s.h.i.+nichi didn't seem to mind, since he was busy poking around her apartment like he'd never seen it before. He crawled from the spot her screens sat at the table, over to the VR-medi pod, and even got up and peered behind it.

When he opened the closet beside it, Danika asked, "What are you doing?"

"Thinking about how to combine our rooms," he admitted.

She blinked at him, and looked around. After a minute she said, "I don't think I'd do anything the same. My room always seems very awkward for you to use. I don't want to make you have to crawl all the time."

"I want to take you to a few hotels," he announced.

"What?" she asked blankly.

"There are some pretty different layouts available to try, especially some of the older places that we've stayed," he explained.

"Alright," she agreed. s.h.i.+nichi looked so startled that she asked laughingly, "Why do you look so surprised?"

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"You agreed," he blurted.

She rolled her eyes at him and pointed out, "You're planning to move in together. Staying overnight somewhere is usually considered to be a precursor to that, even for married couples. Honeymoons and all?"

s.h.i.+nichi crawled back over and kissed her. After a moment Danika put out a hand and pointed at the screen that announced that the update was complete. He touched her nose with a fingertip, but didn't complain, and then moved over to sit in front of the screen.

Danika cuddled up to him while he logged in, and then she scooted around and leaned her back against his as she logged into the game on her phone.

s.h.i.+nichi leaned back against her a bit and asked, "Too heavy?"

"This much is fine," she a.s.sured him.

"Um, don't do that," he said a moment later.

Danika had just finished logging in and was about to turn ZipZing around to leave the empty stone s.p.a.ce, and she was confused by his comment. "Don't do what?"

"Don't try to set a Mark on one of the animals outside. I think a mostly invisible dragon just ate me," s.h.i.+nichi explained.

"You just died?" Danika asked as she clicked her friend list and saw that his name was indeed greyed out.

"Yeah," he agreed at the same time.

She paused as she looked at her own screen and asked, "Was it daytime?"

"Yeah? Why?" he asked.

"The viewports on your stone s.p.a.ce are showing only blank darkness," she informed him.

His weight vanished suddenly from her back, and he caught her with an arm as he turned in place to look at her screen. "Can you zoom in?" he asked.

"I think so," she agreed, and edged ZipZing closer to one of the viewports. "Aren't you missing your life flas.h.i.+ng before your eyes?"

He braced himself with the arm behind her back and then hugged her with his other arm. "It's fine, I've got my eyes on my future," he a.s.sured her.

Danika blushed, but didn't reply to that, and quickly checked all of the viewports. None of them showed anything but darkness beyond the stone s.p.a.ce. "I'll just exit and use my light cantrip," she announced.

"Wait, can't you ask Hikaru to go out and see if you can see her light?" s.h.i.+nichi asked.

"Her?" Danika questioned. "But no, I can't, even if I was willing to send my pet out to test the air like a mining canary. I told Hikaru to stay in my garden, just in case."

He shrugged. "You could wait until I revive, and I could check out your location," he suggested.

"I thought you were going to reincarnate," she replied teasingly.

"I was, but I think you're in danger," s.h.i.+nichi complained.

"Kit's online, and it says her location is the Jade Palace. I'll just ask her to come out and look at the stone," Danika said as she wrote out the message. "The palace is like her home now right? She should be safe wandering around it."

"I guess," he agreed reluctantly.

She blinked in surprise when the snow leopard cub appeared and took the message instead of the little default bird messenger.

--

s.h.i.+nichi took his hand back and turned far enough to see the screen that had been displaying the cutscenes of Ais.h.i.+n's life, and then he moved back into the position sitting back to back with her. The twins had already appeared, and the immortal G.o.ddess looked very irritated.

The dialogue box said, "You just had to try to poach an imperial nightingale didn't you? Seriously, you should just start your life over."

s.h.i.+nichi typed as quickly as possible, "I wasn't trying to poach it, I just wanted to return to it later!"

"Hah, you should have tried telling that to the celestial dragons guarding the palace then shouldn't you?" the G.o.ddess mocked.

--

Kit's message returned, held in the tiny paws of her little white mouse messenger. It read: "I just ran out here and looked, and there's nothing laying on the landing area. It's perfectly clean. According to my friend list you're just 'above the clouds', but according to the party menu compa.s.s you're somewhere east of here."

Danika had barely finished reading it when a second was delivered: "The Jade Emperor is being annoyingly obscure when I ask, he just says, 'ZipZing is as safe as a buckthorn seed within a bird's belly.' I have no idea what that means?"

Danika asked, "CD, is a buckthorn seed safe in a bird's belly?"

"What?" s.h.i.+nichi asked in a distracted tone.

"Buckthorn seeds are often spread by birds who have eaten the fruit of the tree, they are not easily digestible," her celestial dragon a.s.sistant answered from her phone.

"I think that means I'm safe for now," Danika told s.h.i.+nichi.

"Can't it just tell you where you are then," he asked.

She asked her a.s.sistant, "Where is the stone s.p.a.ce that ZipZing is in?"

"That stone is inside the gizzard of a crane," the celestial dragon replied promptly.