Those Who Do Not Move: Lythalia's Fear

Those Who Do Not Move:  Lythalia's Fear

I woke up first today.

That's not terribly odd, in and of itself.  What's odd is that it looks like I'm at least an hour early.  I've been having trouble sleeping lately, so it seems all the weirder that I'd get less than eight hours.  It might have something to do with Safiya.

She looks so harmless right now.  Seeing her using my chest as a pillow makes it feel like nothing's changed at all.  Just looking at her, it seems like it would be really uncomfortable though her expression doesn't show any signs of discomfort.  Ah well, it's not like there's anything I can do about it right now.  Eventually I decide to try wriggling out of her coils, if only for the practice.

It's not easy.  Even when she's relaxed she's still extremely sensitive to movement.  The slightest brush against her underside causes the muscles to contract slightly, gripping the offending limb.  A few days ago, I probably would've found it cute.  Now, though, it's just troubling and frustrating.  She whines in unconscious complaint as I start to actually slip out of the full-body hug.

Okay, no, it's still cute.

After twenty minutes of extremely slow extricating I manage to pull my foot out of the pile of purple.  I reach over and open the blinds for my window, that way she'll still be getting some warmth.  The exact moment I shift over and plant my feet on the carpet my phone breaks the carefully protected silence by buzzing loudly, amplified by the wooden desktop it's sitting on.  I cringe, and hold the cringe until I hear the movement behind me as Safi groans into her tail.  I glare at the phone, silently chastising it for the betrayal.  It doesn't seem bothered.

There's a second, louder groan as Safi turns over.  A section of coils shifts, revealing the massive piles of dark hair with part of her face barely sticking out from under it.  "Why," she asks plaintively.
"I've got a long day ahead.  I need to get ready."  I get up and head over to my phone.  No reason to avoid making noise now.

greenmachine > hey
greenmachine > listen
greenmachine > head over
greenmachine > we should chat
shackleborn > sure, no problem

It's weird; she isn't typing like she usually does.  I wonder if it has to do with her getting worse.  Hells, this is going to cast a shadow on the whole rest of the day.  And it's not like I was expecting to be comfortable by the time it was over.
"You were having nightmares again last night."
"Well, they must not've been that bad."

"Come back."  I turn to look at Safi, who's gone back to curling up around herself, but has left her head peeking out - probably to watch me.
"There'll be breakfast soon anyway; there's no point going back to bed now."
"I'm cold."
"The sun's out now.  You'll be warm in a few minutes."

The sheets rustle, and within seconds she's pressed up against me, almost knocking me over.  She almost whispers into my back "I don't want the sun."
"I've got a long day, Fee, let me get ready."
She pressed me closer as she wraps her arms around my torso.  After a moment she speaks again, barely audibly.  "You should just stay with me."

Is that what I think it is?  Really, Safi?  As much as I try to act cool, I know she can feel my heart and breath both speeding up.  Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out if she actually skipped over the "I like you" part and went straight to the marriage proposal.

No, it's probably just trying to get me back to bed so that she can be holding me down when she tells me what she's after.  I'm horribly overthinking everything.  It's the stress.  Besides, I know how to get out of this.  "Not today, Safi.  I've got another game with Cara, and that's before the date tonight."
Her arms pull back in an instant, following a light gasp.  She grabs my arm and tries to spin me around, but only manages to pull on it insistently.  I relent and turn to see her wide-eyed expression.  Her wide lips are drawn down into something resembling a downward-facing crescent.  "You have a date?"
"Yeah."

Her tongue darts out for a moment, before her brow pulls down in thought.  "But, I mean, if you've got a date then you've already," she pauses for a moment, "right?"
Oh, Safi.  "Wrong."
"But," she shakes her head, "I mean," she looks away, then looks back, "you've never," she shakes her head again, "not even a little!"
This is bothering her a lot more than I thought it would.  "Hey, relax, it's just a date."
That was apparently the wrong thing to say.  She just stares at me for a moment, looking utterly defeated.  Eventually she pulls back, mutters a hurried "Don't get married," and then turns and leaves.

"I don't intend to," I tell my empty room.

---

"Let's see.  Next we'll need some parsley and oregano."
Rustling emanates from the spice rack as Tish shuffles everything around, looking for the right plastic container of crushed greens.

Cara is humming to herself as she idly plays with her fork, waiting for the food to get done.  Dad snaps his newspaper outward before turning a page.  Seriously, just get a phone like the rest of us and stop wasting paper.  Lythalia's breathing heavily, probably for the same reason she's blushing and has a zoned-out smile on her face.  Tera's bouncing up and down, filled with her usual endless supply of energy.  The only person being silent is Safiya.  And, I guess, me.

