Taliar half-laughs, half-sighs. "Of course not. Okay. Well. You know what, I'll start with our very first night, before I knew - well, before I knew just about anything, really..."

He closes his eyes and remembers, and sends it to her in as much detail as he can, sensory and psychological both. It was... it was beautiful. Perfect. At the time it was absolutely the best thing that had ever happened to him. There have been better things since, but that night is still special. He remembers the filled-with-sunlight feeling of loving Maitimo that much. Glorious.

"Hmm," Kelora says thoughtfully. "All right. Now show me something scary."

"How scary?"

"That first time you had a Nahira dream, let's say."

"Okay."

So he shows her. Waking up frightened, Maitimo comforting him - spending the day cuddling, both of them working remotely - and dinner, and suppressing the knowledge of what usually happens after dinner, and Maitimo carrying him out to the balcony and kissing him, and Taliar trying very hard not to panic, and the two of them talking it over, and then... well. It was scary. But in a very satisfying way. He got through it, he chose to get through it, chose to participate, chose to overcome his fear, and he definitely succeeded at that. Maitimo showing Taliar his thoughts helped so much. Even shaking and crying and terrified, he loved the way Maitimo thinks about him.

Kelora sits quietly for a moment, absorbing this.

Then: "Show me... show me trust songs."

He remembers the first time, how fascinated he was by the experience, and the glory of trust-songs soul contact, and the terror of the cascade effect; and then he remembers a later occasion, when Taliar-on-trust-songs decided he wanted Maitimo, and it was - it was amazing, it was glorious, it was so good, he gets so high on that, and he doesn't regret a single thing afterward, it's just pure joy.

"I can see why you like those so much," she says. "Trust is... very foundational to you. Do you still get like that on trust songs now that you trust him perfectly?"

"Yeah. It's... it's different. On trust songs it's - purer, sort of more artificial? Like the difference between, I don't know, strawberries and strawberry jam." He sends the feelings for comparison. There's definitely a resemblance, but trust songs still get him high in a way that ordinary trust doesn't quite.

"Hmm."

She thinks some more.

"All right. Now show me your first bad day."

"Okay," he says, and he reaches into his memory. The dream, the morning, the decision not to be afraid until he had to, and Maitimo giving him reason to be afraid... he shivers, remembering how he froze, remembering Maitimo slapping him to chase away thoughts of Nahira. And then soul-touching, deeply awful soul-touching, and waking up crying on the floor, and Maitimo getting out a knife and telling him to use his healing aura and how honestly fun that was, and Taliar kissing him, and then Nahira ruining everything. Waking up from soul contact again to the realization that Maitimo had fucked him while he was out.

The decision to start putting his head back together. The process of putting his head back together, in as much detail as he can remember it - it was surprisingly easy, and surprisingly fulfilling, to knowingly and deliberately forgive Maitimo for hurting him... he even felt like Maitimo hadn't hurt him enough yet, like he'd be disappointed if it ended there.

It didn't. Maitimo came back. Maitimo asked him to consent to trust songs, and he did, and he got gloriously high and wanted Maitimo to fuck him and hurt him and hold his soul, and Maitimo did all that and then let the song fade while he was still holding Taliar's soul and the cascade effect was - awful, terrifying, glorious - and Maitimo asked if Taliar wanted him to stop, and Taliar said not anymore I don't...

And then at the very end, when Maitimo told him to be present, to process everything, and Taliar did, he was scared and he cried and he felt it all, and Maitimo loved him for it, Maitimo appreciated him so much... and then Maitimo said he was done, and Taliar told himself to feel safe and he did, just like that, it hardly took a minute. He won that day. He won that day so much.

"I think I'm starting to see why you like those so much," says Kelora. "And you're right, he did undershoot. A problem I expect he has corrected since."

"More than," Taliar affirms, smiling. "I can take so much more now, and he keeps up with me - do you know what we were doing, the last two months?"

"I assumed you were being tortured, but go on."

"He put me in his bed and had me fill the room with my healing aura and then he picked up my soul and didn't put it down again. For two months. Most of which time he spent playing with the number of imaginary strangers he could have touch it at once." Taliar smiles dreamily. "It was so fucked up. When I came out of it I couldn't move properly for hours. Right at the end, he went up as high as he could and took his hand off my soul and just left me with them, it was - it was agonizing, I can't begin to describe it and I'm not sure I want to show you..."

"So he has been learning," says Kelora. She pets Taliar's hair. "Don't worry about what I'll think of it. Assume I am unshockable. But go in order, show me the scary things and the interesting things as they happened."

