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Lindiwe was so used to the way Weldir summoned her to his realm that she just closed her eyes and accepted it.

She fell, like the world had opened up below her feet and swallowed her whole into the abyss of the void.

She was caught by comforting weightlessness, as though she was thrown into water but couldn’t feel its chill or wetness.

When she blinked her eyelids open, swallowing darkness invaded her sight. It was such a stark contrast to the blinding white she’d been surrounded by.

At least it wasn’t cold, and the talisman tied to her belt ceased pulsating with magic.

Her arms, clothing, and hair floated. She stiffened her muscles, flexed her fingers, and righted herself so she could find Weldir.

And there he was, waiting like he always was when she arrived.

He hovered, his posture relaxed, his toes tilted downwards, with his hands limply raised to show the lack of gravity didn’t make them droop rigidly.

There’s a little more of him than usual, she thought, noting the way his mist fluttered around him.

Sometimes the way it sat changed. Often he was misty with streaks of chalkiness making up his body, and other times he looked like black rain against glass. This time, ribbons of sheer black material, so see-through it took layers of mesh to show a hint of colour, made up his form.

“Hello, Lindiwe,” he greeted, his face as stoic as ever. Expressionless, blank, and not forthcoming.

Before he even needed to ask, Lindiwe turned into her Phantom form to be tangible to him. Only then did his expression shift. It softened somehow, and one side of his mouth raised ever so slightly like a barely formed half smile.

Avoiding his piercing, pupilless gaze, she opened her side satchel and rummaged through her bag.

“I have some new items I’d like for you to hold onto for me,” she stated, pulling out a small burlap bag no bigger than her palm. Inside it, lemon seeds were safely nestled.

Lindiwe pulled out a few more items and seamlessly handed them to Weldir’s tendrils when he presented them to her.

One caught a small bag filled with apricot seeds, another a pretty stone she’d found along a riverbank in Francia.

They even collected a pretty porcelain doll she’d found within the wreckage of a doomed town that hadn’t survived a Demon infestation.

“You have a lot more than usual,” Weldir noted. His voice, rough and deep as always, lacked any judgement.

It didn’t have the same impact as it used to, now that she no longer truly felt desire. She found it pleasant, but more like a sweet, handsome lullaby rather than something that tingled her between her thighs.

When she saw in her periphery that he brought the doll to his face to twist it this way and that as he closely inspected it, she knew he was curious about her artefacts , as he called them.

Although Lindiwe mainly obtained these items for herself, she also found herself wanting to bring him things. They were little gifts for the inquisitive demi-god, although she brought them here under the guise of safekeeping.

She didn’t have a permanent home yet; she didn’t see the point.

She never stayed in one place for long, and often just set up camp in whatever haven she could find, whether that be a nice – although abandoned – home, a cave, or even under a shelter of leaves.

Whatever was dry and comfortable, that’s all that mattered to her.

Lindiwe shrugged, giving a black, wormy tendril a pretty diadem she’d found in an overrun castle – she’d lived like a princess for a little while. She’d even taken to wearing an elaborate blue gown and gem-encrusted heels during her residence there.

“Well, it’s been a while since I was here.”

The likelihood of Lindiwe dying was exceptionally low, if ever these days. Using Weldir’s magic was like second nature to her now, and her senses were keener than ever. Sometimes it felt like she could hear or smell a Demon or animal from a kilometre away.

Even her children kept her on her toes, and they found it difficult to touch her when she didn’t want them to.

Being able to turn intangible helped, as did her protective barriers.

Sometimes she got hurt, but that was often a risk she took if she wanted something bad enough and had no other option but to leave herself open to a stray claw strike.

Once she was done offering gifts to his tendrils, she flipped closed the flap of her satchel and then buttoned it closed.

Then she stared at him, resisting the urge to place her arms behind her back, rock on her heels as if she was on solid land, and avert her gaze.

Maybe even start whistling, especially when he did little more than stare at her as her items disappeared from around him.

It never ceased to amaze her how fucking awkward their relationship was.

This was the best it’d ever been. Lindiwe had no expectations of love, lust, or true companionship. He was a distant and infrequent friend. A person she knew, and someone she’d begun to think of as just her... boss.

