.
The wind was blowing just enough to suggest a storm might be in the area. I listened to the wind in the eaves of this shack, high up in a tree, and wondered if I shouldn’t perhaps put a stop to this conversation and insist we move it to somewhere less of a lightning magnet.
Then, I admitted to myself that I was probably looking for an excuse to delay the conversation.
Sidis was struggling to understand Dilorè’s words. “Are you talking about that again, My Lady? I told you, it’s not like that.”
I could fill in the entire conversation that I had apparently missed on my own, but only by assuming the thing I was still not ready to accept. Sidis was exhibiting some weird behaviors, but they didn’t match what I had learned about “touched” mortals. If anything, it was more like a borderline version of the charmed state that vampires can cause.
I learned how to correctly navigate my vampire skills from a woman who just happens to be a highly capable physician and a member of the medical community of one of the largest nations in the world. So she had a very well-informed clinical understanding of the negative status effects of the various vampiric interactions with mortals, and taught me how to avoid them and deal with the ones I couldn’t avoid by giving me the basic medical training specific to them.
And I most decidedly had not taken the required steps to put a mortal into that state.
But Dilorè had concluded that I had caused something in the girl.
She lectured, “Miss Sidis, this morning your mother was too embarrassed to remain in the room to eat. She exited as soon as she finished cooking food for her family. Your state is apparent to everyone around you.”
On the one hand, Dilorè seems to be a little inexperienced with mortals, but on the other hand, she has more than two centuries of experience dealing with people generally. I wasn’t sure whether to trust her read on Ilzha’s mental state, but I had noticed the woman was a nervous chatterbox who was in a hurry to leave the room when the last plate of food hit the table. It wasn’t inconsistent with what Dilorè had just claimed.
My cousin frowned over at me. “Do you understand her condition, Lady Tia? I know you’re quite young, but you should be old enough to know about these things…”
Unwilling to say it in Ostish in front of Sidis, I answered, “Asíadé voce, vesirtôn mo? (I’m not sure, but is it fairy affliction?)”
.. which is how we term ‘fairy-touched’ in Fairy.
Dilorè’s mouth quirked as she understood why I had changed languages. And she didn’t quite let me get away with it, because she replied in Ostish. “It is indeed. Or at least, that’s where she’s headed. We call this the ‘fairy-charmed’ state. At this point, she may be able to recover on her own, or she may fall apart after we depart.”
“But I didn’t do anything that should have caused it?” I protested.
She frowned. “I was thinking it must have been before you brought her to us the first time.”
My cheeks blazed instantly. “Before you met her, the only thing I did was use [Sleep] on her!”
She frowned, contemplating my answer. “Then, perhaps when you flew back here with her? You would have had several hours before sunrise.”
“Excuse me, My Lady?” Sidis asked, steepling her hands in front of her face, speaking to Dilorè “Can you perhaps tell me what you think she did?”
Dilorè looked at her and said, in a flat tone, “The part that would have hurt you is difficult to explain, but the part you would have noticed would be when she had sex with you.”
“She what?” Sidis panicked, shying away from both of us.
“I never did any such thing!” I yelled. “Dilorè, I’ve never done that with anybody!”
“Neither have I!’ Sidis added, equally indignant.
It felt a little unfair that, in my mind, I had to amend my claim with ‘in this life’. I knew for a fact that I hadn’t maintained my v-card for fifteen thousand years. I mean, I had clear knowledge of at least two lives (Senhion and Sirth) in which I had given birth. But that doesn’t count!
“Why do you even think I have a problem!” Sidis protested. “What am I doing that is so strange?”
My cousin put her hand on the bird-girl’s arm, as a calming gesture, and the agitated girl was at ease. A little bit too suddenly at ease, frankly. She continued letting it rest there, saying nothing and the girl’s entire frame drooped slightly, relaxing.
Her eyes flicked toward me meaningfully. For several seconds, she looked like she was trying to figure things out.
Finally, she nodded. “Yes, well, given our friend’s reaction, and the fact that anything you had done to her in her sleep wouldn’t have had this result, I think you do have evidence to support your claim.”
I frowned at her, fairly miffed at that moment. “Right!”
Dilorè nodded. “Well, then, we seem to have a situation similar to those mortal religions with claims about virgin births, don’t we? Having the effect, despite lacking the cause?”
It was said in a matter that implied such things were simply not possible. I felt a tremor of indignation from Robert’s Catholic beliefs, even though those have eroded quite a bit under the weight of memories of other lifetimes with differing beliefs. I did my best to ignore it.
But Dilorè put her palm against her cheek and speculated, “So I suppose it must have to do with your mixed ancestry somehow. Perhaps it was when you cast [Seduction] on her…”
I blinked. “When I cast what now?”
She blinked as well. “The [Seduction] skill. You were using it, so clearly you’ve been taught…”
She broke off because I was shaking my head.
“The only [Seduction] I’ve ever heard of is a mythical skill invented by philandering men as an excuse to explain why they were playing around with succubi. It’s a scientific consensus that the succubi are being unfairly accused and they possess at most a minor attractive power. Not to mention, I’m not a succubus.”
Dilorè raised her eyebrows, pressing her lips together as if she was trying to stop from giggling. “For a moment, I thought I had to remind you of that last part.”
I scowled, then sighed and raised my eyebrow. “So what were you talking about?”
“Well, the alleged succubus skill is not mythical; it simply doesn’t belong to succubi. It’s a fairy power, and you seemed to have learned it, since I saw you using it.”
