Chapter 51.4

“Is this why you’re so into the whole mind-reading thing?” I asked some time later, once the tears had mostly subsided.  “You were trying to tell me without telling me?”

“Maybe,” she admitted, her voice muffled by my chest.  “I still think it’s really hot, though.”

I smiled.  There really was no explaining kinks.

“I guess I’m still not understanding the point of all of this,” I began again.  “How would… doing that to you prevent children?”

It was hardly the most important question I had about the whole situation, but that would have dealt with pointing out how psychotic her family was and likely would have lead into the feasibility of mounting some heads on stakes.

Not that I would have done it.  No matter how satisfying it might have been.

Besides, this was an entire Clan we were talking about.  What was I supposed to do?  Write them a sternly-worded letter?

I wonder if Arx knows anything about assassins…

“Laoi menfolk be a picky lot,” Jax explained shortly from my shoulder.

After we had collapsed to the floor, she had come to cuddle me from behind, evidently having wanted to comfort me through this.  Which… I would take, but I was hardly the one most in need of it.

Dolilim were so weird.

“They must be really picky, then.  Human men would never—”  I paused to reconsider.  “Well… okay.  She might have some difficulties even with them.  Especially if she wanted something more long term.  But for a one-night stand?  No problem.”

I knew plenty of guys who would have been overjoyed just to be getting laid.  Myself included, prior to a couple of months ago.

Lynnria sighed.  “There’s also the concern of pedigree.  I couldn’t have a child with just anyone and still expect the girl to be a viable candidate for matriarch.  But that isn’t important anymore.  My fate was sealed the moment my—”

She made a fragile, little sound, and I squeezed her gently.

“It’s okay.  We don’t have to talk about it.”

“I quite agree.  There has been more than enough blubbering over a solvable problem.”

I groaned.  “Mia, this is about more than just having her… breasts cut off… which is plenty.  Her whole family cast her out in about the most heinously torturous a manner imaginable.  You can’t just magic away that kind of hurt.”

“Yes, you can,” she shot back immediately.  “To say nothing of memory-altering Ailments and the various levels of Amnesiatic effects one might naturally encounter, it would be quite simple to whip up an appropriate spell.  However, if you wanted to do it with any delicacy, it might be rather complex.”

She drifted off for a moment as she mulled over the problem.

“Well, no matter.  From what I have observed, it should not be necessary.  She won’t care about any of that in the slightest once she has been bound.  Or only vaguely.  So, it would be a waste of the skill point.”

I opened my mouth to reply, then closed it.  However blunt and callous her delivery, she had at least been trying to help.

“This is the immortality spell you told me about?” Lynnria asked.

I nodded distractedly.  “It’s a little more complicated than that.  As I’m sure you’ve gathered.”

Her eyebrows bunched together.

“Does it really make you forget your past?” she asked with a glance over my shoulder.

Jax gave a one-shouldered shrug.  “Not… exact-like.  Be a slow thing.  Bits come and go.  The edges get soft.  What were important ain’t no more.”

Her eyes unfocused as she thought back.

“Like… when Donum found me, it were o’er the bodies of me mates—them what had captured him.  I think to meself a’times… were it the me from before… maybe I’d ought to been raged proper?  Seeing them like that, ye know?  But I never were.  Not never.  All I could think on were what they intended fer Master… and I ain’t got a thought in me but hate for ‘em.”

I reached behind me to give her thigh an affectionate squeeze.  One could argue that she might have deserved her fate, and it was certainly true that she would have died had I not intervened.  However, she had not been given any choice in the matter.  I had simply acted.

For better or worse, she belonged to me now.

Her arms tightened around me briefly in response.

“There be other things, too.  Like… I know from the Master’s say-so I were laoi afore.  And… and not… like this.”

“You were ugly, you mean?” Lynnria provided.

“Aye.  Ugly,” Jax agreed readily.  And with some relief.  “But I ain’t got no memory o’ that.  Feels… wrong… to think of meself that way.  Bad wrong.”

I nodded along with the explanation, having known most of it already.  Lynnria was still trying to steer the conversation to safer waters, but I could sympathize.  I would not have wanted to talk about it, either.

And now I could understand why she had reacted so strongly.  Having a reminder of a trauma like that suddenly pop up on her wrist must have been horrifying.

“Lynnria,” I said slowly.  “If you would rather, we can drain the Life out of your… storage.  And redo it.  Try for some other kind of… of manifestation.  We don’t have to follow Mia’s suggestion.”

She did not reply immediately.  She seemed deep in thought.

“What—”  She paused for a moment more, and her lip twitched in frustration as she attempted to formulate the right words.  “Do your breasts make you… happy?”

That was not a reply exactly.  It seemed she was still avoiding the question.  Or at least circling it warily.

Jax stared at her.  “Aye?  What kind of daft question—?”

“No… no,” Lynnria interrupted.  “I mean… Mia said you were a construct that… that… I don’t know what.  But for you to have breasts at all, that means Donum likes them.  Right?”

“Oh.”  Jax snorted dismissively.  “I’d nay put much to that one’s words.  I growed these me ownself.  No hands constructed ‘em but me.”

“Exactly.”

Jax waved a hand through the air, as though shooing some annoying insect.  “Anyhow, the Master do indeed, though he don’t like to dwell on it.  He likes to war with hisself, fer some reason.  He ain’t said a word, but he feels ‘em on his back right enough.”

She lowered her voice into a husky whisper.  “And he loves it.”

“Hush, you.”  Honestly.  Telling all my secrets like that?  “Lynnria, please don’t make decisions like this based on what I might or might not prefer.”

Lynnria shot me a frustrated look.  “Were you not listening just now?  Your own Faen just told you, the form we take is based entirely on your own preference!”

“I did not say ‘entirely.’”

“Whatever!” she groaned.  “The point is, I have been changing.  And I suspect I might begin to… to heal… sooner or later.  Especially once you cast that spell on me.  And I thought… well, if I do this, maybe I’ll… I don’t know.  Have some control over it?”

Jax nodded.  “Grand idea, that.  Though mind, Master don’t like ‘em too big.  A tad smaller’n me own be the ideal.”

I gave my First a bit of a side-eye.  Which she did not meet.

“If that’s your reasoning, I agree,” I said, addressing Lynnria.  “Sounds like a fantastic idea.  You should want some control over what happens to your own body—and have breasts that youare happy with.  Not just me.”

And besides, it would be an excellent way to spite the ‘people’ who did this to her.  Though, I hesitated to even use the word.  They were closer to monsters.  Certainly not family.  No one who claimed to love you would ever be capable of something like that.

“If it were up to me, I would grant you control over the entire process.”

“She already does in some respects.  Why do you think Dolilim have tempered Charisma?”

Lynnria blinked.

“I’m sorry.  What?”

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Musings from the Author:

I'm still not 100% on this chapter.  I had been planning this with Lynnria for some time now, and hopefully it's been set up and executed properly.  I kind of felt like it strayed a little in the middle with the whole 'what is a lilim' talk, but it also seemed somewhat appropriate.  

What she is now and what she is becoming are central themes, and understanding that is important.

I do worry a little that it contradicts or undermines some of what I had set up earlier with the whole Dolilim/Lilim duality.  I think it still works, but I'm going to have to give it some thought.

Anyway, let me know in the comments if you liked it or if you didn't.  Or even if you were neutral.  Is the story still drawing you in?  I feel like its been a while since we've had some solid physical conflict, and I want to get to the next part quickly.  But I still have one more scene to go...