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butthat is how i feed... she explains worriedly... it just doesn't flow in... ye need to take it in... i... i need to trnsform it to use it... just like a human digests the food he eats... i digest the energy i consume.... i'm not a sponge... it... it's an active participation...

lyssan picks up a stool and flips it upright and offers it to kerobian, before doing the same to another for her... she rolls the gem over and over in her hands pondering how to explain to him, how she feeds...

in a way, i'm an exception... for i refuse to follow the traditional mode of feeding... i won't take on a lover in order to live... i'd rather die than consume ame's life force... well... she sighs and smiles sadly... i won't actually die... i'll just fade away... but it's much the same, i'm afraid...

before i met him it didn't seem so important... i had had so many along the way... and it seemed like that was the only way of living i knew... ye take a lover... someone ye care for and who cares for you... and ye do all ye can for that individual, even as ye consume them... slowly... absorbing their life force with every emotional or physical exchange... and ye learn to ration yer powers... the less ye use... the longer yer partner lived... so iffin ye really cared for them, they got to live close to an average lifespan... iffin ye didn't they faded rather rapidly...

but then i met amestru and things got a bit confusing... he... he was already fading himself.. and he was a spirit guardian as well... much like me... i... i tried to keep me distance... to love him and watch him from afar... but he had other ideas... said it didn't matter... said he didn't care... we fought like cats and dogs on the matter... and the more we fought about it... the closer we became... until it happened... we were linked... all me efforts to avoid the event out the window with the breeze... so i decided not to feed at all... to live out me days near but not exactly with him in his little temple fading... together but apart... then tam came along... he's told ye... hasn't he... he's hinted as much to ame... the two of them are very close... he respects and loves me... but ame and he are... well almost like brothers, though tam looks up to him far more than most sibs would their kin... he was so clueless... so damn innocent... so...

she sighs and shakes her head... he was talesian... no more no less... probably the only individual i know who has been more true to himself than anyone i know... and he needed our help... both of ours... ame or i could not have done it on our own...

and it was he who gave me the idea of opening a feeding channel to the world at large, rather than any one individual... i'm not sure how the idea came to me... but one night i was sitting by the fire listening to him sing... watching him feed off the force of nature around us and thought... i wonder iffin i could do that... in me own way, of course...

she laughs ruefully and pushes the hair back from her face and hands ye back the gem... it's not easy... and i've tried to teach it to me kids, but i don't think they can do it... i think it came to me out of desperation... either that or that misguided bard cast a spell on me when i wasn't looking.... which i truly doubt as he would never do such a thing without telling me of the fact... but i've learned to nibble, so to speak...

but as a hman must pur food into their mouths to eat, chew it up and swallow... i've learned to take tiny bites of life force... rather than open a particular dedicated channel... it leaves me weaker than i was in the past... i'm not the kitsune queen i once was... but i'm alive and ame is alive.. and right nowe... that's all that matters... and we've lived rather long lives together... of course iffin i do something stupid or expend more than i take in.. i need to do more than nibble.... but that' is pretty much what i do....

she watches him in silence, smiling that small enigmatic smiles of hers, wondering when he would learn the truth of himself... that he only thought he was cold hearted... that he and talesian were much the same, individuals who had learned to care far more than either one would ever let on....

lyssan chuckles... i wasn't called the kitsune queen for nothing kerobian... i wasn't the most pleasant of creatures to be around either... but people change... grow... and sometimes they meet someone who shows the the right path and they are transformed... sometimes i think the all father takes a far more interested propriety in his creation than he pretends to do... and a few he earmarks for something... not sure what... but when he does he sends a guild, someone or something to keep them on track...

i've lived a long long life... she holds up a hand to ward off his protests... i'm jor's twin remember... i HAVE lived a long life... far longer than yers... and ye seem to be one of those he's marked.... mayhaps i was the one to set ye back on the road... mayhaps it was someone else... but ye have changed... dramatically since i've met ye first... yer not the mage ye once were... yer actually better... stronger... and ye are warmer inside... more... she sighs... more alive.....

lyssan chuckles... but of course... but i truly do think it is a far more reaching transformation then ye think... though i doubt that ye wish to view it so... because such far reaching transformations do not happen over night and usually bear with them serious consequences... and when the all father takes that much interest in ye... that usually means yer marked for something ye might rather not do... iffin ye take me drift....

lyssan sighs... what would ye do... iffin the task set before ye is to let him live... (she's testing ye, kerobian... watch what ye say....)

and if there is no order... iffin the circumstances present themselves in a certain way... where no one is telling ye what to do, no one but yer heart... yer anger and hurt versus the reality which ye are faced with... what then?