Lynnria’s reaction to having a teat suddenly appear on her arm was—to put it mildly—bordering on the hysterical. Which is to say, there was a lot of unintelligible screeching, hurled accusations, and high emotions. I had never been party to one, so I did not know what it would look like even if she had, but I suspected the girl was suffering from full-blown psychotic break.

Which was a bit much. She had barely even flinched on sprouting claws and fangs, after all. But then, I had to suppose those things did at least nominally belong there.

My companions were not handling it particularly well, either. But for different reasons.

Arx, as the informal queen of self-inflicted fuck-ups, found the entire situation hilarious and had collapsed into a giggling fit off in a corner. Which was… understandable. If you completely ignored the actual person on the receiving end of it, there was some definite humor to the situation but, as it stood, it just came off as crass.

She should have at least made some effort to apologize, but no. She had decided to go the entirely opposite direction. Whenever she managed to gather enough breath between raging guffaws to speak, she would hurl some ill-timed pun or other witticism at the girl.

Simple observations, like:

‘Looks like you’re developing quite the wrist-full. I don’t know if you need a corset or an arm-guard!’

The conciliatory:

‘You could always start a new trend. Just think of all the high-society ladies with their wrist-nipple piercings.’

Or the nonsensical:

‘Well, at least now you have a convenient place to hang your wand.’

How she expected the girl to accomplish that was beyond me. Maybe with a strap or something…? Regardless, she was being less than helpful.

Meanwhile, Jax was… trying to restore order. Not because she wanted to help Lynnria or anything, but because she could tell all the yelling was upsetting me. And when I got upset, she got upset. And when she got upset…

Well, Jax was Jax. Lynnria was just lucky I liked her. From the flexing of claws and gnashing of teeth, I had a fair mind that my First would have preferred to silence her permanently. As it was, she had opted for a strategy of shouting the girl down. It was going about as well as one might expect.

Then, there was Mia, who, despite being the target of most of the histrionics, was taking things with a remarkable aplomb.

“Will you please stop shouting and listen to me? There is no way—”

“—did it on purpose! I know you did!”

“And why would I do that? How would I—?“

“You hate me! Everyone hates me!”

“No, I think you’re an idiot. There’s a difference.”

“Okay, I’m an idiot. I’m the stupidest girl alive. And now you’ve made me into a freak so everyone can see. Even more of a freak!”

“Call yerself a freak one more time, and I’ll lamp ye!” Jax snarled. “See if I don’t!”

“Go on! Do it! I know you want to!”

“Don’t tempt me, whelp!”

“Yeah, you hussy! Haven’t you ever heard of pockets?”

The shouting paused for a beat. As one, three pairs of eyes turned to stare at the resident twit.

Arx glanced from face to face searchingly. “Get it…? Because she’s tempting you?”

There was a long stretch of silence while we collectively—and fruitlessly—attempted to work our way through Arx’s latest addition to the conversation.

Some claim that laughter is the best medicine. But confusion will do in a pinch.

Right about then, the door to the back room opened just wide enough for the tailor’s narrow head to poke through. “I am trying to work back here! Do you expect braying like lagonki to hasten a work of genius?! Insolent churls…”

The door slammed closed again, leaving us alone with the now-uncomfortable silence.

Jax let out a disgruntled hiss. “We ain’t gotta have them clothes, do we, Master?”

I clicked my tongue. What was it about mornings that made me regret life?

Sure do wish I had a cup of coffee right about now. Maybe a book? And a nice quiet corner to read it in? That’d be nice.

But I had none of those things. Just a bunch of women with crippling emotional problems.

In any event, the tailor was quite correct… even if he was a douche. All this shouting was getting us nowhere.

Stepping forward, I gently enfolded Lynnria in my arms. She needed reassurance and comfort more than anything.

She fought me at first, mistrustful of my intentions. “No! Don’t! Don’t make me feel!”

“I won’t,” I promised as I rocked her back and forth. “We’re on your side, Lynnria.”

For a little while, she held still in my embrace, but as no sign of artificial comfort or happiness came, she slowly began to curl into my chest. Then, the tears came.

I tutted and began to stroke her back tenderly. “Here now. There’s no need for that.”