"Salt and pepper next."
This takes significantly less time for Tish.  Both her and mom are idly shifting their tails back and forth.  I guess it just means that they're both sort of happy.  Maybe mom's enjoying herself thinking that she has another daughter for a little while.  Does that mean that Tish is enjoying the attention?  Considering that her own mother was willing to kick her out, she must be starved for that sort of affection.

Mom's tone starts shifting into the sing-song as she calls out "And now some cheese."
What's weird is that they're both synchronized; the tips of their tails moving left and right like they're both listening to some metronome that I can't hear.  A second later and I'm averting my eyes, face getting slightly warm as I realize that I was just staring at Tish's tail.  I vaguely remember that it was actually a problem for the Mamono Decency Act to determine how to deal with them.  You can't just stick them under clothes, but at the same time they're quite clearly genitalia, and any attempt at covering them usually just ends up with shredded cloth when the spikes move.  Eventually they were just listed as an exception.

"Now we'll need some milk."
There's a slow set of thumps from Cara's chair as she looks over at me and smiles.  "Today's the day."
"Yep."
Her canines become more visible as her smile steadily grows.  "Who d'you think'll win?"
"Tera: she's the one smart enough not to play."
Upon hearing her name Tera jerks her head around to look at me and beams a huge smile.  "I'm smarter than Shiny!"
Yeah, that sounds about right.

"Tish, dear, what are you doing?"
I look over the counter to see Tish holding a gallon of milk with the cap unscrewed, sniffing at the opening with a look of incredulity.  "Is this," she pauses to take another sniff, "is this cow's milk?"
"Mhmm.  That's for Val."
Her expression grows confused as she looks back to mom.  "Why?"
I pipe up, "I'm secretly terrified of breasts.  Think about it; it explains everything."
Dad chuckles as mom waves back at me, "Oh hush.  He just prefers it to Holstaurus milk is all."  She leaves out the fact that I've never tried Holstaurus milk to compare it with.

Tish looks back at me for a moment, staring at me with some mixture of worry and curiosity.  Then she turns back and tips the carton over, taking a swig out of it.
"Letitia!  That's not-!"
Oh great, now I have Manticore backwash in my omelette.  The thought reminds me of the last time I had Manticore anything in my system, and I feel a single, violent beat against my ribcage as my heart reacts to the thought.  I can't risk it, can I?  I'm just going to need to skip breakfast now.  I stand up, trying not to look worried.
"Val, what's the matter?"  I turn to see Lythalia staring at me with unmasked concern.  "You look sick."

"I'm fine," I lie, turning back to look at the kitchen.  Tish is just staring at the carton again, her tongue slowly working its way around her lips.
Her voice is small and her speech gets progressively slower as a look of deep confusion slowly creeps across her face.  "It's weird, and kind of sweet.  It's not as good, but,"  she manages, before she quickly tips the carton back again.  This time she takes one long pull from it, gulping loudly.  When she finally lowers it again it's to a gasping breath, followed by several slow, deeper breaths.  Instead of slowing down, they only get faster.

"Letitia?  Are you alright?"
She jerks violently when her name is called, and I can see that her skin is slowly turning red.  She gasps slightly in response, but looks too confused to say anything coherent.  By now everyone else can sense that something's going slightly wrong; dad looks up from his paper and Cara is sniffing at the air.  My heart's starting to noticeably beat harder in my chest, and the handful of wet taps coming from the kitchen floor explain why.

I take a step toward the door into the living room and one of Tish's ears swivel to point at me, immediately followed by her face.

I move.
She moves.

In an instant I'm standing next to the open doorway and Tish is standing two feet in front of me.  Her expression is wide-eyed and deeply confused, as though she's trying to figure out something incredibly complex.  We're both breathing like we just ran a marathon, but I can feel that I've gone pale while she's completely flushed.  For a second, that's all that happens.  She takes another step and I jump a foot backward, almost slamming into the wall.  My hand is grasping the chain of my lantern so tightly that I can feel the bones pressed against the metal.

Still panting, she falls to her knees in front of me, eying me hungrily.  Her tail is arched over her back like a scorpion, and the tip is flared open, letting me see the thousand cilia and pinkish goo that fill it.  "Hey, let's," she breathes, staring up at me.  Her tail turns downward, letting me see the sides.

Her spines have grown back in.
They're pointing at my chest.

