After Mint's apology, she went on to ask about Kat and Lily's respective childhoods. It was no issue for either of them to share. Mint had a few questions, mostly about technology that came up and had no direct magical equivalent, but she'd studied the other races quite a lot and didn't need to ask too many questions. When they finally finished the story, ending with how they got together (even if they skipped over Kat becoming a demon) Mint clapped her hands together happily and said, "Aww, you guys are so cute together. I'm glad you've found each other. I hope I find someone like that in the future,"
Lily felt the need to ask, "Do you… do you feel romantic or sexual attraction? I mean, not to be rude, I mean… it's just… well… I don't exactly know how dryads SEE that sort of thing you know? Considering the whole… lack of body issue,"
Mint nodded understandingly, "I don't think you're being rude Lily, it's a very valid question," said Mint calmly. "As far as I know… most dryads don't experience it the same way most sentients do… but I think I might be fairly close? I mean… for dryads it's meant to be all mental. You find your partner, and you move your grove there… and that's that…
"But well… just based on Thyme's lessons I do tend to find things attractive. I… I haven't really admitted that to anyone… but I feel like I can trust you with this, especially after you just told me your life stories'. But… um… yeah I have the same sort of… I suppose the closest equivalent is 'blush'. I can 'blush' when looking at all sorts of races, or even some of Thyme's forms.
"Though… I 'm sure you can guess by my own chosen form that I tend to prefer women, or maybe just feminine looking people? I don't find March attractive AT ALL. In fact, I probably find her less appealing then Gareth and Kress, your two teammates. Not that I find them particularly appealing either but… you know?"
Kat just shrugged and said, "I've already mentioned I just don't feel sexual attractions so I really can't relate…"
Then lily picked up where Kat left off, "… and I do find March at least somewhat attractive. I don't know why it is exactly… but just knowing that she's a woman automatically makes her a whole bunch more attractive to me. I… I also think it might be a smell thing as well now? To me March still smells like a woman even if she's got muscles on her muscles, and I find that faint scent marker to be attractive all by itself,"
"Huh… so am I weird then?" asked Mint.
Kat let out a giggle, "I can't really say Mint. Though considering I'm a Succubus without sexual attraction I'm probably weirder then you are,"
"Huh, I guess so," said Mint with a smile.
"Honestly Mint, as someone who was a human beforehand, I can say that most of us don't know why we like what we like. Everyone is at least a little weird when it comes to sex. I'm sure even most dryads that say they don't find things sexually arousing probably just don't find more socially acceptable things arousing. And consider this, you never wanted to admit to it did you? So why would it be different with the others?"
"Huh… yeah I guess so," said Mint thoughtfully. "I'm still not sure I'd be comfortable answering truthfully if someone other than you two asked, but I suppose I can try. I wonder why it's so easy to chat with you two though,"
Lily shrugged, but Kat had a few guesses. "It could be because we're knew. We don't know you from childhood, we know you as you are right now. We have no notions of who we might think you 'should' be, instead we can much more easily see you as you are, because we don't know anything different.
"Another guess could be that if you really need to, cutting off contact with Lily and I is really easy. Just don't respond to messages after we've left, simple. Imagine if one of the dryads you grew up with told other people… like your parents or other friends, that could be awful… but we can't do that. The only one we can tell is Thyme and you clearly trust them enough not to spread things around… even if that would be an uncomfortable topic to talk about with your teacher,"
Mint nodded, "Yeah… that makes a lot of sense. Thanks Kat," said Mint with a smile at the end.
"Mhm, I've seen it a few times when kids come to the orphanage just for a few weeks while their aunts or uncles from overseas get to the country to pick them up. They feel free to talk about a lot more of their feelings then the ones that know there's a chance they'll stick around. Enough of that though, what can you tell us about your childhood Mint?" said Kat.
Mint nodded, "Right well… for dryads the… 'infant' stage I suppose you could say? We start as just trees. Then there is this… weird in between state. We aren't conscious, in fact we aren't really anything… but once we ARE conscious we can vaguely remember things that happened to us in the past. I'm not sure you can understand properly…
"Because when a dryad materialises… it's sort of like everything that we were before that point crystalises into a proper being? We tend to come alive already knowing at least one language, and how to we aren't really babies when we awake. We're… I suppose the closest comparison is an odd mix between teenager and toddler.
"We can barely walk if we form a body we just float everywhere… but we can be painfully naive. Despite knowing how to talk and looking fairly mature most of the time… we don't really 'know' things. Um… we have knowledge but not wisdom? I suppose? And… and it's not like we have too much knowledge. It tends to depend on what we've picked up in that not-quite-alive state.
"For myself, I was 'born' for lack of a better word, at the same time as a number of other dryads. That can happen sometimes, and it's more common in large groves but it doesn't always. I guess technically more dryads are born in groups… but only because there are multiple people in the groups? If that makes sense. Like… you might have five or so loners for every group, but a group could have ten or more people in it.
"Anyway, my group was on the smaller side, just four of us. There was, me, Mint, and the other three were Pear, Grape, and Thyme. Not that 'Thyme' of course but well… their parents had high hopes for them I guess? Um… we didn't stay particularly good friends for long. Which… I don't really know why?
"It all just seemed to fall apart around me. Even though I'm much older now, I still don't understand why. Thyme, the younger one obviously, went out to explore by themselves and never returned. Their tree is still alive… but they've never answered back. So we don't know if they're hiding in their tree in shame, they have a body moving around somewhere but haven't come back or… what happened really.
"Um… Pear and Grape had a big fight… but I don't know about what. I was sleeping when it happened and when I woke up nobody would tell me what it was about. The older dryads that knew said Pear or Grape needed to tell me… but neither of them would. Thyme left shortly afterwards… so maybe the fight was about that? Or maybe Thyme left because of the fight?"
"Um… after that I was pretty lonely. I just slept most of days away until Thyme, the older one, announced they wanted to start teaching the younger dryads and I latched onto it as a way to make friends… but sadly despite Grape and Pear showing up, neither of them wanted to talk to me much… perhaps bad memories?
"Umm… I did have a few acquaintances… but I never felt like we clicked all that well I guess? My 'best friend' if they qualify was a dryad called Oregano but they were a massive magic nerd and threw themselves into work much too often. So even though we got on well, and we did hang out in our shared free time… they didn't exactly have much 'free time' to spend.
"The others I hang out with were more Oregano's friends then mine… but they had similar habits. They were all nerdy magicians… but they didn't like Oregano much because while they all spent way too much time with magic… Oregano was just BETTER at it. Oregano had, HAS talent. So… they sort of ostracised them for it, and me with them. Even if we could still sort of be called friends? Does that make sense?"
Updat𝒆d fr𝑜m fr𝒆ewebnove(l).com