For an apex predator, bait was just an appetizer.

  “If I start babbling incoherently, take the py out of my hands,” Rykard said and crossed his legs.

  “Yes, Sir,” Lyvia stated her agreement, while Tess sighed.

  The legs pulled back into the aged pages, as Rykard pced the py in his p. The texture of the paper was pleasant to the touch, a little too pleasant. He flipped open the first page and began to read.

  Scene: the Contestant king sits on the ground. The corridor is clean, and the walls are ornate. Bothersome divinity pulses in the stone. Beyond them, the swirling abyss whispers of truth.

  Instruction: the Contestant king wrinkles his brow. He is bored by the py.

  Scene: The women with him vanish.

  Rykard looked up. He was alone. He returned his gaze to the page.

  Instruction: the Contestant looks up and realizes he is alone. He continues to read, waning himself the master. A terror assails his mind.

  The words barely prepared him for the existential dread that suddenly came over him. Time was id out in front of him like a carpet. He was reading the present line by line from this page. What if he flipped through the pages and picked up ter? Would the future change the past, changing the future?

  He shook his head and stayed on line.

  Instruction: the Contestant king shakes it off, barely. One above the threshold.

  Scene: the corridor’s walls are no more. The floor is smooth stone now. The Contestant King sits in an endless darkness. It is then that a voice reaches him.

  Princess of Yellow: In a singing tone, “Hello there.”

  Contestant king: smug, teasing, annoyingly resistant, “Is it safe to look up?”

  Princess of Yellow: amused, “You looked at the cute shoggoth earlier, why fear me?”

  Contestant king: “Because you call it cute.”

  Rykard: “Also, call me Rykard.”

  Princess of Yellow: giggles.

  Rykard: “Answer the question.”

  Princess of Yellow: “It is safe to look up.” That is a lie.

  Rykard: “I won’t fall for it just because you put it behind the speech.”

  Princess of Yellow: sighs. “I already knew that, but the proper order of time has to be respected. Be honoured, a daughter of Hastur demeans herself to chronological events.”

  Rykard: “Is it safe to look up?”

  Princess of Yellow: “Yes.” It is true now.

  Rykard raised his gaze from the page and found himself looking up at a blonde woman. She sat on a throne of stone and bone, surrounded by a writhing mass of tendrils and yellow eyes. Despite that eldritch surrounding, her form was quite pin compared to what she should have been. A blonde woman of tanned skin, naked except for a yellow silk band id over her lower arms.

  Her eyes were of an intense yellow, as were her lips. A silver tiara sat atop her wavy hair. Her body was nubile, her breasts between middling and rge, her legs shapely, and all around she was just nice to behold.

  “I told my father, the King, that you have to put a pretty face on things for men like you,” the Princess of Yellow said, lips curved into an almost too broad grin.

  “I don’t much enjoy sitting beneath you, truth be told,” Rykard remarked and cocked his head. Paper rustled as the page turned on its own. “Even less I enjoy not knowing what you want.”

  “I want to be yours,” the Princess of Yellow stated bluntly.

  Gncing down, Rykard read her words.

  Princess of Yellow: “I am telling the truth,” she says, truthfully.

  “What’s the catch?” the king wanted to know. “What pn do you want to progress?”

  “I am pinly bored,” the Princess of Yellow said. “The Demon Chaos swirls and his Mad Piper keeps him appeased. Spirit and material remain in an armistice. Father wishes to put his fingers into mortal minds. Since you are not going to let him, now it’s my turn to py.”

  “Then let’s ask the other way around: what’s in it for me?”

  The page under his eyes swirled and changed. Rykard felt memories formute in his head as he tried to keep up.

  Scene: the Contestant king sits there impatiently as the Princess of Yellow searches for the most entertaining progression of this conversation.

  Princess of Yellow: “She yearns to see you, you know?”

  Rykard was confused, but he had an inkling. “What do you mean?”

  “The little Ouroboros Queen. You gave her hope and she just needs to see you so desperately.” The Princess of Yellow ughed. It was not a gentle sound. It echoed and scratched. “So many nightmares! She’s surrounded by her brood. She’s certain of her future, you know?”

  Rykard grit his teeth.

  He knew exactly what had to be done at a time like this. Rykard rose to his feet. “And what is this now?” the Princess of Yellow wanted to know. “Are you going to get mad at m-”

  Rykard stood over her staring at her naked form with nothing but disappointment in his eyes. That gre did what it always did to women like this. The Princess of Yellow blushed up a storm.

  “How dare you stand above me!” she shouted.

