"I was in any case planning to be the one to torture you if it came up; unlike some people," she glances fondly at her brother, "I'm capable of separating torture from sex."

"Shadow Mountain must be a fun place."

"It is!" he says brightly.

"Well, welcome to the land of Not Fun, where the only rapeable humanoid within a what-the-fuck-ever radius has an inconvenient curse."

"It's very inconvenient!" he agrees.

"I suspect if what-the-fuck-ever doesn't turn out to be large enough to keep you away from not-me persons you're going to get lots of agreement with the thing where it's inconvenient that you're not there anymore."

"We're under no orders to conquer this world," says Nesifra. "I'm nearly certain it isn't the same one."

"I'm glad to hear that but I don't think most people who end up involuntarily enabling your brother's rape habit are going to be quite as thrilled."

"Does that bother you?" she asks curiously.

"...Yes? Being raped is No Fun, I have over a millenium of experience on the matter."

"So wouldn't you rather them than you, then?"

"I'm used to it. They're not."

"Caring about that many people sounds exhausting."

"It's different from personally caring about someone. I'm sure it's less personally convenient to not care. But it's a lot more convenient to live in a society where everyone cares, or at least has social pressure acting on them to pay lip service to caring, as long as you don't have strong reasons to want to rape and torture people."

"How does your civilzation even function?" he wonders.

"More smoothly than ours, overall," says Nesifra.

"And I'm not an anthropologist, just a wizard who spends disproportionate amounts of time in the wilderness anyway."

"Why would you spend disproportionate amounts of time in the wilderness if this is the sort of thing that happens when you do?"

"Because it happens whether or not I'm in random wilderness and this way insofar as I have a reputation it's as a powerful but nomadic wizard and not. As a constant. Victim. Which I am not. Ninety percent of the people who have ever raped me died by my hand for it."

"Well, that's not very friendly," says Sovarith, somewhere between amused and puzzled.

"Neither is rape."

"—ah," says Nesifra. "She doesn't mean she's killed half her lovers—right?—she means she's killed most of the people who have been driven to interrupt her by the curse."

"Still!"

"--I have not killed half my lovers! I have not killed any of my lovers! Random assholes who think they have the right to force me to to have sex I don't want do not qualify as lovers!"

"Among the Endarkened they would," says Nesifra. "More or less. Very few people can get away without ever being on the losing side of sex; even royalty mostly doesn't manage it."