I slouched into a plush chair in the boutique's "boyfriend waiting area" tagged as such by the sales girl's comment, while my pack disappeared into the fitting rooms. The waiting chair was designed for pradavarian proportions, leaving my feet dangling several inches above the floor.

This particular boutique catered to high level elite or wealthy female delvers. It practically shouted such from the displays of hexmesh-reinforced clothing to armor-compatible accessories on crystalline, slowly moving, rune-encrusted, tall and curvy female prad mannequins.

"What do you think?" Nessy emerged from the changeroom, twirling in a blue sundress. The fabric shimmered slightly in mesmerizing patterns, suggesting overpriced magitek threadwork.

"Beautiful," I commented, making her tail wagging accelerate tenfold. "Does the shiny thread do anything special?"

"Yep. Minor temperature regulation and small-impact protection," she slid her paws over the dress. "Perfect for casual outings in dungeons."

"Dungeons? Casual?" I laughed.

"Well, the safe-ish ones," she clarified with a smile. "Like the local edge of Denver. Urbexing at the half-drowned towers close to town is super fun. We should totally go! It'll be just like old times, but with… slaying half-formed Lawyers!"

Just like old times.

Patchy fragments of memories of another life danced across my mind. Nessy and I as young teenagers breaking into the abandoned bell tower of Saint Mary's church. Taking photos inside the giant bell, giggling furiously at each other's jokes about our Ferguson High teachers.

For a brief moment, three distinctive lifetimes competed for room in my head.

One in which Nessy and I grew up together in pre-Systemfall Ferguson.

One in which I died alone in a bathtub because of my brother's gambling debts and was brought back by Systemfall.

One in which I grew up in Little Rock Citadel in SUSA, human Tennessee Republic and was mistreated by my parents and occasionally murdered by my Pyromancer brother's 'experiments'.

Three lifetimes. Three different, yet similar Alecs. Which one was the real me? Would I eventually lose my sense of self, drown in general Alec-ness if I remembered too much from too many different lives?

Candace burst from her fitting room next, derailing my worries as she engulfed me in a glomp from behind. "Rawr! Are we chatting about Lawyer-slaying? I did lots of that as a kit with Goobs. Part of my Binder and Seer training."

Turning my head, I saw that the fox acquired a frilly, shiny, short white dress for herself with emerald gemstones at the edges. New, white leather boots designed to support digitigrade prad feet featuring reinforced holes for claws hugged her feet.

"Hey, um, did you two know each other before?" I asked the dog and fox. "Didn't you go to the same school together in Ferguson?"

"No. Nessy's friends shooed me away the few times I tried talking to her. Also, I've been homeschooled until last year," Candace exhaled, ears tilting back as she rubbed the back of her silver-white curly mane. "I spent my childhood under the constant tutelage of the best delver prads my parents could afford to chain me to. Barely had any time to myself. Mom wanted me to shine like a diamond. Goobs was aight, but some of my teachers were brutal as fuck, were paid extra to turn me into the most capable Binder in the world. Each of them pushed me to see more in the Astral, to bind things that would break anyone else's mind. Eventually I did break…"

"Sorry I wasn't there for you," Nessy smothered Candace in a husky hug, licking her face. The fox melted into the husky's embrace, silver tail wagging lightly.

"I saw too much and it shattered my psyche," Candace added. "All my life I felt… incomplete, unfinished. At times I thought it was because I wasn't good enough or that I was mind-fucked in some way, but really… I was just missing this." She mussed up the husky's black and white mane. "This part of my soul. Plus you, Alec. I missed you without even remembering who or what you are."

"Yeah." Nessy softly stroked the fox's silver hair back. "I wrote like a thousand songs over the years about us, 'bout Kristi, 'bout our RV waiting for us in the Superstore. So many years of longing."

"We should go to the Superstore and get Bul," I said. "She will amplify our skills."

"We will," Nessy nodded, grabbing me and pulling me into their mutual embrace. "We absolutely will."