“I was just imitating my grandmother as best I could,” I sulked. “And I wasn’t trying to go as far as ‘seduction’.”
“And yet you clearly succeeded. Despite the room full of people, you could have stripped the girl down to bare skin and she wouldn’t have resisted. You could have done anything to her. She was that mesmerized.”
Sidis looked mortified, but she didn’t deny it. She just looked down.
I remembered Ceria’s assessment of the bird-girl’s state at that time.
Empathizing with the poor girl, I told my cousin, “That’s too much, My Lady! You’re embarrassing her…”
“I need to,” she countered. “This problem does not go away when ignored.”
Her hand had been on the girl’s arm all this time. She dropped it as she turned to her. “Sidis, how have you been feeling since then, when we weren’t around? Nervous? Depressed? Or perhaps anxious that Tia won’t return?”
Looking up at her, Sidis answered everything in one look. “How do you know?”
“Because you are immediately relieved once you see me, but act dissatisfied, as if I am not quite good enough. But when Tia shows up, you light up like glorious dawn. After that, you can barely be pried away from her.”
She wrapped herself with her arms. “I… just want…”
“Sidis, your tribe doesn’t need our help anymore, and we have a job to do. We’re probably leaving here soon.”
Her eyes flew wide. “No! Please stay!”
My cousin tipped her head. “Why?”
Her breath shook as she sucked it in. She looked like she would break down and cry.
Dilorè told me, “Take her hand. Now.”
I did so, and again, that visible relaxation effect. And she covered my hand with her other. Then she pulled my hand up and pressed it against her sternum.
“Must you leave?” she asked, wistfully.
I nodded. And I now believed my cousin completely. This was abnormal. I had not even vaguely interacted with Sidis enough for her to feel in any way close to me. It was at best a mild acquaintance. Well, I had princess-carried her for a fifty-mile flight, but that was it.
I looked back at Dilorè. “If I had done what you thought I did, I would have caused the damage by controlling her while… doing that. That I used her like a puppet during pleasure, right?”
She tipped her head. “So you do know about the skill?”
“I have put together an understanding of the causes of the fairy-touched state over the years from mortal sources. I never heard a specific skill name before.”
She nodded. “We usually don’t teach it to somebody your age, because they don’t have the discipline to let the mortal go in time.”
“If I had done what you thought… well, what were you going to have me do to cure it?”
“Complete the seduction in a safe manner,” Dilorè stated bluntly. “In other words, have sex with her while not using the skill.”
My blush was instant and hot. “What?”
There was a distinct lack of protest from Sidis. Her hands tightened around mine, instead. I looked over and saw her blushing.
“It may work if I do it instead,” she explained. “A different fairy sometimes works. But the fairy she is fixated upon is you.”
Sidis bit her lower lip lightly, and curled herself around my hand and forearm as if it were a security blanket.
Shaking my head, I wondered, “How can what I did possibly be so severe that it can’t be soothed with a less extreme cure?”
“It occurs to me that this probably has to do with your unusual ancestry. Your father’s race is known to have a skill that causes a bad state as well, when used too forcibly.”
[Vampire Command] and [Vampire Charm] were simply two different techniques of the same racial skill, sometimes grouped together as [Vampire Influence], and using either of the forms too forcefully can cause the state known as being “Charmed”. It is a milder, short-lived version of Blood Slavery. Not long ago, I had accidentally put a prostitute into that state by putting too much force into it while using [Command] to save her life. I left it for the professionals to fix, but simply feeding on her would have been a valid alternative cure.
But…
“I have very good control of that skill, and I definitely didn’t turn it on,” I insisted.
She wagged her finger. “You probably can’t sense it. You only sense the Dark magic technique you use to control it. One cannot sense the racial power that actually accomplishes the result. [Seduction] works the same way. I suspect your other powers accidentally turned on while you used [Seduction], and you have no idea at what strength. Without the mana component, you wouldn’t know.”
I gaped at her. Then I turned horrified.
During that entire time, I could have been using [Vampire Charm] on her without knowing it? Without knowing at what strength I was using it? Casting it completely blind?
Two things came to me. I recalled my Aunt Elianora, warning me, “Do not mix the activities of a vampire with the activities of the evening.” By which I believe she meant, don’t feed while actually performing the act. And I recalled Senhion’s knowledge that Vampires and Fairies are two sides of the same Elder coin. Ultimately, they are both merely incomplete Elders.
[Seduction] was just a different technique to activate the same Elder power, wasn’t it? The Touched were just the Fairy version of Blood Slaves, weren’t they?
I looked away, my face blazing hot.
“For her sake, you must fix her, My Lady,” Dilorè insisted. “If she gets the completion she needs, she should naturally recover.”
She stood and went to the door. “I will leave you two here. My Lady, it’s your job to convince her to cooperate. Sidis, please trust my cousin. If you don’t cooperate with her, the only other option is for me to apply [Seduction] on you and make love with you myself. That is a less reliable solution, but I cannot leave you here, having done nothing to help you.”
I stared at the door she closed behind her as she left. Through the wall, I saw her mana signature take off from the landing platform and fly away.
Sidis was still clutching my hand. She quietly asked, “My Lady, does it bother you when I touch you?”
I looked at her and smiled. “I’m fine. Would you be alarmed or upset if I kissed you?”
Her eyes widened. And the grip on my hand tightened. “Did you know I was thinking about that?”
I took my free hand and stroked her hair. “Let’s have a talk about that. I need you to tell me what to do.”
