Moriko wasn't sure she'd ever heard of the term 'subordinate core' before, but the concept seemed clear enough, and it certainly explained what she was sensing from within the base of the tree, near or slightly in the ground, as well as the oddities they had noticed before. The climbing roses had made it hard to notice the core's aura at first; they were masking the core with their own lightly enchanted aura, which was spread by their somewhat heady scent. She suspected that these roses were always in bloom, no matter the season.

"So," she said to Perenne, "you're an avatar then, not a zone boss."

"Oh!" Kazue said, "That's why it didn't feel right when you called yourself a queen. You are effectively queen of this area, but you aren't an actual dryad queen, as you'd implied."

"Correct," Perenne said with a smile, "though it was clear from the moment I sensed you that you three are true faerie royalty. It was a strange feeling; I've never had any in my territory, and I only ever met a few in passing in the outside world."

Moriko just had to ask, "Why did you join with Dersuta? What does that take?" She was thinking of Deidre and her potential new core if things went poorly.

"Well," Perenne said, "it wasn't an easy thing. To begin with, becoming a subsidiary requires a large power difference. It cannot be a meeting of equals, because one core has to submit completely to the other. I can't imagine even the most submissive of nexus spirits being able to keep all of their ego in check if the gap in strength is not abundantly clear."

Perenne shrugged. "At least it wasn't a surprise. I had made the decision more than a decade before. Despite his size, Dersuta was claiming more territory than me each year, and I was not the first one to submit to him. He did not press and always controlled his growth to be as nonthreatening as possible, but the nomads liked his warrior trials, and they tended to be less comfortable challenging my territory, so the contact between our territories was inevitable. I made the sensible choice rather than be forced to watch him do his best to grow around me without doing harm."

That sounded difficult to Moriko, but there was something else nagging at her as she listened to the avatar's tale. Perenne's underlying emotions held an odd note of relief as she recounted the tale. Then Moriko realized why that circumstance would hold such relief. "And thus the burden of leadership and responsibility was lifted."

Everyone looked at Moriko, and Perenne's expression showed a moment of guilt before she sighed. "Yes. I love my people, but honestly, I am not as ambitious as a core should be. Now I don't have to struggle to make my territory safe."

Kazue nodded in understanding. "I get it. If it wasn't for Mordecai, I don't think I could have pushed myself the same way for building our territory."

"I am curious about that," Perenne said. "You are clearly both independent cores, yet from the same nexus. I do not think I have heard of any other nexus having dual cores like that."

Moriko answered that instead. "That's complicated, but the very short version is that Mordecai is a very old nexus core that was trapped and dormant. I became the host to his spirit and soul, freeing him from his situation, and after that, we came into contact with Kazue. Kazue agreed to become his new host, which caused her core to grow to give room for his soul. This left the three of us still entangled, but now both of them are cores of the same nexus."

Perenne started and stared at Mordecai hard. “Wait, Mordecai? As in ‘Mordecai’?” she asked, using a strange pronunciation that Moriko didn't recognize immediately. Then she remembered how old Mordecai's name was, which made it likely that this was how his name had been pronounced a long time ago.

The dryad started laughing softly, but the looks she received from the trio made her laugh harder, and she had to lean against her tree for a moment to recover. “Oh, I was never expecting to meet you! This is great,” she gasped out. “Dersuta has occasionally grumbled about you and the mess you made, but I could never get the full story out of him. You must tell me everything!”

There were some more questions about their situation, which eventually shifted to how they came to be faerie royalty, during which Mordecai remained thoughtfully quiet. Eventually, he said, "It's interesting to compare the parallels here. As I said to Carmilla that day, within my territory, I already effectively had the powers of a faerie king, much as you have the powers of a dryad queen. But in both cases, that power was tied to the avatar, not to the nature of our selves, our cores."

"Then she swore that oath to you," Perenne said.

Moriko had an inkling of where Mordecai was going with this, and said, "The fey can not speak lies, but that also means with sufficient power, they can speak truth into existence. Make that which was not true, now true."

Kazue's eyes opened wide. "Oh! You mean we could kindle her into becoming true fey royalty, like us."

Mordecai nodded. "Potentially, if Perenne wants it, though we'd have to find the correct wording. Simply recognizing her as a peer might even be enough, though I think we might need to work it into a proper ritual. Oaths and bindings of fealty have more power, but that would be a rather large conflict of interests, I think."

Perenne shook her head and said, "No, though I thank you for the offer." She smiled. "I admit, it might be fun to tweak Dersuta's nose a little, but that would be going too far. Having my own faerie kingdom on the other side would be problematic."

That was fair enough reason, in Moriko's opinion. "That makes sense to me, plus there are some burdens that go along with it. Kazue nearly got into a fight with a lamia because of the whole thing." Admittedly, it was mostly the shopkeeper's fault, given her issues with royalty that led her to insulting Kazue. But that didn’t change the fact that being fey royalty had effectively narrowed Kazue’s choices considerably.

Moriko was glad that the fight had never happened — she was pretty certain that Kazue would not have won. Kazue was surprisingly powerful given how recently she'd come into her power, but so was the shopkeeper, and Moriko had been fairly certain that the lamia had killed people before.

She could probably have tilted the balance, but it would have been tricky while maintaining the lightning cage.

Her conversation with the woman later had proven her assessment to be correct. She couldn't say that the killings had been unjustified, but revenge left scars upon the spirit and soul. Moriko glanced at Mordecai briefly, thinking about the ones he bore. Most of the time they were hidden, but Moriko had grown to know her husband fairly well. Those scars were definitely there.