"It was sooo maddening to exist without ya!" Candace smooshed both of our cheeks. "I kept having these dreams where I'd reach for someone, but they were always just beyond my grasp. I'd wake up feeling empty, get snappy at my instructors and they'd push me into more dangerous shit. Astral diving worked as a distraction until it didn't… Until I stared at myself extra hard and understood that a part of me was sliced away by someone before I was even born. I freaked out, assumed that my parents messed with me, broke lots of overpriced shit at the Rhinehart estate, and even straight up attacked my tutors and parents. My psychiatrist thought that going to school would help, give me some socializing… relax me a bit. Is how I ended attending Ferguson High for a year!"

"Did it help?" I asked.

"Kind of," Candace said. "Mostly because I met her."

"Her?"

"Ads," the fox clarified. "The first time I touched her and Astral-scanned her all the way down to her core, I thought that I'd found my soulmate. She was exactly what I needed at the time. Absolute strength, motivation, blind acceptance, love. Addie embraced me without questions, took my mentally fucked up self, supported, held me when I kept slipping into the Astral abyss, didn't let me drift away to eternity… without that cheetah butt I wouldn't be here."

Adelle stepped out of her fitting room in a black leather ensemble that hugged her orange-furred curves. The jacket was cropped and studded with a multitude of defense runes. Her legs were wrapped in tight leather pants. Heavy, celesteel-rune boots completed the look.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Damn, Ads," Candace whistled, releasing me and Nessy. "You look hot as fuck."

Adelle spun around, orange striped tail twitching. "Yeah? You think so?"

"Absolutely," Candace nodded. "Six thousand and two thumbs up!"

"Are you gonna get a matching leather outfit too?" I asked Candace.

"Nu," she replied. "Das much too heavy n' dark for me."

"If you're basically the same soul, why do you appreciate different things?" I wondered. "Is it because you grew up in different circumstances?"

"Ye, Addie's style is all rough edges, metal and badass vibes. Mine is more... Light n' flexible. Nessy's got that wholesome doggo thing going on. Kristi's all regal, sporty and prop. It's 'cus of Soul-division drift," Candace replied, idly pawing at Adelle's studs. "When a soul gets chopped up, each piece drifts in different directions based on its experiences. It's why we're not carbon copies of each other."

"Right," I said.

Candace jumped onto my lap, making me grunt from the sudden weight. "Plus, with each choppery… more entropy gets in." She wiggled atop me teasingly.

"As my parents said, we're the same at our core," Nessy added, "but we've grown in different directions."

"What would happen if there's more division?" I asked. "If I reach the end of time again and make another wish?"

"No, no, no," Candace's ears flattened. "That's a very bad idea. Do not divide us again. Addie here is pretty much at the edge of caring about you as you… as a Prad. She hurt you on purpose, in a misguided attempt to claim you. Any further divisions would likely produce... undesirable effects."

"What kind of effects?" I asked.

"Oh, you know," Candace said casually, examining her claws. "A bit of my soul that's affected with enough entropy to be murderously vengeful. One who might figure out how to permanently corrupt and unbind you or the rest of us from reality just to avoid getting divided again. Or one that wants to consume the flesh of the others to become whole. The usual cosmic horror stuff. Nullspace devours sanity and logic. More division produces less sanity. Half the time I don't know if I'm hallucinating stuff, you know."

"I see," I shuddered slightly.

"Soul division is dangerous. We're a rare, somewhat functional exception because of... you." She added.

"Because I'm a tree?"

"Because you're the divider," Candace said. "The Slayer. You cut us apart but you're also what holds us together, anchors us."

Adelle huffed from where she stood. "Can we not talk about this loopy Slaya' shit right now? I'm trying to shop and not get a migraine thinking 'bout existential jank."

"Fair point," Candace grinned. "You getting that outfit?"

"Fuck yeah, I am," Adelle said. "Makes my ass look great."

Kristi emerged from her fitting room next, dressed in a sleek, emerald-green jumpsuit that matched her violet scales and emerald feathers.

"What'd I miss?" she asked.

"Just talking about how we're all fragments of the same soul and how any further division might create an entropy-afflicted fragment number eight that will most likely perma-delete Alec," Candace said cheerfully.

"Riiiiight. A totally normal shopping conversation." Kristi rolled her eyes, heading to look at dresses.

