"...Okay, well, here, we have this novel thing called consensual sex. Most sex is not rape! Not here! I have never raped anyone! I have had tons of sex that was not rape on either side!"

"That doesn't even make any sense," says Sovarith.

"I so wish I had my illusions--look, here's how it works, in an oversimplified case. I see a pretty man. I walk up to him, and say, 'I think you're hot, do you want to have sex with me?' He says yes. We go somewhere private. Sex happens. Or maybe he asks me if I want to have sex and I say yes and we go somewhere private and have sex. Or, one of us says no, and no sex happens. Either way, no rape. Rape is sex where one of the parties does not consent."

"You're using words very strangely," says Nesifra. "I understand you because I've spent time among the sunlit folk, but - to use an analogy, you are trying to explain gifts in a language where 'I stole that from him' and 'he gave it to me' have only a slight difference in connotation."

"Well that's horrifying but not surprising. I swear I make more sense in a language I actually speak than when using magical translation."

"I believe you!" she says.

"Is anyone going to explain to me what she actually means," wonders Sovarith.

"When the sunlit folk have sex, they do it cooperatively. No one yields, no one conquers. You probably wouldn't like it very much."

He glances up at her and laughs. "I don't know, it sounds interesting."

She smiles slightly and makes a shooing motion at him. "Go find out what's for dinner. I assume our guest won't be pleased if we eat her."

"It sounds uncomfortable! And I don't regenerate from the loss of major fractions of my body mass fast enough to feed two comfortably for long."

He stands up and stretches, spreading his wings to a truly impressive span, then leaps into the sky and flies away.

"Oh, we don't need to eat very often."

"Sounds convenient."

"Many things about being Endarkened are convenient."

"Pity it comes with all the horrible."

She shrugs. "I find it worthwhile, personally. Though if I weren't the Queen of Shadow Mountain, perhaps I'd feel differently."

"I mean, if even royalty doesn't generally manage to avoid 'being on the losing side of sex' I think I still prefer to be, what did you call it, sunlit folk. I'm rather an aberration in that regard. Besides, inconvenient though it may be, I find the idea of not having my empathy aversive."

"Oh, we killed our father a long time ago and haven't had any trouble since," she says, as though this is a completely reasonable answer to that concern. "And what do you mean, 'not having your empathy'...?"

She is rather distracted by the first part of what she said. "Your father?"

"Hmm? Yes," she says. "Is that surprising? He was the King; he could have anyone he liked."

"Yes! It's surprising! That's--you don't do that to your children!"

"It's not to everyone's taste, but it does happen," she says. "I wouldn't, because I've discovered that if you want to avoid having someone betray you, not harming them unnecessarily is a good first step. But I'm not planning to have children anyway."

"People are supposed to care about their children," she says, quietly but fiercely.

"Endarkened aren't supposed to care about anyone."