Nod.

"Then - I may be able to return to what I was. But I think I cannot do it alone. At least not if you're going to keep - returning. And I think it would be very bad to recover only a little bit, and then be harmed again. I think I will not break as cleanly, if I break a second time. So - I will do whatever you ask. But I think you will not get what you ask for if you are not prepared to help with it. And if you are not prepared to be careful."

"Okay. I'll - be careful."

Nod.

"I think that I have to explain what I did to myself. I am worried that it will sound like something that is meant to be manipulative. I didn't tell you at the time because I didn't know then, either, how to - make it sound genuine enough. Make it sound like it was not a request for you to stop hurting me. A method of forcing your hand. It wasn't meant to be. But I can't - think very well, how things will sound, anymore."

"I noticed. That's - one of the problems we want to solve."

Nod.

"I wrote a story. The day I told you I would do anything you asked. A magic story. Or maybe there was only the source of magic in it, but I don't know that it matters. They wouldn't summon power if there wasn't power in them to start. A story to make me capable of giving you anything you asked for, without complaining about it, without working against you, without trying to protect myself, overtly or through manipulation. Without doing things you might parse as enemy action. Without feeling that I ought to make the pain stop, if the cost reached a certain point. To be able to endure things the other Korva would not have accepted."

"But - at the cost of being able to think about things?"

"Not at first. At first only at the cost of - being able to want things from you. If I wanted them I would try to make them happen, and I couldn't let that impulse remain, if I needed to be able to endure whatever happened without asking you to stop. So I didn't warn you, when you were doing something that would hurt me. But I was still hurt. I just didn't feel any impulse to protect myself from it. I only kept the impulse to do what you wanted. Made rules, to avoid stepping on anything that got a negative reaction. And eventually I lost - more pieces of myself. I'd expected that that would probably happen, though. It didn't interrupt things. I'd made sure that I would let you take them."

"I see. That - makes sense. I wish there would have been a better way but I - actually don't know. But certainly now there is, now that -" he gestures at her abdomen.

Nod. She doesn't actually know that there's a better way, but he wants her to explain, so she'll keep explaining.

"I think the charm interrupted things. Changed the way that I was thinking enough to cause me to give you information I otherwise would not have. And then you gave me - orders, or suggestions, that conflicted with the rules. It took me weeks to go a day without crying. I couldn't find a path that didn't seem like something you might parse as disobedience. Eventually I was able to numb most of the fear out again, by contemplating various ways you could hurt me, and practicing accepting them. But I'm not the same as I was, am I. I don't have much - sense of how I am, internally, but I'm clearly more talkative. I think some of that is having done a shoddy job of reversing what the charm knocked loose. And maybe some of it is - having gone several weeks since the last time I had to shut down to endure intense physical pain."

"I'm not - I didn't think you were being disobedient before you did whatever this is. And I am not going to hurt you."

"I think you hurt me very often without meaning to."

"I guess that is probably true."

"I don't actually know whether it makes any sense to expect you to be capable of stopping. But I think - maybe if I explain everything it might be possible."

Nod.

"I think maybe I should read you the story. I don't actually know whether it will help, but - it might be useful context. For understanding. Maybe it will help me explain."

"Sure."

She opens the drawer in her nightstand and takes out the book of Osirian history. She takes out the extra pages. She reads.

"There was once a woman who married the most wonderful man in the world. He was kind and generous, loyal and trustworthy, beautiful and powerful, and he loved his wife like a piece of himself, even though she was not nearly so wonderful as he was. They were very happy together, and thought that they would be so for a very long time.

"It happened that a great tragedy befell the man's kingdom. Its king and all of his family were destroyed, and could not be recovered. So the god of that kingdom found the man and cut out his heart, which was light and shining like the sun, and placed in his chest a hard and heavy stone, as dark as a moonless night. And all of the people welcomed him as their new king. The god made the stone heavy, so that he could barely stand up under it. The weight of the stone kept him tied to the palace, until such time as a new king could be found or created. The darkness of the stone came out in his actions; he was cruel, and threatening, and angry at everyone he came in contact with. He could not touch his wife without hurting her, and she was afraid. She asked him whether he might remove the stone, and put his heart back where it had been. And he said that she had asked an awful thing, for he did not see any value in the heart that he had had. But he told her that because she was his wife, she would be entitled to it, as long as she was still his wife when the kingdom had a new king. But he told her that he hoped she would be wiser than that, and learn to trust that he was stronger like this, and free of all the weaknesses that he thought had plagued him when he was kind.

The woman spent many hours wandering the palace garden, away from her husband, hiding from his touch and his notice. But she could not hide for long, for every night he summoned her to his bed.

"'You do not love me,' said the man to his wife, one night. 'You shrink from my touch, and do not welcome my advances, even though I am your husband. You should be eager to give every piece of yourself to me, and trust that I will keep you safe, and leave you better than I found you.'

"And the woman said, 'I love you very much. But I fear that you will break me, and I will not be able to.'

"And the man said, 'If you love me, you will find a way to give yourself to me, and will welcome all that I do to you. Otherwise, I will know that you are not loyal, and it will be as if you were not my wife.' And the woman was afraid, and thought that the man might not put his heart back, when the time had come.