I can taste metal.  My body is numb.  She's kneeling in front of me, but she's also flat on her back.  I see the black and red of charred flesh.  I see the streak of grey and red flying through the air.  I didn't hear anything, though.  It all happened too quickly back then.  She didn't have a chance to cry or scream or beg.  I only felt my arm moving.  No, that's not right.  I heard my own voice as I killed her.

"Let's," she says again, lifting an arm and reaching toward me.
"Don't touch me!"  I don't shout or yell.  I scream.
I lift my arm up high in a jerking motion so sudden that the muscles deep in my arm immediately twinge and ache from the force.  Tish startles and falls backward, and once again she's looking up at me with fear in her eyes.

I have to get out of here.

Doors open.  Doors close.

I'm outside.

I'm gone.

---

The fresh air helps, I think.  Maybe any air would've helped.  I could be in the middle of the woods for all it mattered, just so long as I wasn't still back there.  The bench feels kind of damp for some reason, making my hands feel sticky for having touched it.  It doesn't help that the wood was old enough to sag and the patch of dirt in front of me is crawling with ants.

No, maybe it does help.  I'm avoiding ants and studiously controlling where I put my hands and feet instead of thinking about what happened back there.  I don't want to think about that.  I don't want to think about anything.  I think about things way too much and it only makes everything worse.  Or maybe everything's just getting worse and it doesn't matter if I think about it or not.  I don't want to think about which of those options is worse.

The air is cold and dry now.  It stings my nose and the depths of my throat just to breathe.  It's going to be harder and harder to avoid Safi as things get colder.  Or maybe I won't have to.  Maybe I can just claim that dates are happening and let her down like that.  I'm just interested in someone else.  That way she'll never have to feel embarrassed or else try to prove herself.  She can just move on to someone else.  That's what mamono naturally do, so it won't be hard for her.

That's one of my problems solved.  Now I just need to solve all of the others.

I pick up the slightest crunch of grass being crushed underfoot and look up to see Lythalia walking toward me from across the walking trail.  She smiles when she sees that I've spotted her.  I don't know why.  Is she happy that she found me, or just satisfied that she was right about where I'd be?  As she gets closer, I can see how tense and nervous her smile is.  Like she's worried.  Hells, why wouldn't she be?  I just randomly threatened someone.

Not randomly.  She was trying to have sex with me.  Because that makes it totally acceptable, especially to the succubus in front of me.
Sarcasm isn't helping anything.
I don't want to have this conversation.

"Do you mind if I join you?"  She stops when she's halfway across the path.  Probably at whatever distance she thinks is just outside of swift-lantern-to-the-side-of-the-head range.
Yes.  "No."
It takes her a moment to move again, and it's slower than when she was walking before.  I watch her legs as she walks so that I don't have to look up and see her face anymore.  I don't want to look at that.  I don't want to see her afraid of me.  I'd really just like it if I wasn't a stranger in my own house again.

"You know, I was really proud of myself when I thought that I'd figured everything out."  The strain in her voice is so obvious that it almost hurts to listen to her.  I can feel my own throat tense up out of empathy.  "Another of the sisters was having this problem, and I looked into it and saw a symptoms list.  When I saw that everything fit, I didn't bother looking anywhere else.  I was so certain that I was right."
I manage to work up the strength to look at her face again.  The look of shame makes me want to look away again, but I don't.  "You mean, you think I don't have Westermarck's?"

Her expression relaxes a little as the vague hints of an actual smile appear.  "No, I think you definitely do."  Then, just as quickly, her expression reverts to how it was.  "I didn't understand, though."  Her voice cracks, "I'm young, though, and this is so rare, and so few of us have ever dealt with it before."  Her eyes are watering up.  I don't know what I can do about it, though.  I raise my hands slightly and start to speak, but she cuts me off.  "It must've been horrifying to you, when I showed you the sleeve, wasn't it?"
"I, well, yeah," I manage to work out as my already frayed mind tries to handle what's happening.

There's movement and an impact on my chest.  I'm still holding my hands out to either side of Sister.  She's holding me.  Her head is pressed into my chest.
"I'm sorry.  I didn't know."  She sniffs into my shirt.  Her wings and tail are both completely limp and are laying flat on the bench.  "It's just so rare."  Another sniff, louder this time.  "It's just so sad!"  She lets out something between a sob and a gasp as she tries to hold back whatever it is that's hurting her so badly.  I remember my hands after a moment and reach up, holding her while she gets whatever this is out of her system.

The trails are mostly empty now.  It's not like they're ever used that often.  Most of the time if someone comes out here it's joggers trying to keep themselves in shape.  Not that it's terribly difficult for mamono to keep in shape.  The energy that maintains their existence is always at work trying to make their forms as appealing as possible.  Even the slightest effort is usually enough to keep them in peak form.

