"I'm not that old," he muttered.
"Really?" Fei purred. Her eyes ran up and down August's body.
For the first time in a long time, August felt self-conscious. He felt that she was sizing him up like a piece of meat.
It was a nostalgic feeling.
Most of his lovers had long since stopped sizing him up in his timeline.
Fei remained silent, but her eyes lingered on August's crotch for longer than he felt was necessary.
"Maybe you should say that you're experienced?" Fei said after close to thirty seconds of silence.
"I'm beginning to appreciate experience." She licked her lips, her cheeks turning red, and cat ears flattening against her head.
Something told August that Fei wasn't thinking of a family-friendly sort of appreciation right now.
"Yes. Let's say that I'm experienced. And that I'm definitely not your father," August said, looking Fei squarely in the eye.
"Yup," Fei said.
Then she spun on her heel and walked away. "I'll see you in the morning, August."
He watched her, his eyes tracking lower on her body. Her bushy black tail swished back and forth with each step.
But his focus was on the toned ass that tail was attached to, and he wondered how different her body felt compared to his memories.
"She's teasing me," he muttered, and headed up to his office.
He froze the moment he stepped inside it.
A matte black door stood at the back of the office. Impossibly, a shield hung in mid-air over the doorway, hovering in front of the door itself.
August had restored the shield yesterday, turning it from a faded, rusted mess into a decoration bearing the emblem of the Imperial Army.
He figured he needed to put on a show of loyalty in case somebody visited.
Now a monochrome doorway had popped into existence behind that shield.
It had appeared while August had been away.
He pulled the shield off the wall. The mounting bracket hovered in mid-air.
He needed to use magic to pull it out, and flakes of stone puffed out when he did so.
'Where was the stone coming from,' he wondered.
The doorway felt solid, and August couldn't feel where the old wall had been.
But when he dove into his binding stone, he couldn't sense the new door, only the wall that he couldn't see.
'What the hell was he seeing? Had reality broken down?'
A lump formed in August's throat. Given the color of the door, and the impossible nature of its existence, he had a bad feeling about it.
He gripped the knob of the door.
August pulled on the door. It didn't move.
August pushed the door. It didn't move.
Frustrated, he banged on the door and tried to force it. Nothing worked.
He stepped back, growling.
The door swung inward. He saw only solid white light in the gap it created.
He pushed the door all the way open, but only a white void appeared.
The binding stone still told August that there was no door here.
Only a wall that he had stuck his hand through.
August closed his eyes and stepped through the strange doorway. For an instant, he felt his entire body warp. Or shift. Or something.
The sensation was unlike anything he had ever experienced.
The closest thing he could compare it to was the feeling that his entire body was being transformed from the ground up.
When he opened his eyes, it felt like nothing had changed.
He wore the same clothes, his hands looked the same, and he thought the same thoughts.
"Finished appreciating the ship of Theseus paradox?" an all-too-familiar voice asked.
August looked up and blinked.
Kadria lounged on… something in front of him.
She looked exactly as she had on the night he first met her, when she destroyed his fortress and his timeline, and gave him a second chance in life.
She had bronzed skin, wore nothing but underwear, and had terrifying eyes of red and violet that bore into his soul.
She raised an eyebrow at him.
More concerning was what was around her, and under her.
The entire room, if August could call it that, was an outline. He couldn't see any objects, only outlines.
The white void had become a black void, and everything inside this space was outlined with white lines.
August felt that he had stepped into a world where everything wasn't merely monochrome, but lacked depth.
Had he been blinded?
And what was a ship of Theseus?
"What the hell is this?" August asked, horror creeping into his voice.
Kadria blinked, eyes narrowing. "You can see them?"
"Them?"
"The furniture. The room. The cushion I'm sitting on."
"I can see outlines. Have you blinded me? What the hell have you done?" August nearly yelled. His breath quickened.
"Calm down. You're not blind. This room isn't like your world.
Think of it like the world that the portals appear in. A 'place between worlds,' I think you described it as to your would-be squeeze?" Kadria explained, leaning into her cushion.
"I can see just fine in the portals." August tried to calm down, however.
He had to believe his vision defect was temporary.
"The portals are closer to your world than not." Kadria shrugged, and it did interesting things to the thin strips of cloth covering her admittedly small chest.
"This place isn't. Not yet. I'm able to connect it to your world thanks to you, but the fact you're able to see anything other than me is a miracle."
She paused and eyed August cautiously. "Honestly, most of this has been a miracle. You're a more talented Bastion than I thought."
"Why thank you," he muttered. He had calmed down now and was regaining his bearings.
The room—assuming it even was a room—wasn't especially large.
Perhaps the size of a minor noble's bedroom.
The walls were rounded, lacking corners. The outline of a bed occupied most of the room.
August blinked. The bed appeared to be massive, larger even than those August had created, but the objects alongside it didn't quite line up.
August took a step forward, in case the problem was because of his poor depth perception was staring at the outlines of shapes.
The room seemed to shift, and nothing felt right.
August took a deep breath and instead focused on Kadria. The Messenger lounged on her cushion, watching him intently.
"Don't stare too closely. Like I said, this room isn't very close to your world," she said gently.
He didn't know her voice could be so soft. "What the hell does that mean?" he mumbled, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to quell the migraine he felt coming on.
"It's complicated. Suffice it to say that I'm not from around here,"
Kadria said, shrugging off the question. "Tell me, does your talent usually cause you so much pain?"
"I say again, what the hell does that mean?" August growled, more annoyed than confused now.