. "Besides, after all the starving you've been doing, I can't see you having the stamina to keep control of the smallest beetle unless it let you."

I could handle things like having to use the bathroom and breathe if it meant I got to be mortal! Probably.

"Do you want me to do this or not? I can just summon you back into an aetheric projection, you know..." Tala caps the blood vial and returns it to its place in safekeeping.

What if I really like being in your head?

"You're always in my head. And the way I imagine you, you seem to like it quite a lot."

You always know what to say to a horrible demon monster who wants desperately to be a girl.

"If you liked that, wait till you hear this."

Tala pulls the book closer. Katrja had been kind enough to let her borrow hers for long enough to create a translated copy in her notebook.

One last deep breath. For all her bravado, she is putting a lot of trust in herself and in this ritual. And most of all in Helixia. Her girlfriend has been nothing but trustworthy, all this time. They've shared so much.

But sharing a body...?

Tala glances at the door. Alun is on strict orders to break it down and try to knock out the intertwined couple - "Non-lethally!" as Tala had stressed - long enough for Katrja to perform a severing ritual in case Helixia should go rogue. But this is still dangerous.

Especially given the enthusiasm with which they'd agreed to their roles...

And there was always the possibility, however small, that Reina might return early from her outing and catch a voidsent summoning happening in her house...

And in her roommate...

Neither of which were probably going to be taken all that well.

"Here goes nothing," Tala mutters, and lights the first candle.

Immediately, before she's even said anything, she feels... naked. Like everyone here can see right through her.

She sucks in a deep breath, then begins chanting the incantation. At the key moment, she lights the second candle.

I'm with you, Helixia murmurs, and it's Helixia's will, not Tala's, that causes the third candle to light. Tala can feel the aether in her body shift involuntarily, the first sign that Helixia is close.

Tala gives a shuddering breath, then continues chanting.

Lighting the fourth candle is like ripping open her own soul. She grunts in pain, trying to maintain her focus just a little bit longer--! Helixia--!

...

Tala's awareness returns an unknown amount of time later. Her body aches, and her eyes are closed.

She can't seem to muster the will to open them, though.

But then they do open, and they blink, once slowly, then twice quickly, and she feels herself sit up.

It worked, she thinks.

"It worked!" Helixia exults in Tala's voice. She holds out her hand, curling her fingers. "Mmm... How good it feels to not be inhabiting a figment or a corpse..."

Tala can feel her own hand rise up toward her face, stroking her own cheeks. "Soft..." Helixia mumbles. "Do your friends still want to meet me?"

I think so.

"Wait, before we do that... I need to check something."

Tala nearly falls over as she suddenly regains control of her body. "You could have warned me first," she mumbles.

So we can switch whenever we feel like it, Helixia thinks, and then just as suddenly Tala is back to being an observer in her own senses.

Whenever you feel like it, you mean! Tala teases. Hey, can you put my clothes back on?

"They already saw us like this," Helixia says, rolling Tala's eyes. "You're such a prude."

No, I'm just being practical, because-

It's too late, though - Helixia has already stepped out of the summoning room. With Tala still in nothing but her smallclothes and the outfit of runes Katrja had (a little too) lovingly drawn onto her.

"You're still alive," Katrja comments, entertained. "I was certain it was going to fail spectacularly."

"Actually, I decided I can't do it while I have regrets," Helixia says through Tala's voice. "Alun, please... I just... I don't want to die having never kissed you..."

"W-What?"

What!

Alun's face is heating up, and fast. She looks between Katrja, who is desperately trying to suppress a laugh behind her hand, and Tala/Helixia, who holds out a longing hand in the dragon girl's direction. "W-What's funny?"

You shouldn't tease her, you know. She breaks uncertainty with her stomach.

"I'm just having some fun, Tala, lighten up!" Helixia says brightly, raising her hand to wave instead. "But you are welcome to share a bed with Tala and I anytime, Alun. You too, Katrja."

Rather than settle Alun's flustered confusion, this makes it much, much worse. "W-Wh--"

"Helixia, I presume?" Katrja asks, bowing her head. "Nice to meet you. Is Tala still well?"

Tell them I'm fine.

Tala just stops breathing for a few moments before suddenly sucking in a huge breath. "I told you to give me some warning before you do that! I'm fine. Alun, don't freak out, okay? I told her to stop."

Only after I'd done it, though.

"Yes, because you didn't check with me first..."

The small dragon girl's grip on her axe makes her knuckles turn white. "T-Two girls..."

"Fascinating," Katrja muses to herself. "You know we can see your face change when you change places, yes?"

Helixia takes over again to answer this question. "Oh. That makes me begging Alun for a kiss much less convincing."

"Oh, but it was funny," Katrja says pleasantly. "And it still seems to have worked."

"Two girls," Alun whimpers, unable to cope with this reality. She's going to have to just eat the two of them. That's the only logical way to solve this.

"Yes, Alun, two girls," Katrja teases. "As for your very generous offer, Helixia, I think I'll pass. There's not much you can tempt me with, and I happen to have a good idea of what happens to your bed partners that causes you to need so many of them."

"Oh, I'll get you eventually~" Helixia blows a kiss in Katrja's direction, lightly pushing the short dragon girl off her to the side.

"... I see that the two of you are much stronger than Tala alone," Katrja comments, eying up Tala's nearly-naked body the way Tala's muscles bulge as she shoves Alun back onto her heels. "And if I'm not mistaken, Tala's chest is larger as well..."

What? No. You resized my chest?

"I did," Helixia answers, pulling Alun in close as the Au Ra comes around for a second swallowing attempt. She buries Alun's face in her chest, holding her there. "But making modifications like this is a bit more taxing on poor Tala. So I won't be able to stay long."

You didn't have to do that!

"Oh, but I did," Helixia says, pressing the squirming Alun into her chest until the dragon girl goes limp from lack of breath. "I just wouldn't feel at home in a vessel with such a small chest!"

I let you borrow my body and this is the thanks I get... I see how it is. For your information, just because my chest isn't as big as yours doesn't make it small.

"It's small to me, love, and mine is the only perspective I have."

"Watching a couple argue is even more awkward when they're sharing a body," Katrja observes.