Vol II, Ch 75 – It’s time to learn about the birds and the bees, demonic edition.

The moment the door closed, Seni rushed forward, nearly tackling me to the floor as she wrapped me into a tight hug. “Oh, spirits. Aqua, I’m sooooo sorry. I—I didn’t know. I mean, I just assumed you knew about the lounge, or not knew but, like, could guess.”

I could see tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She squeezed me tighter, her words coming so fast that I struggled to keep up with them. “I thought it’d be a relief to see how things were done here, so when Saryn suggested it, and you said you wanted to, I thought it would be fine, but it wasn’t, cause, spirits, you’re from another realm, and I had no idea, and I’m really sorry. Like really really sorry. I should have just followed the rules, and—”

“Seni,” I interrupted. A bit awkwardly, I reached around her to hug back. “It’s fine, really.”

Was this how you consoled people? I hoped I was doing this right.

Seni winced. “I can see why they use the f-flower. This spell makes your words so flat that I can’t tell if you’re mad or—or—”

“I’m not mad. Certainly not at you.” As she began to ramble out more apologies, I quickly interrupted her a third time. “I believe you were going to explain something to me? Why don’t we sit, like Hetkala suggested?”

“Oh right, yeah, the bonds.” She nodded and reluctantly pulled away from me, ending our hug.

It felt so strange knowing that I actually liked this girl, despite barely knowing her. And I wanted her to like me.

For so long, I’d despised people like her. Those who seemed so willfully naive to the way the world worked, allowing misfortune to befall them and the people around them. My mother retained that same innocent positivity during my early childhood—before she’d wilted away, becoming a near-bedridden shell of the woman I only vaguely remembered.

I’d held on to a hatred in my heart for her for years, before it eventually faded. Now I didn’t truly know what to think.

Even Lilis fit the description, though to a lesser degree. She’d certainly been naive in her own ways, a fact that had grated on me at times. It no longer bothered me as it once would have.

I’d changed. A fact now unmistakably clear to me. Though I had little idea of whether that was a good thing or bad.

As we sat down, both chairs angled partly toward the other, Seni’s hands reached out and clasped mine. “You should, umm, you should call her ‘High Priestess Hetkala.’ A lot of the other priests and priestesses will get mad if you don’t use her title.”

“How about we get back to that later?” The supposed proper way for me to address that woman was exceedingly far down on my list of priorities.

“Okay.” She nodded, still clearly nervous. “I’ve never had to give the talk before, but I think I mostly remember what they told me at the orphanage.”

“The talk” she’d said. As if she was a parent about to give an explanation on how sex worked. Just what had I gotten myself into exactly?

Seni wiped a stray tear from her eye and then took a deep breath. “So when a vyxa reaches a certain age,”—oh gods, it was one of those talks—“their thirst starts to bring about other feelings inside them that—”

“I think we can skip the part about becoming hornier.”

“Oh, right. I guess you would know about that bit already.” She cleared her throat and then met my eyes with an obviously feigned smile. Her next few words even held a bit of forced cheer. “As an adult vyxa, when you drink blood from someone else, something magical happens.” Then she paused. “Basically, you, umm, start to form a connection with them. Or well, it doesn’t really happen immediately, but it sort of opens the possibility for it? And if you’re compatible and keep drinking blood from them, you will bond with each other.”

“Right. And what does that entail exactly?”

“Well, the main thing is that you form a deep emotional connection. Sort of like loving someone a lot, but in a much more tangible way?” Her words held clear uncertainty. “It’s a lot stronger for the vyxa than it is for the other person, though. And depending on how strong it becomes, you can start to sense things from each other or even communicate through the bond.”

That made me pause. “Communicate, as in…”

“Like from one mind to the other. A sort of telepathy. I think it’s more of a thing for some species rather than all of them.”

Her answer left me reeling. Had that been why that annoying demon wanted me to come over to this realm? Flarel, or whatever she was called, had actually been honest when she’d said that I would get to choose whether to go through the portal or not, something I hadn’t expected.  Did she think we were “bonded” together?

…

Were we bonded together?

Based on Seni’s description, it seemed a haunting possibility. Though at the same time, I’d never had any feelings for the mysterious demon beyond a large amount of anger and annoyance.

“Are they always like that?” I blurted out. “As in, similar to being in love, I mean?”

Seni chewed her lip, my question seeming to bother her. “Well, I’ve never really had one myself, but bonds are similar to that, yeah, if maybe more intense. They’re supposed to be a really romantic and beautiful thing. Or at least, that’s how they explained it at the orphanage. Though they knew we would be most likely coming here, so I’m sure that plays a big part.” Her eyes trailed down to her lap, strands of long, black hair flowing around her shoulder.

This didn’t fully clear up my fears about Flarrel, but it made me at least a little less worried.

She’d sought to save me from that ogre. And by pure accident, she’d saved me from my father instead. That helped to curry some small amount of my favor toward her, though ultimately, only so much. I still didn’t know her true motivations, and in my experience, kind gifts were often just a ruse to make you let your guard down.

Melkar had certainly offered me plenty of honeyed words before I’d punched him in the face. My father had similarly taught me this lesson plenty of times—a thought that further soured my mood.

