IV. The Queen of the Undead (was unavailable)

The queen of the undead had returned to her demesne, where she was waging an increasingly bitter war with her ex, and the new members had found the new time to be incompatible with their schedules, so it was only Rione and Syrea at tea this week.

“Guess what I am doing this week…!” Rione was nearly bouncing on her cushion, which would have been catastrophic in the Victorian room but today they were in the Ichiya-Tei room, where there was nothing to upset; even the teapot had a little recess in the floor to hide in.
“Making salsa?” Syrea hazarded.
“Making costumes! I am working for the Dragon Theater Corps!”
“Isn’t that the one with…?”
“Real dragons! And they need costumes!”
"Ah. That explains the spike in the price of flame retardant ripstop nylon."
“And the laundry,” Rione added. “You would not believe how much laundry I am now doing.”

After several cups of tea, Rione put her mug down and said, “Well?”
“Well what?” Syrea said, oblivious.
“Well? What about Acer? What’s going on? Have you figured it out?”
Syrea swallowed. “I think I know what’s going on. You know how when I started dating Acer, he had this nice non-magic field all around him?”
“Yes, you said it was probably the only thing keeping him alive, in this neighborhood.”
“Right, and it made it really nice when I wasn’t doing magic.”
Rione raised an eyebrow.
“When I wasn’t doing very much magic.”
“…”
“When I wasn’t doing very much magic outside of the kitchen but it didn’t matter because he wouldn’t eat anything with magic anyway, fine!”
“You may continue now,” Rione murmured, taking a sip of tea.
“All right. So I started doing magic again, more advanced, and so the house is getting a bit full of it, and that opened up a rift along the one spot that gets constant attention.”
“Your stovetop is a rift?!”
“No,” Syrea said, sighing. “If it was that I could do something about it. No, the one spot in the house that gets constant attention from Acer.”
“Oooh. The playstation.”
“Yes. I don’t think it would be a problem except the place is so charged with energy as it is, I mean, anywhere I am ends up a bit saturated, that’s why I need trees in my bedroom—”
Rione started to open her mouth but Syrea talked louder, “—and you did NOT hear me just say that—and because he’s been oblivious to magic, but puts so much time into the games they started a feedback loop. Which opened up a rift. And some shadows that really like it in the house found it, and they like it better than wherever they’re from. But, they only get to hang out while he’s playing, and so they keep him playing all the time.
“If you think about it, it’s not that hard for shadows to activate the striatal dopamine reward system. I mean, they just hitch a ride in on the optic nerve and take a few lefts and voila, nucleus accumbens.” Syrea took a sip of tea.
Rione nodded wisely. “What you just said.”
“And the worst part is, I don’t think I can do anything about it. They find magic very slippery, you know, they latched onto him because he’s this little nexus of neutrality and he doesn’t like trees, so my trees can’t help him.”
“Now, Syrea…” Rione said it slowly and Syrea knew it was going to be something she hadn’t been thinking of for a reason. “You know what this is sounding like.”
“Yes.”
“You know what you need to do.”
“Maybe…”
“Think of it this way,” Rione said, putting down her tea again and standing up with her hands spread in front of her. “How much are you helping Acer by letting his soul be eaten by rift demons?”
“…None.”
Rione lowered that hand. “And how much are you actually enjoying spending time with Acer these days?”
“….very little.”
Rione dropped that hand farther.
“And how much did you enjoy going for a time-spin?”
Syrea smiled slightly. “A bit. More than a bit.”
Rione lifted that hand. There was a lot of space between her hands now.
“And how much can you help Acer by continuing to let his soul be eaten by rift demons? As opposed to breaking up with him so he can go be somewhere without any magic at all while he recovers?”
“…”
“See, that wasn’t so hard. Would you like some more tea?”