The hiccups stop, followed soon after by the sniffling.  Eventually she pulls away and wipes her eyes on her sleeves.  "I'm sorry, I just felt so bad about this.  I should've seen it coming.  I should've done something."
I'm getting tired of being left in the dark here.  "Done what?"
She looks away, shaking her head slightly.  "I don't know, something.  I feel like you wouldn't be like this if I'd just seen it coming and tried to help you."  She laughs bitterly, "All those silly little pamphlets that I thought you might like - you must've found them so disturbing."
Well, sort of I guess.  If I think about these people actually existing it would be kind of disturbing that they act the way they do.

"But don't worry.  There are still treatments for this."  She smiles broadly and honestly now, as though she's worked through everything that troubled her.  "We're going to fix your coitophobia, too!"

That word cannot possibly mean what I think it means.

"Then you can move on, Val.  You can live your life like you should; married and happy."  The tears are still running down her cheeks from reddened eyes, but aside from that her face is completely occupied by a joyous expression.  She's solved all the problems in her world.  What I would give to have done the same, rather than fixing one just to immediately get another.
"I don't need fixing, Sister."  I sigh as the weight of this tiring conversation and my restless sleep both start catching up with me.  "You've just," I start, trying to figure out how in the hells I'm going to explain this to her.  From where she stands, I guess it couldn't look like anything else.  "You're looking at this from the wrong angle, that's all."

"You're the one who's not looking at things from the right point of view, Val."  She draws herself up and lifts up her legs to kneel on the bench.  "You're still a man, you know?  Ever since the dawn of time men have been overfull with energy, and have been filled with the need to empty that energy into another."  She bows her head and rests both hands on her chest.  "And it is the sacred duty of my kin to receive that lust with our bodies."  She looks back up to look me in the eyes.  "It's only natural, Val.  I'm going to help you to work through this fear so that you can finally live naturally."

I plant my forehead firmly in my hand.  I don't need this.  This is going to be another one of those things that she's completely certain about and will refuse to budge on for years.  I'm going to be spending the rest of my time in this house trying to explain that my life won't be immeasurably improved by constant sex.
I open my eyes to find her face inches away from my own.  "You were comfortable holding me, right?  So we can start from there.  Next would be kissing, wouldn't it?"  She asks so nicely that it would be almost possible to forget that she's just acting for her own interests.

She leans forward.  I lean back.  She starts to laugh, only to quickly stop and cover her mouth.  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh.  It was just cute, you know?  But I guess laughing at you for this only makes it worse, doesn't it?"
I groan in frustration.  "Listen, I'm not afraid of any of this.  You've got things wrong again."
She darts forward.  I'm not sure why - maybe it's just my nerves still being frayed from what happened earlier - but I jolt backward and end up slamming my head against the metal armrest.  The piercing pain to the back of my head fills my perception with its intensity.  Just as soon as I can pull myself back up, I'm grabbed again by Lythalia, who pulls my head onto her chest.

"Hush now, Val.  It's all right.  I won't do anything else to scare you today.  We'll work through your fears again, and eventually we're going to make them all go away."  The light pressure helps to make the pain fade.  The words, though, only make the feeling of an oncoming headache more intense.

After a couple minutes I sit back up to find her looking at me with an amused expression.  She laughs lightly as she looks down, "That's so like you, though.  Telling the truth so that everyone would dismiss it as a lie."
Oh no.  "What'd I say this time?"
She smiles further, "You're secretly terrified of breasts, remember?  It's such a weird joke that it couldn't be anything other than a cry for help."
"Have you considered that you are literally wrong about everything?"

The smile and the laughter are gone.  Even the ever-present blush seem to fade a bit as she turns completely serious.  "We all saw what happened, Val.  You were so pale.  You were shaking so hard - breathing so hard.  And that look that you gave her," she looks away again, "I've never seen you like that before."
This is going to haunt me if I can't fix it.  "Listen, that's not-"
"And you've never dated, even once!"  She returns to her argument.  "It's not like you're too young.  You should've had a few handjobs, or used that ghoul to get off, or even had a crush by now!"
"Oh for-," I growl in annoyance.  It's not the order of events that bothers me, but the fact that she's never going to let my friendship with Jen slide.