"So the woman went into the garden. There she cut herself open and took out her own heart. She put in its place a rock, which could not be scarred by words, or blades, or illness. She left her heart in the garden, hidden in a place where only someone who loved her like a piece of himself would be able to find it. There the heart was safe, and could not be harmed, nor forget how to love the person it waited for. And as she left the garden, the woman forgot where she had left it, for it was no longer hers.

"She went back into the palace, and presented herself to her husband. 'I will do anything you ask,' she said. 'I will give you whatever pieces of me that you desire, and obey all of your orders without hesitation.'

"'Good,' said her husband. 'Then prove your devotion by giving me the piece of your sex that knows what pleasure is, so that you will not insist on receiving it.' So the woman cut out that piece of her sex and gave it to him, and could not feel pleasure. And he gave her a pearl to put in its place, and told her she was beautiful. And she did not avoid or seek anything from him, when he called her to his bed, but did exactly what he asked.

"But her husband was not satisfied. 'You do not love me,' he said, 'for I have seen you look at other people, and I know that you want them instead. Give me your eyes, so that you will not be able to look on anyone else.' So the woman cut out her eyes and gave them to him, and could not see. He gave her two glass ones, with jewels set in them, and told her that she was beautiful. And the woman stopped wandering the palace, which she could not navigate, and was confined to her rooms.

"But her husband was not satisfied. 'You do not love me,' he said, 'for you say things that sound like requests, and do not trust me to offer you what you deserve. Give me your tongue, so that I will know that you trust me to offer what you need.' So the woman cut out her tongue, and gave it to him, and could not speak. He gave her the feather of a swan, to hold in her mouth, and told her that she was beautiful. And the woman took to writing her requests, and could not speak to her husband, who could not read.

"But her husband was not satisfied. 'You do not love me,' he said, 'for even though you cannot feel pleasure, you still crave comfort. Give me your skin, so that you will not desire softness from me, which I do not wish to give you.' So the woman peeled off her skin, and gave it to him, and could not feel. He coated her muscles in fine porcelain, which made it hard to move, and told her she was beautiful. And the woman did not move very much, because she found it hard to control her body.

"But her husband was not satisfied. 'You do not love me,' he said, 'for there is a pride in how you stand, and I can tell that you think yourself better than I am. Give me your spine, so that you will not carry yourself like one who believes herself to be better than others.' So the woman cut out her spine, and gave it to him, and could not stand. He gave her a flowering vine to run through her back, and told her she was beautiful. And the woman spent all her time in bed, because she could not sit up.

"But her husband was not satisfied. 'You do not love me,' he said, 'for you have not given me your heart. Give it to me now, so that I will know with certainty that no other holds it.' So the woman cut open her chest, and showed him the rock. But he did not recognize that it was not her heart, for it was dark and cold and hard, like the thing that was in his own chest. He kept the rock in a locked box, and looked in on it on special occasions, and satisfied himself that his wife could love no one else.

"In time she bore him many children, although she could not care for them, and the palace staff raised them until one of them was old enough to be a king. By that time her husband had forgotten her, for she could not speak to him, or leave her bed, or desire him. But she heard from her servants that her children were grown now, and would make good kings, so she pulled herself out of her bed, and crawled to where she knew her husband kept his heart. She brought it to him, dragging herself through the halls, and prostrated herself before him when she heard his voice, holding out his heart to him. And the man remembered that he had promised her that he would put it back, if she had done her part and been a wife to him. And he was full of disgust for her. But the weight in his chest moved him to keep his promise, and so he cut out the rock and put his heart back, and saw what he had done to her.

"I do not know what he did with his wife, after that. Perhaps he sold her as a servant to someone else, who could bear to look at her. Perhaps he kept her until she died, and wept as she went to hell. Perhaps he even wandered the garden, and found her true heart, and gave it back to her. It is not for this author to say, or to know, or to care about.

"What matters is that he is free."

She looks at her paper for a while.

"It's not the best story I've written," she says. "I think I was very tired when I wrote it. But it did what it had to."

"It's - not true. But - I guess if it helped then -" 

Sigh. 

"I don't have stories. I think if I did, if I could've explained, then maybe your story wouldn't've been - this. But it doesn't really matter."

"No, it's not true. Not in its specifics. They're not things you did, they're things I had to be prepared for.

"But I think I have also lost some pieces."

"Well. We have lots of magic and lots of time."

...nod.

"I don't know that they're pieces that can be patched very well with magic. Not easily, anyway."

"Honestly the magic seems so useless. You're sick with things I can't heal. If I make you trust me it actually just makes you scared all the time. The only spell that makes you think sex with your husband isn't quite as bad as millions of people dying is one I can get three minutes off."

"I don't think sex with you is as bad as millions of people dying."

"Oh. You kind of act like you do. I - figured I had asked for one thing and did not also get to ask you to act less like that."

"Sex is painful enough that I lose most of my ability to consciously process my surroundings during it. I spend most of my energy during it on suppressing the impulse to cry or to give audible evidence of that. I think it may have gotten more painful with time, and I don't know that I am physically capable of masking signs of distress further than I already do. Maybe if there was a skill to it that I wasn't sure how to train further.

"But - millions of people dying seems pretty bad, too."