Page 88 of Mated By Twilight
“Hm? In what way?”
“Well, my father never treated my mother like that,” she frowned, looking at the floor between them. “I can’t remember anyone from the church treating their wife like that, actually. Wives are supposed to adore and service their husbands. Not the other way around.”
“Ah, but see, in bonding ceremonies, it’s both ways.” Sollit smiled, holding out their hands. “We take turns adoring each other. Us for you, and you for us. Some lovers spend days worshiping each other in the way the gods worshipped the goddess at the beginning of the world, and the love she gave them in return. It’s a time of total devotion and joy. And yes, love making. Though, it’s not mandatory, or even really the point. It just happens sometimes. And I’m hoping it will happen again tonight.”
Leah chuckled. She couldn’t even say that he was wrong. She hoped that too. Because she was a degenerate woman, shameless and wild.
And she kind of didn’t mind anymore.
“Okay. A bonding ceremony sounds fun. Is that where Tillos is? Getting ready?”
Sollit nodded once. “He’s waiting for us. Come.”
Leah followed along happily as he guided her through the ship, to their rooms. As they were walking, she felt something rumbling in the distance.
“What’s that?” She asked, looking around.
“We’re detaching from the station and moving away so we can start our subspace swing.” Sollit smiled back at her. “You’re really going to like our next station.”
“Oh?”
“It’s a theme park. There are rides and games and lots of fun things for people of all ages. It’s something of a vacation destination in and of itself, in fact.”
Leah found herself smiling. “That does sound fun. My family never really went to places like that.”
“Couldn’t afford it?”
“We probably could, but it was deemed to be frivolous and dangerous.”
Sollit gave her a confused look. “How is frivolity dangerous? Isn’t that an inherent contradiction?”
“Father said that it would make us love things of this world and distract us from our love of the lord. They also might have magic shows or something there, and magic was believed to be evil, so we couldn’t even pretend to indulge it.” She smiled when she looked ahead and saw Tillos already standing in front of their closed door, waiting for them.
“Er, Leah,” Sollit started cautiously, “I’m not trying to insult your beliefs or anything, but…”
“Oh, they’re not mine anymore,” she told him quickly as they stopped in front of Tillos “To be honest, I don’t really know what my relationship to my faith is anymore. It was such a huge part of me for so long, I can’t imagine just completely losing it. At the same time, I’m not sure I really believe in it anymore. It’s confusing.”
“Good,” Sollit let out a breath of relief. “No offense,aevea, but I don’t think I want our younglings being raised with such strict contradictions.”
“Or given to a much older male like some kind of object,” Tillos added sternly.
“Don’t worry,” she gave them a smile devoid of any humor. “That would have been your jobs anyway. I’m just the lady in the relationship. I have to agree with you.”
“Just the lady, she says,” Tillos scoffed.
“You have to agree with nothing you don’t actually agree with,” Sollit said firmly. “In fact, I demand that you get angry with us at your earliest convenience.”
“What?” She laughed.
But Tillos was nodding along sincerely. “You haven’t actually argued or disagreed with us about anything,aevea. Do you realize that? You do whatever we ask of you.”
“What? No,” she said quickly, but glancing between their faces silently assured her that, yes, indeed, she had not argued with them even once thus far. “W-Well, what about… the bugs?”
“The bugs?” They repeated at the same time.
“Yes. I don’t like eating bugs.”
“You don’t?” Tillos asked, surprised.