Peko sat frozen in her chair as the world around her seemed to blur, narrowing down to the man sitting across from her with a plastic cup in his hand.
Her mind, usually a fortress of calculated strategies, ground to a complete halt as it tried to process the word he had just dropped with the casualness of a weather report.
"Infinity…" she stammered in a voice barely rising above a whisper.
"Yeah… basically infinite everything," Nico said before taking a long, relaxed sip of his milkshake. "Thing is volatile though, nearly consumed the System, but it somehow managed to bind infinity to my mana recovery... more out of self-preservation than anything... "
She lowered her gaze to the table to hide the turmoil in her eyes while her heart hammered against her ribs.
[True Infinity…] she thought, feeling a cold sweat prickle at the back of her neck. [To him, his mana pool is just a limiter… not a reservoir…]
But then, a glaring contradiction struck her.
"But Nom-Nom is already your Familiar?" she asked as her violet eyes locked onto him with renewed confusion. "If your affinity is so volatile… how did she survive the bond initiation?"
"Well, that…" Nico winced slightly while raising a hand to scratch his cheek, "When I first met Nom… she was still a Wyvern, and completely consumed by her wendigo side…."
He then paused, looking for a delicate way to phrase what happened next, before eventually just shrugging.
"Yeah, no other way to put it… She ate me."
Peko didn't even so much as gasp.
She simply stared at him for a second before nodding slowly with an entirely unsurprised expression.
"Sounds like Nom-Nom…" she deadpanned.
"Uh-huh…" Nico continued with a nod, unsurprised by her being unsurprised. "And Infinity began leaking straight into her… her eternal hunger got satiated by infinite… something… and she jumped two stages, going from a Wyvern to a Greater Dragon in less than two minutes. The System had to force a Familiar Bond onto her to keep her from going on a rampage… and to save my life."
"A happy accident then…" she raised an elegant eyebrow.
"An accident, yes…" Nico sighed while staring down at his cup. "But frankly, I'm not really a fan of this whole 'Master' stuff… If familiar bonds could be abolished without one of us dying… I would've long set Nom free."
"Is she that big of a burden?" Peko spoke quietly.
"Wha… No! Did you hear what I just said?" Nico shook his head vigorously with his eyes widening in offense. "I would rather she walked beside me… like an equal. Instead of calling me Master… like you do."
Peko stared at him for a long moment, searching his face for any shred of deceit, but all she found was a genuine, almost childish discomfort with authority.
And a beat later, a soft, dry chuckle escaped her lips.
"I don't like being called 'Peko' either…" she said while glancing at the untouched cup on the table between them. "But here we are…"
"Yeah, tell that to Nom-Nom… The name I suggested is clearly a superior," Nico grinned.
"First off, 'Giggles' is objectively an even worse name…" Peko shot him a glare.
Leaning forward, Peko then locked eyes with him and continued softly, "And just like 'Peko'… 'Master' is just a word she uses to address you. If you do not believe yourself to be her owner, then she is not something you own… The word has no power over the intent."
Nico blinked, taken aback by the sudden depth in her tone.
"Doubt it's that simple…" Nico replied a beat later before leaning back in his chair. "But coming back to you… Even if we ignore my feelings on the matter, neither the System nor I have any way to know how Infinity will react to a standard Familiar Bond. Nom survived because she was a bottomless pit of hunger. She was a void that needed filling. But you…"
Nico gestured to her slender frame as he leaned forward.
"You are a vessel with a limit. It could break out and consume both you and me… or it could instantly evolve you to the highest point of evolution a Phoenix can attain in the span of a single second… and instant omnipotent power like that will strip you of what makes you… You."
Locking eyes with her with an unyielding gaze, ensuring she understood the gravity of what she was asking for, Nico continued -
"Because you gotta understand, Peko… no matter how much you divide it or dilute it… even a speck of infinity is still infinite. So no, I will not make you my Familiar, at least not until I have spoken with the Goddess of Heroes about my affinity."
"Right… the Trial of the Journey…" Peko replied with a sigh before looking away, "The reason I proposed a Familiar Bond was the telepathic link that comes with it… My Ancestral Knowledge has a spell for it… But even if I do master it, our conversations may send mana ripples that someone like the General could detect if we ever stand before him."
Nico silently nodded while keeping his gaze fixed on her.
"But… to be honest… at the core of it…" Peko whispered as she leaned back in her chair before letting out a deep, trembling sigh, " I feel like the odd one out. I don't have the certainty Nom-Nom has… you're bound to each other. Whereas I…"
"I understand how you feel…" Nico said softly. "And it's a valid feeling."
Letting out a deep sigh, he continued, "The latest example of that being the fact that you are the only one here who is actually affected by that Blood Pact… The System protected me… and by extension, it protected Nom."
