cheated

[mute_pen]

The castle is livable indefinitely. Etty flies over the space around it, but she's not as fast as the Baron was in his owl form, and she can't fly for very long if she's hungry and can pack nothing if she travels as a swan; she doesn't range farther than she can travel in a half-day, and she doesn't find Astgabels or anyone who knows where it is. (Not many people are willing to talk to a girl in a feather dress from out of nowhere, but a few are.) She flies home to Nona after each failed journey. They feast on what appears on the dining table. They snuggle. They pick through the library. Etty writes her thoughts. They sleep, curled up together in Nona's bed.

One morning they wake up together and are lying there in comfortable silence when Etty scoots up and kisses Nona.

Comments

[subtly_artistic]

Bella is not actually equipped to teach Thaumo 101 but she will do her best!

[pythbox]

Even I didn't know some of this stuff, Celo comments.

[subtly_artistic]

I read a lot.

[pythbox]

You're kind of awesome.

[subtly_artistic]

I kind of am!

Bella intersperses Celo's remarks to her audience.

[mute_pen]

Etty giggles.

[growcrooked]

Nona giggles, too.

[subtly_artistic]

Thaumatology.

Eventually Bella exhausts her knowledge of the subject in general, but she can go on with lots of practical examples of how magic is used in her world. This eventually segues into an overview of the sentient species - humans are determined to be about the same between worlds after a quick consultation, but then there's nymphs.

"Celo's actually the only male nymph in the world, or at least the only one I ever heard of; usually they're female. They exist in the wild, but some of them are sort of domesticated, because their associated fields - or in Celo's case a garden - can be cultivated to better yields with work most people find less objectionable. So to speak."

[growcrooked]

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Nona says after a few puzzled seconds.

[subtly_artistic]

"I mean," says Bella, rolling her eyes, "that in addition to all the usual effects, nymphs improve their respective plants when they have sex. So if you have some guys who want to grow, say, rice, but they don't feel like actually farming rice, they can try to get a rice nymph and have a lot of sex with her and never need to pick up a gardening implement until it's harvest time."

[growcrooked]

"Oh!" she says, comprehension dawning. "Huh. He didn't tell me that."

[pythbox]

Well, yeah, 'cause it's a different kind of sex that does the gardening, giggles Celo. You're welcome to explain that too.

[subtly_artistic]

"He says he didn't mention it because it's only sex with men that improves the plants," says Bella.

[mute_pen]

"...Wait," says Etty slowly.

[pythbox]

Way not true, there's girls with dicks and I get the usual goodies out of them, Celo points out.

[growcrooked]

"Hmm?" says Nona.

[subtly_artistic]

"Clarification, it's - Etty?"

[mute_pen]

"Nona? Did you...?"

[growcrooked]

"Yes," she says, puzzled. "Of course I had sex with him. He's lovely. You already know how much I like to fuck myself - I thought you didn't like hearing about it, or I would've said something earlier. Why are you upset?"

[mute_pen]

"I thought - that -"

[subtly_artistic]

"Khersis Dei. You cheated on her," says Bella wearily.

[growcrooked]

"What's that mean?" she asks, bewildered and unhappy.

[subtly_artistic]

"You don't know what it - okay," says Bella, putting a hand over her eyes and engaging Explaining Humans Mode in spite of Nona being a human already. "By default, if two humans are being all snuggly and lovey with each other, they don't also have sex with anyone else. If they do it anyway, that's called "cheating". People make different arrangements, sometimes, and obeying the rules of a different arrangement isn't cheating, but apparently you didn't make one with Etty, and the only reason this hasn't bitten you before is because you live in a castle in the middle of nowhere. This is not a small deal; people end decades-long marriages and kill each other over cheating. It is a form of betrayal. The fact that you apparently aren't familiar with the word is probably a mitigating factor."

[growcrooked]

"Oh," says Nona in a small voice.

[mute_pen]

Etty scrunches in towards herself.

"I know I'm being," she murmurs, "slow."