This Entire Hobby is Ridiculous

Then in tumbled Callie Cuttlefish, and though Aura kept up appearances - it was just business as usual - there was no denying that the inkling turned her life on its head. She was beautiful, tenacious and compassionate, with an appetite for life like the octoling had never seen before. It was contagious, -, and it came as no surprise that the small group of elites were drawn so readily to her. (Strict rules to not get attached be damned.)

Aura watched all that time, as despite her growing affection for all six of the octolings, Callie unmistakably gravitated toward Kendra. It made sense, to someone who’d known the district overseer as long as she had. That didn’t mean it bothered her any less. 

An unfortunate side-effect of the work she did. Aura painted that smile back onto her face, lovely and poised and completely fake. She stood up, squared her shoulders, took a breath and pressed on.

All the way to the surface.

Nothing made sense on the surface - she found inklings to be amusing, if nothing else. They were loud and reckless, brimming with the same kind of vivacity and excitement that Aura had seen in Callie since day one. Even without her title, she remained as she always had - nothing more than a temporary presence, enjoying the space where she could share it, stepping back when it seemed she was no longer needed. 

Or wanted.

That was the life she led, and she did it with dignity. Never once complaining. She was, to anyone who needed her, exactly that - what they needed and nothing further. 

But for all of her coy smiles, her honeyed words, and every single lie she told others around her? Aura was, above all, holding a hollow kind of loneliness in her chest. 

No one should ever be impermanent for that long. No one person should be asked to bear that sort of burden, to continue to exist in limbo like that and never utter a word against the situation. 

Despite what should and should not be, however, Aura had always maintained a reputation. Integrating herself into the world above ground would not change her - and the only extraneous circumstance was the fact that she was far too out of place there. She had no title, had no need of it, though there remained an aching desire to dig her claws into it and drag it back. When everything she knew was stripped away from her, she was left realizing that the title was all she truly owned. The only thing that belonged solely to her, the only thing she was allowed to keep.

It wasn’t long before she was searching, hunting, for something to replace the gaping hole left inside of her. It never grew, never pulled at the tattered edges and spread wider, but nothing seemed to alleviate it either. Callie, bless her, tried - she gave herself often enough, trying to give reasonable amounts of attention to all of her beloved Octarians. For all of that, though, Aura could not keep her. 

She wouldn’t want to. She saw how flawlessly the inkling fit with her former commanding officer as soon as the weight of duty lifted from Kendra’s shoulders.

Like always, she kept going. Pushed on, and placed no blame. 

Not on anyone else, at least. 

Even without her title, she maintained something of her reputation - the one where for all her grace and loveliness, there was something beneath it all that certain people simply couldn’t see past. No one ever knew just what it was. A red flag, a blip on the radar that governed their survival instincts enough to tell them to keep their distance. Callie’s cousin was among them.

Oh, Aura had such fun with Marie. 

Despite the persistence with which the inkling didn’t trust Aura, when her phone rang the odds were good that it was Marie Cuttlefish asking after her. Calling for her, reaching across a distance for just a moment to sate a hunger that never ventured past physical. They filled voids for each other, it seemed, and neither grew particularly attached. Perhaps the fact that it was fleeting made it hurt a little less - it was safer that way.

Days melted into weeks, months - each monotonous, a routine she grew used to. Nothing surprised her anymore. She became background noise, at best, to a soundtrack that Callie continued to mix together. That was her role in life, the one she had played for years now, the one she was used to.

A shadow. Flickers in the darkness. Nothing but smoke. Swirling and shifting but never more than that. Never able to come together and form anything more solid.

On one very average day, otherwise promising to be just like the others before it and surely like the ones that would follow, Aura decided to accept an invitation from Callie - to go and have lunch with her cousin and a friend of theirs. It was just another motion, another familiar stitch in the pattern she weaved day by day. She barely regarded Marie as she sat down, let introductions flow like water.

Eyes of liquid gold spent the majority of their time studying, picking up nuances, and finding answers about people in the way they held themselves. When they landed on the inkling sitting across the table from her, Aura found her unremarkable at best. Bronze skin, brown eyes, brightly colored tentacles - Just another in a broad sea, flustered and tense in the presence of an octoling. 

“Nice to meet you, Jinx,” she said, oozing her usual charm and putting on a show. 

The inkling jolted as though she’d been struck, cheeks flushing a brighter shade of purple as she tripped over her tongue. “Thanks, I’m gay.” 

