[b]Solarel![/b]

[i]She insisted on getting the bed, despite being the guest. Despite it not being large enough for the pair of you. She insisted you take the floor, too. Fought you for it. Won. Cheated like a fiend, but who were you to complain about legitimacy?

She didn't smile at you, but the posture of her body (the lift of her tail, the unnecessary arch of her butt into the air, the curl of her spine, and the way the sheet was one quarter flopped over her bare back, the only "clothing" she had on at all) left the impression of an unbearably smug aura just the same. She stretched her arms out onto the pillow in front of her, and lazily rolled onto her side so she could peer down on where you were seated from the safety of her glorious perch. 

She made no secret of her bare chest. Wasn't it softer than what you'd seen before? Didn't it seem decadent? She stretched, turned, curved, flaunted. She lifted one leg up to her head and held it there. Her eyes smiled like a river, though even now her face was nothing but curt frowns. At best, pursed lips. In some ways she was very careless with her secrets. But if she was an open book, it's because every page was written in glyphs. Of course she was. Her whole stupid language operated on glyphs. Dense and information rich. Too rich, actually. The more a person looked at one the more unfolded out of it, and there were so many layers of interpretation that even masters could only guess as to the intent. 

That was Mirror. In every way the perfect Hybrasillian, and yet content as anything to stay here as your prisoner, cut off from the lot of them. Turn your head one way, and one truth would fall out of her. Blink, and another would take its place. Ask her which was real, and a third laid down overtop of both. 

"What's your interest in that word?" she asked, "That's literal children's tales. You are beyond this, I think. I say you are, so it's true. I would rather you... nnnnf. Mmmmm. Hm. Well. If it really means that much to you."

She relaxed back down into the bed and rolled herself tight into the sheets. Now that she was wrapped up, her lips curled into a giddy smirk. You might have realized it then. One layer of protection, always. The shape of it was immaterial. 

"An'Suhn'Na'Nq'Muhn'Dohl'Vsht'Suhn'Sa'Syr. [The Moon Reaching Stars]. Very simple concept, very very old story. The language is different now, much smoother. I can tell you many stories much better than this one. And faster, too. But we call this one by its name, and let the children sing it before they've learned to read star names, because..."

She sighed. Turned her eyes away from you to stare wistfully at the ceiling. 

"I wish you would stop pretending to care. Let me go already. You can't cook a fish to save your life. Even the ones you bring me are some kind of fucked up. What am I supposed to do with these? I'll starve in another day or two."

Untrue. Demonstrably untrue. She was eating you out of house and home, pushing the boundaries of prisoner/guest rights to their maximum. She'd put on a fair bit of weight since becoming your prisoner, which was an incredible relief to see because she came to you emaciated almost down to her bones. Still, she complained about it daily. The fat, and the starvation both. The only point she stuck to consistently was that fish was overdone. 

"Old things are large things, do you understand? The moons of a planet, the stars themselves, watch them chase and frolic and play. They were here before us. They will be here after. To be old and not discarded, it means you have grown. It is why we cultivate. It is why I have not forgiven you for shattering my cup. That crystal had been coaxed day on day since the minute I was born. It was mine. How many... no. No. No. Nevermind. No. I say, no!

"The lesson is over. I am not interested in your voice right now. Not your signs, either. I have thought of a better use for your tongue. Climb up here and unwrap me. When we're finished, I tracked down a new anime. They call it the Garden of Sinners. I am very, very curious~"

And that was it. This one time, and no other, she gave herself to you without needing to be wrestled into submission first. She took everything you had to give her, and she yowled loud enough to wake new Gods the entire time. Her hands on your head, holding you without guiding you. Always one layer of protection, right? Never less, but never more either. 

Maybe she hadn't asked you to give her a new scar that time because in her mind, she'd already taken one. She had highly specific interpretations of winning and losing, after all. But the flip side of that was that she was never not playing games.[/i]