"Okay. After that first bad day, the next one was... worse. But also better." He remembers being terrified and reaching for Maitimo anyway, participating deliberately, enjoying himself deliberately. He remembers Maitimo telling him to stay put and then walking off with his soul, and he remembers the first time he ever felt a stranger's touch on it, the vast incomprehensible agony - it was less intense than soul contact with Maitimo because there was less there to feel, but it more than made up for that in the sheer uncompromising purity of the pain. And that, more and more of that, for he doesn't even know how long.

And then waking up and not even being able to move or think or feel, and Maitimo hauling him out of bed and telling him to get his head in order, and Taliar feeling that spark of challenge and straightening himself out in record time, just flinging himself into the depths of his own pain and fear and then climbing right back out again and thanking Maitimo for respecting him that much. At which point Maitimo declared that he'd had enough torture - and for once Taliar agreed - but Maitimo still wanted to have him that night, so Taliar left himself in the bad-day mindset until then.

He remembers saying I want you to fuck me while I'm crying with fear, and he remembers how intensely satisfying that was, and he remembers reclaiming his feeling of safety and cuddling up and... yeah, that was the first time the subject of his hypothetical consent came up, although Maitimo didn't ask him to start checking it until later.

Which came first, the rape or the adorable death threats? He can't quite remember. Well, the adorable death threats were certainly more fun, so - he remembers that for her, remembers telling Maitimo he was starting to like this sex-while-terrified thing, remembers Maitimo promising him terrifyingly arousing death threats, remembers himself wanting to be scared a little while later, remembers Maitimo choking him into unconsciousness and then waiting for him to wake up and fucking him with a hand on his throat and how transcendently good it was, how afterward he felt something almost like trust songs. And oh, right, that was when they had the conversation that led to Maitimo raping him, wasn't it.

"Do you - do you want that too..."

"It seems important," says Kelora. "Go on. If you want to. I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to relive that."

"No, I'm okay." He smiles up at her. "I'm fine."

So. Checking hypothetical consent was fun, at first, he got all smug about it, knowing he'd want Maitimo even if he could choose otherwise. And then there were the daffodils.

He was so fucking terrified, he was sick with it, and he didn't let it stop him, he went to dinner and sat in Maitimo's lap and cuddled him, and Maitimo asked him to check and he knew it was going to fuck him up in a whole new way, he knew it would take away the foundation of how he kept himself feeling safe, that it would be worse than bad days could ever get. And he checked anyway. And Maitimo was proud of him, and he rested in Maitimo's lap and felt comfortable and safe while Maitimo thought it over, and then Maitimo kissed him and the safety was just gone.

It was awful, it was pure silver, there was nothing else left, just misery and willpower - and oh, the willpower it took, to keep himself compliant - he tried to reach for real cooperation and it was absolutely not available - Maitimo fucked him, and it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him without someone's hand on his soul - and then afterward, Maitimo told him to go get his soul, and he did. He is intensely proud of himself for how he handled that night. His dedication to his commitments is absolute, beyond all reason, and no one should ever have to put themselves through something like that, but he did it, he succeeded.

Oh, he's crying now. That's a thing that's happening.

Kelora scoops him into her lap and hugs him.

"Innameleri Eninnakala Karointhel Innameleri Enkuleakala Luithantele Elaneth-imire Kazaryne Taliar," she says, "you are utterly unreasonable and utterly magnificent. I wish he hadn't needed that from you, but he did, and you gave it to him, and you have every right to be proud. You are incredible. You make yourself into whatever you need to be, and you follow through on your commitments with a strength of purpose that Tezru Diakor himself would envy. It would be your right to decide that what he did to you was not okay, but it is also your right to decide that it was. And you've made your choice, and I support you in it. I love you. You're all right. It's all right."

Well, now it's time to giggle-cry.

Was that really necessary, he sends, because he definitely couldn't manage coherent verbal speech right now. You can tell me you're impressed with me without bringing my grandparents into it. Why do you even know all my inheritance titles off the top of your head, I haven't used them since I manifested my soul. I love you so much.

"I'm a princess, I need to know these things."

Hug, hug, hug.

"Take your time. Go on when you're ready."

Okay.

He sniffle-giggles and leans on her and waits for his breathing to steady, and waits a little longer, and then opens up the memory again and sends...

The next day was pretty much a write-off. He didn't sleep at all that night, so he slept the day through instead, and when he woke up around dinnertime his emotions weren't working, he let Maitimo fuck him and it still took effort but it wasn't miserable, it wasn't anything, it was just sort of there. That night, he slept more or less fine. And the following morning...