"It's not right, Val.  It's not normal.  It's sick to think that a boy your age is still locking himself in his room and masturbating!"
"I'm not-," I start to say before I catch myself.
Dammit.
Damage control.  "I've got a date!  Tonight!"
Her face goes completely blank.  "You're," she starts.  Her brow slowly, inevitably starts to collapse downward, like a piece of glacier collapsing into the ocean.  "Not?"  Her head tilts to the side as an immeasurably strange and difficult thought works its way through her head.  The sound of her thinking is almost audible.  She looks downward, checking my flame to try and discern if I'm lying.  There's nothing I can do.  It's like watching a wreck.

Of all the things I could've slipped, it had to be that.

The tears start again before she can fully manage to work through what's happening.  When she does, though, the change is immediate.  "Oh, Val," she says as though just finding out that I'd lost someone close to me.  Once again I'm being held.  Once again Lythalia is crying.  "You poor, innocent, unsullied thing," she weeps.  She pulls back, staring straight into my eyes from close enough that all I can see is violet.  "Never?  Not even once?"
"Of course I have."  I stare back with my finest poker face.
She pauses for a second.  Then she collapses against me again, her sobs now a mixture of silent gasps and short, high pitched squeaks.
In hindsight, looking embarrassed would have been a better choice than the poker face.

"What happened to you?"  she pulls back, struck by an idea, "Were you raped?  Is that it?  Did she not do it properly?"
"No, that's," I manage, before her last question hits me.
I don't so much ask the question as I just let the word fall out of my mouth.  "Properly?"

"That's it, isn't it," she asks more insistently.  "She didn't rape you so that you'd want it to happen again, she just hurt you!"  She grabs my cheeks with her hands and peers deep into my eyes, "Who was she?  Who did it?"  Her eyes begin to glow, her lip curls, and her voice drops into a growl, "I'll make it so that she can never touch a man again - or herself!  She'll drown in her frustration for what she did!"

I grab her hands and pull them off my face.  "That's not it.  Sister, really, that's not it."
The purple glow fades as she slumps forward again, tired and confused.  "Then what is it?  What happened to you?"
Don't ask me that.  "Nothing happened," I insist.  "I'm not afraid and I wasn't raped and I'm not insane.  Yet.  This is just how I am."
Her head sinks lower as her body goes limp.  "Isn't that just too sad?  Having these fears that make you live like this."
"I think every guy in the world has a few fears about rape.  It's inevitable.  It's no one's fault."

"You don't have to be afraid."  She looks up again, suddenly hopeful.  "I could fix it all.  If you really don't know why things are the way they are now, then it doesn't matter if I just make all those fears go away, right?"
Go away?  "What do you mean?"
She deliberately looks off to the side, "I'm still a succubus, you know.  If you let me in, I could get rid of all of those fears for you.  If you just look into my eyes and let me in.  I won't touch your pointless inhibitions, just take away those fears that hurt you.  I wouldn't touch anything that you don't want me to."

I don't need to think about it at all.  "No."
Sh spends a moment looking into my eyes before she sighs heavily.  "You don't trust me at all, do you?"
"I do.  I don't know why, but I do."
"Then why?  I could make whatever's hurting you go away."
"I don't want you to rip out a chunk of my personality, Sister.  Not even if it's bothering me.  That's horrifying.  I'll deal with it on my own."

For a while we just sit on that bench while it dries slowly in the air.  Or maybe it just felt damp because of how cold and slightly dirty it is.  At least it's getting slightly warmer out.  I probably should just start wearing heavier clothes now.  Besides, that's less of me to be randomly grabbed or brushed in hallways.

I take a long, deep breath.  "So then."
"So then?"
"What did you put in my milk," I finally ask.
"Oh," she sighs.  "That."

Her breathing grows more labored as she works on what she wants to say.  I let her think.  I want to hear what she comes up with.  Her words come suddenly and fast.  "You were just moving so slowly, you know?  I just thought that if you were a little bit more interested that maybe you'd decide faster, or maybe even consider something that you normally wouldn't.  Westermarck's is only so strong; if you wanted it badly enough, maybe you'd overcome it on your own."
My voice and expression are flat.  "So it was an aphrodisiac."
She cringes slightly, "It just increases drive; that's all.  I just wanted you to look at us."

"Meaning, you were going to force me to."
"I didn't know about Tish at the time," she pleads.
I lay on the sarcasm as thick as I can, "Oh yeah, that's the only mistake you made here."
She quickly adds, "I'm sorry, all right?  I won't do it again."  She pauses before frustratedly adding, "It wasn't doing anything, anyway."  It only takes a second for her to realize that she made another mistake.  She looks back up at me.  I look down on her.

She smiles weakly as she asks "Can I make it up to you?"

"Yes."