Peko snapped her gaze at Nico with wide, unblinking eyes. She didn't think he agreed with her feelings.
Deep down, she wanted him to deny it. She wanted him to say she was wrong, that she was just being paranoid.
But he didn't just tell her that her feelings were correct. He proved them. And he did so with an example of such severity that it left no room for argument.
She felt herself deflate as the reality of her isolation took root in her chest.
Seeing Peko shrink into herself, Nico smiled softly.
"So let's give you something not even Nom-Nom has… something that is very sacred to me…"
Peko watched as Nico slowly extended his hand across the table toward her with only his little finger curled out.
"It's called a Pinkie Promise… a little something I only ever did with my mother… and she never broke it… and neither did I…"
Nico looked at his own hand for a second before meeting Peko's gaze.
"It's no magical contract… but to me, it weighs more than any divine oath. So, what do you say…?"
Peko looked at the sheepishly smiling idiot offering her nothing but a gesture, expecting her to gamble her trust and life on pretty words, especially knowing that she was the only one truly vulnerable to the General's whims.
Logic screamed at her to demand some sort of a contract or go her own way. Her mind listed a dozen ways a promise that carries no ramifications could be broken.
And yet, her heart pounded against her ribs.
For reasons she could not decipher, her instincts silenced her logic. They told her that this stranger from another world, whose lies fooled an entire nation… is not lying to her.
Seeing Peko stare at his extended hand, Nico nudged his finger forward as he softly said, "You hook your pinkie finger with mine…"
Peko stared into his dark eyes for a long moment.
Then slowly, with a hand that trembled slightly, she reached out, hooking her delicate pinkie finger around his.
"Okay," Nico said while looking straight into her violet eyes. "Cross my heart and hope to die, and stick a needle in my eye, that you're just as precious to me as Nom-Nom is…"
Nico felt Peko's little finger tighten around his as he finished the oath.
Then, like a handshake, he shook their joined hands three times before letting go.
Slowly pulling her hand back, Peko cradled it against the heart that was doing cartwheels in her chest, before looking down at her lap to hide the sudden, intense heat crawling up her neck and cheeks.
"To commemorate our special little bond... Here is a special little something."
With a grin and a burst of blue glitter, Nico flickered the small Phoenix plushie from his inventory before placing it front of her.
Peko blinked at the round, red, impossibly soft-looking bird with derpy button eyes.
Reaching out, poked the red bird with a hesitant finger, watching it sink into the softness before bouncing back.
"I do not look like that…" she said, looking up at Nico with absolute certainty in her eyes.
To which Nico replied with a cheeky, victorious grin, "I never said it was you…"
Peko froze, instantly realizing she had just played herself. By denying the resemblance, she had implicitly admitted she saw herself in the round little bird.
Without a word, she snatched the plushie from the table and settled it onto her lap, and hugged it close before turning toward the pond with a distinct pout forming on her lips, while the pink tint on her cheeks deepened into a visible flush.
"Now, onto our current conundrum," Nico said, casually picking up his milkshake as if he hadn't just emotionally dismantled the Phoenix before him.
"Gimme a bit of time… I will figure out a way to dispel the Blood Pact on you and get us a System-backed telepathic link…"
A small 'hm' came from her as she nodded.
And just like that, a comfortable silence descended between them.
Nico went back to his drink, while Peko sat quietly, trying to calm the storm of emotions swirling inside her.
And just as she did -
-THUD!
Like a storm on legs, Nom-Nom made the jump from the veranda to the gazebo before landing heavily enough to shake the entire structure, making both Nico and Peko jump in their seats.
"Watcha drinking?" Nom-Nom asked with her eyes instantly locking onto the cups.
"Strawberry Milkshake," Nico replied as he took a deep breath to settle the jump scare she just gave him.
"Where's mine?" Nom-Nom demanded immediately while leaning over the table.
With a cheeky little smile, Nico thumbed toward the cup sitting in front of Peko.
"Peko doesn't seem to want hers… she didn't even touch it… so you can have it."
And before Nom-Nom's eyes could even land on the cup-
-Swish.
With a white blur, Peko's hand moved across the table, snatching the cup instantly.
Then, without a word, she brought the straw to her lips and began drinking with loud, aggressive slurps as she nonchalantly looked away at the koi fish in the pond.
Nom-Nom stood there, blinking as her bottom lip slowly jutted out in a pout as she looked back at Nico.
"Don't worry, I came prepared." Nico snickered before reaching into his Inventory and producing a third cup, "Grab a seat… We three need to talk."
"Is that a little Peko in your lap?" Nom-Nom innocently asked as she pulled up a chair beside Peko.
Only to be replied to with a glare...