That's when he started putting himself back together. He wrestled his emotions back into place by making himself relive the memory until he dissolved into tears, and then he made himself remember how much he loves Maitimo, which hurt even worse than merely remembering Maitimo raping him, and then since he couldn't make himself stop being horrified at the thought of sex he made himself enjoy being horrified at the thought of sex, and - for a while in there he was afraid Maitimo didn't love him anymore, he'd been so distant, but Maitimo reassured him about that, and then he asked for scary and he got it, and it felt good. It felt perfect. He brought himself to the point of forgiveness soon afterward.

And oh, yes, Maitimo was so delighted when Taliar vehemently rejected the idea of using his right of refusal just to see if it worked. That was adorable. Maitimo is adorable. They're both adorable.

For a long while afterward, he'd freeze up every so often when Maitimo was touching him. It seems to have gotten better while he wasn't looking.

What else... oh yes, that time he asked Maitimo to scare away a nightmare, and Maitimo tied him down and blinded him and touched him and cut him and kissed him and it was glorious, transcendent, amazing, and he asked Maitimo to touch his soul afterward because he needed to get lost in that beautiful feeling, and Maitimo kept him that way for the rest of the day.

Then the healing tour, since by that point his soul was recovered enough to more or less manage one, his healing aura not yet back to city-sized but at least medium-sized-piece-of-a-city. The half-nightmare from which dream-Maitimo rescued him. The daffodils, and Maitimo's gradual change, and the moment Taliar's soul finally acknowledged him, and -

"I can't remember if you know about the rockslide or not. I probably shouldn't surprise you with the rockslide."

Snuggle. "I've heard there was a rockslide."

"The rockslide was not fun."

Thirty hours trapped under solid rock being continually crushed, experiencing no sensations other than pain, grieving for Maitimo and not even knowing for sure whether letting him die helped anything. No. Not fun at all.

"The same way I go back to the castle when I smell daffodils, I go back to the rockslide when he holds me down or ties me down or chokes me or blinds me."

And Maitimo has been doing a lot of all those things, since Taliar won the war. He remembers their conversation about how Maitimo would break him - he remembers what Maitimo actually said, and how he felt about it a few minutes later when his full reaction hit, and he remembers kissing Maitimo and inviting him to be a little scary and Maitimo sending him to go get some daffodils.

He hesitates before sending the parts about Nahira, but he trusts that if it's too much, Kelora will tell him to stop. So. He sends that, all of it. And then the moment when he came back to himself and put the flowers down and immediately collapsed to the floor in tears, and then Maitimo summoned him to bed and he went, and Maitimo slapped him and reminded him of his failure and made him fill the room with his healing aura and kissed him and told him he was good and strong and capable and picked up his soul...

Soon after that was when they found out that struggling to breathe sends Taliar into memories of the rockslide. And he held still for it anyway, and Maitimo tortured him and he held still for that too, because he wanted to, because he could, because he loves Maitimo so much and trusts him so much and Maitimo appreciates him so much for it. It's amazing. They're amazing. His memories of the torture are a little disordered, but he does his best to straighten them out. Here's where they discovered that tying him down puts him back under the mountain - and holding him down, the immobilization and the weight - and blinding him, the sensory deprivation - and of course after a while of that Maitimo left him tied down and blinded with the daffodils right next to him for a three-week tour of the kingdom, sometimes touching his soul, sometimes having strangers do the same, and it was utterly fucking miserable but the overexposure did in fact help, he doesn't lose hold of his senses the same way anymore -

- and when Maitimo came back from that, he told Taliar to hold still for the knife and Taliar did and it was just nice, it hurt but in a soothing way, he wasn't scared at all, it was lovely. Taliar really likes that, the calm soft peaceful feeling of lying there completely relaxed while his boyfriend hurts him. Almost a trust-songs feeling.

Then, of course, Maitimo suggested identity songs. Identity songs are fucked up. Soul-touching on identity songs is - is - he sends the memory but he knows he's not doing it justice, he can't, his mind is not the right shape to properly contain that experience anymore. But that's when Taliar's soul gave Maitimo the power to make it feel like it was being touched by strangers!

...which meant that Maitimo could make Taliar feel like his soul was being touched by strangers without Maitimo holding it, and that was a whole new level of awful, and - didn't combine well with daffodils - but it's fine, he was fine, Maitimo picked up his soul and held him while he cried and it was good and he was fine. And it worked out much better the next few times. And he asked Maitimo to be scary with him, and Maitimo held him down and fucked him and he had rockslide flashbacks and liked them, it was so good, there are very few things that Taliar likes better than the feeling of steering his mind around and having everything fall into place on the first try.

It was shortly after that when Nezhefena showed up, and Taliar went home and visited Kelora and told her all the awful things he could think of - he appreciates her so much, he loves her so much, he even appreciates her making him blush even though it is terrible, it's the good kind of terrible, he loves it.