“Everyone hates me,” she mumbled.

“I don’t hate you,” I argued. “No one here hates you.”

“Your mates treat me like garbage!”

“Do not,” Jax retorted immediately. “We’s offered a chug and tickle plenty of times.”

Arx nodded emphatically. “You might be a little scruffy behind the ears yet, but you’ve got pretty nice legs.”

“When y’ain’t got them baggy ‘loons on, anyhow.”

I glared at them for a moment. They were being perfectly serious, but telling someone you are down to bone is not the compliment they thought it was.

“Even your Faen thinks I’m trash,” Lynnria sobbed. “She even said so! Just look what she’s done to me.”

“I never called you trash. I called you an idiot. Which you are,” Mia clarified. Unhelpfully. “Your mistake is in imagining yourself unique in this.”

I groaned. “For fuck’s sake, Mia…”

“What? Why do you imagine it incumbent upon me to apologize or comfort her? It is only her own mistake that caused this.”

Lynnria snarled into my chest, then shoved her wrist into my face. “So I did this to myself? Is that it?”

“Yes—suck that titty!” Mia sighed. “As I’ve been trying to explain, with your limitation to Capacity, I barely had the room to specify what the charm should do. Never mind how it would manifest. And since you did not bother to direct it, the magic had little recourse but to take inspiration… elsewhere.”

“Don’t talk out yer fanny flaps,” Jax grumbled. “You’d nay find a lass more twisted on whipping her chebs out.”

Lynnria stiffened and, for a long few seconds, she stared at the discolored bump. In an unconscious gesture, her other hand slowly came up to rest on her sternum.

“You know… don’t you,” she whispered.

“Of course, I know,” Mia replied offhand. And in complete disregard to Lynnria’s apparent fragility. “As the arbiter of your Power, your body is an open canvas to me.”

Lynnria looked up at me searchingly. “And you didn’t tell him?”

I quirked an eyebrow.

“Should I have—choked on cum?!” She growled in frustration. “Beginning to hate these arguments… so… much.”

A calming breath came and went.

“Now, look. I am also well aware of the meaning behind this, for all its idiocy. Your former Clan could not be less interested in your fate. My obligation begins and ends there.”

Her Clan? Why wouldn’t her grandfather be interested?

“But he’s your ‘sovereign,’” Lynnria persisted.

Mia exhaled sharply. “Yes? What of it? I did not lie, nor would I have done. Had he asked, I would have happily divulged your secrets. But he did not. No matter how much I hinted at them. He dislikes prying.”

The corners of my mouth bunched together. She was certainly right about that. With the pair of them openly talking about ‘secrets’ right in front of me, I badly wanted to, but it was not like Lynnria could just pretend I had not heard any of that. If she wanted to share, she would.

Until then, I would mind my own business.

“We need to know how to fix this, Mia,” was all I said.

“There. You see?” she said pointedly, then added, “And thank you. At least someone is still minding their phrasing.”

Lynnria stared at me searchingly for a few moments, apparently deep in thought, before finally giving a faint nod.

“Mia…” I prompted.

“Oh, that? How do you think? I have already told you how the Runes should work. Follow your instincts.”

I frowned slightly. All I knew about them was that they had been meant as a storage tank for Life Energy. The underlying mechanics were a mystery. By design, I was sure.

Let’s see… she said something about this being a manifestation. And that the Runes would not persist long once the Life was removed.

But how were we supposed to get Life out of a nipple?

My face fell.

And from the reactions spreading around the group, I was not the only one to have arrived at the solution.

“I’ll just… cast this new spell of mine a few times,” Lynnria said stiffly.

I coughed into my hand. “Yes. The Poison Bolt. Right. I’m sure that would work… too.”

“Aww.”

Damn it, Arx. Don’t look at her. Just… don’t even acknowledge…

“I guess you could shoot me with it,” I volunteered instead. “It’s raw Life, and its attuned to us. So, it should be fine. If I’ve understood things correctly.”

“It won’t poison you, if that’s what you mean.”

Lynnria nodded then, her cheeks blushing crimson, reached up with her other hand’s index finger toward the spongy obtrusion. I was not entirely sure what she was trying to accomplish, but I had to assume it was something to do with casting the spell. Maybe she had to load her finger?

