Vita's Desire (Patreon)

You beam with pride at your friend. “Yep! I’m going to be sneaking around a new dungeon all by myself!” After almost five years as an apprentice, you’re finally a full-fledged dungeon scout. “I knew you’d be proud of me, Vita!”

The pretty young woman beside you is Vita, a healer who lives in the woods on the outskirts of the city. She’s well known to your adventurer’s guild as an ally, a kind and friendly woman who’s saved more than a few lives over the years. You yourself had befriended her a while ago, back when you’d been part of a party who’d stopped at her cottage on your way back from clearing out a dungeon nearby. That had been… Gosh, perhaps a year ago now? Since then, you’d made a point of stopping at Vita’s cottage whenever you got the chance.

In her early-twenties, Vita is taller than you, but that’s not exactly saying much. Her hair is a dull pink, and she has a pretty face, made even prettier by her kind smile and soft blue eyes. She’s dressed in what look like home-made robes that do little to mask her curves, though you’ve learned that she prefers to hide her body, and perhaps understandably so.

As Vita places the cup of herbal tea before you, her sleeve pulls back, and you get a glimpse of her scars. You’d only ever gotten glimpses, but the healer’s body seems to be covered in a painful-looking set of scars that look as if she’s been attacked by some kind of animal in the past. Almost as soon as you see them, Vita pushes down her sleeve, covering her scars with a quiet blush on her cheeks. You have no idea how she got them, and you’re kind enough not to pry into something that Vita clearly wants to hide. Still, you can’t help but be curious. Vita couldn’t have gotten them in battle, after all, her body is slight and lacks any kind of muscles that even a combat healer would have. But then, the forest around the cottage is infamous for all sorts of hungry monsters. If you ever catch the creature that did that to her…

Wait, blue eyes? You blink and look up at your friend. Sure enough, Vita’s soft blue eyes look back at you, vaguely confused. You smile at her and look away again. For some reason, you’d always thought she had green eyes. You could have sworn that the last time you saw her… No, it must be your memory playing tricks on you...