Solvei sighed as her master sped off into the distance, feeling her telepathic link to him firmly shut. “Damn it, Lex...”
Behind her, Nenet sniffled. “I don’t understand. I thought that after...after what we did, he’d love us even more. But he felt so upset...”
Mei Li ruffled her tails, looking downcast. “The fault is mine, Elder Sisters. I insulted our husband with insufficient gratitude for the wonderful bridal gifts he bestowed upon me.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Solvei pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s not what it was, Mei Li. And please stop with the ‘elder sisters’ stuff, okay? Just call me Solvei.”
The kumiho’s brow wrinkled at that, but she nodded nonetheless. “As you wish, El-...Solvei. But are you certain that our husband’s distress was not because I accidentally offended him?”
“I’m sure,” nodded Solvei. “I’ve seen him act like this before. The last time he was curt and standoffish like this, it was because he felt guilty, and I’d bet you anything that’s what’s going on now.”
“So, it’s not that we did something wrong?” murmured Nenet. “Because I thought this might be like when I spoke badly about Adagio’s sisters...”
“You weren’t at fault then,” Solvei reminded her. “That’s why he came back and apologized to you later, remember? And I’m sure that once he calms down, he’ll do the same thing now.”
“But he has nothing to apologize for,” protested Mei Lo, looking confused. “There is neither guilt nor shame in a husband being intimate with his wives, nor in marrying a third.”
Solvei paused, sharing a glance with Nenet, who nodded back. Taking a slow breath, she turned her mismatched eyes to Mei Li. “I know we already told you about some of Lex’s adventures, but there’s something else you need to know.”
She paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to broach the topic, before deciding to just dive right in. “Have you ever heard of a pony goddess named Kara?”
The explanation took several minutes, with Nenet chiming in at several points as Solvei told Mei Li what she knew of the blessing Lex had received from the pony goddess of love. By the time she was finished, the kumiho’s eyes were wide.
But to Solvei’s relief, there wasn’t a shred of anger or condemnation in them. Only amazement and admiration.
“Magnificent!” gushed Mei Li when Solvei had finished. “To receive the patronage of two gods, our husband is truly magnificent!”
“He doesn’t think so,” sighed Nenet, before giving Solvei a hurt look. “That’s what you were saying before, right? That because he has that blessing, he thinks he took advantage of us?”
“We all felt his emotions,” replied Solvei. “He wasn’t angry, he was horrified. I’m not going to pretend that I understand everything about him, but based on what I do know, yeah, that’s probably what he thinks happened.”
The sphinx’s expression fell then, and she trembled as she looked down. Heartbreak radiated off of her, and it was enough to make Solvei wince...though the fact that they were both still naked and covered in Lex’s scent kept her from moving to comfort the sphinx. “Nenet, I’m disappointed too-”
She didn’t get a chance to finish as Nenet slammed a paw to the ground, her wings giving a single, sharp flap. “I’m not disappointed!” she snapped, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. “I’m angry! I know what it’s like to be a victim! I spent my entire life before now being one! What we just did with Lex didn’t feel anything like that!”
Thrashing her tail hard enough that several of the bony spurs protruding from the end of it flew off, sinking deep into the wall of the turf hut, Nenet continued to rant. “I formed a bond with him knowing all about what Kara’s influence would do! I wanted it to happen, to fall in love! To make love with someone I’d given my heart to! And it was wonderful! But apparently he didn’t think so!”
Sinking back down into a crouch, Nenet’s fierce expression gradually faded into a pout. “When he gets back, I’m going to tell him that the next time he thinks he’s hurt me, he should just ask me if I feel hurt.”
Solvei couldn’t help herself, smiling as she gave the sphinx a warm look. “Wow.”
Nenet blinked. “What?”
“Before, when you were apologizing to Toklo and the others, Lex said that you were stronger than either of us knew. From where I’m sitting, you’re stronger than he knew, either.” She glanced at a nearby wall, where one of the sphinx’s tail-spikes was embedded. “And not just in your tail.”
Blushing at the praise, Nenet’s brow furrowed at that last part. “What do you-, huh?!”
Yelping as she looked back and saw what her tail had done, Nenet’s indignation immediately dissolved. “Oh! Oh no! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I-”
“Relax, it’s fine,” Solvei assured her. “I mean, I had no idea your tail could do that, but it’s not like anyone’s hurt, right Mei Li? ...Mei Li?”