She worked for him and thought of their deal as a contract. Everything was impersonal; she’d long ago not only accepted it, but came to welcome it.

She didn’t need nor want anything more than what they had now. It was comfortable. It was safe. And, most of all, it was consistent and lacked any confusion.

Which was why she felt no embarrassment when she loosened the tie of her feathered cloak to let it slip off her shoulders and removed her satchel. There was nothing in her heart when she then reached for the ties of her breeches.

If anything, she was mostly embarrassed by the state of them.

They were clean, but the dirt and grass stains were impossible to remove no matter how much she scrubbed them with a pressed bar of soap.

The inner seams, right where her thighs chafed together, had, over time, become so thin they were threatening to disintegrate, with the tiniest pinholes visible.

Maybe I should just give up on pants.

She’d given up on shoes a long time ago since she always had to replace them, and she went through twice as many trousers. No matter the quality of the item, it just couldn’t last against the test of never-ending time.

Oh well. I doubt he cares, she thought, just as she pulled on the drawstring. Let’s get this over with.

The sooner he did his gross, wormy, tendril thing inside her, the quicker she could leave. And hopefully she’d be pregnant, so she didn’t have to repeat such an offensive feeling for quite some time.

A black tendril wrapped around her wrist, halting her. Weldir came closer, albeit slowly, to breach the constant distance between them like it was a living, breathing barrier.

She tilted her head at the tendril around her wrist before doing it at him.

“Things did not go well last time, and I would like to try to rectify that,” he stated, his voice caressing over her senses since he spoke lowly.

Memories of a time she’d much rather forget pulled at the fringes of her mind.

Raising her knees to hide the apex of her thighs, while squeezing them tight in a resistant defence, Lindiwe pulled out of his tendril’s hold.

She brought her wrist to her chest so she could soothe it with a rub while looking away.

“No, it’s fine,” she muttered, giving him her shoulder. “We don’t have to do it again.”

She’d much rather not go through that mess again.

When he didn’t say or do anything in response, she eventually peeked at him from behind a curl. Only when their gazes met, as if he’d been waiting for her to look at him, did he let out a sigh.

He turned his face away, and oddly enough, ran his clawed fingers through his hair. She’d never seen him to do that before. Actually, in the past, Weldir could be quite unmoving. It was as though he’d started forcing actions so he’d be perceived as more personable. Human, even.

“I know I hurt you, but I’m asking you to trust me.” He covered his mouth and purposefully tapped his forefinger against his cheek. “I have been... researching into how to do this better.”

“Researching?” she asked with a gawk, her eyes widening in disbelief.

“I know I’ve told you before, but I’m able to access the memories of the human souls I keep. I’ve been watching how to perform this act properly, from both the perspective of the woman and man.”

The how wasn’t why she was surprised or confused, but the reason!

Lindiwe’s bottom lip fell while the top twisted up on one side.

She’d always found it a little creepy that he was just gallivanting his way through private moments that should be kept secret.

She doubted any one of those humans would have consented to the violation of their privacy had they been aware of it.

At the same time, in a dark corner of her heart, she found it oddly... sweet? Weird. She couldn’t imagine what he’d learned, but the effort shouldn’t go unappreciated.

Still, Lindiwe shook her head with her thighs tightening further. She trusted him, but not at all with her body. She wasn’t someone to experiment on, especially if it came with pain.

“It’s okay, Weldir. Truly. I don’t mind if we don’t do that anymore.”

His brows narrowed in her direction. “But you should mind. This is a normal act for mates, yes? A way to bond.”

“We bond plenty,” she tried to say with a joyful exclamation. It came out panicked.

Weldir shunted his form forward until there was barely any space separating them, causing her to gasp in surprise.

“Why must you fight everything?” he asked with a deep expire, as if she was being tiresome.

She probably was, but she was quite fine with that.

“I don’t know,” she grumbled with her bottom lip sticking forward with a pout. “I’ve always been that way.”

He tilted his head, inspecting her closely, just as something thin and long wrapped around her ankle. Lindiwe went to pull her leg up and away, but with the way her knees were folded, there was no way to get them further from his reach.