And Nesifra approaches Elodea with the knife, muttering to herself about magical theory.

"Language—first station—the heart yields the mind—" She pulls down the blanket to reveal Elodea's chest and abdomen. "This is going to hurt quite a bit," she warns, and starts opening quick cuts along Elodea's shoulders and ribs, in some sort of elaborate pattern whose purpose is not clear.

The knife is sharp enough that although there is a lot of blood, it doesn't actually hurt all that much until half a minute later when she cracks open Elodea's chest, digs in her fingers, pulls the ribcage apart, cuts out her heart, and eats it.

She endures the cuts with few hissed intakes of breath, the opening of her chest with gritted teeth, and when Nesifra digs in and yanks her heart out she arches backwards and lets out a short, sharp shriek.

She collapses, and for a moment she looks like the corpse of any other woman who'd just had her heart torn out. And then her eyes fly open, her heart begins growing back, and her chest snaps closed and all her wounds seal. 

There is a lingering ache, not immediately identifiable with any specific injury; it's a sort of stretched feeling, like having her heart pulled from her chest tugged some things out of place and now they're taking a little time to settle back where they belong. A mild headache, too, with a similar air.

Nesifra sits very still for a few seconds, licking her lips, with her eyes closed and her claw-tips drumming on the handle of the knife.

Then she opens her eyes and says in Common, in a satisfied tone of voice, "There. Got it on the first try."

"Excellent! If you want to take over translation duties that'd be keen but that was pretty far from the worst I've ever had, if your brother wants a go too I'm up for it," she replies in the same tongue. 

"I imagine he will; he doesn't like not being able to talk to people."

She beckons to Sovarith, who puts Havalya down and comes over to receive his own tasty treat. The process goes a little quicker the second time, but the hangover is a little worse.

"Is there any reason to keep her stuck to the ground now—?"

"Technically we haven't verified her information yet," says Nesifra, "but I think I've seen enough shows of good faith."

She sets her claws in the nearest stone shackle and pulls it apart, with a touch of magic to make it crack neatly instead of crushing Elodea's hand.

Sovarith does something similar with the rest of them.

Elodea lets out a sigh of relief, and rubs her wrists, and leaps to her feet and twirls around and falls down again, giggling as she gets up for a second time and retrieves her blanket to wrap around herself in a token show of lip-service to modesty.

"Thanks! --Havalya, can you tell them your feelings about me being chained up?"

"...It wouldn't have been likely to help, if she were able and inclined to make a nuisance of herself. I mean it might have, but lots of wizards can cast without moving their hands."

"I'm still annoyed that I can't fuck you, by the way," he says to Elodea. "Ripping your heart out of your chest was really hot."

He returns to Havalya and scoops her up and nuzzles her some more. "Maybe I'll fuck you instead."

Eee nuzzling. She nuzzles back. 

"You know, if you have a willing victim, I'm not going to feel too sorry for you about having to restrict yourself to her."

He laughs, and wraps his wings around Havalya and kisses the side of her neck and sits on the ground with her in his lap.

"Someday I'm sure I will succeed in bridging this cultural gap, but I doubt today will be the day," says Nesifra. "Do you want me to make you some clothes?"

"Please. Is he really going to--of course he is. I'm going to go look for edible plants or something similarly out of earshot."

She laughs softly. "Reasonable."

Then she returns to Khesanai's blanket, where she sits down next to him and kisses his forehead.

"Hello," she says, petting his hair. "My name is Nesifra. It's lovely to meet you."

(Meanwhile, Sovarith is indeed cheerfully fucking Havalya right there in front of everyone.)

(Elodea flees.)

"My name is Khesanai and I think this is the weirdest thing that has happened to anyone in my family for ten generations."

"If that bothers you," she waves the tip of her tail at her brother, "we can go somewhere else." Pet pet.

"Yes please."

She scoops him up and walks away, sliding the obsidian knife into a sheath attached to her dress that wasn't there a moment ago.

"So, uh--I think Elodea gave us something of an abridged explanation of what's going on..."

"I'd be happy to give you a more complete one if you tell me where you're starting from." Pet pet.