  Rykard tolerated that dispy for one more second, before rushing down. His hand smmed against the stone of her backrest, scattering eldritch flesh like it was seafoam. The Princess of Yellow jumped in her seat, yelping all too womanly.

  “Who do you think you are talking to like that, brat?” he growled. His offhand ran through her blonde hair. It was soft and silky. “Good to see elder minds condition their hair. I appreciate that. You must have known you would belong to me for aeons now.” The Princess of Yellow trembled in her seat. “What’s the matter?”

  “...again…” she muttered. “Do that again!”

  The sequence broke.

  Princess of Yellow: “She yearns to see you, you know?”

  Rykard was confused, but he had an inkling. “What do you mean?”

  “The little Ouroboros Queen. You gave her hope and she just needs to see you so desperately.” The Princess of Yellow ughed. It was not a gentle sound. It echoed and scratched. “So many nightmares! She’s surrounded by her brood. She’s certain of her future, you know?”

  Rykard grit his teeth.

  He knew exactly what had to be done at a time like this. Rykard rose to his feet. The Princess of Yellow breathed with overbearing excitement. That made him hesitate. What had brought about that sudden change?

  Scene: the Contestant king gnces down at the pybook. In the process, he leaves behind the expectations of the Princess of Yellow. The tendrils all around rise. He takes a swift-

  Rykard took a swift step backwards, narrowly avoiding the colpsing limbs of boneless flesh. “You disappoint me!” the Princess of Yellow groaned. “I thought you would be the one. Such a pity. Urgh. You know how rare people like you are?” She waved her hand. “Get that out of my sight.”

  The shoggoth, or whatever else was with her, stretched its many tendrils towards Rykard. Gnawing and gnashing teeth chased the mage. Superhuman strength knocked them aside, but he was under no illusion that this was a battle he could win. Not while he was fighting on their turf. All his punches and fireballs did was buy time.

  Time.

  Time.

  There was no time in this pce, just a suggestion of causality. A chronological flow of events dictated by her and that pybook in his hands.

  ‘I am holding the pybook,’ Rykard realized. ‘I am holding the cards.’

  The Princess of Yellow yawned and inspected her nails. She thought herself the victor. Then, she was suddenly grabbed by the shoulders. She gred upwards. “I already told you no!” she growled. “Away, disappointment!”

  Rykard sat on the floor again. The rebuttal had his head spinning. The rebuttal did not matter at all. He was in control. All of her struggles were just the multi-timeline temper tantrum of a brat who did not know her pce.

  Back on his feet, grinning, he walked across. The Princess of Yellow had a knit in her brow still. “You absolute buffoon, stop trying to act tough. You are an actor on a script, nothing more.”

  Rykard had no need to respond, only to look down at her like a disappointed owner at his property.

  Rykard rexed his jaw, and the gritting of his teeth suddenly returned to a point of frustration. The Princess of Yellow tried to stare at him disapprovingly, but she was still blushing from the st timeline. Wordlessly, Rykard rose to his feet again and walked over.

  “T-this proves nothing!” she stammered. “This-”

  The hard smack of his hand against the stone had her fall still. She gazed up at him, clearly aroused. Her form was constantly shifting, always blonde, always tan, always crowned, but never quite the same.

  “You are beautiful when you look at me like that,” he whispered.

  “S-shut up!” she screeched. “Do it again!”

  Contradictory instructions, but Rykard did not care. He rose to his feet again and again and again. The Princess of Yellow’s resistance melted with each repetition of events until it was Rykard who truly was in control. The py shattered into many simultaneous dispys of the same scene. One king approaching one princess waiting for the man to guide her to her pce. By the end of it, the inhumanely long tongue of the eldritch royal hung out like that of a panting dog.

  Rykard reverted time in his terms one st time. He flipped backwards through the pages until he was back at the point where it all had begun. All of it had always happened. None of it had ever happened. It was the tter that was important. “Give it back!” the Princess of Yellow demanded. “All of that! Give it back - or do it again!”

  “You want to be mine, act like it,” Rykard answered dismissively. “Obviously a multi-dimensional entity such as yourself could have found yourself a dom out there if all it takes is a bit of wall-shoving and teasing to get you all hot and bothered.”

  “Yeah, sure, that’s all it takes,” the Princess of Yellow answered sarcastically. “Curr, do not presume that-”

  Rykard flipped forward through the pages again, to the point after everything had happened and to the point where the current events were happening again. Immediately the eldritch royal shivered head to toe. “Feeling better now?”

  “Yes, Master, sorry, Master,” the broken brat answered. She wasn’t even capable of hiding her true nature anymore. The yellow silk fell aside, revealing cws of a material both smooth as marble and flexible as rubber. Her skin was marked in swirling patterns, especially her face. From her lips, the long tongue stretched.