Flarrel was an unknown, and one that I simply couldn’t trust, no matter how sincere she appeared from the outside. Even if we weren’t yet bonded, she could very well still want us to be. Whatever she did to get inside my mind may have only been the start.

And then there was the worst possibility: that we already had this mystical-sounding bond, and my feelings for her would suddenly change when we met in person. I didn’t want to think that my mind could be so easily twisted in that way. But the prospect of it left me shaken.

Even after going through her portal to this realm, this Fairrel and I had yet to actually meet. Perhaps it was best to keep it that way.

“But you see the bonds differently?” I prodded from where she left off. “Like that they might be bad or unnatural?”

Seni’s eyes widened. “What? No! They’re completely normal, don’t worry. And well, I mean, I do think they should be, like, really virtuous and romantic and stuff, like a lot of people talk about them to be, but…”

She sighed and glanced away again. “There are ways to—to force vyxa to bond with someone, even if they don’t form a bond more naturally. I’ve heard it doesn’t always work, or that it’s not really the same, but…” She took a breath. The more she spoke, the further my stomach sunk, a creeping dread filling me.

“A lot of vyxa will say that it’s for the best, since some of us are sold off to others anyways. Being able to bond means that we can find some amount of happiness still, even if we don’t initially like who our owners are. I—I don’t know that I agree. It’s not technically legal, I don’t think, for us to be sold like that. Most vyxa ultimately end up here or other places sorta like here. But it still happens.”

Owners… That single word held ominous implications all on its own, ones that I was very tempted to press her on. It brought back a clear reminder of how succubi were treated in the human realm. All demons were looked down on, but succubi were seen as particularly inferior, to the point of being treated like an animal to be trained.

In a strange twist of irony, forcing vyxa to bond sounded quite a lot like what humans so often did to one another. Both true nobility and the underground Shadow Families tended to marry off sons and daughters against their will, particularly those in lower favor. Most of these arranged marriages were portrayed as consensual, but the reality of the situation was often quite the opposite. Daughters in particular often had little say on who they got to marry. Of course, women tended to have a dowry gifted to their husbands, rather than being simply sold, but the latter wasn’t unheard of either.

I’d never thought of it as anything except normal. Yet now that I was here, seeing something so similar, but different, it all suddenly felt quite abhorrent.

Seni continued chewing on her lip, and I squeezed her hand in a poor attempt at comforting her. Her eyes glanced back to mine before once again looking away.

“I just— Before I came here,” she said, “there was someone who—who wanted to—”

“You don’t have to say it,” I interrupted, realizing where this was likely going. “Really, it’s alright.”

Seni’s shoulders slumped and she nodded. I wanted to know more, but I didn’t need to hear about whatever had traumatized her specifically.

Still, I needed to ask, “Do they do that here as well? Force you to bond if you don’t do it willingly?”

Even just asking the question felt like admitting it was all real.

“What?” Her face shot up, eyes widening even further than before. “Of course not! No, I promise, it’s entirely up to you here whether you choose to bond to someone. Well, to the extent that any bond can be chosen. I mean, you can’t really choose who you end up attracted to, and—”

She shook her head. “What I mean to say is that you won’t be forced into anything. Some of the suitors can be a bit pushy, but you can always turn them down, or at least talk to a priestess if they go too far.”

I hummed, wondering just how true that proved to be in practice. Hopefully she was right.

“Really. They don’t do that here,” Seni said and then shrugged. “I guess this is the second part of ‘the talk’ that I nearly forgot to give. Before I came here, they would tell us not to drink blood from the same person very often, or if we could, to drink mixed blood. Not that we had that option most of the time.

“It’s better to take your time, get to know someone, and make sure you actually like them first. Otherwise you might accidentally form a bond with someone that isn’t really a good fit. Sorta like falling in love or having a crush, but different, since bonds can be hard to break. I mean, drinking blood doesn’t guarantee a bond, but it’s still a big part of it. So just be careful, since bonds can sorta sneak up on you like that, I guess.

“Not that I would truthfully know that much about it personally,” she continued rambling. “It’s why I’ve ended up in the Inner Sanctum, even though I’m not really any good with magic.  I mean, I tried, you know? At least at first. I tried to bond with lots of suitors here, but it just never happened, and…” She paused, sounding a bit forlorn. “I guess I realized it just wasn’t for me? That happens, apparently. It’s rare, but some vyxa just can’t or won’t bond for some reason. There’s even one or two vyxa in the Inner Sanctum that don’t like sex at all, if you can believe it.”

“And it’s perfectly natural, despite what others may claim,” Hetkala said as the door opened. She strode in with a pleased smile. “Forgive me for intruding, but I believe the spell should be about to wear off, if it hasn’t already. I also brought you both something to drink.”

She placed two glass containers onto the desk, both stained a near-opaque black, with curved ridges up their length and a wide base. The glass lids came up to a soft point and curved partially around the sides of the bottle.

“Are you two finished with your talk?” the high priestess asked.

“Hardly,” I scoffed, my narrowed gaze eyeing her. “I have plenty more questions. Though some of them will be for you.”

“Very well, I’ll refresh the spell, then, and give you some more time. Unless you’d prefer that I stayed? Or, if it pleases you both, perhaps it would be more apt to go out for a short stroll. The gardens are quite nice this time of the day, and you both look as though you may need the fresh air.”