Mia sighed abruptly—in an overly loud and obvious sort of way.

“Such a shame, though… not to take advantage of the precedent?”

Lynnria hesitated, then looked up at me. Not that I had any idea what she was on about.

“I mean, who really knows how the spell will manifest the second time around,” Mia continued after a moment’s pause. “Unless… of course, there was an example to reference from…?”

Jax crossed her arms. “We just had a row all about this, Faen. Why’d we go and do the same thing over again?”

She gestured to Lynnria, who had begun to tremble slightly.

“See? Just look at her. She’s…” She frowned. “She don’t believe you? Thinks yer havering… but there be a lot of hope, too? And she be fit to rage ye made her feel that way.”

Lynnria’s eyes flashed, and her lips began to curl over her fangs.

But I quickly held up a hand. “Jax. That isn’t the sort of thing you say out loud.”

She snorted softly. “I ain’t a fool. Be only what she wanted ye to know. But what she ain’t got the courage to say, her ownself.”

“And I do not haver.”

“Ridiculous!” Lynnria snarled finally. “I’m not a fool, either. I was severed! You can’t just heal that with a little cantrip.”

Severed? From what?

Jax sucked in a breath, understanding in an instant. Her eyes took on a hard edge, and a low, menacing growl began to rumble out of her chest. But then she cast a quick glance at the door to the back room.

“This ain’t the sort of talk to be having… here.”

I nodded slowly, trusting my First’s instincts. If she thought this was too serious a topic for a random tailor’s shop, I would take her word for it.

“Let’s go outside,” I suggested. “Arx, wait here… just to make sure the door doesn’t lock on us?”

She frowned, unhappy to be left out.

“Master,” she agreed anyway.

*****

“So. Severed, be it?” Jax sighed wearily. “That explains things. Always had ye figured fer some minted Clan’s get.”

Lynnria had gone to stand over by the window, but her gaze had turned inward. Not that there was much to see out there. Just a couple of low, grassy hills sat side by side. With some oddly-placed shrubbery right at their peaks.

“I’m surprised you’ve heard of it,” she murmured.

Jax shrugged. “Rumors mainly. Ain’t the sort of thing us low types get up to. We ain’t that cruel.”

My eyebrows lifted a hair. The hell?

“Still…” She turned to glance at the door. “The other one didn’t seem to recognize it. I’m surprised.”

“She don’t come from the same stock as us.”

That seemed to puzzle Lynnria, but she soon brushed it aside. For a long while, she stared at me, searching for something. Whatever it was, she did not find it.

“Explain it to him,” she said finally, her voice cracking ever-so-slightly. “I don’t think I can.”

“Better to show him, I’m thinking.”

Lynnria did not respond for a long while, but she did eventually turn toward us. I might not have been an empath, but even I could see the emotions warring across her face. She looked like she might fall apart from an errant breeze.

“What if he rejects me?” she asked finally, her voice thin.

Jax rebuffed the idea before I could even open my mouth. “Too late fer that. Yer one of us, now.”

“But I’m disgusting,” she argued. “He’ll cast me aside. Never touch me again.”

Jax interjected, again well before I could formulate some response, this time with a snort. “Ain’t much chance of that. He accepted me.”

“Um… I’m right here. I can speak for myself.”

Jax glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “Wait.”

“But you’re so beautiful,” Lynnria protested, ignoring us. She seemed afraid to even look at me. “And so confident. I could never just walk around… bare. Like you.”

Jax could not help but preen a little at the compliment before waving it away. “Told ye before. I started from one.”

Lynnria folded her arms in front of herself defensively, not wanting to acknowledge the point. I could understand that, at least. Even I had hard time remembering the Jax from those days.

“You were still a woman,” she muttered weakly.

“That,” Jax said with some force, “were one thing I were not. And still ain’t. I be Dolilim, proud. And ne’er nothing else.”

“You look woman enough.” I could barely even hear Lynnria’s voice anymore, it was so quiet. “What’s the difference?”

That sounded like a deflection. Lynnria was likely trying to steer the conversation away from her own discomfort, but I did not call her on it. I was more than curious to see how Jax would answer, having long wondered about it myself.

