"I just got used to it after a while," she murmured, scooting away. He grabbed her hand back more firmly, not allowing her squirming to move her an inch away.
"There's no need to change now," Layel said firmly. She nodded and looked down at the floor. Her hair became a sheet that blocked the view of the other guys as she glanced at Layel. "Did you come for something?" he asked her.
She smiled softly at the floor again. "Just to say hi," she said.
They grew quiet, smiling. It was somehow comforting to be in her presence. Calm. The other men started to slump in their seats and forget all about their conversation.
"How are you doing that?" Cillean asked. She protested against any knowledge of what he was talking about.
"Look at them," he said, thumb jabbing in their direction. "They're practically asleep with a stranger in the room. I mean, it's not like they dislike you, but these are deeply ingrained warrior instincts you're shooing away with your mojo."
She looked around in confusion, then she looked suddenly guilty as an idea popped into her head. "Oh," she said guiltily. "It may be my contractor." She bit her lip.
"Who," he asked.
"My contractor," she said. "He's the spirit of Düster Downs." At the vampires confused look, she explained that the Downs were wide swaths of flatlands and howling winds that were settled by a tribe of German daemons during the Great Exodus, the height of the witch hunts in the Original. Over time, these flatlands held onto most of each rainfall. As this stagnant water increased, sediment and debris began to pile up in the landform through a process called paludification, until eventually most of the daemons there had left the land in favor of other spaces in the Shadeworld or even to run away to the Daemon Dimension.
Cillean smirked, finding a bog to be a let-down from the rather romantic preferences most nymphs stuck to. She caught his expression and frowned. "He's great," Priscilla argued. "We're good friends. He looks out for me when we are all alone."
Layel looked up suddenly with his nostrils flared and released the girl's arm so he could scoot to the other end of the couch.
"It's true, we are." A strange light flew out from Priscilla, shadows covering the front of it so that it seemed Priscilla herself was eclipsed. There was a brief scent of peat and leather layered over sandalwood to accompany the new voice. "I'm quite fond of the girl." Durin's voice once again spoke through Priscilla with his deep timbre.
All the circle of boys grew quiet. "Is she insane?" Daerick asked quietly. "Or is it dissociative personality disorder, commonly triggered by a traumatic event, usually during childhood, intended to protect the main personality from further emotional damage?"
"Hardly," Priscilla's body chuckled deeply. "Her personality is intact in all its sheepishness." Her body grinned. "I am here with some of my corporal form so I'd think you'd be able to tell I was a different person. Besides, she just told you we were contracted. Are you really that surprised to hear from me now? The real question, though is can guess my name beyond the title?" he asked tauntingly. It was clearly just some game, or lark, to the male personality, but the men of various species in the room shivered at the sound of his disturbingly out-of-place voice each time he tacked on another sentence.
"Well, it's obvious," Cillean said. He had his legs up on the velvet sofa crisscrossed, his feet curled up under them. He was lounging in the corner of the couch, completely unconcerned by the goings-on around him. "I`m not so young as these children," he continued, some hint of creakiness and ancient wisdom sneaking into his voice. "I`ve seen this happen before. She's so powerful because your connection is so close, but also because you are as powerful as she said." Pausing for a moment, he continued, "That's also why you were able to commandeer her body without warning." Think, he added, "Though I`d guess you`ve also jumped in from time to time for the same reasons a dissociative personality disordered person might. Her wimpy nature, she's sure to have had something traumatic happen when big sis wasn't around to blast in with the guns a blazin' so to speak, to play the hero," the vampire continued. "Your name, however, is also obvious. You're Dürin."
The male personality chuckled, the sound containing both the man's voice and Priscilla's light and effervescent twinkle of a laugh.
"You're here talking to us to make sure none of us plan to mess around with her, right?" Aeron asked. He seemed fascinated with the two's ability to switch bodies.
"This is correct," the male personality agreed. "She has been thoughtless in her actions in the past, and I plan to prevent any similar aberrations," Dürin said.
Layel frowned. "We have had no such interactions, nor spoken before now at all."
"That's probably why you switched places with her the first time, at least, right?" He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees as he leaned in. "Because, with a bond like that, you could sense something was seriously wrong on her end of things," Aeron said. He was fascinated, determined to research and get to the bottom of the unusual bond the two had.
"Yes," Dürin said.
Aeron shook his head. "Rather than the mysteries of the nymph bond, we are at a point now where we must focus on the news about the shifter's allegiance. Do you mind us continuing the conversation in private?" Dürin nodded and left the girl.