Belatedly realizing that the fox-woman had been quiet for some time now, Solvei turned her attention toward Lex’s newest “wife.”
But the kumiho was apparently lost in thought, one hand raised to her chin as she looked at the ground, frowning. Behind her, her tails were waving slightly, and while Solvei’s posterior appendage only wagged when she was happy, the motions from Mei Li’s hindquarters was similar enough to the thrashing that Nenet had just been engaged in that Solvei was willing to guess that they weren’t a good sign.
Not wanting there to be another tail-based incident – Mei Li had mentioned that for a kumiho, magical power was directly proportional to how many tails they had – Solvei raised her voice. “Mei Li!”
“Hm?!” Her head snapping up, the fox-woman gave Solvei small bow. “Forgive me, Eld-...Solvei. I was considering something.”
“What?” asked Nenet, the question coming quickly enough that Solvei could tell the sphinx was hoping to talk about anything other than what she’d just done.
Mei Li pursed her lips for a moment, an uncomfortable look crossing her face as she folded her hands in her lap again. “I know that our husband has dealt with many hardships recently,” she began, seeming to choose her words carefully. “And that he has availed himself of little that would relax him, at least before tonight...”
Solvei and Nenet shared a glance, unsure of where the kumiho was going. “...but?” prompted Nenet.
“When he was...engaged, with the two of you, I couldn’t help but take notice-”
Solvei winced, pulling a pelt around herself.
“-that his ki seemed to have more yang than yin,” finished Mei Li.
Pausing midway through covering herself up, Solvei blinked. “His...what?”
Nenet, still naked and unashamed, cocked her head, her inherent comprehension of languages giving her only a literal translation of what had been said. “His...personal energy was more...positive than negative?”
“It might be my own misunderstanding!” added Mei Li hurriedly. “I was quite distracted by his display of virility, and given my own nature as a kumiho means that my yin is too strong, the yang of someone’s ki is more noticeable-”
“I’m sorry, Mei Li, I’m trying to follow you, but I have no idea what you’re talking about,” interrupted Solvei.
“Me too,” admitted Nenet. “I mean, I can understand the terms, but I don’t have any context.”
“Ah...” Looking momentarily at a loss, Mei Li faltered for a moment before rallying. “Please allow me to make a visual demonstration.”
When no one objected, she waved one of her tails. Instantly, in front of her, a spectral image appeared.
It was a circle with a line through it. However, instead of being straight, the line was “S” shaped, making the circle seem as though it was composed of two teardrops coiling around each other. More oddly, one of the teardrops was as black as her hair, while the other was as white as Solvei’s fur.
“The way of the universe,” began Mei Li, “is duality. All things have their natural counterpart: light and darkness, male and female, hot and cold, order and chaos, life and death, and all others. The essence of this duality can be summarized as yin” – she pointed to the black teardrop – “which represents all that is dark, feminine, emotional, and similar qualities, with its opposite being yang” – she indicated the white teardrop – “which is all things light, masculine, logical, and such.”
Solvei could already feel herself falling behind. “How does that-”
“Shh!” Apparently fascinated, Nenet watched the demonstration raptly. “Go on!”
Smiling at her fellow wife’s enthusiasm, Mei Li continued. “While yin and yang are opposites, they are not monoliths. Each contains a small amount of the other.” She gestured to the circle again, and the spectral image changed. Now, each teardrop had a smaller circle in the middle of its largest part; a black circle within the white teardrop, and a white circle within the black teardrop.
She gestured with her tail again, and the two teardrops separated, floating apart from each other. “Because the universe is composed of these two concepts, separate yet complementary, no one and nothing can have them both in equal measure. All things align more strongly with one or the other. Thus, our husband is male, and so has yang” – she nodded to the white teardrop – “while we, being female, have yin.” She nodded toward the black.
Pausing she glanced at the other two. Solvei tried her best to look like she understood what all of this meant, while Nenet nodded eagerly, her eyes shining.
Seeing that there were no questions, Mei Li continued. “In living creatures, the state of the yin or yang in their bodies can be determined by the emanations of the soul, which we call ‘ki.’ Ki is present in all that lives, and while some sages say that even the land and sky have their own ki, the stronger the soul, the stronger its ki can be felt by those who are attuned to it.”