Jax shrugged, unconcerned. “Easy enough. What do women mate with?”

“Men,” Lynnria answered immediately. Then, after a brief hesitation, added, “Mostly.”

“Right. I do nay mate with men. Even mostly. I mate with Donum.”

Lynnria shook her head in quick denial. “You’ve mated with Arx plenty of times. I’ve seen you!”

Jax cocked her head. “She ain’t Donum?”

“You… only mate within the Clan?” Lynnria asked, bewildered. “I don’t understand. How does that make you not a woman?”

A good question. As far as I could tell, what she was talking about was sexuality. Not gender.

Jax sighed, having been put to task. This was not an easy thing to define, especially for those whose statuses laid outside the norm.

“Tell me, lass. I know y’ain’t been Dolilim long, and lesser at that. But who’s face do ye see when ye imagine someone ‘twixt yer legs.”

Lynnria glanced at me quickly.

“Aye, that’s the way of it,” Jax agreed before she could speak. “But now imagine someone else there. Not me, nor Arx. A stranger’s face.”

A sudden look of fear overcame the girl. “No.”

Jax stepped forward. “Go on. Do it.”

“No!” she said again, backing away.

“Come on. A strapping lad with wide shoulders. Laoi. Blond hair, mayhaps? Tanned, like them-uns from up north. With a great, big cock. Throbbing away. Ready to plunge into—”

Lynnria had begun trembling through the description, but at the last a sudden, animal-like snarl ripped out of her throat. She crouched low with claws splayed, and her tail stood stiffly behind her, its every hair on end.

Jax pulled up short but did not otherwise react. She simply stood over the girl, commanding and imperious.

“What do ye want to do with him?” she asked quietly.

“Kill him!” Lynnria growled. “Rip his throat. Drink his blood! Take his Life for—”

She swallowed abruptly, having realized what she was saying.

“Take his Life fer Master,” Jax finished for her.

Lynnria did not reply. She was staring at the ground, perhaps in denial of the instinct that had overcome her. Or trying to.

I looked on impassively from one side. I already knew how Jax felt, and I had seen the same from Arx. So, for Lynnria to be displaying the same attitudes did not surprise me much, even if I might have wished otherwise.

Still, this did not prove much beyond that a Dolilim’s sexuality seemed to be… consistent. Though, I had no idea what the word for it might be.

Violently polygamous, maybe?

“None of that makes you less than a woman,” I pointed out. “Other than your own say-so.”

Jax grimaced in frustration. Here, it seemed, words had failed her.

“What your companion is failing to explain is that ‘gender’ is not intrinsic to her being,” Mia supplied. “You are.”

“Lilim may be flesh and blood, but they do not reproduce. Nor are they born. They are living constructs. Their bodies are crafted with purpose and, almost always, with a specific target in mind. Which is part of the reason you will never find any sort of consistent description of one within the lower world. That your companions even have the appearance of a gender is because that is the form most capable of drawing out complex and varied emotions… from you. Their master.”

A beat passed as I contemplated her words. That explained… a lot. Particularly with how they tended to behave. The flagrant disregard to their own rights and well-being. The contempt they held for everyone else. How emotionally drained I had been feeling.

Man, they really are demons, aren’t they.

It was a uniquely bizarre concept. To have your physical state be reliant on another’s preference? And not caring? To have that just be… how you were?

“So, you’re saying… if I hadn’t been attracted to women—”

Jax retched immediately, then shoved a knuckle to her lips. “Ne’er say that!”

“Sorry. I was just following the hypothetical.”

She nodded uncertainly. “Whate’er that means. I can nay bear the thought of ye not wanting to look on me.”

“Had that been the case, you would have still become attractive to him. But you would not appear as you now do. Nor would you necessarily have become male. Attractiveness is a flexible concept.”

“Fie. Away with ye, funt.” She shivered with revulsion. “I nay like this game.”

I nodded both out of sympathy and agreement.

While I could at least separate myself from my own desires enough to countenance the idea, I certainly did not want to dwell on it long. Imagining Jax as something… other… and enjoying it?

Blech…

Still, this raised quite a few tangentially-related questions. Like… did Faen have gender? They were supposed to be the spirits within lilim, after all. And as fragments of Goddesses, what did that say about them?

