Chapter 539: Another Room!
The next room they ended up in required a trip back to the elevator, down another corridor and past a few doors, but had a very similar vibe. This room was much smaller which a collection of reclining chairs and beanbags all arrayed around facing each other with a large roll of bubble wrap next to them. Lillian prompted Kat to just pick one, and she chose a bean bag, intending to place Lillian in a similar one next to it.
However, when she sat down Lillian abused her much greater strength for once to break that grip and snuggle into Kat's side facing outwards. Kat was willing to accept that. Then a second, smaller roll of bubble wrap appeared next to the larger one at exactly the right height for Lillian, and Kat really wasn't sure what to do about that.
*Did Lillian do that specifically? Or is it likely that there are a number of secrets hidden in these rooms? I wonder how standard this is exactly. I've seen plenty of demons together while here but Lillian is the only person that even looks like a child let alone any actual children. There MIGHT have been some in the ball pit but none of them were close to Lillian's apparent age.*
"Hey Lillian… how common is it for Succubi, or just demons in general, to stay looking young like you?" asked Kat
Lillian grinned as she heard Kat's question, letting her hands work mindlessly on her role of bubble wrap. "I'm glad you asked Kat. So many people are unwilling to ask the obvious. You can see it in there eyes but they clam up when you try to prod them into answering. Such wimps. I mean really, I'm not going to attack people who ask innocent questions like that." Of course, Lillian conveniently left out what she did to people who didn't ask with innocent curiosity and acted with malice or jealousy instead.
"Now, it happens to be very rare in the demon population as a hole. You need at least some Succubus blood in you for it to happen. No devil with any other heritage has ever naturally achieved a similar state. Oh there have been some curses, quite a few shapeshifters that prefer it to play pranks like myself, even though my default form is about the same size.
"It also seems to be proportional to your Succubus blood. It's much rarer in demons that only have small bits and pieces of Succubus blood. Actually, I know of it happening to only one person with mixed blood, they were a gorgon, and absolutely adorable with their little snake hair.
"Sadly, the other issue with this form is for some reason it tends to bring out extremes in power levels. You tend to either get stuck at Rank 1, or make it to Rank 5 without fail. I've never known anyone with my condition, to end up stuck at any Rank before 5 if they make it passed one.
"Of course, we are still very rare and many of those I know have passed away sadly, as it seems that lower Ranks are still more common. The total number of us throughout the demon Hubs is only a few hundred. There are so few that we don't even have a name for the condition. Sure a few hundred people sounds like a lot… but Kat please understand there are many many Hubs with billions of demons on them at least."
*Woah… I didn't realise it was so rare.* "That's very interesting" said Kat taking up some bubble wrap into her own hands and starting to pop them. She didn't really get the appeal, but then again, it wasn't a common sight growing up so it caused no feelings of nostalgia either. "I didn't realise it was such a rare condition. Does it… change anything else? I mean, other than the height and appearance"
Lillian shrugged as she kept popping and said, "That's a little unclear. Remember it's a rare condition and rarer still that we have the condition and reach a high Rank. It's very hard to establish any sort of pattern for other things. I suspect shapeshifting might be more common amongst us, as we regularly desire to seen as anything other then children quite frequently.
"I've gotten over that long ago, but I went through that phase in my youth as well. I thought people would pay more attention and respect me more of I actually looked like an adult… sadly I was wrong. I had more attention because I was unique and rare with my condition. And respect… well just shapeshifting into random people or trying to age myself up didn't give me any respect either… because nobody knew who I was.
"Still, it's a common part of the condition, but I'm not sure if it's intrinsic or an environmental product. Strength and speed are surprisingly unchanged for the most part. Sure some of us are stronger, and some weaker, but despite our reduced size, our strength doesn't seem to be proportionally effected"
Kat hummed absently in response. *That's an interesting thing to note. I wonder how they know what their proportional strength should be? I mean I guess she must be many times stronger then you'd expect at that size but how large of a deviation can you find between physical strength at each Rank?*
"How do you age?" asked Kat thinking up another strange question. Seeing Lillian shoot her a slightly confused look Kat elaborated, "I mean… do you age until say five or six or whatever age your body happens to appear, or do you keep growing until your twenty ish just much slower?"
"Ah!" said Lillian once the question had been cleared up. "Right well… it's a bit of a mix actually. I personally aged for five years and then never changed after that. Well, my voice did change much later but that's not quite so physical, is it?"
Kat nodded, as Lillian continued, "Though I do know of at least one other like me that I asked and they said they aged much much slower from straight out of the womb. Before it even, as the pregnancy was twice as long and her ageing only got slower after she left. I was told it wasn't pleasant mentally maturing while her body refused to. I mean, I do understand to an extent of course, but she was very very tiny for a long time."
Kat nodded and let the conversation lull for a bit, allowing silence to descend like a warm blanket with the careful popping of the bubble wrap keeping things just slightly more interesting then pure silence. After a while however, when Kat was starting to relax, she couldn't help but ask. "Do you know what causes it?"
"Now there's the real question" said Lillian "The answer is… no not really. We don't have a lot of proof any which way, but the current leading theory is that the Succubus specific ability to retain a youthful appearance right up until the end starts to come for them is the reason. Now sure, most demons behave similarly, but not to the same extant. They can become… aged I suppose. We don't really gain wear lines or wrinkles without supreme effort and sometimes not even then.
"The theory is that whatever causes that youthfulness is vastly overcharged for people like myself and they don't keep us in the prime of our lives, but in our adolescents. As I said. No proof, but that's the current best guess. I can see the logic in it, but it does cause me to wonder why there are at least two variations of the condition. Does that mean there are two separate answers? Or just the same answer expressing itself in a different way?"
*Hmm. Shame there isn't a real answer but I suppose with it being that rare and not really a major inconvenience they don't look into it. I mean sure, it's not ideal, but Lillian can shapeshift and presumably fly so most of the big negatives are removed right there. I wonder though… she said it also means you aren't likely to crack Rank 1. I wonder if that's just normal or if it really lowers the chances? Like… if you treat Rank 1-4 as low, and Rank 5+ as high, does it actually change your chances of being sorted into those two groups? Sure you end up very low on the low end but 5 seems like the big one.*
Trying to lighten the topic, Kat decided to redirect things. It was about as subtle as a brick but Lillian didn't mind. She was actually hiding her laughter at Kat's attempt. "So is this a private room or is it normally open to a few people at once?"
"Private room" said Lillian, "It's designed for one group of people. There are others for individuals but this is a bit nicer and it wasn't being used so I saw no harm in directing us here."
This chapter is updat𝓮d by fre(e)webnov(l).com