She paused then, looking abashed. “As a three-tails, my sense of ki was rather poor. Now that I have nine, I’ll need to ask my Aunt Yuyan for further instructions on how to-”
“I’m sorry, what does this have to do with Lex?” interjected Solvei, rubbing her forehead.
“Ah, forgive me.” Giving an embarrassed cough, Mei Li gestured to the white teardrop. “The same way that the body can fall ill, the mind can come unhinged, or even the soul can be disrupted, it is possible for an individual’s yin or yang to become disproportionate to its ideal ratio.”
Her tail twitched again, and the black circle within the white teardrop grew larger, doubling in size, before shrinking down to a mere pinprick. “When this happens, the disposition of the person can be adversely affected, resulting in numerous problems of health, mindset, or spirituality.”
Nenet’s eyebrows rose. “You’re saying you think something is wrong with Lex’s yang?”
“That just sounds wrong, somehow,” muttered Solvei.
Giving a slightly-confused smile to winter wolf, Mei Li turned her attention to Nenet. “According to what my aunt taught me, heightened aggression, overwhelming carnal desire, and preoccupation with rectitude to the point of excess are all symptoms of a male that is experiencing an overdose of yang.” She pointed to the white teardrop, and with another twitch of her tail, the black circle within it shrunk to less than half its size.
“That’s great!” cheered Nenet, before catching herself. “I mean, that’s not great that something’s wrong with Lex, but it’s great that we know what it is and can fix it!” She paused then, her exuberance fading as she looked back at Mei Li. “You can fix it, right?”
“With the proper medicine, exercises, and spells, an imbalance in someone’s ki can be restored,” nodded the kumiho. “At least, so long as it wasn’t misaligned at birth. If it was, then it will resist being tampered with, and the best that can be done is compensatory techniques. I’ll need to ask my aunt-”
“Wait, hang on!” Solvei shook her head, now wearing her discomfort openly. “Before we just go deciding that Lex is sick, or whatever you call that” – she waved a paw at the spectral teardrops – “didn’t you say before that your own ki is out of whack because you’re a kumiho?”
“Ah, I did...” The fox ears on top of Mei Li’s head flicked back for a moment as she pursed her lips again. “That’s how I know that ki which is misaligned at birth is very hard to alter. Kumiho – or rather, all foxes, be they kumiho, kitsune, huli jing, and others – are all born with stronger yin than most other races.”
Nenet’s eyes widened slightly. “Why?”
Mei Li sighed. “The fox pantheon was a small one, having only three gods, all of which were female. When their relationship ended...”
Trailing off, she shook her head. “It’s not important now. What matters is that, because of what happened, all of the vulpine people have an excess of yin.”
Another twitch of her tail, and Mei Li gestured to the black teardrop, the white dot within it shrinking to a third of its previous size. “In our vixens, this is makes us more feminine than females of most other races. And in our tods” – in the white teardrop, the black dot grew larger, almost touching the edges of the boundary – “they lack the much of masculine traits that other males possess. It’s why so many choose to become eunuchs or magically alter their sex, and even those that don’t often find themselves drawn to feminine pleasures.”
Solvei grimaced at that last part. “Didn’t need to know that.”
“Is there any way that you can figure out of Lex’s ki is out of balance?” There was a note of determination in Nenet’s voice, focused in a way that made it clear she wouldn’t be dissuaded. “Any spell or test you can do to figure out if he has...yang-poisoning, I guess you could call it?”
“If he were here, I could attempt to read the flow of ki through his body,” answered Mei Li. “But since he’s not, the best I could do was if I could examine some of his blood, or hair, or...oh.”
She colored slightly then, and after a moment, Nenet did the same, causing Solvei to frown. “What are you...oh, you have got to be kidding me!”
“It’s not like there’s any lack of it,” muttered Nenet, glancing between her legs, and then down to the wet spot where she’d woken up. “I mean, I don’t know how much this takes, but there’s no way all this can’t be enough. Solvei, how much-”
“Uh-uh!” declared Solvei loudly, curling her tail between her legs as she pulled another pelt over herself. “No way! I am so not participating in this!”
“I understand,” soothed Mei Li, standing and walking toward Nenet. “A few drops should be more than sufficient.”