During Moriko's musings, Kazue had explained the situation to Perenne, which had reaffirmed her decision to avoid becoming a true fae royal. They left the offer open, but it seemed rather unlikely that she would change her mind.

The four of them talked a little more as they made their way back to the main feasting area, where Perenne left to attend to the other guests. Which really meant that she was making it easy for Moriko and her spouses to end their evening early. Moriko was very much looking forward to that, though she first checked up on Thunder and Lightning to make sure that the two spoiled boys were keeping an eye on Fuyuko.

The girl wasn't as oblivious as before she had decided to ask for training, but she was also distracted by talking with a lot of people and all the food available to eat. So it seemed best to have Sparks stay near her while they were playing the part of cute 'pet' trying to get more food, and succeeding.

Carnelian Flame was less shy about just outright filching any food she wanted.

Once the three of them were satisfied that all would be well without their presence, it was time to 'retire' for the evening, and there was so much Moriko was planning to do now that they finally had some privacy again. Maybe if she kissed her beloveds enough, it would drive the linger taste of rose off her tongue. And if not, she was going to have a lot of fun trying.

Moriko could feel Kazue's simmering desire easily, but Mordecai's passions were unusually quiet, even compared to the normal composure he liked to maintain. Moriko frowned at that, suddenly wondering what he was up to.

The door to their lodging clicked closed behind them, deadening the feel and sound of the world outside.

Moriko staggered under the sudden wave of desire and lustful hunger Mordecai sent at her, and in that moment Mordecai pulled her hands behind her back and pushed her down to her knees. He leaned down and whispered into her ear, "I am going to make you beg for every scrap of attention, and you're going to love it."

It was difficult for Moriko to focus; her thoughts scattered as she tried to make sense of what he was up to while her imagination ran away with the sort of things she hoped he was up to. It was a confusing moment; she was used to Kazue initiating these sorts of games. But a glance up at her wife showed Kazue just watching with wide, surprised eyes as Mordecai began binding Moriko's hands, and then tied them to her ankles.

Which was just to keep her still enough for him to start really binding her. By the time he was done, Moriko was immobilized, shy of her forcefully bursting the rope tying her into that position. Then he kissed her and used that contact to seal her voice, the air around her mouth deadened to all sounds.

The pervert was full of wicked tricks, it seemed, and his 'parting gift' was a delightfully cruel mix of spellform and chi that traveled along her nerves and settled into the right locations to act as dampers, limiting how stimulated Moriko could get. Then he left her there, helpless to do anything but watch and listen, and still lightly tormented by the perfumed taste of roses.

Kazue, the little traitor, gave one last look at Moriko, then smirked before turning all of her attention to Mordecai. They made love in front of her, forcing her to watch as they sweetly coaxed every ounce of pleasure from each other. Moriko could see them, hear them, smell them, practically taste them, but she couldn't touch them. She needed to touch them, be touched by them, anything, even a glance would have been a blessing.

When the two of them were finally done, Kazue curled up like a contented, lazy cat to watch as Mordecai turned his attention to Moriko. He released the seal on her voice with another kiss, and her intention to swear at him shattered as her body writhed, trying to rub against him despite the ropes binding her. She needed to feel him so badly that it was torture to be denied.

But deny her he did. Then he kept his promise and made her beg. Moriko had no idea she could be rendered so needy that she would abjectly beg for everything, but she did. The release of the blocks on her nerves was an almost agonizing burst of ecstasy and pleasure. And when he was done with her, Kazue took her turn tormenting Moriko.

It was a different sort of sweet torture. Mordecai had been more direct, withholding the contact and attention she wanted until she begged. Kazue's game was to roam Moriko's body and explore while being careful to never touch where Moriko really wanted. She deliberately misinterpreted everything Moriko said and pleaded for until Moriko's begging was finally precise enough, and being precise with her words was almost impossible under this sort of needy duress.

By the time the two of them were done using her as a toy, Moriko was wrung out, exhausted, almost hollowed, and feeling thoroughly, pleasantly used to the point where she wasn't even capable of responding to more stimulus. Her husband and wife were snuggled up on either side of her, their scents mingling on the sheets and pillows with the nearly omnipresent hint of rose, and she fell into a deep, contented sleep.

When she awoke the next morning, Moriko discovered an aspect of Mordecai's plan. The echoes of her goddess's power were finally burned out, and Moriko's persistent awareness of everyone's current passions was gone. She was still a little more sensitive than she had been, and it would take less effort to focus on what sort of passions another was holding at the moment, but all the background 'noise' was gone.

Even with that pleasant discovery, a part of her was roused with thoughts of erotic revenge. A faerie queen's pride had been ground down, but it was back now with a desire to even the score. Moriko had to wrestle with that part of herself before it accepted that everything had been part of their ongoing love games, and not part of faerie court games.

This didn't mean that revenge was off the table; indeed, Moriko fully intended to plot something suitable for each of them in the future, but now it was at the appropriate level of playfulness. There was plenty of time to come up with the right plan.

Between the intense fighting over the last few days, the emotional surges she'd just gone through, followed by the low-energy relaxation of a full rest day, Moriko felt great. This was the sort of thing she lived for, and she wanted to take some vacations here in the future that were for just the three of them, so that privacy wouldn't be an issue.

Though maybe Mordecai and Kazue wouldn't think of a dungeon delve as a vacation quite the way Moriko did.