Mating Rituals

Days bled one into the next in that twilight wood, had the Makai even had such a concept with its so-called rotations. We wandered through groves of whispering fungi and past silent, obsidian streams, the sky a perpetual, starless dusk. Time had become a fluid and meaningless thing, a slow river carrying us deeper into the forest's haunted heart.

It was during one of our brief halts that Ashley produced a small, lacquered box. From it, she took a single, crimson bead, like a solidified drop of blood, and placed it upon her tongue, allowing it to dissolve with a look of mild satisfaction. My head tilted in a soundless question.

"You cannot be serious," she said with a weary sigh. "Did you truly think I would wander a forest for an eternity without the expectation of sustenance? One might starve to death from the sheer boredom of it all." She shook the small box. "Blood pills. A clever little invention for the vampire on the go. Our angelic friend has been most generous~."

I nodded, the explanation being logical enough, and turned my attention back to the path. Ashley scoffed.

"Then again," she said with a drawl, her voice laced with a familiar, venomous sweetness, "I suppose we can't all have a personal chef…"

Her gaze flicked pointedly to Xiao Ru. A hot, shameful heat crept up my pale white neck, and I saw a similar reddish stain grace Xiao Ru's cheeks. We both looked away, a chasm of awkwardness opening between us. Ashley merely watched, a thin, cruel smirk playing on her lips.

The word—chef—was a crude and vulgar thing, and yet took root in the soft soil of my thoughts and began to sprout thorns. Was that what this had become? Was this gentle, trusting creature, who had saved me in more ways than one, now merely… a source? A… a meal? The thought was a vile and sickening thing that made my stomach churn. Xiao Ru was more to me than that, I knew it with a certainty that was absolute. But… a colder, more honest part of my mind could not deny the truth of it. This intimacy we shared… the offering of the vein, the act of the bite… this was not a thing friends did. Not in the world I had known—vampire or not be damned to Hell. In the long days since our battle, she had offered her wrist to me more than once, a truly generous gift… but never to Ashley. Could it be…?

And it was then that a half-forgotten detail from the kitsune village rose to the surface of my troubled thoughts. It was a question so fundamental, so absurdly basic, that I was astonished I had not thought to ask it before.

"A question," I said aloud, my voice cutting through the quiet. "Why have I seen no men?"

My two companions stopped walking and turned to stare at me, their heads tilted in perfect, mirrored synchronicity. A look of utter, blank incomprehension was on both their faces.

"Men...?" Xiao Ru repeated, the word sounding alien and meaningless on her tongue. "What is… that?"

I stood there, dumbfounded. "You know… men. The opposite sex."

"Opposite… sex?" Ashley asked, her brow furrowed in genuine, analytical confusion.

"Hahh? You don't know what a man is?" I exclaimed, the formality of my speech giving way to pure disbelief.

Xiao Ru looked thoroughly, helplessly confused. In their language, the words for woman and man were as different as sun and stone. Could it be they truly did not know the other? And as the question echoed in my own mind, I began a frantic inventory of my memories since arriving in this accursed world. The demons, the spirits, the foxes, even the angel’s boutique… Had I truly not seen a single male of any kind?

The blank, uncomprehending stares of my companions were more disorienting than any magical assault. I sought a different path, a more fundamental, biological question that might bridge this impossible conceptual gulf.

"How then," I began, choosing my words with the care of a diplomat, "do the various species of this world… breed? How do you create new life?"

A flicker of understanding, an 'aha' moment, finally dawned on Ashley's face. "Ah," she said, a hint of her usual condescension returning. "Procreation. You should have simply said so." She waved a dismissive hand. "It varies entirely, species to species."

I felt a sense of unease at this statement. "But… the act itself," I pressed, feeling strangely prudish, "is it not… universal?"

Ashley raised a single, perfectly sculpted black eyebrow, regarding me as if I were a reflection in a pool of water asking where the sky began. She pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a long, suffering sigh.

"No, detective, it is not. And for a detective, might I remark, you do not know much… For my kind, for our kind—for vampires," she explained, her tone that of a weary professor, "it is a matter of the bite. To create another, one must bite a different species in a precise manner—the right location, the right depth, the right quantity of blood taken, and the right measure of one's own… genetic material… left within the wound."

She paused, letting the clinical horror of the description sink in. "It is a delicate and often intentional act. But sometimes," she added, her gaze flicking to me for a brief, significant instant, "it can happen entirely by accident. As it did with you."

I blinked, my mind slowly processing the details. The bite… the exchange of blood… the leaving of an essence behind… A new and terrible understanding began to dawn. I looked from her to the memory of my own turning, the pain and the strange, terrible intimacy of it. My mouth went dry.

"Then… we…" I hesitated, the word feeling obscene and impossible. "We had… sex?"

The effect of the word on Ashley was instantaneous and perhaps… scholarly. Colour flooded her face, leaving her marble pale skin a deep red hue. She whipped her head around, turning away from me.

"That is a—a crude and inaccurate simplification!" she stuttered, her voice a full octave higher than usual. She refused to look at me, staring fixedly at a tree.

"In a purely scientific way!" she shouted at the unjudging bark. "Not as… as lovers! And by accident, I assure you! A complete and utter accident!"

Ashley’s frenzied, shouted denials echoed in the dense foliage of the wood, leaving a trail of exquisite awkwardness in their wake. Her distinction, however—that stark line drawn between a biological act and the act of lovers—lodged itself in my mind like a splinter. If the bite was merely for procreation, then…

"Then," I asked, my voice cutting through the tension with a clinical curiosity that was, perhaps, ill-timed, "how does one… engage in such acts… purely for pleasure in this world, as lovers would?"

The question seemed to deal Ashley a mortal blow. She swayed on her feet and had to grab onto a nearby tree for support, her back still resolutely facing us. She said nothing, but a faint, hissing sound, like water on a hot stone, emanated from her, and I could have sworn I saw a thin wisp of steam rise from the tips of her pointed ears.

I turned my gaze to Xiao Ru, only to find her in a similar state of distress. A blush of the most intense crimson had spread across her entire face. Her lovely fox ears were now perked erect with an almost painful shyness, and she could not meet my gaze. It was, in a way, whimsical.

"For your kin, Xiao Ru," I asked, my voice softer now, "is the act… similar to a vampire's?"

She, too, turned away, presenting me with nothing but the back of her head. "N-no," she stammered, her voice muffled. "For the foxes… fort the kitsune it is a physical act. Of sorts. But it is… it is only possible if there is true desire… a true connection of hearts." She trailed off. "For us, the… the bridge between pleasure and creation is much more… blurry…"

I stood there, watching the backs of my two flustered companions, my hand rising to cup my chin in thought. Only if there is true desire. A new and startling theory began to form in my mind, a conclusion built upon a hundred small moments… My own thoughts, I confess, turned to a most… unclean and speculative path, and I felt a strange and unfamiliar heat begin to stir within me.

But before this new and dangerous line of thought could fully blossom, a sound from the distance ripped us from our private mortification. It was a low, guttural roar, a sound of hunger that echoed through the dark depths of the forest before us.

All three of us, our faces a mixture of embarrassment and new, dawning fear, turned as one to face the encroaching darkness.