Love as a Form of Binding Ch. 05

He nodded, "Yes. I'm tired of being alone, and you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I can say that right now. What do I do?"

She looked at him carefully. "I remembered this from some old books that I read long ago while I waited to take a wizard I had been sent to get. It concerns exactly what we must do now. She smiled a little self-consciously, "I only really read the ones that apply to my kind of demon, since it was of interest to me. I never thought that I'd want anyone to use it -- I wanted to know so that I could tell if I was being trapped."

"Three things must be done and the words spoken. For the first, you must feed me from your hand. No forks or ... what you called them. We can eat other meals however you say, but once each day, I must be given something from your hand. It is to show that you care for me as the one who is bound to you, that you look after me as your servant or your pet."

He winced a bit at her terminology, but she continued, "Something every day, it doesn't have to be much, and it can be anything. I was thinking this food, but as long as I can eat it, it will be enough. It wouldn't matter if it was something that I liked or not, I would always eat it from your hand. If we are someplace where there is no food, I will help you, and if you can catch even one drop of your seed in your hand, that would be enough for me. Even a drop of your sweat if you have nothing else to give to me, though I'll admit I'd much prefer your seed since I like it. That is the first thing."

He smiled, though he was a bit stunned by the last part, "I'm in so far, Maezou. I'd feed you anyway if you needed me too."

She reached out to take his hand, "I know, Toby. You've already shown me that you would, but it must be every day without fail. I will remind you if you forget. The second thing is," she smiled a bit shyly, "we must join -- or any of those words you told me. I'm sure the mist will be gentle to your heart then. Before your smile there gets any wider, it is to show that there is something between us, and that I submit to you."

She saw his expression and held up her hand, "I know you don't want to think about it like that. That's just what it is to show. I will never refuse you if you command me, but in doing that, we both get something from it. You get long life from me, and I get a wish of fulfillment as payment for my submission and being bound. For the first while, I get a wish each time, and it must be about you, or for you so that my binding is to one who is everything I would want as my master. It is the only chance for the slave to turn a cruel master kind. That is what I read in the text. I might wish that you have different hair, for instance. That's a bit silly, but then Toby, your hair would change over time. The time depends on the power."

He tilted his head, "What power?"

She shrugged, "The power of the bound one. I'll tell you now that I won't wish anything stupid on you," she smiled, "but that is the second thing."

Toby looked a bit apprehensive, "I'm ok with this as long as you are, but just so you know, I'd rather just ask you if you feel like fooling around. I'm not big on commanding, Maezou."

Maezou nodded, "Another reason why I would give up my freedom to be with you. You are kind to me and you think about how I might feel always. I see this in you. I thought about it last night while you slept. I've never had to do this with my past masters. They just took my soul from me and kept it away, though one of them used me for his pleasure sometimes, and the female one just liked to hurt me whenever she saw me. I can see that you care for me, Toby, and it means very much to me." She touched his face, "I do not offer this lightly for many reasons. There are other ways, but none would work like this. You would die when your human life would normally end - if I didn't kill you first. This way prevents all of that."

She took a deep breath, wondering how she'd get this one across. "The third thing can happen anytime, and I think it is best done while we are joined, but it doesn't need to happen very often. It's to show me that I still am bound to your spirit. It is the ongoing proof to me that you love me. In a binding such as this, how much you feel for your slave counts a great deal. It helps both of us."

She looked into his eyes, "This one needs your trust in me, as I would trust my whole self to you. I'm not a bloodsucker, but I will need sometimes to bite you, and it will be hard enough to draw blood. I only need enough to taste that you live, and that you still care for me. So you see that for this binding, I may be your slave, but there must be feeling from you for me. If you don't care for me, I'll know it by this, even if you allow me to do it. There will be a moment of pain, and then I will heal the place leaving no mark. I get what I need, and you get something from me. This is one of the things that humans wanted from this binding most of all. I thought if my first wish came to pass, then I would know if it works, and that it might be good between us. You don't know it, but I began a little of this last night by myself, and today I see that it will work for us. I'll tell you about it later."

