Chapter 621: Slightly Not Human
"What?" Eris was taken aback by this as it had never happened before. She even stumbled a little bit, the heals she wore catching on the plush carpet. She had always worn heels after it was apparent that she wouldn’t grow taller than five feet and she was embarrassed by that fact, although not as embarrassed as she was by the wings. These two reasons alone were a big part of why she was always so confrontational with others as they would constantly mock her about her height and her deformity. Her sister’s were ok to her, the ones she was on good terms with. But even her father scorned her and for a long time after her birth, refused to believe that Eris was his child, insisting that Hera had must have gotten fucked by a turkey or something. The fighting took a lot out of Hera too so even though she loved her daughter, in her deepest thoughts, she blamed the child for the problems between her and her husband at that time.
A child born to conflict between parents never ended well for the child.
So her entire life was growing up surrounded by only a small group of people who accepted her and a much larger group, including most of her family, who despised and were disgusted by her. Therefore she had no idea how to react to someone who was honestly interested in her wings.
"So can I touch them?" Laz asked again, getting a fantasy come real hard on, metaphorically speaking.
"I uh..."
"Great!" Laz leapt up from his seat, still naked and proceeded to rub the feathers on her wings, brushing them back and forth while marveling at how soft they were. He had touched bird feather’s before, being from a small town meant he had come in contact with random bird feathers and turkey feathers from hunters all the time. But this was the first time feeling them and noticing the warmth that came from a still attached feather.
"Wow.,.. it’s like silk, but fluffy...."
Eris didn’t know how to feel as this man who towered over her kept going back and forth along her wings. While other’s were loathed to even look at them, she had lived with them all her life and like any part of a female’s body, it wasn’t something they just let a strange man touch for no reason. It would be like letting some weirdo on the subway touch your hair while sitting next to you.
It gave her the shivers, but strangely not in a bad way.
Instead, she was turning a bit red with the attention, her face warming up at his honest interest. There was a time in her life when she and many people around her wanted to have them removed. But the wings had many veins and energy paths that circulated through them. As such, removing them was possible, but the long term result would have crippled her for life. And if that was the case, she was told, she would have no value to anyone in the family.
"Ok... That’s... enough... please..." Eris finally got out, her words coming out more like begging than telling as she felt herself going slightly weak from the constant stimulation.
"Oh! Yes. I’m sorry. It’s just... amazing. Seeing something like this would have been a dream for a lot of people from my world.... Well... maybe not so much anymore. Actually, no. It still would be... but the climate of politics would make it be a desire they would hide. Like those elves.... er Fae.... I mean... real elves and now bird women? Fuck.... I bet people would lose their shit if I somehow found a group of cat people somewhere, huh?" Laz was losing himself in his own thoughts when a suddenly cough brought him out of it.
Eris was staring at him as he walked in circles while talking to himself over his teenage dreams.
"Sorry. Yes. You were saying?"
"I uh... you... really? You don’t mind?"
"Nope. Why? Should I?"
"But... they are an abomination. It was proof my mother cheated on my father as everyone has told me...."
"I’m not saying I know for sure, but I highly doubt that. How exactly would your mother pull off something like that in the first place? There are no bird people in this world, right? Like even if he wanted to blame someone else for being the father, has anyone in this world ever encountered anyone with wings on their backs like you have?" Laz asked the young woman. He didn’t know for sure, but he figured something like that would be rare and since she has lived her whole life like this, she would have been the first person to have known if there were other’s like her... well... besides her parents who were the leaders of this pocket dimension.
"You... well... yeah... actually...." Eris had nothing to say against that despite her normal self steering towards conflict.
"But then how exactly did this happen huh? If it wasn’t because of my mother cheating on my father, then how is it I ended up with these?" Eris asked, shaking the wings behind her for emphasis, like Laz would miss seeing them otherwise.
"No clue. Where they there when you were born?" Laz asked, curious.
"I was told they were. I don’t remember. But as long as I do remember, they’ve always been there," Eris replied.
"Bet you were a rather cute baby back then, huh?"
"I wouldn’t know. After my father got word of them, he never even came to visit me once."
"What about your mother? Or how is it you were raised?"
"Mother... was around a lot. But after the constant fighting with my father whenever I was brought up, she wasn’t around nearly as much. Being the daughter of an Empress and Emperor, you are raised by a group of maids who are also there for your protection. I remember some of my maids being really nice while others were... well.... Like everyone else I guess."
"That truly is no way for a child to be raised," Laz said, thinking that maybe the reason all these girls were a little out there was because of this.
"Hmpf. What do you know? You think you’re the god of children raising or something. Like you understand everything that’s needed for a child to grow up normal? How egotistical of you...."
"I apologize. I never meant any disrespect. I was just trying to figure out how to help you through today," Laz said quickly, understanding that his commit seemed to hurt her feelings.
"The only reason I am here is because I was told that you might be an answer to my problems. But I fail to see how anyone such as yourself could possibly help me," Eris said, sitting back and relaxing for the first time since she had walked in the room.
"I don’t know if I can or not either, I’m just trying to work my way through some things to see if there is a possible result," Laz said in a rather upbeat manner.
"What things?"
"Your things, if I’m being honest. There is so much conflict within your life and inside your mind that I feel like you have a good foundation, even if you lack understanding of larger conflicts. After all, larger conflicts usually stem from smaller ones. So I don’t think that will be a problem. The only problem we have now is that you fight everyone so much, you don’t noticed when you are fighting yourself."
"So that’s your take? Some self help nonsense? Is that how you tricked the rest of them?"
"Have you ever relaxed your mind a day in your life?" Laz asked, ignoring her previous question so they could move forward the conversation she would likely keep stalling with all of her questions.
"Now why the hell would I want to ignore my own path?"
"And that answers that question. But the key is exactly that. The trick to understanding conflict is the same trick we can use to understand problems within ourselves. We must distance ourselves from it, relax the mind and then look. Look at both the start, the cause, and the effect, or in this case, where the end would lay."
"I seriously doubt..."
"You came here looking for a solution, right? Why not give it a try? What have you got to lose?" Laz said, sitting on the floor, cross legged.
"Fine. I’ll try..."
"Good. Then lose the dress..."
"FUCK YOU!"
"I didn’t think those types of verbal insults existed here. But all the same, I meant it. You need to discard everything so that you can focus on only one thing; yourself." Laz didn’t know if this was right, but he basically wanted to see if she could meditate herself into calmness. When looking at her, he got the feeling of someone who was always wound up tight and barely ever unwound. For someone like that, they would push ahead tirelessly without even considering if there was an easier path to try, where all of that wasted effort could go for a better use.
"FINE!" And with that, Eris discarded the silken black dress, letting it fall to the floor in a heap, the open back making sense now as it didn’t get caught on her wings.
Once the dress fell though, Laz finally saw the piece he was missing. Many crisscrossed scars covered her small and delicate body, showing just how bad her life had been. Maybe there was a good reason for them, but Laz felt that unlikely.
Still, despite this, his smile never faded as he pointed to the spot opposite of himself as Eris sat down, her gaze never leaving his face, as though searching for the reaction she had expected to be there but not finding it not matter how hard she tried.
While she had left her panties on, Laz didn’t bother saying anything.
’Baby steps.’
"Now sit here, hold my hands and let’s see if we can’t find what your missing!"