If they did not have a gender, why did they identify as goddesses, specifically? Why not just call themselves gods? That was supposed to be the neutral… at least, according to my own understanding.

But maybe I was being biased? None of these people—or whatever—had been brought up within my culture. They were not even human! That they happened to default to something approximating a human female by coincidence was at least… plausible.

Though, now that I was thinking about, it was surpassing strange that any of them took remotely familiar forms. Or even thought in human terms. This was an alien planet!

“I think that answers the question sufficiently enough for now,” I said, turning to Lynnria. “She is not a woman. And I suppose that means you aren’t either. Technically. Unless you still want to think of yourself that way. It isn’t my place to tell you one way or the other.”

Lynnria had fallen silent during the exchange, so I was not at all certain how she was taking it. She had just been informed that she was becoming a species whose forms were modeled solely upon my own views of attractiveness.

Which… probably said a lot about me. Best not to dwell on it.

In any case, it would be a lot to take in even if she had not been struggling with whatever this ‘severing’ business was about.

Lynnria finally sighed in resignation. “I suppose you’re right. I’m not a woman. Haven’t been for… some time, now. Not really.”

Her chin crinkled with building emotion, but she steadied herself.

“Maybe it would have been easier if you were attracted to men. Maybe then,” she began to tremble, and her voice squeaked with building fear, “you wouldn’t find me so disgusting.”

With that, she lifted her shirt—just enough to see her chest.

There was… nothing.

No breasts. No nipples. Nor even any sign of scar tissue. Just smooth, flat skin.

“I… don’t understand,” I said slowly. “Did you have cancer or something?”

Lynnria had averted her eyes, terrified of the reaction she had expected would come. But my question confused her. “I—what? I don’t…?”

“The Master be new to these parts. Don’t know our… customs,” Jax supplied before turning to me.

The rest, she delivered in an emotionless monotone, as though she were ashamed to even know about it.

“She be severed, Master. Be a ritual some of the bigger Clans get up to. Laoi, anyways.” She took a breath, hesitant to say the rest, but she marshaled on. “Her chest were cut away. Sliced clean and healed. Then cut again. Over and over, til even the healing would nay bring ‘em back.”

I stared at her. Then at Lynnria. Then back again.

It was a simple enough explanation. But…

“Fuck,” I breathed.

Jax flinched slightly, but did not call me on the obscenity.

After all, what else could I say? That was…

I did not even know what. I barely had the words to describe my own reaction. It was one of the most fucked-up things I had ever heard.

“Why?”

Jax waited for Lynnria, but she did not seem to want to speak. Finally, she shrugged, “A punishment, be all I know. After, ye be cast from the Clan. Set adrift-like.”

“It’s… so that no man will touch you,” Lynnria explained weakly. “And no children will… will come from you. To challenge for their place. You are severed both in body and Clan.”

“You’re saying… your grandfather?”

“No!” she denied quickly. “H-He’s my paternal grandfather. From a… a different Clan. My severing was… not a punishment for anything… anything I did. So they… they were merciful. And adopted me.”

“You were punished by proxy?” I had not thought this little tale could get much worse, but it seemed I had been incorrect. “Th-they cut off your—and you were a scapegoat?!”

Lynnria glanced away.

“Master.” Jax touched my shoulder gently. “I’m thinking ye need to worry more about what she needs to hear. And not so much these questions.”

“What?”

I turned to Lynnria again. She had not moved even to lower her shirt, but she had the look of a woman awaiting the headman’s ax.

“Oh, shit, Lynnria. Did you actually think I would… reject you over this?”

Her eyes began shining and her lips pulled back over her teeth. But not to smile. It looked like she was trying as hard as she could not to howl with grief. Never mind answering.

I pulled her to me quickly and held her tight. This time, pouring every drop of comfort into her I could. So much that she would never want to let me go. That she would remember this moment as the safest and most reassuring place she had ever been.

“Oh, Lynnria,” I whispered into her hair. Over and over. Like a mantra. “I would never. Not for something like this. Never.”

She fell into my arms completely then, unable to bear the weight of her own burden. And she cried.

And cried.

“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 you are 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?”