Adelle too wandered off to the large mirror to admire herself, pretending to ignore us.

Terry stepped out of her fitting room last, looking uncomfortable in a frilly, floral pink dress that didn't match her punk aesthetic at all.

"Ugh, I hate this," she grumbled, tugging at the fabric.

"Then why'd you try it on?" Candace asked.

"The sales lady insisted," Terry said. "Said it would 'bring out my eyes' or some shit."

"And you listened to her, why?" The fox asked.

"Dunno," Terry grumbled with a big yawn.

"You clearly need help, my grumpy cat," Candace grabbed Terry and both of them wandered off towards the reinforced leather section of the boutique. "Come on."

Terry grumbled something under her breath but let herself be led, looking too hungover to put up much of a fight. The fox rapidly piled a stack of black leather pants, studded jackets, and rune-etched boots into the lynx's arms. Then, Candace nudged her friend into the nearest changeroom and pulled the red curtain shut.

The arctic fox turned back to us, smugly dusting her paws like she'd just solved world hunger. Her silver-gray eyes landed on Nessy, who was standing in her new blue sundress beside me, tail wagging at full speed.

"Hey, Nessikins," Candace said slyly. "You got any seductive outfits? Y'know, something to really wow our Alpha here tonight?"

Nessy's tail froze mid-wag, like it'd hit an invisible wall. "S-seductive? Like... um..."

"Lingerie, dawg!" The fox declared. "The good stuff. Don't tell me you've been rocking monk robes for so long you forgot how to dress sexy."

"W-hah? I... I have stuff," Nessy stammered out, fidgeting with the dress hem. "Just... not with me right now."

"Uh-huh," Candace grabbed Nessy's arm with one paw and Adelle's with the other. "C'mon, you two. Lingerie section! Now."

The trio rapidly acquired a basketful of lingerie and vanished in a cubicle together, giggling and shushing at each other.

In a few minutes my phone dinged. I opened Pradstagram to discover a photo of Nessy in an iridescent, semi-transparent dress. She was lifting the bottom of the dress revealing that underneath she was wearing an open-style g-string featuring a string of pearls running down the center section.

Candace was offering Nessy another white short dress while Addie was presenting her with a sling bikini.

Nessy looked adorably flustered by the offered outfits.

Kristi whistled softly from behind me, nearly making me drop my phone.

"Oi," I looked up at her. "Don't just sneak up on me like that! Damn sneaky Jurassic Park creature."

The raptor girl sent me a smirk, feathers fluttering slightly. She leaned down to peek at my phone screen.

My phone dinged again. Another photo loaded. The pearls nestled between her folds up close. Her tail curled high, featuring an exceptionally curvy behind. It took my brain a moment to process that Nessy was rotated 180 degrees by Candace. Fox-paws were grabbing the husky girl's butt.

"Hrm," Kristi murmured, leaning in closer. Her feathers brushed my ear.

Heat crept up my neck as another photo loaded. It featured Nessy and Candace pawing at each other, both wearing new sets of extra-thin lacy lingerie. I guessed that Adelle took the photo.

Kristi straightened up, violet tail flicking in annoyance.

"I'll handle this," she declared.

"Handle what now?" I blinked up at her as a naked selfie of Addie loaded being grabbed by Candace from behind.

"This is a public store!" She stated. "They can't just…"

She angrily strode toward the cubicle, raptor claws clicking loudly on the tile floor now. Then she yanked the red curtain aside, striding in. Giggles and indignant raptor noises erupted from within.

My phone buzzed yet again. I steeled myself before looking.

The newly made Pradstagram chat group name made me sputter out loud: [Yo Harem 🐾✨🐆🌀]

[Hugnado🌀]: ke ke ke

[Hugnado🌀]: Behold! A captured raptor!

A picture of Kristi loaded. Orange, muscular, fuzzy hands pinned Kristi's violet, scaled wrists up to the wall. The raptor was wearing a mostly transparent, iridescent bra and G-string that left nothing to the imagination. Her back was arched, wide snout open in protest, cheeks scales furiously ignited with brilliant violet spirals. Nessy's tongue was mid-lick along Kristi's neck, one paw tangled in emerald feathers.

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