He didn't know what to say. He raised his hand as though he was back in school, "Um, I have a question. You're really not a vampire or anything like that?"

Maezou wanted to laugh at the notion, but she understood that Toby just didn't know. "If we can do the first part, I will have time to tell you much more, but for now, consider that you stand with a flea in your hand. That is the difference between a vampire and me, and I am not the flea. Some bloodsuckers have more to fear from my kind than humans do though most do not."

She shook her head and smiled, "No, Toby. I only need to taste, not feed. I do not ever suck blood or anything such as this. For my binding, I must only taste. How much blood do you need to taste that it's blood, a drop? Less? The problem is that I have a mouthful of very sharp teeth, as you saw. I'd be careful, though. I wouldn't bite you on your neck. I'd only bite where there's muscle, and never take any flesh with it. Like here, or here, maybe." She touched his shoulder muscle above his collarbone, and then his bicep. "I wouldn't even suck, a lick of the blood is enough, and then I would heal it with no pain to you after."

He sighed, not being thrilled with it, but still wanting to help, "And you'd need this? What if you don't get it?"

She was straightforward in her reply, "Once we are bound, if you don't feed me from your hand once every day, I'll weaken, for my soul needs to know that you take care of me. If you feed me that way often, even the tiniest thing, I grow stronger for you. If you don't let me taste in your blood how much you feel about me, my soul will begin to die, and me along with it. This is probably the most serious way of binding my soul to yours. If you die, I will begin to fade too very soon after, unless you release me before you die by telling me as you pass, but then Toby, I'd want to die then anyway, wouldn't I? On both our parts, this is something that cannot be walked away from. It's the surest way for a mortal man to securely bind a demon of my kind. I'm not a weak demon Toby; any other way would be a disaster."

"Are you evil?"

She wondered what the word meant to him so that she might give him the best answer in terms that he might grasp, but shook her head, since she didn't know how he understood the concept.

"What's evil? What's good? I am what I am. There is a purpose that's bigger and older than I am, and I always believed that I was spawned to serve that purpose, since most of us are. Now I am not as sure about what my purpose is. I begin to hope that my purpose may not be to serve in the pits, but I will have to see. I never want to go back there, not after being with you, Toby."

She exhaled, "Toby, I am eight thousand three hundred years old. I'm pretty sure that I am older than any religion going and I've outlived many. I've brought wicked souls to one master or another for all of that time, no matter what is said in any book. None of them have ever been there, Toby. None of them have seen what I have. None of them know what it is for, and none of us care what is said or what they think they know. The simple truth is that souls are the money of the hells. This happens every day and it always has. As long as there are humans who ruin their souls, Toby, this will always be. For the ones that I was sent to bring, judgment was passed before I was sent. Which side did that make me a servant of? That is a question that I have asked myself for a long time."

She looked thoughtful for a second. "Once I read in a book that there were two sides to this at war constantly. The only wars that I have seen are between rulers trying to own better hells with more souls coming in. Sometimes I think that it is like two sides of the same coin." She shook the thought off since there wasn't the time to think on it now.

"A person does something and it is noticed. If there are enough things, a decision is made to end a bad life early and a ruler is told to send a hunter. I don't know why or what they did and unless it might give me an easy way to take them, it's not for me to know. So, because I brought them, am I evil? Because I could do anything that I needed to do in order to bring them, am I evil? I really have no idea. I just am."

She touched his face again, "I love you, Toby. I don't ever want to go back and if I can be with you, I won't have to. But to stay with you, I cannot remain unbound. I need to learn how to live here with you, no matter where we go. To set one like me loose among humans would be evil, I think, for what I could do without knowing better."

She thought for a minute, "There is that question again. For me to know this about myself and want to prevent it, ... I cannot be evil then, can I?" She laughed a little, "It was easier before I had a reason to care."