  “Good girl,” Rykard stated and watched the Princess of Yellow spasm in her throne. It was too short a fit to be a genuine orgasm, but she certainly got close. “Do you want to lose this again?”

  “No!”

  “Will you answer my questions truthfully?”

  “Yes!”

  “What were you talking about? In regard to Altana.”

  “I was twisting the words deliberately,” the Princess of Yellow confessed. “I wanted to get a rise out of you because I thought that would make this the most entertaining. She does want to see you and she did have a few nightmares because of the ndscapes she destroyed. The brood she is surrounded by is her hope. She’s been succeeding remarkably well at reforming her swarm. It is practically done.”

  “Really now?” Rykard said with a growing smile.

  “She has been defying fate. Fate may still defy her. It does seem unlikely though.” A tendril at the foot of the throne wagged like a tail. “What more do you want to know? Can I get scratches?”

  Rykard decided to oblige her and scratched the eldritch demigod behind the crown. She cooed like a happy pigeon. “What is in this for you?”

  “I don’t care for the Conjuration Realm anymore,” the Princess of Yellow mented. “Swirling possibilities without limits. I yearn to be restricted. I yearn for the material.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes. My prediction of the future ended at the start of this meeting. Past you opening the py, your might dictated causality.” Gold-yellow eyes looked up at him. “Please, Master, ensve this Princess of Yellow.”

  “If I had a colr on me, I would have already wrapped it around your neck.” Rykard sunk his fingers into her hair. “But it won’t be that easy, I suppose?”

  “Afraid not,” the Princess of Yellow moaned. “The pybook allows us to interact but I am still thought and you are still thought and matter. For me to be yours truly, I must be brought to your realm. I shall be summoned as your eternal servant.”

  “How many of your powers will you retain? I mostly ask because I do not want to govern over a world of madness.”

  “To mortal senses, many of my powers will be the same. I will be folded into one presence, that will be my limitation. One being in one body at one spot in one time - finally, a crity of experience.” She sighed in anticipation. “It takes me great effort to not scatter outwards, you know? Appreciate me.”

  “I appreciate you a lot,” Rykard assured her. “This was the most creative teasing a brat has tortured me with yet. I certainly book it under learning experiences. Plus…” He pced his other hand on her breast and coped his first feel of his future haremette. “...I do always love submissive women.”

  The eldritch royal giggled. “I will not drown your world in enlightenment, you do not have to fear that. I will be limited. Causality will be within my senses, but fleshcraft will be my primary expertise. I’ll be more powerful than any of the women currently with you. I will be weaker than you.”

  “What makes me so special?” Rykard asked.

  “That you would ask that.” The Princess of Yellow would have shaken her head, had he not still held her. “You are Rykard. If you had failed, I would have waited the aeons for another of your kind to form. One of supreme power, of the will to wield that power, and of the correct set of sexual interests.”

  Rykard snorted in amusement. She had the proper priorities, he liked that. “Then the earlier question: what is in it for me? Besides you.”

  “I will teach you the Elder Sign.” The formless bck around them rippled in disgust.

  Rykard vaguely remembered what that meant. It was the one sigil that repelled elder minds of all kinds. They hated it and destroyed it wherever they found it, be it in physical form or as the memories of those who knew it. Armed with that symbol, he would not have to fear undue annoyances from these esoteric monstrosities.

  It was also the ultimate betrayal she could enact. “Are you certain?”

  “I will no longer be one of them. I will be one of you. My only loyalty has been to New Eden the moment you proved yourself.” The Princess of Yellow smirked. “It may not have been written, but this was the inevitable outcome. After all, how could you fail?”

  “How could I indeed,” Rykard lifted her out of the throne and pced her in his p after he had sat down. Writhing flesh made for a poor cushion in his opinion, but what king stood in the presence of his princess-sve? “Then, the final question: how do I get you to my world?”

  “When next the divine call for a game, the reward will be the setting of the sky,” the Princess of Yellow said. “When you won the game, name a star of the day and a star of the night with the intent to make those names my names. One name shall call me, the other shall bind me, and I will be with you for as long as these stars burn in the sky.”

  The Princess of Yellow gnced at the pybook, still flipping pages. She sighed when she realized what Rykard had realized moments before: they were almost out of paper. “No touching yourself, no leaving your human form,” Rykard gave her final instructions. “When the time comes, I want you to descend on starlight, drop on your knees, and beg for that colr.”

  “Yes, Master,” she swooned.

  End Scene.