"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.

"You're not the kind of demon I'm familiar with, you don't do things with souls and you don't know wizardry from hen's teeth."

She snorts softly. "That's accurate enough."

"And the thing you did with the heart-eating gave you the language somehow."

"Yes."

She finds a comfortable place to sit, out of sight of Sovarith and Havalya - she can still hear them, but she expects Khesanai can't - and arranges him cozily in her lap.

Mm, cozy.

"So why are you here in this random bit of historically-interesting wilderness ravishing pretty humans instead of...wherever you come from?"