"Right now, I am unbound. Even if I could prevent myself from making a mess of things, sooner or later, I'd come to the attention of a hell ruler, and they would take my soul away from me again if they were stronger than me. If I'm bound to you, I have some protection, for a binding is honored by all."

He looked at her with some concern, but he trusted her about the bites, so he shrugged, "What do I get from you for the bite?"

She clapped her hands together lightly, and two globes were visible in her palms, one red, and one a light peach color. "What many have wanted, though you do not care." She looked up, and the globes left her hands to float up together. "You and me," she said with a childlike smile, and the globes came together, spinning around each other until they blended, and then with a hiss, they showered down bright sparkles of light everywhere. She smiled, "You would call it magic, but I would need to teach you. You will need to know much whether you care to or not."

She touched his knee, "Toby, that's how this works and what has to happen. Do you have enough feeling for me to want to do this? After only the time that we've had?"

She looked at him with a combination of hope and uncertainty before looking down, "This is really too much to ask. I'll understand if you refuse, and I still want to be your friend Toby, though I don't really know when we'll see each other again. This is where you get out if you want, and then I will have to go very soon." She looked at the snow curled down over the window from the roof above. "I think I'll try to go someplace with few people, someplace warmer. I would like it if I could visit you sometime if you would want me to while I can."

He took her hand and she looked up to watch as he shook his head, "No. You're assuming something. I haven't answered yet, though I can see why you'd assume that I wouldn't want this. I see that you need to be bound, for all of the reasons. I'm good with it. I'll feed you every day. If you only need one little thing from my hand as proof, I'll feed you a whole meal. I'll do it all, Maezou, even let you bite me. I trust you. I don't want you to tear anything apart, and I couldn't bear to know that you're somebody's slave again. I think I understand what you had to do as a job, but eight thousand years ought to be enough. So, if we have to bind you to me to save you, then let's do it."

She held back her tears as she leaned forward and kissed him, "I don't deserve you. I think that the females here must surely be idiots, Toby. If I was one of them, and we met, I'd have done whatever it took to have you for my own. That's what I seek to do now, but in this way instead. I become your own."

She smiled, "I'll tell you a bit of what I know later if I can, but I have found that I wasn't spawned for what I did. It was only something that I could do to stay alive and hidden. It's a long story and I learned more of it myself lately. I was surprised. I think that you and I are not as different as I had thought."

He looked at the thin tail curling around his arm. She noticed and it unwound itself to tickle under his ear and he flinched with a smile, "Hey, would it work if you fed me and let me bite you? What would happen then?"

Maezou looked a little distracted for a moment as she fought down an impulse. "I don't know. Your soul cannot be bound this way, I think. Maybe you'd get sick or die from demon blood all at once, why?"

"I was thinking that if there was no need to do this, I wouldn't want it because while I like the idea of taking care of you, the thought of you being my servant still bothers me a bit. I thought that if we could both do it, we could be more equal. I'd like that better."

She thought about it. "Well, I think I put something in your blood from my bites anyway a little at a time. If you really want to try, let's do it in a year or so since you would be stronger then. But I don't know what will happen, though I like that you would do this for me."

Toby noticed that her hands were shaking and saw her squeeze her eyes shut tightly for a second. He reached out and grabbed the plate. Picking up a piece of bacon, he snapped it in two and put it into his palm, adding a piece of egg on top. He quickly held it out to her. "Come on, Maezou, we're doing this now."

She looked at the food in his hand and then at him. She knew that she was almost out of time, sensing the chaos which now rose in her. Maezou knew that she had little time left for even herself to decide, but she made her choice instantly as she looked at the face that she always wanted to see now, so she spoke the words that she'd memorized three and a half centuries before. Toby understood nothing of the words until she spoke again. Her voice took on a ragged quality as she fought for some control while the candle flared up and sputtered.

"Would you have this one in your service, knowing that your life is to be bound as I bind mine?"