Solvei squeezed her eyes shut, but wasn’t able to cover her ears in time, catching the soft grunt that came from the sphinx. When she dared to crack one eye open a moment later, Mei Li had stepped back from Nenet, looking at the sticky, pearlescent strand of fluid between two of her fingers, three of her tails waving in a complex pattern behind her.
Leaning in close, the vixen eyed the sample critically even as her nose twitched, causing her cheeks to darken, and Solvei saw her swallow. “He’s quite virile,” she murmured, more to herself than the others.
“I hope you can find out more than that,” huffed Solvei, embarrassment giving her words a sharper edge than she’d meant.
Fortunately, Mei Li didn’t seem to take it personally, giving the winter wolf an apologetic look before forcing herself to adopt a dispassionate expression...despite her persistent blush.
Several heartbeats passed before the kumiho frowned, causing Nenet’s eyes to widen. “What is it?”
“I think...magic to prevent conception?” murmured Mei Li. “How odd. Doesn’t he want an heir?”
Solvei winced internally, silently apologizing to Drafty. “What about his ki?”
“Ah, yes.” Behind the fox-woman, her tails continued their sinuous dance. “Forgive me. I’m still only used to doing this with three tails. If I knew how to use all nine, I...wait...”
A confused expression crossed Mei Li’s face then, and she blinked several times. “This...cannot be correct.”
“What can’t?” Flaring her wings, Nenet leaned forward, as if she could see what Mei Li was discerning. “Is his ki out of balance or not?”
“...let me check again,” replied Mei Li after a long pause.
Silence fell over the interior of the turf hut as the kumiho continued her examination, until at last her tails ceased their movement and lowered back to join the other six resting above the ground. “I checked three times,” she announced at last, her voice sounding hollow, as if she was in shock. “I was sure it had to be a mistake, but...it doesn’t seem to be.”
“What?” Despite how uncomfortable she was with the vixen’s methods, Mei L’s reaction was enough to leave Solvei unsettled. “What’s wrong with Lex?”
Mei Li’s jaw worked for a moment, as if she’d forgotten how to speak, before she finally managed to get the words out.
“His ki has no yin whatsoever.”
Both Solvei and Nenet fell silent as they digested that, with the sphinx recovering first. “None?”
“Not even the faintest trace,” answered Mei Li, sitting down so abruptly it was like she’d collapsed. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s not a deviation from his normal state either; from the look of it, this is how he’s always been, even before he became a xianxia...”
“So...what does that mean?” ventured Solvei, uncertainly.
Mei Li shook her head, still looking astounded. “It means...that he’s consummately male, in every regard. He’s perpetually seeking to rule over others, always eager to breed, devoted to order and logic...”
“But you said yin is the part of someone that has emotions, right?” ventured Nenet, her earlier enthusiasm seeming to have vanished. “But Master’s very emotional!”
“I’ll have to check with my aunt, but I believe that’s him trying to return to a state of balance,” replied Mei Li. “He knows that he’s missing the yin that complements his yang, and is trying to correct for it. That would explain why his feelings are difficult to understand, since he’s attempting to impose them on himself rather than being able to let them grow naturally.”
“If you’re right,” ventured Solvei slowly, “then this explains a lot. Why he doesn’t seem to have any male friends. Why he follows a female deity who’s a goddess of darkness. His battle prowess...”
“He’s like an incarnation of the principle of yang itself,” murmured Mei Li, all nine of her tails having fluffed up in agitation.
“Is...” Nenet swallowed before continuing. “Is there anything we can do? To help him, I mean?”
Solvei had no idea what to say to that, and apparently neither did Mei Li. But a moment later, the fox-woman straightened up. “The ki that one is born with can’t be permanently changed, as far as I know,” she announced. “And even if it could, his nature as an immortal likely makes him immune to most remedies. But we can alleviate his symptoms, making it easier for him to bear being what he is.”
Solvei perked up at that. “How?”
“I need to give him my dowry.” A look of resolve crossed Mei Li’s face then. “That should help.”
“Dowry? You mean a wedding gift?” Nenet looked as confused as Solvei felt then, the sphinx’s brows furrowing. “Why? What is it?”
“My clan, of course,” answered Mei Li as though that was obvious. “With so much excess yin, the Pimao Jingzhi will be perfect for him."
“Oh.” The sphinx gave a hesitant nod. “I guess that makes sense.”
“And I'm sure that having all of our vixens as his concubines will be to his delight as well.”