It occurred to Aura, for just a moment, that she had mistaken the tension for fear or uncertainty, when the reality may have been far more simple. Beside Jinx, Marie rolled her eyes in exasperation, only giving credence to the idea. 

Jinx was cute enough, the octoling supposed. Each time they crossed paths after that, she pretended not to notice how those russet eyes constantly followed her. From her peripheral it seemed like fascination, as opposed to suspicion or fear, and that at least was a fresh new take. 

Callie, in true Callie fashion, brought out a much more laid back side of the girl for Aura to observe. Her laughter bubbled easily, she had a tendency to lean, and her smile was nothing less than open and sincere. Vulnerable. It became clear very quickly that hers was a heart worn on her sleeve with little care to who might take advantage of it.

The concept was so foreign to the octoling, the former intelligence officer who knew nothing but masks and deception. She saw something similar in Callie, absolutely, but this one… this one had absolutely no walls built up to guard herself. There was a brightness to her, a warmth that piqued her interest just the tiniest bit. 

With all of Jinx’s staring, it was no surprise to Aura when the inkling approached her with an extremely awkward proposal. She’d been put up to it, surely - but why not? It wasn’t like she had anything to lose. And playing with inklings was just… so much fun when it was done correctly. 

Aura considered herself a professional.

Callie had told her a thing or two before they even started - how Jinx was Agent 3 of the New Squidbeak Splatoon, one of her partners for quite some time, the one who had taken down their figurehead of a “leader.” The inkling who had stood up and fought back when Octavio’s delusions of grandeur threatened the peaceful life on the surface. With all of that information, Aura went in thinking she knew what to expect.

What she got was an awkward, flustered inkling who acted as though she’d never known another person’s touch her whole life. It took them three separate visits to eventually get past the inkling’s nerves - Aura was accommodating. The first meeting was little more than Jinx curling up against her, wrapped up in her arms and eventually slipping off to sleep.

The second, they kissed, and Jinx was just as anxious as the first time with just a touch of frustration. Aura didn’t rush her. They kept kissing until hers grew too heated, and her would-be partner pulled away with flushed cheeks and a murmured apology.

The third time was the charm. Nerves shoved aside in favor of need. Jinx let her lead, nodded when things were okay and clamming up when she wasn’t sure. Jerking back only once for certain, when Aura’s thumb brushed across the discolored skin across her right eye. She put all of her trust in the octoling to take care of her, and it was obvious in every single touch. Every kiss.

One of the very first things Aura learned about Jinx was that she spoke through her actions, far more eloquently than she ever could with words. In the end, they enjoyed themselves, lounged for a little while in the inkling’s bed and then said their farewells. 

Aura, however, was the only half of the pair of them who seemed to care about keeping it as simply that - physical. Sating desires. A good time, sparse conversation, and a parting soon afterward. That was the routine the octoling had perfected, and it was what worked the best for everyone. 

Weeks swelled into months, and Jinx became something of a fixture in her life. Before she could get a handle on what was happening, the routine was shifting around her, centimeter by tiny centimeter. Conversations lasted longer, though for all accounts and purposes they still lacked some substance - Aura had secrets she could not share, not for all the good company in the world - and Jinx grew brighter every day. 

While there was still a  trace of ‘Callie’ that the octoling could see in her, each moment they spent together brought something new to the table. Something uniquely her that felt...endearing.

It was thoughts like those that brought a harsh truth into the light, something Aura realized would need to be dealt with. Jinx grew less shy with each meeting, less careful with her kisses, more and more sincere with her unspoken words of adoration. She made no attempt to hide her cards, laying them face-up across the proverbial table, and it was hearts across the board and all that ever did was complicate things. 

Things were going to turn into a tangled mess in absolutely no time, flat. 

But was it really so bad for Aura to enjoy it? For her to revel in the feeling of being wanted, as temporary as it may be? For as long as she could remember, she had been everything that anyone needed her to be. She drifted into peoples’ lives and gave them what they asked for, fed off of their satisfaction and used it to build herself higher. She had told Jinx that her acceptance had been based in the ‘feeling’ she got, that the inkling was lonely.

Lonely like her.

So she took Jinx’s heated kisses in kind, pulled their bodies flush just to taste the soft sound resonating in the back of the younger woman’s throat. She gave what was asked of her, and she took what she wanted from it. She played confident and coy, and when it was all over she let Jinx fall asleep nestled against her for a few hours. 

Aura was a woman of routine. Of smoke and mirrors, as impermanent and fleeting as the first blooms of springtime. The idea of someone wanting her to be anything more than that was far too foreign to entertain - but her routine had changed before.