Edmund wakes up first. He freezes, for a moment, then remembers where he is.

He stays snuggled up, for now. It's cozy.

This author was not joking when they said Zei will not wake up if not actively woken up. He might make some noises that sound like he might be awake but they are lies and he will promptly return to sleep, perhaps after snuggling up a bit closer to Edmund.

...bored now. Out Edmund wiggles, with an apologetic nosekiss.

Zei smiles in his sleep but does not open his eyes.

The room itself is probably devoid of anything to entertain Edmund, except maybe the as-yet unexplored small cupboard could have something inside it? ~An adventure.~

Actually he's just going to take Oni-Goroshi and practice some forms for a while. It wouldn't do to rely entirely on Virtue Gems for his fighting abilities. She's made it very clear that she expects him to be worthy of her on every level.

The room has enough space for this, and for at least the next half hourish he will be undisturbed.

By which point he's worked up enough of a sweat that he's considering using up another shower-sphere. But he'd like to ask Zei about it, so he'll wait for him to wake up.

He does stir right about then, blinking up blearily and covering his eyes from the light that is not really nearly at all stopped by the curtains on the window. He smiles at Edmund and says, "Morning, handsome. Did I miss your training with the sword? I would have liked to watch that."

"I can show you some time! But right now I was wondering if I should feel free to use another one of those shower-spheres."

"Oh yeah sure. These are pretty cheap to make, every inn has tons, they're complimentary."

"Excellent. I'm not as salty as last night, but I am pretty well covered in sweat."

Without further ado: shower!

"So, uh, I noticed a thing, please tell me to shut up if this is making you uncomfortable, but. In your, uh..."

"In my -" Edmund looks down and blushes. "Ah! Um. Yes, it's - um - so, you know that where I'm from there are magical gemstones. The main kind are virtue gems, which you set into weapons and apparel and allow you to perform various kinds of magic. There's also essence jewels, which instead enhance your. Personal characteristics? And they have to be set into your skin in various ways to function. And - um - this is something of an artifact from back when I was a secret revolutionary, but - there's certain advantages to hidden weapons, right, and a weapon they never know about is the best kind. And. Even if you get imprisoned, and stripped of your weapons and armor, and every limb bound -" he grins weakly "- they're probably not going to look very closely at your cock? So. It's really a practicality."

"So you have a... magical jewel? Under your foreskin?"

Perhaps now is a good time for him to put his heavy skirt on so that this conversation's effect on him is less obvious.

"A ring set with several of them. Um. It's - through the underside, actually."

He pulls back his hood to show it off. (He's also clearly not entirely unaffected by the topic.)

Zei blinks slowly then looks away, although perhaps not fast enough to hide the way he was licking his lips. "I see. Very practical," he says, voice perfectly level. Clothes clothes here are clothes here is heavy skirt okay.

"...you know, it doesn't bother me that you want to fuck me," Edmund says. "I wanted to fuck you too. It's just that my brain got in the way of actually doing it."

"Okay. Just—trying to be cautious. Don't want to hurt you by assuming something is fine when it might not be."

"- understandable but don't? I'm not going to break if you treat me like a person, and even if I get burned a couple of times I'd prefer that to feeling like you're walking on eggshells around me."

"Well in that case: I have no idea why but the idea of a dick ring like that is really hot and I wanna know how you taste."

Edmund is startled to laughter. "I think I taste fairly standard? I haven't had the opportunity to compare but I do, you know."

"That was mostly meant to be metonymous with putting your dick in my mouth." Okay however heavy his skirt is it's definitely losing the competition here.

"...We'll have to figure out some way to make it happen. Without, uh, melting my brain. But I'm very interested."

Zei opens his mouth to reply but then there's a knock on the door.

"Brudda, ya gonna take much longer there? We're on a schedule here."