Pet pet. "It's fine, sweetheart. It really doesn't change anything. There's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with you."

"Youdon'tknowthat," Scyelen chokes out, wanting to let his very partial guess stand, but blurting out her denial before she can stop herself.

"I'm pretty sure." Pet, pet, pet. "I know it doesn't feel that way, with everyone telling you there must be. But it's fine. You'll be okay."

He couldn't be more wrong. He really doesn't have a clue. His reassuring words couldn't be more empty.

She buries her face in his chest and sobs. Relief, that he's blind to the truth? Disappointment, that she came so close to finally baring her heart only to have to crush it back into its cage? Both of those things, at least.

He keeps holding her. "It's all right, sweetheart, take your time, I'm not going anywhere. We can talk about it when you're ready."

Lies. All lies. Empty words.

It takes her a while to stop crying.

"What, is there, to talk about?" she finally mumbles.

"What it means, what it doesn't mean. What you need and want. What I think about it, what I need and want." Squeeze. "I know that sounds scary but I think you'll like a lot of the answers. Is there anything you want to say to start?"

Scyelen doesn't have the energy left to try to navigate his twisty word-games.

"You don't even know what 'it' is."

"I probably don't know the whole thing; I know some of it. You like to be touched." He's still petting her, and doesn't stop. "You like to be seen, I think, not as much but there was something going on when I went to take you flying. The way you care what people think about you, you probably have something with that; I can't guess what, yet, exactly. You think about sex more than you think you should. And - I have an idea of the kinds of things people who like unusual sex things like, I won't be surprised if you like - being tied up, or something, even if I haven't noticed it yet. And that's fine, it still won't change anything."

Scyelen is only half-listening to his vaguery until he gets to the part about 'being tied up' and she chokes in surprise.

A chill races down her spine. That has to be a wild guess but who would ever guess that?! It's far from the worst thing to be found in the dark core of her soul, but it's definitely adjacent to most of those things! He's actually right. Scyelen has no idea what to do with that but now she's hyperventilating just a little.

He presses a kiss to the top of her head. "That one's very common, sweetheart. Among the right sort of people. Kind of mild, even, I didn't want to scare you."

It's like a figment of her darkest imagination whispering her own thoughts at her. In the daydreams that often run through her mind, being tied up is... seasoning.

He has to be telling a bald-faced lie, though... except he's not from this land, is he.

"Where you're from people, think being tied up, is a sex---no," Scyelen shakes herself, cutting off her own halting words. "Tell me the least mild things. The absolute worst. Tell me, please." She has to know: is the most perverse thing he's ever heard of in his apparently-perverse homeland as bad as her?

Squeeze. "It's not that simple; people like all kinds of things, and you can't really compare them. I guess... some people like to die, as a sex thing? Our magic can bring people back, so that's possible, even if it's not a very good idea. But I've heard of it."

Scyelen blinks, and finally lifts her head to peer up at him, looking supremely vulnerable. "...die how?"

(There was another part of that sentence that was extremely surprising, but right now it doesn't register.)

"I didn't ask, it's not something I'm interested in. Some people like pain, though, I bet it's like that sometimes." He's a little tense, now, thinking about it.

"Oh," says, curling into herself in disappointment. "I've heard of 'rough' sex. That's... not that weird. I bet it doesn't even actually hurt, not like some girls like to say it does."

"Oh, it does if you're trying to. I don't like to think about it much, though."

Scyelen blinks, and takes a moment to parse this, comes up with an absurd interpretation, but actually...

"Oh, you... know girls who want to feel pain? As a sex thing?"

"Mmhmm. It's a little more common than liking to be tied up, even. And not just girls, either."

Scyelen has to take a moment to process this.

"Huh. So you were talking about. Getting tortured to death. Enjoying getting tortured to death."

Scyelen has a very odd expression on her face.

"That might actually be worse..." she sounds comforted by this, "or at least weirder. Or, no, it's probably simpler, actually. So I'd still be the weird one; even in the land of unspeakable perversions I still desire the wrong things..."

"Getting tortured to death, yeah," he nods.

"There are plenty of things weirder than that. It's just that wanting to eat cake until you can't move, or have strangers draw all over you, or get swallowed by a dragon, isn't worse, it's just weirder."

"I'm always weirder," Scyelen sighs. "Well. Maybe not the cake thing. That's just... um, well, weird. That's like... are there people who, um, 'enjoy' freezing cold baths too?"

"Not that I know of, but probably someone somewhere does. People like all kinds of things."

Scyelen buries her face in his chest and groans. "You're just making this up to make me feel better."

He chuckles. "I'm really not. I'm friends with an expert - there's a goddess of this stuff, and she's a cleric of her, and part of her calling is helping people figure out how to do weird sex things safely. And we talk about our work, and I go to her parties, sometimes, and sometimes she needs help getting enough magic to make something safe and I do that. Everything I've talked about except getting tortured to death is something I've either seen myself, or helped with, or heard about her helping with. If we can figure out how to get to my world, I want to introduce you, I think you'll like her."