Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

'I don't wanna go back to her shop…' Covered in a salamander's slime, Aria staggered through the streets, her eyes set on Helga's house that towered slightly over everyone else's. She had grown tired from the events of the day, but there was still one thing she had left to take care of. Looking down at her left hand holding a bag, she took a deep breath and heaved a sigh.

'I'll just return the tome and be done for the night.'

As she arrived at Helga's house, however, all lights had already been turned off. Her daughters were asleep and there were no signs of movement on the insides. A bit hesitant, Aria knocked on the door regardless. For a while nothing happened, but then came the barking of the dog from the inside, and soon enough echoed the sound of approaching steps.

"If it's another hopeless romantic I'm gonna lose my shit," she heard Helga whisper to herself standing just behind the front door. But then as the Valkyrie peeped through the seeing hole, her frustration quickly turned to curiosity.

Opening the door with a snap, she stared at Aria for a spell before speaking.

"What, you lost your way to the boartooth or the maze? It's the middle of the night for heavens–ahhh! Just come in quick!" Even though she was angry at the sudden midnight appearance, Helga grabbed Aria's hand and quickly pulled her into her house. Locking the door behind them, Helga turned to Aria as a light headache took over her.

"Jeez, you youngsters have no concept of danger, going around at this hour alone, as a girl? You might as well be walking down naked in broad daylight!"

Shaking her head, she tried not to think too much of it as the elf had arrived safely at her house.

"I just wanted to return th–" Before she could finish speaking, Aria stopped herself as she noticed Helga curiously checking the state of her body. Following her gaze, she realized the reason, it was the persistent slime that had just refused to get off of her since this morning.

"What the hell is this?" Her face contorted as she felt the same slime on her hands from having touched Aria. Glancing it over, she wasn't sure if she even wanna know what exactly it was. "I hope it's not anything of the sort that I think it is…"

"What?" Aria mumbled, unsure what Helga meant by those words.

But after a quick review in her head, she figured out what she was hinting at.

"No! It's nothing like that! It was a salamander that licked me and–"

"Either way go take a bath," cutting off the young barbarian, Helga moved her hand in the general direction of the bath before heading towards the kitchen sink herself. "Let me know if you need a change of clothes too, I may have some older clothes of mine lying around. Might be a snug fit though, you're bigger than me from when I was your age."

"Bigger…than you, really?" Aria asked, watching Helga washing her hands from the end of the open hallway. She was just about to head right and get into the bathroom, but what Helga had just mentioned left her curious to know more.

"I'm a human, of course, I was smaller," looking at Aria while still washing her hands, Helga directed the dark elf to the bathroom with her sight. "You guys get young too fast and rarely get old before dying, so yeah, you're bigger than me from when I was eighteen."

As she said those words, a moment of realization hit Helga like a charging wagon. She was old, older than a century, maybe even a millennia, but with her sense of time twisted by her near immortality, she felt as if she was still a young warrior ever ready to charge at an enemy.

"Fuck, I'm old," she whispered, right as Aria slipped into the bathroom.

Done washing her hands, however, she conjured herself a hand mirror the same way she conjured weapons. Checking her face for stretch marks and signs of aging, she wondered how old she actually looked to others. But when nothing seemed to have aged more than a ripe mid-twenties to early thirties, a smile crept up her lips.

"No shit the dragons killed themselves over the chance to sleep with me," muffling her chuckle, she decided to prepare something warm to drink with Aria once she was out of the bath.

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Humming to herself, she could hear the shower running inside her bathroom. All the while she prepared milk with bits of chocolate simmering over a rune-powered stove. Drawn to the smell of something cooking again tonight, the family dog walked up to Helga and sat beside her with a pleading look in his eyes.

"Cerebus no, you're not getting any," moving the dog with a slide of her leg, she got him away from the stove. Whimpering for sympathy, the dog tried to melt Helga's heart, but turning to look at it with one hand resting on her hips, she chased him off with a warning.

"For the last time, if you ever try to manipulate me again, I'll snip those balls of yours myself, and then good luck humping any other dog at the breeders'."

With a jolt, the dog jumped in fear and rushed away from Helga's eyes. Finishing the chocolate milk soon after, Helga sat on the couch facing the coffee table. Wearing a light-laced gown with exposed shoulders, she glanced herself over once more and smiled with a whisper.

"Yup, as ripe as the days I raped the dragon emperor's wives," as memories flooded back into her head, she chuckled to herself reminded of her own devious horrors. "The best way to murder a pack of dragons, really. The farce of innocence and fierceness of a Valkyrie."

It had been far too long since she'd had to fight to her fullest extent, and just the memories alone, even if they included pegging the dragon wives with hot iron, she couldn't help but feel a burning warrior-like thrill.

But then she heard the mumbling of her daughters from down the hallway that led to their rooms. Turning to look, she found both Tatiyana and Stella walking towards the living room. Rubbing their eyes with stuffed toys hugged tightly, the duo appeared to have woken up thanks to the dog's running.

"Mom, what's going on?" Asked Stella, her dragon tail wagging.