The former Cardinal of the Slane Theocracy crept into the room with the stealthy skill of a master thief. The door closed quietly behind her, and she approached to kneel at the feet of the seated maid. 'I don't know what she has with him, it may be more... but my poor Entoma... my first real friend when I stopped being what I was... the first person to give me a chance... I 'can't' let her innocence hurt her. I have to do something...' Bertra told herself, such an abundance of dread filled her heart that fingers trembled when she reached up to the young heteromorph. 'For all her ferocity... for all her power... even being a maid demon, she's still a young girl, like a teenager almost.' That made her smile in the darkness, the cloak of the midnight hour was a comfort. 'She can see me, I can see her... but it is something.'

"You haven't called yourself that in a long time." Entoma finally said, she didn't reach out to take the elf woman's hand.

"I barely remember it anymore, in part because I don't want to remember it." Bertra said, "Because that person couldn't have said the things I'm here to say, and she couldn't have said them to the person I'm about to say them to, she couldn't have called you a friend. I can, and because I do, I can't stand by while you're hurt." Bertra's eyes went down, and Entoma, seeing that Bertra's fingers were moving like leaves in a breeze, finally took them.

The smooth carapace like surface of the bug fingers closed over the soft elven flesh of the shaking hands. The tips of the bug legs that served as fingers bothered Bertra not in the least, if anything she relaxed further, it helped her speak. "You like him, don't you?" She asked.

"W-We're friends so, yes." Entoma answered noncommittally before adding, "I didn't expect him to find touching me after seeing my face to be repugnant though. So now? Now I don't know what to think."

"Entoma, you misunderstood him, I think." Bertra said as gently as she could.

That did not have the desired effect, gentle or not, the wounded heteromorph lashed out, she yanked a hand away, grabbed her mask, tossed it aside to bounce off the hammock, fall on its face to the floor and slide over to the wall where it promptly wiggled about until it could skitter away, the little tapping of its legs accompanied the sound of Entoma's hissing angry voice as she brought her arachnoid face so close to Bertra's that the little wiggling appendages around Entoma's face tapped against Bertra's cheeks.

"What do you know about it! What do you know about anything like this! Do you know everything about everything?!"

Bertra did not so much as flinch at the approach of the monstrous visage nor the hot breath of life that came to caress her own. "This is why monsters hide from humans, and elves, and even each other! Because we're repulsive to you all!"

Bertra gently closed her eyes, "Not to me. And I don't think to Inta either. I just don't see you that way. You're my dearest friend, one of the first, one of the few still living, and my best... I only want to help you, to help you however I can, and that means listening to you sometimes, but also telling you things you don't know, or just need to hear."

"Elf in name, but a human all the same, don't be such a know-it-all!" Entoma snapped, and that made Bertra flinch.

"Entoma!" Bertra felt the tears spring to the pools of blue that were her eyes. "You don't mean that, you're angry... but please hear me out, he's a vampire, and he used to be human, you don't know what that means... you misunderstood his hesitation!" Bertra shot the words out, "I don't know him well, barely at all, but I... I've gotten better at reading people, looking for... I've had to... since I lost all my old power and things happened..."

The elf trailed off, but when she felt the many eyes on her change, she looked away and tried to mumble out the rest of what she wanted to say. "It was just such a big step... their culture, vampire culture... feeding I mean-" A smooth tip from one of the pseudo fingers of her friend came out to cover her soft lips.

The wrath of the heteromorph vanished. "Bertra... what happened to you...?" Entoma asked.

Bertra tried to withhold an answer and deflect. "Nothing! Nothing. It doesn't matter, it's done and over and I'm fine now. Please... let me focus on you..."

Entoma did not want to let it go. "Bertra." She said, and the finger that Bertra spoke past when it pressed against her lips, traced down to the sharp elven chin and tilted the woman's eyes back to face the monster.

"Fine... you won't stop wondering if I- will you?" Bertra asked rhetorically.

Entoma huffed, "I'm sorry about lashing out at you." She said by way of answer to the question.

It was good enough, "During the trial of the Pope, I wanted to- to help. That was when I started gathering the slave narratives. You might have seen some of those for sale. I had former slaves gather at my bookshop, and... there was a man, a noble, we became friends. I thought. I thought we were friends. He took advantage of me, he forced me... extorted my body for his own amusement. I was afraid of losing the life I'd built, I went along with it. Everything worked out though, he was eventually arrested, charged, and thrown into hard labor in the mines. He's probably still there if he hasn't died yet. Like I said, it doesn't matter, everything is fine and the matter is settled." Bertra blinked her eyes several times, and though the crimson red of the heteromorph could not blink, the one hand on hers tightened its grip a little.

"Why didn't you tell me? I could have protected you." Entoma asked her.

"Because I was ashamed. Because I was afraid of exposing who I really was. Because I didn't want to lose the life I was starting to love there. Because part of me felt I deserved it because of who I used to be. I liked him, and I was utterly ashamed of... everything. And because I didn't want to use you for myself... a lot of reasons. I got it taken care of, and nothing came of it except for him losing everything in the end. But I became a lot more 'watchful' I suppose you could say. So tonight, I was watching how you were with him, and how he was with you." Bertra took a deep, serious breath.

"You should have come to me. I would have protected you." Entoma said seriously.

"I know. But I couldn't, not then, for my own reasons. But thank you." Bertra gave a genuine smile in the dark up to her friend. "However, did you hear what I was trying to say a moment ago?"

"No... I was... I'm sorry that happened to you. I was thinking of you just then." Entoma admitted.

"That's why we're friends... but what I was saying, vampire culture puts a lot of emphasis on feeding. It's a very intimate thing, both the vampire and the one they're feeding on are very vulnerable while it's going on. The sharer can be killed, turned, reduced to a husk... they're giving enormous faith to their partner. The receiver is totally immersed in the feeding, all their senses are consumed in the moment. Someone else could kill them from behind, and that would be that. That is how much they have to trust each other. It's usually reserved for a husband and wife when one of them is a vampire and the other not. Some places it's a trust ritual for guests, but that's rare. For most, like him I think, it's almost the same as offering marriage."

Entoma removed her hand from Bertra's and smacked it against her own face, dragging the palm over her crimson eyes. "That explains a lot."