He wasn't sure what to say, "I do... I uh, I would... Yes." For an instant, the candle lit the room like a road flare and then settled again.

There were more unintelligible words from her, and then she whispered, "You must ask me if I am free to offer my service and if I know that you swear to offer your care always."

There was more and he muddled through it, though Maezou had to correct him a little. At every point, the candle reacted, sometimes sending thick scented smoke from only a tiny flame and at other times almost roaring. She stopped abruptly and began to eat. Toby took her hand and held it under the hand that he offered the food to her with. "How soon until you feel better?"

She stopped for a second. Her eyes were closed, and a single tear ran down her cheek as she swallowed. There was a bit of egg at the edge of her mouth. "I already do," she whispered as she nodded a little. "Thank you, Toby. I am in your debt again." She went back to finish his offering, and carefully licked his hand clean while looking him in the eye. She spoke some words that he didn't understand, and then said the condensed version for him in a clear voice, "I am free, but now I bind my soul to your own. I give everything I have to your service freely under no force or... "She sought a word for a moment, "...threat."

Half-burned already, the cranberry candle roared and spit hot wax into the air which ignited as it flew, Maezou put out the flaming wax with a wave. Toby stared as he noticed that she'd done it without looking at it. Her eyes stayed on his face steadily.

Maezou's face was unreadable. A more suspicious man might have been nervous at the least. Toby wasn't. Other than a brief thought about his fire insurance coverage, he was only concerned that she'd be alright after this. He didn't know it, but his new slave felt pure wonder at him for what he'd allowed with his trust for her. Some might have considered him a fool for this. Maezou wasn't among them. Her concern was for him since soon there would be no way to go back and the future was a huge unknown. She wasn't worried for herself. She was feeling apprehension for him, since he was as a lamb in this, giving blind trust.

The wind outside had risen and was now moaning past the house. Toby noticed that he couldn't see across the street for the blowing snow.

When he turned back, he found her looking at him, and he leaned in to lick the piece of egg that still hung there. She kissed him and carefully set the board with her plate and cup aside. Maezou looked at Toby with a great deal of wonder in her eyes. She knew that she hadn't told him everything, they'd almost run out of time. She considered her mother's warning and reasoned that what she'd been able to tell him was enough for this. It would have to be.

She got out of the bed, determined to do at least a little of this correctly. "Please stand up" she said quietly.

Toby looked at her curiously, but he did as she instructed.

Maezou stood before him as naked as when he'd seen her that first instant. He still regarded her with wonder, but now had much stronger feelings for her and on top of that, he was in absolute awe of her. Last night, she been pale and unconscious and later had just been herself with him. Right now, today, she still had the same qualities which held his heart from then until now, but she stood before him now with more confidence. He could tell that she knew how he felt and where she'd given it no thought before, Toby could see that she now felt some pride in her appearance because she accepted that she was beautiful to him.

He looked at her long limbs and he could see that if she'd allowed herself to be seen this way when she appeared to collect a soul from someone, it wasn't a stretch for him to see how they might be afraid. Maezou read these feelings in him and looked at the one she'd almost bound herself to. He still wasn't afraid.

The thought filled her with admiration and it made the last of this so much easier for her. She'd been in situations such as this many times, though never just like this. She'd had to prostrate herself before a lord as a matter of course sometimes every day and it had always bothered her from when she was very young. Over thousands of years it had become something which had bothered her more and more. It wasn't pride, though she might have felt some justification to feel a little by now. It was the unfairness which bothered her in many cases, more, and more, and more.

She looked at Toby. She didn't know it, but her face was somewhat stern. This was different, she decided, since she was doing this willingly. She had some selfish reasons in it, her desire to remain free not the least of them. She also felt her desire for him and how she wanted things for him, but most of all, she wanted their friendship and this odd kind of love that they had to continue and grow. That was a wonder to her all by itself when she thought about it. It shouldn't be possible in the first place, beyond perhaps a physical attraction. How could they be thinking...