With the ice blocking out the wind and rain and my body heating the cramped interior, the cave became almost snug over time. The catgirl and I stay cuddled together, although there was barely space for any other position. Her question lingered in my mind as I listened to the rain patter on the rock overhead. The rainstorm was like countless tiny needles, numbing the ground below to all sensation.

“If you truly wish to know,” I said at last, “I will… try… to tell you. It makes a good story at least, even if you will not respect it.”

I felt her shift in my arms. Her voice became quiet, a soft whisper. “It's not that I don't respect shit. I just… don't want to..” there was a pause in her words and I felt her hair tickle the underside of my chin as she shook her head. “Don't put yourself out for my sake.” Whatever she had planned to say, she had chosen not to share.

I sighed. After a single night in the nekojin’s company, I already knew better than to expect her to willingly ask for what she wanted. Since I didn’t have access to nipple clamps or a melting candle at that moment, I decided to just tell her.
“Before Am’aleh, my driving purpose was to become the best martial artist Althanas has ever seen. I became a well known prize fighter and tournament competitor, winning the support of many people across the known world. When she brought me back after the Cell, Ama’leh sought to exploit that. There is no question in my mind that she always meant to use me. She told me as much.

“But things did not unfold as she’d planned. I was not satisfied by the life she envisioned for me, as her champion in the hearts of the masses. One day I… I put on my metal boots and walked into the ocean, to see whether it would swallow me whole or spit me back out. I walked beneath the waves, along the sandy bottom, until my lungs screamed for air. But I would not relent. I wanted the crushing blackness to be my forever.

“It was then that she came to me in her true form… she showed herself to me, made herself vulnerable, even if in the slightest. She buoyed me and my spirits both back to the surface, and we lay together in the waves for the first time. It is not at all like…” I took a deep breath, not wanting to say what we did.

“Imagine if you could gaze directly into the sun. What beauty and secrets hide in its fires? What piece of the everlasting puzzle is so private, it must be kept hidden by a blinding force? Most mortals can only gaze on the stars from afar. But I… I have seen them up close. I have seen Am’aleh in the flesh, or as close to it as she ever comes. I know the truth that is in her heart. She no longer seeks to use me for her own ends…” I peeled a sticky strand of hair off Ayaka’s cheek.

“She wishes to raise me up to Thaynehood, to take my place at her side. Together, that is what we seek.”