Chapter 398 – The return of the Fluffy Monday 6 – The chattering maid

Chapter 398 – The return of the Fluffy Monday 6 – The chattering maid

“I like this, this is fun, this is lofty,” Sylph declared as she played with her new clothes. “John, John, how do I look? Do I look good? I mean, of course I look good, I always look good, I am your concubine and you look good, so I, as your concubine, have to look good as well. Cause good looking people stick together right? Or were those magnets? I think those were magnets. Or halfway molten gummi bears, as Sally once showed me. Mean Sally, laughing as she transformed the bag into one inedible mass of plastic and gela-gelu... yellow... gelatine! It wasn’t yellow though, more like a block of rainbow and...”

John zoomed out, just holding the hand of the air elemental so she drifted along him as they made their way through the crowd. What had his plan been for this date? Well, originally he wanted to take her to the restaurant as well, stuff her full of non-sugary sweet things and then present some choices as to what to do next.

Sylph had instead requested that they take out the French maid costume that they put Siena in whenever she did something truly annoying as punishment and that she gets to wear it. Therefore, instead of wearing her normal green leotard, be it in the normal or slightly changed swimwear version, she was now clad in a short-skirted, frilly-rimmed, black and white maid outfit. She did, however, refuse to wear the headband.

There was no part in John that could be annoyed by this decision. Two things he knew with certainty each girl in his harem could wear and could only look sexy in: French maid outfits and lingerie. Of course, that was only the list of outfits. For individual clothes there were also dresses, stockings, yoga pants and... well, the list went on.

Once she was in that outfit, she had declared she wanted to go to an event. So that’s what they had done. It wasn’t really a noteworthy thing, a pie eating contest that John didn’t want to be part of. Sylph, on the other hand, had smashed her face into the thing with gusto. She barely ate any of it and came in second to last place (ahead of a humanoid ant-person who ate two bites of the thing with the table manners of a baron).

As much of a waste of time it felt like, seeing her laughing face covered in red from the fruit filling was actually worth it. Cleaning her up had been a bit of a challenge though, since she refused to remain still for more than four seconds. In the end, he managed to do it.

Now they were back on the main deck as Sylph just pulled him around like a balloon attached to a broken navigator.

“I also want to see Undine jump in the ocean, I think that sounds like fun, I want to fly all the time so I wonder why she is still waiting. Don’t you think that swimming must be fun? I have a hard time doing it, I just constantly drift on the surface you know? I wonder how Siena does it, she doesn’t weigh anything and yet she can stand in the pool. Audible gasp! How does Chompy do it? He is actually diving! Why doesn’t he teach me? Could I ride him? Double gasp.” She inhaled twice, loudly, “Me riding a tiny crocodile! That would be totally adorbsa-dorbs. Do you think that...”

“Shhhhh!” an old lady interrupted Sylph. “The concert is about to begin.”

‘Concert?’ John thought and looked around. He had noticed that it was a bit more crowded than usual but had put that down to it just being a busier time due to the increasingly hot weather. The eyes of Jack (although technically it was Jack 2) also failed to spy anything interesting. How was there a concert supposed to be around a crowded pool with no stage anywhere? ‘Full-stop, John,’ he told himself, ‘this is the Abyss, so if there is supposed to be a concert, there will be a concert. I guess they will fly?’

That hunch was exactly on point, and John and Sylph looked up just in time to see thin sheets of glass fly out of the structures around the bridge. There were two kinds of uniform sizes to the translucent things, either large squares or smaller rectangles. The former found together into a large plane that hovered over the pool while the latter formed winding staircases.

Staying still here, barefoot, was a mild torture. Only constant movement, pirouettes and jumps saved their soles from the freezing cold. For a moment they were the only ones up there, but soon others managed to find their rhythm between hearts and ears. As they were all filled with a common song, they managed to dance in unison. Alone, in pairs, in groups, people were dancing with each other, sometimes coming close, sometimes distancing themselves. The faeries flew around them.

Earlier today John had danced before, a private dance of shared clumsiness slowly evolving. This was a different dance, this was a trial. The platform thawed away from the inside out, those with the keenest instincts danced where the ice was just thick enough to still hold them, whilst others eventually fell through the platform that could no longer sustain their weight.

There was less and less room, but the competition didn’t get touchy at any point. There was a silent agreement that they would all just fall when their heart no longer guided them accurately. Parts of the outside also broke away until there was nothing more but a ring, just half-a-metre wide, to step upon. There were only four pairs of two left, and they moved at equal distance from one another. The faeries formed two spirals in their musical flight, a tunnel through which they all moved.

Sylph and John’s dance on the fairies’ ring had nothing from the traditional movements that he and Nia had learned earlier. It was still a dance, it still used the same basic move set, but it was used in an almost archaic fashion. Their steps weren’t measured, Sylph didn’t think about guiding John or being guided, they just moved. Before either of them noticed their minds had already become one.

It was hard to synchronize his mind with the tempest elemental, much harder than with anyone else, except maybe Stirwin. All of the other girls, they were coherent, thought at a normal pace and communicated in ways that one didn’t need to think about. With Sylph, he had to actively stop trying to understand her to get the point. It was hard, especially for an overthinker like him.

But in this moment, right then and right there, none of that mattered, they were one, they had cold feet, their hands were touching frequently, the dance employed hugs and kisses, even a short piggyback ride and Sylph was laughing as he twirled her around just on her hands as if she was on a carrousel.

The sensation of falling would be spared from them, as instead the remaining ice lowered into the pool beneath. Their cold feet burned as they touched the warm water, their dance becoming slow and sluggish in the different environment, and once they were submerged to their thighs and the ice melted completely in the pool, they had to stop.

Slowly their minds decoupled. John opened his mouth, “Sylph that was breathtaking, I don’t... is that how you always fe-“

“John, John!” she interrupted him, floating on her back with all limbs stretched out. “See? I told you, I told you I only float!” she acted like she held her breath, which was mighty difficult as she was made out of air, and tried to dive. To no avail. “I am floaty-girl. Float-Sylph. Super Sylph, superpower: acting as a safety vest!”

John looked at her with stunned disbelief for a moment, unable to connect the dancing elemental with the childish girl. Then he laughed with his whole body, from the bottom of his belly to the full capacity of his lungs to his wide-open mouth. It didn’t matter what he was unable to connect consciously.



“You can ask Siena how she does it, it’s time we head back,” he said.