The Fallen Vampire

"Just put me out of my misery, big sis. Nothing even matters anymore."

Shakti was staring at a rather large, depressed ball of Raymond. His will to live having completely left him.

They were supposed to be using the early morning hours to go over a bit of their techniques and maybe spar a little bit, but that was proving to be difficult with current emotional states withstanding.

Shakti only hit the big guy once and he didn't even bother to dodge.

Now he just lie on the ground holding his face- a mere two minutes away from breaking down completely.

Shakti was already the silent giant type, so she really didn't know what she was supposed to do in this sort of situation.

"..." After much internal deliberation, she just raised her fist to punch Raymond in the back of the head again.

Luckily, he spoke first.

"Be honest with me, Sister Shakti. Do I still not seem like a man to anybody here?"

Shakti didn't know how she was supposed to answer that. "Unless you have grown a vagina in the middle of the night then..."

"N-Not like that! I mean like a man! Do I seem like I've jumped off the porch already?"

"Huh..?"

Raymond sighed and sat up on the floor.

"I mean... I guess what I'm trying to ask is do I seem like the kind of man who could actually marry into your tribe..?"

All of the sudden, realization dawned on Shakti.

She remembered the brief conversation that she'd had with the humans before they'd boarded this vessel.

Back then she'd dismissed it as a joke, but... now she wasn't so sure.

"Don't tell me... You have feelings for Junior Sister Tiche..?"

Raymond nodded. "For a moment last night it seemed like she might've had feelings for me too, but she said no when I asked her to be my girlfriend... Apparently she didnt think we were a good fit."

"What is a girlfriend?" Shakti tilted her head.

Raymond suddenly paused and stared at the beautiful giantess like she'd just grow a second head.

"It's like the step below husband and wife... You guys don't have that?"

"No." Shakti shook her head.

Fallen relationships are not all that complicated.

If you like someone you're either sleeping with them, or already married.

There is a brief courtship period, but usually if the two parties like each other it's very, very, brief. As in a week or less.

It's the whole reason Taira and Enyo saw nothing wrong with getting married so fast.

Most of this behavior can be attributed to the fact that divorce isn't as big of a presence in the mind of fallen as it is in humans.

There are two possible outcomes: Either you marry happily, you live unhappily, or you kill your partner and get a new one.

And the more primitive races of fallen don't even necessarily think about being happy. Can your mate feed you? Is the sex decent at least? Those are the only things that really matter to them.

Is it barbaric? Occasionally.

But it keeps things pretty simple for the most part.

As Shakti explained all of this to Raymond, realization continued to crash over him like a tidal wave.

"Holy shit... I fucked up!" Raymond jumped to his feet suddenly.

"That's gotta be why the mood changed and she said we were too different... To her it must've seemed like I wasn't taking her seriously, or I was trying to play around!"

Now, Shakti was the one sitting on the ground. She didn't say anything sense Raymond seemed to be on a real roll here.

Eventually, he ended up pacing himself into "But marriage.. fuck, that's... I've never even had a girlfriend before. How the fuck am I supposed to know if I'm going to make a good husband??"

Shakti pulled a piece of lint off her shirt and casually blew it into the air.

Raymond shook his head hard and even gave himself a couple of slaps on the face.

"...You know what, I can learn. She's worth that. I'm not gonna worry about what if this goes wrong or what if that does, I'm just going do the right thing and go after her. Because.... I don't think I could bear to see her with anybody else."

Shakti was looking down at her stomach and wondering if maybe she'd gotten fat. (She hadn't. Not even close.)

Big Country suddenly turned back to the sitting giantess and smiled brightly; his entire demeanor full of rainbows and gratitude.

"Thank you, Big Sis. You're really helpful to me in this trying time."

"You're welcome." Shakti gave Raymond a thumbs up, a gesture she had learned from Himari.

"You must have a lot of experience with this kinda thing, huh? Maybe you have somebody you like just as much as I do?"

Shakti suddenly froze dead in her tracks.

A certain silver haired individual crossed her mind for the briefest of seconds before she forcefully dashed the thought out of her consciousness.

"...Fuck you."

"Wha-"

Shakti suddenly swept Raymond's legs out from underneath him and he hit the floor hard.

The last thing he saw was the back other heel coming down to smash him right between the eyes; knocking him out cold.

It wasn't until a couple of seconds went by that she truly realized what she had done.

'...Perhaps that was a bit of an overreaction.'

-

Shakti emerged from the private room to give Raymond just a little bit of time to rest.

...Well she wasn't too cruel, since she did drape a blanket over him before she left.

However, she never expected that the moment she opened the door, she would bump into the man who was just on her mind a moment ago.

"Ah, Shakti."

Normally whenever she heard Taira say her name she was able to remain composed and act in a formal, business-like manner.

But today, it seemed as though that was just a little bit more difficult than before.

"I-I…"

Taira tilted his head and looked past Shakti into the room she was trying to leave.

There, he saw Raymond lying on the ground with a thin blanket over him.

Now most people would have gotten rather upset over such a sight but for Taira… this was normal.

"Good training then?" He asked in amusement.

Shakti could only nod her head- unbelievably grateful that half her face was still being hidden by her hair.

"If you're free, come with me. There's something I want to show you." Taira said.

There were very few words that could have made Shakti's heart skip a beat like those.

She followed Taira to the main deck of the ship, where all of his wives were already waiting.

Once they reached the bow, Taira pointed off into the far distance from their position.

Shakti could make out the beginnings of an island sitting behind a rather thick fog.

"I thought we were not due to arrive until tomorrow?"

"As did I, but it seems this old thing is a bit faster than we thought." Taira tapped the wood of the ship.

"I see. I'll go and get everyone ready then."

"Thank you."